News

Hampshire police commissioner elected

By Stephen Lloyd
November 16, 2012

SIMON Hayes has become Hampshire's first Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) after defeating former Fleet Conservative MP Michael Mates.

Independent Mr Hayes, a former Tory himself, scooped the £85,000-a-year post by a total of 80,669 votes to the 65,804 of Mr Mates.

Straight after the result, announced just after 4.30pm on Friday, Mr Hayes said he was "humbled" and grateful to the public for the trust they had put in him.

Mr Hayes, a criminologist and chairman of Hampshire Crimestoppers, takes up his new job on Thursday, November 22 and now has the power to hire and fire the chief constable of Hampshire Constabulary, and controls a budget of around £305m.

The 53-year-old former Conservative councillor was trailing Mr Mates by around 5,000 votes after the first round of the election.

But Mr Mates failed to secure 50% of the vote so the second preferences on ballot papers were counted.

Mr Hayes, a director of a trust that works with ex-offenders, said he was now free of political constraints and no longer a member of the Conservative Party, having last served as a councillor in 2005.

He is also a former chairman of Hampshire Police Authority, the organisation that his new PCC role replaces.

The election of PCCs for 41 forces across England and Wales was a flagship law and order policy for the Tories, but experts were predicting the worst turnout in British election history.

More than 1.23 million people eligible to vote in Hampshire decided not to do so when the polls opened on Thursday.

The turnout in Hart district was 14.9%, with 10,445 votes from an electorate of 70,010, while Rushmoor borough was the third worst turnout in Hampshire at 12.3%, with just 8,072 votes from an electorate of 65,728.

A Home Office spokesman said: “Any turnout will confer a better democratic mandate than the current invisible police authorities have.”

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Dirty dog. Well said.

Mr Curiosity, Surrey
23/11/2012 at 11:28

Many serving police officers in this area see this new Commissioner as another government experiment of policing. Yet another pointless fab idea on improving the police service.

Over 15 years, we have seen countless officers taken off our shifts, stations closed, areas enlarged. We rarely mix with the public now, you will see us drive past fast with sirens maybe but all local knowledge has gone, local beat work and care about our area gone. We dont know anyone anymore in our own areas, they are simply to big to manage with the few we have.

We are taught now customer care is the most important thing, We agree with locking up villains, keeping our locals families safe and being there quickly if you need us. Not phoning up every other days saying sorry we didnt do anything for you we are too busy like some telesales company.

We are no longer a service, we dont even have station front desks anymore in busy towns. If the public knew how few of us were around, they would be shocked.

Do we have any hope in this new Commissioner, not really. We are already under funded, under resourced, undermined and badly managed.

A great many people have no faith in the police, with good reason, the police dont have any faith either.

Dirty dogg
22/11/2012 at 00:38

UKR,

Agreed the area for the election was very large, and probably too large for the democratic process to work properly in the amount of time given and with the budgets available to the independent candidates.

However the least that could and should have been done was that a leaflet should have been produced centrally giving a list of candidates standing with a brief supporting statement for each candidate and contact details for further information which should have been delivered with the polling card.

Remember not all people have access to or know how to use the Internet, so how were those people supposed to know or find out about the people standing.

In general I think that it was a poorly thought out idea, it failed to engage with the electorate (as witnessed by the very low turnout), and that makes it a waste of time and money which in a time of austerity is not a good thing (how many front line police officers could have been kept in a county for the cost of the election for example)

Dawi, Aldershot
21/11/2012 at 10:35

@ Dawi, Aldershot As I have already said the cost of the campaign was not paid for by the government but by individuals and when you concider the population of the area for which they were standing the cost of printing leaflets would have been enormous and not all of those standing had that type of finance. If you want indipendents to stand and have an even playing field some finance should be coming from government with a cap on what candidates can spend

UKR
21/11/2012 at 09:26

Aldershot Lass: Yes, assuming you knew who was standing in advance of the election!

No info other than a polling card was delivered to me. I found out through the BBC web site in an article AFTER the election. The point is why should you have to go out and find out about who is standing. If they want you to vote for them, it is up them to make the effort to tell you why you should.

UKR, while the UKIP candidate may "have spent a Saturday in Rushmore to meet and greet people", it would have been better if it had been advertised in advance so that people could go IF they were interested, not just find out about it second hand afterwards.

The point is that on the whole the democratic process fails these days because people no longer have faith in it, and those who stand fail to engage or inspire the electorate, so unless the people are sick to death of the current government (as they were at the change from the Tory to Labour at the end of the Thatcher/Major era and from Labour to Tory at the end of the Blair/Brown era) then turnout will continue to fall.

Dawi, Aldershot
20/11/2012 at 20:01

@Dawi Here you go a whole website dedicated to Simon Hayes and how to contact him. http://www.hayes4pcc.org/

Aldershot Lass
20/11/2012 at 11:32

The main reason for no information was a lack of help from the government, if it had been a general election we would have been flooded with information. Large parties such as Labour and Tory can afford to back their candidates but the smaller parties and the independents do not have the funds. The people who really are to blame are the public, the UKIP candidate spent a Saturday in Rushmore to meet and greet people, I met him in Queensmead Farnborough where the majority of people totaly ignored him, giving him the cold shoulder when he approached people. My main concern is that when we actualy get a refferendom on the EU will we suffer from the same lack of information and the same apathy from the general public. @ Lenins Whiskers, Little Moscow Sorry by not voting you voted for the winner so if it all goes wrong you only have your self to blame. Personaly I think everyone should have to vote by law, and to those who shout about their Freedom I say that one day by not voting you could loose all the freedom you enjoy today

UKR
20/11/2012 at 09:22

And this cost at least 5 grand to stand! Oiks and proles, move along, nothing to see.

Ain't no way I'm voting for a position that I'm barred from because I don't have enough cash to play the game.

Lenins Whiskers, Little Moscow
18/11/2012 at 23:01

Perhaps people didn't vote because they couldn't quite understand why they were expected to vote? What was so wrong with the old system? This is Farnborough, not Gotham City.

Anyways, we now have another highly paid post for the professional political classes to infest and fight over.

Lenins Whiskers, Little Moscow
18/11/2012 at 22:58

I voted, but not in Farnborough. The 'SSR of South Yorkshire' predictably voted in a Labour PCC, tough only him and the Tory candidate seemed to have any relevant experience / skills to the job that were worthy of such a fat salary.

BlisteringBarnacles! , Sheffield / Farnborough
18/11/2012 at 21:00

PJA - Just to be clear, I was one of the “few” who did vote.

Retired of Aldershot – While there may have been information regarding each candidate available on the web (assuming people knew where to go or could find out where to go to find it).

But that is not the point. The real point is if these people want you to vote for them, then it is up to them to go to the people and get their message out.

After all if they can’t be bothered to canvas the people who they want to elect them, what does that say about how interested they are going to be in any issues those same people may have. How many of you even know how to contact the winner now they have been elected if you wanted to?

And at the end of the day the question is why is there falling voter turnout for election these days?

There are many parts to the answer but most of them are due to either the candidate or the party for which they are standing’s failure to engage the voters in the first place.

Dawi, Aldershot
18/11/2012 at 16:45

Well at least Michael Mates didn't get in! He'd already chosen a deputy to do the work, whilst he would be the 'face'. Not bad work if you can get it...

dave2009
18/11/2012 at 14:42

I did vote and did get, via a website, for the candidates' statements.

Each of the main politically sponsored candidates did in fact make political comments in their statements.

They included comments such as: "Hampshire Conservatives have let down residents on crime"; "It is at the very heart of Conservative policy to cut crime"; Reference to "Labour's failed plans"; "She will not be a cheerleader for Tory / Lib Dem cuts".

As for the oath requiring impartiality - there is actually no mention made of requiring to be impartial per se. There is mention of doing the job to the best of ability and acting with integrity - not exactly the same as "impartial".

So perhaps it is not too unexpected that those sponsored by mainstream political parties did not fare too well across the south - with Surrey, Hants and Dorset all returning an independent PCC.

Retired of Aldershot, Aldershot
18/11/2012 at 12:11

How many of you voted in first place?

PJA
18/11/2012 at 10:41

Quite frankly the whole exercise was a complete waste of time and money.

I received no information on who was standing, or what their background and experience is or what made them think they were suitable for the position, so I had no information with which to make an informed choice when voting.

Furthermore if the position is supposed to be “non-political” why were political parties putting forward candidates?

If the process was supposed to “democratise” the position it was an abject failure, due to the failure of the candidates to engage and inform the public, whose views they are “supposed” to be representing.