During the election Katy Bourne distributed 250,000 copies of her Manifesto to homes in Sussex. The leaflet offered up a modest range of promises to her electors, along with some her views on issues such as Domestic Violence and Anti Social Behaviour. I identified the following key promises, you may spot others:

• To deliver value for money (in all public meetings & broadcasts Katy stressed her qualifications to operate effectively on finances)
• To hold the precept at 0% increase, at least during 2013/14
• To provide a special constable in every rural village in Sussex
• To fund initiatives to help drug addicts
• To rural proof all police plans
• To work with the federation of small businesses and other business groups

Value for Money and competence on finances

Following the Police and Crime Panel meeting on 7^th January when Katy submitted her draft budget, her Conservative colleague and Vice Chair of the panel, Cllr David Elkin said “the budget outline was a bit lightweight” but added “I think we had the opportunity to question as rigorously as we wanted.” Liberal Democrat Cllr Andrew Smith, wrote on his blog “Despite the targets section of the Police and Crime Plan being blank, the absence of any information on the reserves and balances, the absence of any medium term financial plan and no capital programme, the panel approved both the plan and nil increase in the precept.” He added “Clearly, this panel is not capable of subjecting the commissioner (who remains a district councillor for Mid Sussex) to any effective scrutiny. Let’s hope the fourth estate steps up to the mark.” Green Cllr Ben Duncan, representing Brighton and Hove City Council, said “We had to approve the precept without knowing anything about the budget. We were given one side of A4 about the budget.” None of these comments support the claims made by Katy during the election process regarding her business competence which she used to differentiate herself from the other candidates. This must be a major concern for the 59,000 people who voted for her in November.

The Precept

This will be held at 0% as Katy promised, she explained “This will be frozen but I can guarantee it will not affect policing,” This guarantee will be hard to test in an empirical sense but the projected budget from the previous year had built in a 2.5% precept so Katy’s own work will need to achieve at least that much in savings and efficiencies over what was previously planned if her promise can be fulfilled.

Special constables in every rural village

This really is the big idea of Katy’s campaign, it was challenged by the Conservative candidates who she was shortlisted against, it was challenged very effectively by the other 4 PCC candidates during the election itself who knew it was a simplistic concept. If Katy does not deliver on this promise, her whole campaign becomes meaningless. Katy’s draft plan for 2013/2014 does not say how this will be achieved. She explained to the Police & Crime Panel “It depends on how you define a village; I would say there are approximately 440 in Sussex.” To each of her electors living in a rural village there will be an expectation that they will get their special. As many existing specials are deployed in urban settings there will need to be a great deal more than 440 specials in place over the next few years.  All businesses depend on setting targets and then having a plan to meet them. This is one target that all advised was neither achievable nor essential to the overall challenge of keeping Sussex safe. However Katy’s reputation depends on this being achieved.

Initiatives to help Drug Addicts

I cannot find any specific proposals regarding the funding of additional services to support drug addicts in the plan.

Rural Proofing Policing Plans

The word rural appears twice in a document that runs to over 8,000 words. There is no  reference to the concept or practice of rural proofing.

Working with Business networks (specifically the FSB)

There is no reference in the plan to the FSB or any other business network, there are only three references to Business needs in the 8,000 word document. This is despite Katy’s own claimed experience of running a business.

I found 6 targets on Katys manifesto, she has a clear positive result on one of these, and a poor attempt to achieve two others. The remaining three do not even feature in her plan. That suggests 3 out of 10 on my scoring system. Not a great start!