On November 15th, Bill Longmore received the most votes in the West Mercia area and therefore was appointed as Police and Crime Commissioner. The Independent candidate pledges to represent community views, develop new partnership opportunities and to fully support the Chief Constable.

Bill Longmore managed to bring in more votes from West Mercia communities than his rival candidates, Adrian Blackshaw of Conservative and Labour’s Simon Murphy. As Police and Crime Commissioner, Longmore is expected to listen and serve the public, consider the needs of local communities, set a budget and monitor the performance of West Mercia’s Chief Constable and Police force.

After the successful candidate was revealed, I spoke with David Shaw, Chief Constable of West Mercia Police. Mr Shaw became Chief Constable last year after more than thirty years of experience within the Police force. He had many optimistic views to share in regards to the Police and Crime Commissioner.

I discussed with Mr Shaw what positive effects he believes Longmore will have on the local community. “People will see him as someone they can go to and have their views heard and listened to”, the Chief Constable explained. Mr Shaw emphasised that Longmore will represent views of the community and ultimately listen to the voice of the people. The Chief Constable said this will then help Longmore come up with ideas of how to provide the best service, “I think that’s a real potential.”

Mr Shaw went on to talk of how the Police and Crime Commissioner can hold him to account: “I think it’s really critical that there is a person able to scrutinise and challenge you”, the Chief Constable stated. “I think it’s going to be really useful for me to have someone to hold me to account to make sure I’m delivering the best service I can.”

The issue of budget and spending cuts was a topic that Mr Shaw also felt passionate about: “I do have to stress that the public are not at risk at the moment. We are able to do a huge amount of policing with what we’ve got.” The Chief Constable wanted to reassure the public that the Police and Crime Commissioner will be rigorous about what money is spent.

I continued to ask Mr Shaw what he hopes Longmore will improve on in the West Mercia area. “I think what was in place beforehand with the Police Authority, was involving us trying to make the best that we could anyway”, the Chief Constable replied. “There’s huge amounts of our time, effort and energy that goes into trying to make things better.” However, Mr Shaw felt there was room for improvement in the department of communication: “I would want us to explore getting our communication better, particularly around the area of social media and social networking.” The Chief Constable suggested this would improve telling and explaining to people what the Police are doing and why. Mr Shaw went on to say, that an increase in communication will ensure that the Police listen to what people want them to do. “You can never stop listening”, the Chief Constable emphasised.

Mr Shaw then described how he will be working alongside the Police and Crime Commissioner. “Bill Longmore and I have got to make sure that we understand each other’s positions. I’ve got to understand what his real priorities are. He’s got to understand how the force works”, the Chief Constable explained. Mr Shaw went on to speak positively of his relationship with Longmore, as Police and Crime Commissioner: “I will have a great relationship with him. The main objective we share is that we deliver the best policing that we can. We look after the public. We deter criminals. We catch criminals.”

The successfulness of the media coverage, in regards to the Police and Crime Commissioner elections has been questioned. The Chief Constable shared his opinion on this issue: “I think the whole campaign could have been given a higher profile, but I think they tried quite hard to gather opinion.” More positively, Mr Shaw said, “the reporting I did see was balanced and fair and gave the candidates a fair chance to say what they wanted to do.”

I also asked the Chief Constable why he thinks only 14% of the West Mercia area chose to vote in the Police and Crime Commissioner elections. “I think it’s because a lot of people didn’t understand it”, Mr Shaw replied. “I also believe some people aren’t sure about that mix of politics and Police.” The Chief Constable went on to share his own experience in regards to voting: “What I definitely detected was a lot of people wanted to make their mind up about voting and have a view, but were worried about whether their vote was well informed”, Mr Shaw explained. “The number of people genuinely interested was massively more than the amount of people who voted.”

Most importantly, Mr Shaw thinks optimistically of the Police and Crime Commissioner: “I welcome it and I’m glad it has started”. The Chief Constable believes Bill Longmore will bring a number of positive benefits to the local community and will represent views and opinions of the people. David Shaw finished off the interview by sharing his faith in the new position: “West Mercia will carry on getting better with the Police and Crime Commissioner.”