A rare moment of truth for Vera….
Apologies, but it’s Our Vera yet again.
It used to be that Council chiefs sat round a table with the police authority and decided together how much local residents could afford to pay for their Police service.
Vera has changed the rules. She announced via the local newspaper that she intended to force through a 3.5% increase on the council tax to pay for her plans to ‘improve’ police services. Around £3 per household.
Outraged councillors, including some Labour colleagues, are furious – they are trimming services left, right and centre to avoid increasing local taxes for hard pressed residents – and Vera has already taken over £10 million from the £45 million in the Police Reserve Fund.
This is what you get when you politicise the Police.
Can anybody point me to figures showing the Reserve Police Fund, county by county? Can any informed coppers tell me what the Reserve Fund is supposed to be used for and who should have control of it?
Ms Raccoon lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France, renowned for its fine wines and gourmet food, so she frequently finds better things to do than sit in front of a computer all morning. She is liable to take off traveling at a moment's notice. Consequently this blog only gets updated these days when it is raining - and it doesn't rain very often round here...
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Anna, the following is an example of Northamptonshire County Council Reserves Policy for 2012/13. The County Council hold the purse-strings for Policing and the PCC now has access to it – thats how Vera gets to it, like it or not!! Accessed via the NCC website!
“The recommended level of reserves is assessed with reference to the Council’s Reserves Policy, which was reviewed by Cabinet in February 2012. The minimum level of general reserves which it was considered prudent to hold at the start of the 2012-13 financial year is £12m and was based on review of the risks and associated values of a number of different elements.
The overall level of reserves has to be specifically addressed as part of the Chief Financial Officer’s Section 25 report which is issued alongside the final budget report. This report is a statutory requirement and established that the budget is robust, and that the levels of reserves are adequate.
There are two main types of reserves. General reserves are held as a contingency against unspecified future need, and earmarked reserves which are amounts held for specific items. The reserve balances currently forecast for the end of the 2011-12 financial year are shown below.
Description
Forecast Balance
31/03/13
£000
General Reserves
12,082″
” …….a 3.5% increase on the council tax to pay for her plans to ‘improve’ police services. Around £3 per household.”
Those numbers are fishy, Anna.
Council Tax at just under a hundred quid??
I think anna means that Vera wants to increase the Police precept of Council Tax by 3,5%. that would indeed amount to £3 per household A referendum will be needed. cf Cleveland Police 1.99% proposal http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/2013/02/02/proposal-to-increase-police-element-of-council-tax-bills-84229-32732183/
Ah, thanks for the explanation, Brian.
Seems she is not the only one pulling this trick.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2272358/Council-tax-rise-blamed-Jimmy-Savile-sex-probe-police-demand-resources-deal-abuse-investigations.html
Step forward one Mr Stephen Bett of norfolk
Let’s hope that if we have to pay more for the investigation of historic sex abuse cases, they do actually INVESTIGATE them. Instead of just collating them all like the police did with Savile.
The gates of hell have opened I tell you, every crazy person with an unlikely story has seen the chance to tell it and have it taken seriously. It matters not if it involves satanic hooded figures chanting ‘Jim’ll Fix It’ or tales of Ted Heath slitting boys’ throats and slinging them off his yacht – they have all got be looked at, with (it seems to me) a presumption the truth is being told. God help us.
It was David Icke that came up with the meme for Ted Heath “slitting boys throats and throwing them over the side”.
Although I’m not a fan of The Death, I’m even less fond of David Icke’s alternate view of reality (lizards an all).
Icke was of course, spokesperson for the Green party at one time – possibly where he acquired his alternate view of reality.
Plenty of opportunity for acquiring alternative views of reality as Hereford United goalkeeper or Midlands Today sports reporter as well.
* possibly where he acquired his alternate view of reality *
More likely at the BBC:
“in 1981 moved on to become a sports presenter for the BBC’s national programme, Newsnight.”
http://www.wikileaks.alt.tv
Reserve Police Fund? Whatter??
I think this is Vera trying to increase the precept… Not to say that the police are worth every penny!
Could we not find a latter-day Henry II to ask “Will no-one rid me of this turbulent trout?”
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