Job of the Month - Chief of Staff, Kent Police

Quick - here's your chance for 90k's worth of goodies plus pension contributions and all the rides in blues and twos you can handle.  Luckily, you won't have to do anything nasty like real work or dealing with dangerous violent people - it's all pretendy work.  No formal qualifications or experience required. 

Ann Barnes  hasn't a clue how to do the job despite being elected to be the new Commissioner.  Her first puppet was an average teenager who was in tears within a week because Ann failed to recognize that actually, you are nuts to expect a child to carry that kind of responsibility and public exposure.  Her second appointment is supposed to figure out how to do the job, and do it, so that Ann can continue to collect the dosh for pretending to.

Anyhoo, here's the outline:

This post will provide the mainstay of direct support to the Kent PCC. This is the first role of its kind and as such the post holder will have the flexibility and freedom to create the framework of support needed by the PCC who has stated that her aim is to be the most visible, accessible and transparent Commissioner in the country.

This means 'For god's sake, tell me what the job is and make me look good'.  Fair enoughski, isn't that what the faithful 2-i-c people of the world do all the time?

This role is not a single focused senior administrative role, this is a high profile, potentially frequently pressurised, busy and varied role – you will never be bored!  As the manager of the Office of the Kent Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) you must possess excellent interpersonal skills that you can adapt to any situation. You will be an inspirational leader, who inspires and motivates people from all walks of life, whether this is the staff working in the OPCC, officers and staff from Kent Police, members of the public or those people working in partnership organisations and agencies – in fact anyone you come into contact with.

This sounds to me more like what was intended of the Commissioner, but Ann clearly hasn't any intention of doing it so it's a better billet than the usual 2-i-c as you don't have the ghastly admin or being made to do it all yourself.  On the other hand, you'll almost certainly have to polish Ann's ego and make it seem as if she has thought everything good while you collect the blame for anything which goes wrong.    At 90k plus bennies, this should slap a lot of balm on your own blistered ego.  After all, you didn't win the election, did you.

 You will be able to provide clear, objective, authoritative and impartial advice based on analysis and interpretation of complex information and situations.

Ann can't work out what the briefs mean so you are supposed to read them and explain them to her. 

As an effective horizon scanner, you should be able to anticipate the needs of the PCC and present information before it is requested.

Preferably psychic.

Alongside this you will have developed a structure to provide regular, relevant management information that informs and updates the PCC on progress without creating burdensome bureaucracy.

Pull some numbers out of your arse. They don't matter and there is no budget for gathering proper info - it was all spent on commissioners, youth commissioners and your wages.  The least you can do is a bit of cut'n'pasting, you ingrate.

By the by, you have to be nice to Paris Brown, the youth commissioner - but then for goodness sake, the child was always going to be made to look awful.  Think of it as social work, trying to patch up Ann's idiocy. 

Here's what Ann promised the people of Kent and what she is now relying on you to implement for her.

In a better world this job would not exist because the Chief Constable would already be doing most of it,  but since it does, why not put in an on-line application and give that money the very best chance of a good home where it will be appreciated. The real police will regard you with all the enthusiasm of something nasty on their shoes, but as soon as they get the drift of where you are coming from - being Ann's walker - they will at least temper their derision with pity.

My tip for the job would be to make friends with the mounted divisions, then get the horses out on PR appearances in the shopping centres. Everyone loves police horses.

Alternatively, if this seem too much like hard work and you are male, consider getting two women pregnant with at least five children apiece, then live on benefits. I gather it pays about the same.  On balance, I know which I'd prefer to subsidize.

Update 10/4/2013

The Mail reports that Paris Brown has stepped down following reports that the police have been dragged in on the basis that her tweets may be within the scope of the criminal law.  Her previous job - a trainee booking clerk in the parks department -  may not be open to her now that her employers have an excuse to sack her for her comments.

So now we've got an unemployed and possibly unemployable child under the age of 18 whose biggest sin, as far as we know, involves being a bit gobby. No arson, mugging, embezzlement, torture of animals, not even as much as a caution for dropping litter - just a kid mistaking their nascent musings for hip writing which, of course, never happened before in the history of text.

Ann Barnes is still there on £85k (which is surprisingly less than her lieutenant will earn) while having shoved a kid through this sugar-cane crusher in pursuit of her own public image.  The moment the allegations emerged she should have taken protective action instead of making the teenager humiliate herself in public for Ann's programme.

The only person who owes it to the electorate to step down is Barnes for having shown such obvious lack of commonsense and duty of care in the first place.  If Keith Vaz had any decency he'd resign too.  Yes, I know, don't hold my breath.

Update 11/04/2013

The Times reports that the police have been criticized by media lawyer Mark Stephens, who pointed out that Keir Starmer already issued guidelines on investigation of comments on social media. What exactly it has to do with Starmer, who runs the CPS but not the police, I'm not quite sure, but it is his job to advise about offences so it is probably worth checking what he says.  The point here is that twenty years ago a police officer would have understood that one is free to hold odious opinions and express them.   Now, the expression of those opinions - not just incitements against target groups - is something the state feels free to investigate so long as it has the flimsy excuse of 'somebody complained'.

These are the interim guidelines

The comments attributed to Brown were likely to fail the 'high threshold' test i.e. there was no public interest justification in pursuing them.  Or, put it another way, if Brown is going to be chased, then so should many of the commenters on the passing of Mrs Thatcher.