Letter: Cop website is a waste of our cash

Correspondent • Published 25 Jul 2009 08:00 Comments 1 Comment

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WHEN will police start to appreciate that they are paid by us, the taxpayer?

(Police spend £100k on website, Chronicle July 16)

They are falling into the trap of MPs, quangos and even the National Health Service. All have been exposed, wasting and misspending their way in the teeth of our vast public debts.

Who at Thames Valley Police gave the go-ahead for this latest waste of our money on a new website, even though the last one worked perfectly well?

They never release names, do they? No-one seems to be open to personal criticism.

Perhaps such uncaring spending really does start at the top with Thames Valley Police. According to your story, chief constable Sara Thornton (salary, £150,000 a year, plus expenses) claimed £135 from the taxpayer for the hire of a dinner suit worn to an event by her partner.

She should have called Moss Bros, Reading, or Anthony Blay in Wokingham. They would have rigged him out for half the price. And how about something really revolutionary - such as her 'partner' paying for the suit himself?

Such insensitivity will grow to a bigger issue in this country as we, the majority in the private sector, become ever more angry.

We have watched, in horror, as politicians and a blundering, greedy City have ruined private pensions. It is time to wake up to the fact that we continue to contribute to guaranteed, index-linked pension pay-outs of all civil servants (and that includes the police) from our council tax.

Such misspending, however large or small, only re-emphasises the need for urgent change.

Does anyone care in the bloated, woefully inefficient public sector?

Certainly not Chief Constable Thornton. I note, from your report, that she "declined to comment" about the waste.

It gives an idea of how scornfully she views the rest of us.

Garth Pearce

Basingstoke Road

Swallowfield

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b.burns
Unregistered User
Aug 1, 11:04
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Absolutely scandalous ---they are no more than theives in uniform!!! If you include our politicians as recents events in Westminster just highlight the cavalier way these people treat the public purse -- most recently the so called equality quango run by Trevor Phillips - seven senior staff are made redundant cost --£600000 they are then reemployed as consultants cost £250000!!!.

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