THIS government appears to makes many inconsistent decisions about the way they spend our money. In November 2012 I was a candidate for the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner election, a new role that received a great deal of publicity
as it was introduced and then from a £3 million promotional campaign by the Government. Despite this the Government refused to pay for each home to receive a leaflet from local candidates explaining their priorities and proposed policies, unlike in a General Election.
This omission was judged by most candidates including myself as a mistake and many sitting PCCs joined the Electoral Reform Society in calling on the Government to change their approach in advance of the second set of elections, in May this year. However this call fell on deaf ears and the Government spent a mere £2,700 on publicity. Many critics including myself viewed this as a cynical way of giving advantage to the better resourced candidates, primarily those from the Conservative Party. At a time of austerity it would be easy to believe that this decision was due to a shortage of public funds. However in the last few days the Government has announced that it has authorised the spending of £75 million over the next four years to publicise a project that was created several years ago to engage young people in civil society and has been far from successful. The National Citizen Service Programme is a potentially important scheme, but it is not 25,000 times as important as the fair election of Police and Crime Commissioners. We urgently need a review of how this sort of public money is spent.
Ian Chisnall is a blogger at ianchisnall.wordpress.com.
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