The Police Commissioner - Cutting Edge (w/t)

8 May 2014

Ann Barnes, Kent’s first elected Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), hit the headlines in April last year when she appointed 17 year-old Paris Brown as her Youth Police and Crime Commissioner. Paris was to act as a bridge between the police and young people. However, after a Twitter outburst, Ann’s voice of youth was outed in the national press as ‘violent’, ‘racist’ and ‘homophobic’. This was one of the first times that the new Police Commissioners attracted the attention of the public.

The Police Commissioner (w/t) takes us into Ann’s world, where the 68-year-old retired teacher, runs an office of 16 people and has unprecedented powers combined with limited experience of public office and operational policing.

We join Ann in the aftermath of Paris-gate as she faces her biggest challenges to date – massive cuts to police funding, the retirement of her Chief Constable, the backlash from her severe criticism of Kent Police crime recording practises and an increasingly hostile electorate who question her salary, her ability and ultimately the role of PCC itself.

We follow Ann as she reaches out to the people of Kent with her regular presidential style ‘Ann Force 1’ bus tours of the country. Ann believes that she has a far greater connection with people on the ground than politicians or other establishment figures and she feels as if she can use her tenure to get the police to truly serve the people of Kent - which means getting them to stop manipulating crime figures, becoming more visible on the streets and become more transparent to win back the trust of the public.

In an age when most people have lost faith in politicians and many are losing faith in police, Ann believes that she represents a breath of fresh air - a common-sense rebel in a position of power, unfettered by party politics, but will she find that the realities of the job and her own lack of experience will wear her down and work against her?

Through her and the access she gives, we'll see how politics works. She may be the person in power, but how much can she really achieve, especially if her biggest strength - her lack of political skill - could also turn out to be her biggest weakness?

Will she be seen as an independent, breath of fresh air, who will roll her sleeves up to get things done or a gaffe-prone, amateur who's out of touch with people and the way things really work?

The Police Commissioner (w/t) is a 1 x 60’ Cutting Edge documentary, commissioned for Channel 4 by Emma Cooper. The documentary was produced, directed and filmed by Miles Blayden-Ryall for Special Edition Films with executive producers Ravinder Chahal and Karen O’Connor. It will air on Channel 4 at the end of May 2014.

 

Production Information:

Producer and Director: Miles Blayden-Ryall

Executive Producer: Ravinder Chahal and Karen O’Connor

Production Company: Special Edition Films

Commissioner: Emma Cooper

 

Notes for Editors

Ann employs a staff of 16 and the cost of running her office is £1.5 million per year

She is paid £85,000 per annum

Her ‘community outreach bus’ dubbed ‘Ann Force 1’ cost £15,000

Ann's election campaign cost almost £68,000, (£50,000 of which was her own money left to her by her parents)

She is a retired school teacher and is the former Chair of Kent's Police authority, which was the precursor to PCCs. She has also served as a magistrate

She was a keen Amateur Dramatics enthusiast, playing Madam Edith in ‘Allo ‘Allo and the back end of a pantomime horse called Camilla.  Members of the Lyminge Amateur Dramatics Group played a key part in her election campaign

Ann campaigned against the introduction of PCCs describing the policy as "naïve and disastrous" and "a willful waste of money" before deciding to stand as one herself

The 2012 elections to appoint 41 Police and Crime Commissioners were described as the biggest shake-up to policing for 50 years and cost £75 million, but resulted in the lowest voter turn-out since the Second World War with only 15.1% of the electorate voting nationally

The 41 Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) took office on the 22nd November 2012 and became responsible for a combined police force budget of £8 billion. Ann has a £317 million budget at her disposal; she can hire and fire Kent’s Chief of Police and can shape policing policy across Kent

In order to cut demand on the force Kent Police will no longer be able to attend up to 25% of crimes

One of Ann's first policy decisions was to open mobile police stations in the most remote areas of Kent, where there are very few people and even less crime. She’s extremely proud of this innovation and recently started a victory lap of villages that now have their own lonely ‘bobby in a booth’.