Do you fancy a little role-playing game?

Okay, here’s what I want you to do.

Pretend you are the Police and Crime Commissioner for a countywide police force.

Your number one priority is to hold the Chief Constable to account on behalf of the people.

The Chief Constable has, however, been suspended for the past five months while investigations take place into allegations of gross misconduct and there is no indication when this situation will be resolved.

Under pressure from residents (who are footing the bill) councillors at the Cheshire Police and Crime Panel meeting are asking you to state the position.

Would you do so concisely and correctly, or would you refuse to answer because you need ‘to protect the integrity of the process’?

When asked to discuss this later in the proceedings when the press and public are excluded would you acquiesce or continue to refuse?

Would you then insist that you are maintaining your silence on ‘strict legal advice given to you by the QC dealing with the case’?

When in utter frustration, councillors ask you explain this legal advice, would you do so, or as Cheshire Police and Crime Commissioner David Keane did when asked for details of the advice given to him by the QC dealing with the suspension of Cheshire’s own Chief Constable say you didn’t have the advice to hand.

At this astounding retort Poynton East Councillor Howard Murray rapped: “Surely to God you would remember.”

So, if you were that Police and Crime Commissioner whose principle responsibility was the management of the Chief Constable, what reason could you give for having no recollection of this important advice?

WOULD YOU INVEST IN CHESHIRE EAST COUNCIL?

Running a business can be very challenging.

Customers are fickle and a product or service in demand last year may be completely out of favour this year.

Banks are tough taskmasters and any capital loaned or invested will be monitored and may be withdrawn should the business fail to meet its targets.

In some cases directors may lose their homes. It’s a huge worry.

Unless of course that business is owned and run by Cheshire East, in which case none of the above apply. CEC ‘businesses’ have no such worries.

If they lose money or fail to meet their targets they have captive ‘investors’ called taxpayers who can simply make good any losses. There are no annual general meetings where investors have a voice.

Should the company call for extra capital, taxpayers could just stump it up regardless of whether they have faith in the management or not.

‘Investors’ in CEC-run companies have no vote, see no management accounts, own no shares, receive no dividends and can exert no pressure on the board of directors.

These council-run companies are (in theory) supposed to make profit and reduce the tax burden, but some do the exact opposite.

Given their position free from the anxieties most companies bear, some still manage to lose money.

CoSocius (owned jointly by Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester Council) a company set up to sell its IT ‘expertise’, somehow managed to lose £800,000 in 11 months of trading plus a whopping £8.5 million shortfall in pension contributions.

Recent reports revealed CEC-owned Orbitas, which provides burial and cremation services, is forecasting a pre-tax loss of £4,000 apparently due to a one per cent decline in the death rate.

Most businesses have to sustain much greater swings in their market and show a profit or lose their banking support.

Ryanair had to deal with a 40 per cent increase in fuel costs in one year, while Tesco saw its prices slashed by the onslaught of discount giants Aldi and Lidl.

Meanwhile council-owned Orbitas somehow contrived to lose money due to a one per cent fall in the national death rate.

Where’s the initiative? Management needs to adapt, cut costs, work smarter. Sitting on your duff praying for an outbreak of The Plague won’t do it.

HEALTH AND SAFETY… AN IRON FIST IN A GLOVED HAND I believe in health and safety, I really do.

I don’t want to see welders using a torch without safety goggles or pneumatic drills operated without ear defenders.

I particularly don’t want to witness stone cutters inhaling the toxic dust inherent in their work, but if Health and Safety is to retain its credibility it needs to grow up.

It must show some respect and not treat us like imbeciles.

I was pretty naffed off when I bought a new set of bathroom scales to find a written warning not to use said scales without reading the instruction manual.

What sort of instructions do I need for a set of bathroom scales?

Get on...get off.

This however, pales into insignificance when you consider the user manual pictured above for…a pair of gloves. Beat that.

n vicbarlow@icloud.com