I attended what could be the last ever meeting of the Transition Committee of the soon to be abolished Merseyside Police Authority (which will be abolished in November 2012).
We were the only public there, but there were plenty of Merseyside Police Authority Members (both councillors and independents), as well as MPA staff and Merseyside Police officers.
The Chair welcomed people to the meeting, and there were three apologies given. They were for Cllr Mrs Doreen Kerrigan (Labour), Cllr Simon Shaw (Liberal Democrat) and a third person I couldn’t quite hear the name of, but might have been Cllr Chris Blakeley (Conservative) who was absent from the meeting.
The Chair asked for any declarations of interest. There weren’t any made.
He asked if the minutes of the meeting held on the 23rd August 2012 were agreed.
Paul Johnson, Chief Executive and Treasurer said that in reference to the approvals for the Audit Committee, they were putting together adverts, so they would have a long list [of candidates] for when the Police and Crime Commissioner starts [in November 2012]. He referred to the debate about where best to put the advert, followed by an amusing joke that they wanted to make sure they didn’t just recruit accountants, but people who had were more rounded and had expertise in governance.
The minutes were agreed and the Chair moved to item 3 (Transition to New Police Governance Arrangements pg5-64), which was a report of the Chief Executive Paul Johnson.
A member of the MPA staff gave an update on the project plan and work and referred to the reference to the Audit Committee on page 8. She referred to the reference on page 9 to the letter from the Home Office [Rt Hon Damien Green MP, Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice] to Police Authorities dated 12th September 2012 [which was included as Appendix 3 (pages 63-64)]. The division of police staff into operational and non-operational roles was referred to. Once the Police and Crime Commissioner was elected [in November] there would be a period between then and April 2013 during which they would have to tell the Home Office. She also informed those present, that on the subject of police staff appeals, that they had written to police staff about the future position.
Paul Johnson, Chief Executive and Treasurer said they had received neither a positive or negative response from the trade unions, who had been present at the last meeting.