Students at Coleg Gwent welcomed Gwent Police and Crime Commissioner Ian Johnston when he visited them at their Crosskeys campus this week.
During Tuesday’s meeting Mr Johnston gave a presentation about the role of the Police and Crime Commissioner and took part in a lively question and answer discussion about the students’ experience and impression of policing in Gwent.
Afterwards Mr Johnston said: “I have attended a number of similar meetings previously and I have found that engaging and challenging audiences are often those made up of young people.
“A big part of my role as the Police and Crime Commissioner is to provide the public with the kind of Police service they want within the available budget. To do this effectively I need as much information and feedback from Gwent residents as possible.
“Events such as this are very valuable and the feedback I receive both positive and negative will help me produce a Policing plan which represents the needs of all Gwent residents.
“The students who attended raised very interesting issues about the way Gwent is policed. I appreciated their honesty and was impressed with their intelligent questions and the confident manner in which they made their points. They are a credit to Coleg Gwent.”
Good to see the Commissioner out and about meeting the people he has now been elected to serve. Let hope we see a lot more of him and his Deputy Paul Harris doing more of the same, although I have my doubts that this critical aspect of his role is going to be high on his priority `to do` list. I listened today to the Deputy Commissioner giving his priority `to do` list to the Commissioners Panel and not once did I hear him say that direct public engagement was a priority in their job, top his list, he said, was to engage with existing partnerships that work closely with the police, Local authorities, Crime Partnerships, Policemen, and PSO`s, ( who, " know whats going on in their communities")at least, he did not devulge any plan today to engage with the citizens of Gwent, although, I suppose it must be in the plan somewhere.
The Commissioner has today put his case for more money, for Gwent Police, from the five constituent Councils, his application was agreed by Councillors making up the new Commissioner Panel for Gwent, now the council tax in each area will increase to pay for it, by an average of £7.50 per home, including Caerphilly, and that is before the Caerphilly council sets its own probable increases this year.
The Commissioner made a very good case, with the help of his financial gurus, for an increase in Council Tax to pay for a projected £1,000,000 (one million pounds) shortfall in the Gwent Police Budgets, it was also announced in Committee documents that his organisational staff structure will be:-
Police Commissioner
Deputy Police Commissioner ( appointed today)
Chief Executive/Monitoring Officer
PA, to the Chief Executive and Monitoring Officer.
Senior Business Manager
Senior Policy Manager
Business Support Officer
Information Officer
Policy Officer
and- Another Policy Officer.
The Commissioner Panel, represents most political parties in Gwent, voted unanimously for the increase in Council Tax.