Police Commissioners. Have they proved to be a necessary appointment? (UK)?

The first thing some of the new commissioners did was to appoint 'assistants' (at further great expence) in order to help them with their daily tasks!!! One commissioner even sacked his own chief constable, only to reinstate him after a bit of a misunderstanding. We seem to have created another tier of unnecessary beurocrisy again, adding to the burden of the tax payer rather than employing more 'useful' police officers on the ground - that the police commissioners wages could have been better put to use to employ more police and shore up existing resources. Instead, we seem to follow the lead of the failed system in the USA, using crime stats as lies in order to justify the glorious appointments of arrogant self serving idiots, of no more use than chocolate fire guards.

I thought it was a bad idea when it was first envisaged .

I could not see what a police commissioner could bring to improving policing.

The chief constable should be held to account for his/her officers .

The public have been crying out for years for more beat bobbies and very little if anything has changed.

Do away with commissioners and all their hangers on get 50% of policemen out of cars and we could save millions I would also like to see the corner cop shop come back it worked miracles when I was a kid.

I haven't a clue as to why the government thought they were a good thing in the first place. It never made its case as to what is so great about them, so it comes as no surprise that the turnout was so small. Maybe most of that was from people who feel like I do, that voting is a duty and privilege. Actually what I would have done (I live in London so we didn't have that election, we have Boris) is spoil the paper as a principled non-vote, which is what I usually do in elections for the London Mayor and Greater London Assembly because I thought those are daft ideas too as they don't actually have any power to do much. I made an exception only for Boris Johnson because he actually isn't as daft as he looks - with the limited powers he DOES have as Mayor, he's actually achieved more than Ken Livingstone ever did.

Policing ought to be non-political. Parliament makes law, police enforce it. What was wrong with what we had before?

They are a complete waste of time and money, our money. They haven't a clue what policing is about. The majority are political appointments. When the idea was first muted people were under the impression that anybody could stand, such as an ordinary member of the public, but this proved to be inaccurate as the political parties threw money at the so called election to ensure that their candidates were chosen. It was basically a "closed shop" They have wasted money hand over fist with their expenses etc when this money could have been used to put extra Officers on the beat. They were supposed to see that the Police behaved properly, but they have not done that. Having spoken with our local Police Commissioner I found him ignorant, arrogant and rude. Another "politician" with his nose in the trough. Take care Mr Grumpy.