Sunday 3 June 2012

Public engagement - West Yorkshire Police Authority style

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The great and good of West Yorkshire Police Authority are planning to descend on Keighley where they will present to us (or rather the dozen or so who know about the occasion and can be bothered to attend) stories of the wonders done by the Authority and the Police Force it doesn't really run:

Kiran Bali, vice-chairman of the committee, said: “This is our third visit to the Bradford district since we started taking this committee out into communities within West Yorkshire over a year ago, but our first visit to Keighley."

No idea who Kiran Bali might be - except that he's certainly not from Keighley and seems inordinately smug about three trips to the "Bradford District" (population 500,000). Apparently the occasion will feature a discussion on "public confidence in the police".

Unfortunately either the newspaper or the police authority have neglected to tell the reader when or where the consultation event is to take place. So those readers will just move on and live with the fact that they have a police force noticeable mostly by its absence. A police force that can find 1500 officer to police a handful of EDL demonstrators - and then spend endless hours bragging about how well it handled that problem - but can't find a copper to man a front desk overnight to deal with the desperate victim, the frightened old lady or the offender who hands himself in.

It really is a bit of a joke really.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A final act of desperation (and budget clearance) by the WY Police Authority - amazing how they suddenly thought of 'consulting the people' just when elected Police Commissioners are on the way, doing them out of a plastic job and the junkets which went with it.
There are more than 40 time-wasters on the West Yorkshire Police Authority gravy-train - it can't get to the terminus fast enough for the much-abused taxpayers, but all those 'passengers' will try to string it out as long as they can.