Deputy police commissioner role questioned by Cheshire panel

Police and Crime Commissioner John Dwyer was unable to attend Friday’s (June 24) meeting of the police and crime panel because he was ill.

This meant there was no-one to answer questions from the cross-party panel – whose job is to scrutinise the work of the police commissioner’s office.

Some members wanted to know why deputy commissioner David McNeilage didn’t attend – and one said she had never met him.

READ MORE: Cheshire Police Commissioner attacks comments about deputy

Co-optee Yasmin Somani said she would be interested to hear the panel’s thoughts on ‘why the deputy isn't here today to answer questions on behalf of the commissioner, given that that role has been held up as an important role in that office’.

Yasmin Somani

“It would have been a good opportunity for the deputy to make himself known and have his voice heard,” she said, adding: “We're yet to hear anything from him, I am anyway.  I've had no engagement from him whatsoever.”

Cheshire East Council (CEC) officer Martin Smith told the meeting: “We only found out a couple of days ago that, unfortunately, the commissioner couldn't come today because of illness.

“When I spoke to his office yesterday, I was advised that unfortunately, because of the short notice, the deputy commissioner wasn't able to attend today.”

Cllr Laura Jeuda (CEC) suggested the deputy should pencil the meeting dates in his diary so he could deputise if necessary.

“Would it not be a good idea for the deputy commissioner to be on call, or it would even be good to meet him at one of these meetings,” she said.

“So if he could pencil the dates in his diary, just in case anything like this happens again, we would be able to ask those questions of him.”

Co-optee Sally Hardwick said: “I do think we need some clarification on the role of the deputy to the crime commissioner.

“I really do think he's being paid well, and I do think we need some clarification as to when he steps in to undertake the role because he's been in post for almost a year now and, really, this should have been sorted with his terms of reference.”

PCC John Dwyer was questioned at a meeting of the police and crime panel last year after giving his deputy a 33 per cent pay rise.

Mr McNeilage ‘s salary rose from £38,250 when he was appointed in June 2021 to £51,000 in November.

Mr Dwyer later told a meeting of Middlewich Town Council he had made a mistake when initially calculating the salary for the role.

He said he calculated in May, when he took up office, that the job he wanted the deputy to do would be equivalent to half of his own salary.

“When I actually get him in post and realise that the job I’m asking him to do is a lot more complicated because of what I’ve inherited from my predecessor, it needed a lot more work doing on it, I took a view then of actually this pay is not right and not the right level,” Mr Dwyer had told the Middlewich meeting in March of this year.

“So I’m not giving him a pay rise, what I did was to readjust the pay level which I think he should have had right from the beginning.”