SIR - I refer to the article (Chronicle, August 7), about the Government's Green Paper and the proposal to increase the number of members of the Hampshire Police Authority from the current 17 members to 60.
The majority of the existing 17 are councillors who are already collecting allowances and expenses from their various councils and who are appointed (not elected) to the Police Authority.
In 2001/02, the allowances paid to the 17 members of the Police Authority (none of whom are police officers) amounted to £83,000.
A new scheme of allowances was introduced a year later.
The members of the Police Authority have taken full advantage of it, and the allowances paid to the 17 in 2007/08 amounted to £232,685 - almost four times as much.
If there had been 60 of them - as proposed in the Government Green Paper - council tax payers would have had to find another £588,556 this year.
In 2001/02 the police precept for a Band D property was £55.08. For 2008/09 it is £135.54.
In addition, the supposedly independent councillors' commission is now proposing that councillors who lose their seats on the council "through a decision of the electorate", are paid redundancy money for "loss of office".
So: do a lousy job; get booted out by the electorate, and get paid for failure.
Sounds just like central Government.
Mike Schofield, Rareridge Lane, Bishop's Waltham.
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