A war of words has broken out between two of the candidates bidding to be Cheshire’s next Police and Crime Commissioner in the proposed May 6 election.
Conservative crime commissioner candidate John Dwyer, who held the post prior to current incumbent David Keane, claims police numbers under Labour just don’t add up, while Mr Keane has described his election rival as “yesterday’s man”.
Mr Dwyer says he wants to know where funding for more officers has gone, while Mr Keane hit back accusing his rival of cutting police numbers when he didn’t need to.
Slamming his successor Mr Dwyer said: “I was interested to read the comments by Mr Keane made in response to my assertion that the Government initiative to recruit more police officers spurred him into action.
“The facts are that, as the Police and Crime Commissioner in February 2016 I set a budget which included funding for an additional 70 officers to be recruited during the 2016/17 financial year.
“I was not re-elected into post but left an establishment of 2,011 police officers when Mr Keane took over.
“Government figures show that on 31 March 2017 the police officer numbers had dropped to 2008. So, the question we should all be asking is: ‘What happened to the 70 extra officers which had been budgeted for, and on what was the money spent?’.
“I am pleased that Cheshire is now, after almost 5 years under David Keane’s stewardship, is finally on its way to significantly increased numbers. I do, however reiterate that the Constabulary could have been at this level sooner had he got his act together earlier, rather than waiting for the Conservative Government uplift programme to commence.
“I have noted that he has acknowledged that most of these extra officers will not ‘be operational independent for some time’. This then begs the question as to where he has acquired 122 constables to be identified with the local communities he has referred to. I believe they can only have come from the response teams across the county and I am concerned about the impact of their removal from that important duty at this difficult time.”
Mr Dwyer added that In February 2019 Mr Keane stated in his budget papers that he would be recruiting 43 extra front-line police officers and 7 PCSOs during the financial year 2019/20. On 31 March 2019 Government figures show that Cheshire had 2006 police officers and 189 PCSOs.
He said: “Government figures show that on 30 September 2019 Cheshire had 2,010 police officers – more or less the same level I had left him in May 2016. This just shows that there had been no recruiting strategy in place during the first part of that financial year despite his promise to recruit 43 extra officers.
“David Keane has suggested that I should be ashamed of my ‘legacy of cuts to policing’ and refers to the numbers being slashed to 1,914 during my time in office.
“It is a matter of record that the police service suffered greatly during the years of austerity which started in 2010. I became the Police and Crime Commissioner in November 2012 and was immediately thrust into a scenario where I could not increase the police precept (tax) by more than 2% per annum.
“I was constrained by this level for 3 years and only increased it by 3.2% in my final budget which I set for the financial year 2016/17. This made a total increase during my term of office of less than 9%. Mr Keane has had the luxury, if not audacity, to increase the policing tax by 40% during his term of office – it was over 30% before he was given the Covid 12-month extension. Now is also not the time to be increasing the policing tax by a further 7% on top of the 33% rises we have already experienced during his time in office. The public and businesses have had an extremely difficult 12 months and I would have thought a rise just to cover the cost of inflation would be more than enough.
“This set of data clearly shows that, contrary to David Keane’s comments, and despite austerity constraints, I was able to build the number of police officers up to 2011 by the time I left office, after only 3 ½ years, with a budget to recruit a further 70 officers during the financial year 2016/17.
But Mr keane responded: “John is showing himself to be yesterday’s man and out of touch with modern policing.
“He simply can’t escape from the fact that he chose to cut officer numbers during his time in office.
“John’s pledge to replace 70 of those officers only came in election year. But despite asking the taxpayer to pay more for policing, this ‘yo-yo’ budget also proposed to spend £800,000 less on PCSOs.
“John didn’t have to cut officer numbers, but he chose to. It was on his watch that Cheshire hit a real low of 1919 in 2014.
“In contrast, and with the support of the public, I have upheld my promise to protect our police service in a sustainable way. This has meant avoiding costly redundancies that we experienced during John’s yo-yo years.
“Despite our funding being cut each year in real terms, I worked hard to make savings. Personal expenses paid to the Commissioner are now 80% lower than before I took office.
“I’m really proud that this sustainable approach allowed us to have 2136 officers as of December and to plan for recruiting 88 additional officers over the next financial year.
“It is this approach that has allowed us to ensure a dedicated police officer and a PCSO for each of our 122 communities in Cheshire, without reducing other functions – including response.
“I’m proud to have campaigned hard on behalf of Cheshire residents and I welcome the replacement of officers that we have sorely missed, whilst our communities and the police service have suffered.
“I’ll continue keeping my early promises to protect policing and the public and to put policing at the heart of our communities.”
