What did the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside spend money on in the 2020-21 financial year?

What did the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside spend money on in the 2020-21 financial year?

31 Cornovii Edwards Ghost police dog statue invoice Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside

What did the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside spend money on in the 2020-21 financial year?

                                                       

By John Brace (Editor)
and
Leonora Brace (Co-Editor)

First publication date: Friday 3rd September 2021, 9:31 PM (BST).

I’ll start this piece by pointing out that the expenditure detailed below by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside happened during the previous 2020-21 financial year when the Police and Crime Commissioner was Jane Kennedy. Since then a new Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside Emily Spurrell was elected and sworn in.

Below are three invoices for a Ghost police dog statue. Ghost was a Merseyside police dog who died on duty in 2016 and the statue is in the grounds of the Operational Command Centre. The total price of the bronze statue was £16,525.

31 Cornovii Edwards Ghost police dog statue invoice Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside
31 Cornovii Edwards Ghost police dog statue invoice Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside

32 Cornovii Edwards Ghost police dog statue invoice Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside
32 Cornovii Edwards Ghost police dog statue invoice Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside
33 Cornovii Edwards Ghost police dog statue invoice Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside
33 Cornovii Edwards Ghost police dog statue invoice Office of Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside

The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside paid £2,000 for Stop Hate UK to be marketed at the House of Suarez Vogue Ball in 2020 as you can see from the invoice below. Stop Hate UK is a charity that challenges hate crime and discrimination.

83 House of Suarez invoice to Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside
83 House of Suarez invoice to Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside

At a recent public meeting of Liverpool City Council councillors, more money to be spent on countering domestic abuse was called for. Yet you can see from the documents below that when Liverpool City Council was assigned money from the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside to be spent in this area, that the money bid for was not spent as planned in that area.

105 Liverpool City Council Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside grant spend
105 Liverpool City Council Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside grant spend
107 Liverpool City Council Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside grant spend
107 Liverpool City Council Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside grant spend

Earlier this year Merseyside Police recruited a Chief Constable. As part of the recruitment process, the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside paid Matt Tapp Associates £2,088.48 (including VAT) for a media assessment exercise.

113 Matt Tapp Associates media assessment exercise Chief Constable recruitment Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside
113 Matt Tapp Associates media assessment exercise Chief Constable recruitment Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside

Rene Barrett Ltd was paid by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside £1,473.80 for a “resilience session” at the LACE Conference Centre in Sefton Park.

139 Rene Barrett Limited resilience session Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside
139 Rene Barrett Limited resilience session Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside

Two large photos of HM The Queen in a gilt finish were ordered at a cost of £668.40.

143 Royal Images Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside
143 Royal Images Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside

Finally, each year the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside proposes a budget which impacts the amount of council tax that Merseyside residents pay. Social & Market Strategic Research Limited were paid £16,050 (including VAT) for this consultation.

163 Social and Market Strategic Research Ltd invoice Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside
163 Social and Market Strategic Research Ltd invoice Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside

Merseyside Police and Crime Panel have oversight of the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside, you can watch their public meeting of 2nd September 2021 below.

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Merseyside Police and Crime Panel (Knowsley Council) 2nd September 2021

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Author: John Brace

New media journalist from Birkenhead, England who writes about Wirral Council. Published and promoted by John Brace, 134 Boundary Road, Bidston, CH43 7PH. Printed by UK Webhosting Ltd t/a Tsohost, 113-114 Buckingham Avenue, Slough, Berkshire, England, SL1 4PF.

6 thoughts on “What did the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside spend money on in the 2020-21 financial year?”

  1. Merseyside Police are in breach of the FOIA 2000 by redacting Police Dog Names and ID numbers. They are also in breach of Magyar Helsinki Bizotsag Case 2016

    1. Thanks for your comment Alan, I specifically stated this year that redacting police dog names was part of what was taking so long, Merseyside Police went ahead and did so anyway on an invoice anyway.

      However the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside didn’t redact the name of the deceased police dog (Police Dog Ghost) on the invoices for the statue, which is some kind of progress I suppose.

  2. When its not your money, i suppose one just goes mad and spends?
    But makes me wonder how many more coppers we could employ if they stopped wasting it on stupid stuff, £600+ for two photo’s of the Queen good grief and i am a dog lover but £16,ooo!!!!!
    “Finally, each year the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside proposes a budget which impacts the amount of council tax that Merseyside residents pay. Social & Market Strategic Research Limited were paid £16,050 (including VAT) for this consultation.” That just makes my blood boil

    1. Thanks for your comment.

      What puzzles me is why why the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside needs entirely new photos of the Queen to be ordered each year? I don’t understand why the ones from the previous year can’t just be reused? However the price at £600+ is because of the size (24 inches x 20 inches), the gilt frames (gold being expensive) and the fact they require them both to be signed and of course because there are 2.

      The reason for the £16,000+ cost of the statue of the dog was partly because it was in bronze, but also the cost covers installation and the artist’s time in designing it and sculpting it. There’s a photo of the statue in this Liverpool Echo article.

      As to the consultation about the council tax, I’m not sure of the specific reasons exactly why it was outsourced, as it’s only something that happens once a year. However I would guess that the high cost is as it has to be a consultation with the residents across the entire county of Merseyside.

  3. In the times we live in, surely there should be somebody asking, “do we really need to spend this on this?” before authorising payments?

    I’m not sure how the sort of expenditure highlighted helps add any head-count to the local police numbers. I dare say this sort of allocation of budget is common across all of the UK’s police authorities and is justified as contributing towards ‘modern policing’. The reality is, ‘modern policing’ needs more people employed in digital forensics because digital evidence now plays a key part in providing evidence for prosecutions. The time needed to manually view the data to assess it is frightening and the job needs more people doing this. I’m not sure where the purchase of inert statues and pictures of the monarch help in all this.

    1. Thanks for your comment.

      Basically there’s a total budget agreed for the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside and Merseyside Police. At budget time the Commissioner tables a proposed budget and the councillors on the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel have a right (never exercised) to veto it and ask for changes.

      As mentioned at this meeting police officer and police staff numbers are going to return to 2011 levels.

      However going back to my days reporting on the Merseyside Police Authority (which was abolished I think in 2012 when police and crime commissioners were brought in), certain types of forensics are as far as I know now outsourced.

      As to your point about digital evidence, yes the amount of it can mean that keyword searches are just done on it instead of every page, image or file being viewed.

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