Show us the money...

A good friend of mine was going to attend the meeting in Didcot tonight to listen to and question the Thames Valley PCC. Sadly work intervened and he was not able to make it. At his request, earlier on today, I sent him a question he could have asked. I will reveal what the question was in a second but here first is a tweet I just noticed from the Commissioner himself (or perhaps his social media valet... he is the Thames Valet PCC after all...)

So my drafted question was this:

There were 59 incidents of crime in the centre of Didcot in August – as recorded by the Police.uk website. In the centre of Reading, there were 457. That is nearly eight times as many incidents of crime. One of the most important things that Thames Valley Police do is to work in partnership with local councils to prevent crime and disorder. You help to fund these local partnerships directly from your PCC budget. Are you able to assure us tonight that both Didcot and Reading (which many of us visit for work and social activities) will each get fair shares of the funding you provide – proportionate to the levels of crime and risk of crime? 

Now sadly, this question will not get to be asked even though it would appear I was on the money with highlighting the level of crime. (I expect the PCC has made sure the meeting is packed with his political supporters as he did in Bracknell a few days ago.)

You see the worry I have is that the PCC is cooking up some sort of formula whereby areas with low crime will get more Community Safety Partnership money in the future while areas with high crime will get less...

Does that seem right to you?