The Best Guide for the PO17 Area

First Police and Crime Commissioner Elections to be Held in November

The first Police & Crime Commissioner elections will be held on Thursday 15th November 2012 where voters will elect one person to oversee policing in Hampshire.

This new role has been created by the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 and replaces the existing role of the police authority.

The Act covers five areas: police accountability and governance; alcohol licensing; the regulation of protests around Parliament Square; misuse of drugs; and the issue of arrest warrants in respect of private prosecutions for universal jurisdiction offences.

The Police and Crime Commissioner will have responsibility for:

• setting the policing priorities for Hampshire police
• overseeing and holding the Chief Constable to account
• setting the policing budget

A Police and Crime Panel will be established which will scrutinise the Commissioner's plans, decisions and annual report and will hold them to account.

The Police & Crime Commissioner elections will take place on Thursday 15th November and the successful candidate will serve until May 2016. These elections will be held on a county-wide basis and the commissioner for the Hampshire police force will be decided by combining the results for each local authority area in Hampshire.

In order to be eligible to stand for election, candidates need to meet the following criteria:

• be 18 years or over on day of nomination
• be a British, Irish, qualifying British Commonwealth or European Union citizen
• be registered as a local government elector within the police area in which they intend to stand

More information can be found here.

These elections will use the supplementary vote system which means that voters will be able to vote for a first and a second choice candidate. If no candidate has 50 per cent of the first preference votes, the two candidates with the highest number of first preference votes go forward to a second round.

In the second round of counting, the second preference of the candidates not finishing first or second are counted and redistributed to the two candidates with the highest number of first preference votes.

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Comments

Chief David Couper

At 19:28 on 15th October 2012, Chief David Couper commented:

You need to be clear about your goals? What do you want to see improved? What keeps our police from getting better? From improving? Are the “four obstacles” arresting the development of your police? I have some ideas and solutions. See my new book, “Arrested Development: A Veteran Police Chief Sounds Off About Protest, Racism, Corruption and the Seven Steps Necessary to Improve Our Nation’s Police” (Amazon.com) and my blog at http://improvingpolice.wordpress.com where I deal with these and other issues confronting police and their leaders.

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