THE cost of having an elected Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall (an election in which a minimal amount of people voted or had any interest in) continues to rise at a disproportionate rate.
The latest wheeze from Commissioner Tony Hogg is to move offices at a cost of £500,000 to the taxpayer.
Now this may come as a shock to the thousands who didn’t vote and had no wish to see a crime commissioner installed at their expense.
I don’t think many of them, a lot of whom I’m presuming voted Conservative, expected to be paying out to put up another Tory lackey.
And Tony Hogg is no stranger to controversy over his accommodation. When he was first installed there was an outcry when it emerged that he was using accommodation allowances for being being put up at the Royal Marine Commando Training Centre in Lympstone rather than Middlemoor at the taxpayer’s expense.
This comes at a time when Devon and Cornwall Police has to make another £51m in cuts over the next two years.
£500,000 would surely be better spent funding more officers on the beat.
And what exactly has Tony Hogg achieved since being in office? I’m sure I don’t know.
Still it could all be academic in two months as the role will be scrapped if the Tories don’t get in at the next general election.
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