New chief constable to be officially appointed

7:00am Thursday 7th February 2013 in News By Paula Roberts

LEADING CANDIDATE: Debbie Simpson LEADING CANDIDATE: Debbie Simpson

DORSET’S new chief constable is set to be officially appointed today at a meeting of the Police and Crime Panel.

The panel will decide whether to approve the appointment of Debbie Simpson as the head of Dorset Police – the top choice of the county’s new Police and Crime Commissioner Martyn Underhill.

It will also consider the Commissioner’s draft Police and Crime Plan for Dorset, which sets out his priorities for the next five years, plus his recommendation to increase the police council tax charge by 1.95 per cent in 2013/14.

The 17-strong panel is made up of representatives from the county council and all of Dorset’s borough and district councils along with two independent members.

It was set up to scrutinise the decisions of the Police and Crime Commissioner, and hold him to account. It has the power to overturn his recommendations if members are not happy with them.

The meeting, being held at County Hall in Dorchester, and will be screened live online by Dorset County Council – its first ever live web broadcast.

It can be viewed at www.dorsetforyou
.com/webcast from 10.30am, or follow tweets from our sister paper the Dorset Echo, which is covering the meeting, below.

from the meeting

Bournemouth Echo has no responsibility or control over the content on external blogging sites, but you can contact us if you have a complaint.

Comments(6)

Cosmic Crusader says...
6:14pm Wed 6 Feb 13

Debbie has an impressive CV and her achievements to date are to be applauded. However, I believe that the majority of the residents of Dorset will be mostly interested in two topics. If appointed, how does she intend bringing the mindless behaviour of a minority of youngsters under control and what action can she take to ensure the operators of large licensed establishments share the considerable financial responsibility for policing our town centres.

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speedy231278 says...
10:20am Thu 7 Feb 13

Why do we need a Chief Constable AND a PCC? Surely their remit is the same, or at very least seriously overlapped?

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Old Colonial says...
11:17am Thu 7 Feb 13

What's more to the point is why is the PCC receiving twice the salary he has recommended for the Chief Constable? He has no relevant experience for the responsibilities and authority that comes with his post, and has to be overseen by a 17 strong panel of Councillors!

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The Renegade Master says...
12:22pm Thu 7 Feb 13

Don't worry about paying sky high salaries for the new Chief Constable and useless PCC, the boys in blue will soon sort that out by spending even more of their time hiding behind bushes at the side of the road with their little radar guns instead of catching real criminals.

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Glashen says...
12:38pm Thu 7 Feb 13

speedy231278 wrote:
Why do we need a Chief Constable AND a PCC? Surely their remit is the same, or at very least seriously overlapped?
The answer is that old phrase "Who watches the watchers" , The Chief Constable needs to be answerable to someone, the principle of the Police and Crime Commissioner is that the someone is democratically accountable.
-
It is very early days but so far I think we can see an increase in accountability since the PCC elections, time will tell how much difference that makes on the streets.

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Old Colonial says...
8:47pm Thu 7 Feb 13

This item has been altered since this morning. It now transpires that the salary for the Chief is to be £146,000, rather higher than that previously quoted, Thanks Echo for accurate reporting! As usual.

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