INTERVIEW: Labour candidate Barry Kirby sets out his stall for Gloucestershire Police and Crime Commissioner election

Last but not least - Barry Kirby is confident he can woo the electorate to be voted into Gloucestershire’s top policing job on May 5.

For our interview I visited him at his company KSharp LTD‘s offices in Kingsway.

Settling down on the sofas among the desks, high tech equipment and life-sized models of camouflaged soldiers, Cllr Kirby looked very much at home.

Why then, I asked him, did he want the job of PCC?

“I don’t like to sit back and complain about things. I like making things happen,” he says.

“I like getting stuck in and I like helping things change. That has always been my philosophy.

“I want to see our police force grow. I want to see our county develop and become an even safer place to live and work. And I think this can be done without making cut after cut.”

Cllr Kirby, 37, hails from Cumbria but moved south as he started a career in the military.

But this was cut short when a telegraph pole landed on his shoulder, leading to him being given a military discharge.

Using his skills as an engineer he then went to working an aerospace engineering company and at BAE systems before setting up his own company with his wife.

During this time he’s also been a magistrate for five years. Settling finally in Hucclecote, he has since fully immersed himself within his local community.

“I’ve always been very involved in communities. That’s what’s always made me tick in the grand scheme of things,” he tells me.

This ambitious attitude, he says, is what led him to set up such things as the Residents Association in Kingsway and setting up a women’s rugby team.

“That’s also naturally how I got involved in politics. I think to be in politics to have to want to affect change for the better.”

He started out a parish councillor for four years. After failing to make the city council in 2010, Mr Kirby won his current county council seat for Grange and Kingsway in 2013.

Being in opposition all that time has given him valuable experience as well as a great deal of frustration, he tells me. But now he wants the chance to make a bigger impact.

“Fighting for Labour on the county council has been great. But being in opposition is hard work.

“I think I’ve got bigger and more radical ideas that I think could be of benefit to the people of Gloucestershire.

“I want to be Police and Crime Commissioner. I think it’s a hugely important job. It’s a really direct way of helping with police force grow and improve, but also getting the force involved with our communities.”

And it is ‘community’ that sits at the very heart of his election manifesto.

“I want to bring back proper community policing. I want to make sure there is a PCSO in every county division. That was a policy that existed prior to 2010.

“Because of cuts to police over the past few years they have gone to a more reactive model and we’ve lost links with our communities. We need more police on the beat.

“Having a police presence on our streets is incredibly important. It’s a key way to officers to gather intelligence and also a way for residents to gain trust in their local police.

“I would love it if I could walk up to someone in the street and for them to know the name of their local police officer. I want people to be proud of their police force.”

This links in to his second focus – policing in partnership - which would look to improve the links with local community organisations.

“Right now all these groups work in stovepipes and silos. I want to bring them all together to see how we can work together more effectively.”

His other pledges are to focus on domestic abuse – both physical and psychological – as well as rural policing and cybercrime.

All these pledges, he tells me, have been formed through speaking and listening to a wide variety of people and organisations, as well as his own research.

Paying credit to his competitor and incumbent PCC Martin Surl for putting cybercrime at the top of Gloucestershire’s constabulary’s agenda, he said more work was needed to improve the system.

“Cybercrime is the biggest risk to our county. Fundamentally we don’t allow cybercrime to be reported in the same way as we do normal crime.

“I shouldn’t make a difference if you’re money has been stolen from your wallet or over the internet, you should be able to call police and have them deal with it.

“So I think there is a training issue there which we need to look at.”

As a self-confessed technology geek, he said a greater focus on IT integration, electric cars and even more advanced uniforms and police gadgets would be something he would look into.

What makes him qualified to scrutinise the force and lead it to make these changes operational focus though?

He says all his experience from running his own business, his time as a councillor, being a magistrate and serving in the armed forces, come together to give him “unique” skills to bring to the role.

“In my business I have experience with nitty gritty budgets, but through my role as a councillor I have also helped manage vast budgets.

“But I have also had to challenge people on where tax payers’ money is being spent. I think I have wide experience of being able to hold local government to account “And with a huge part of being PCC revolving around scrutiny, I think these skills translate across.”

Despite never having been a policeman, he says his years working in the uniformed services have given him an insight into how such bodes are run, and importantly, can be improved.

“The PCC is not there to run the police force but to oversee and the decisions they make,” he says.

Moving on to discuss his style of management, we touch quickly upon his rivals, independent candidate Martin Surl and Conservative challenger Will Windsor-Clive.

“Unlike Will, I don’t want to cut back the state, I don’t want to cut back the budgets, I don’t want to scale back the force,” he said.

“I will always look at making the force more effective. Money is important and we have to spend within our budgets. But I’m a great believer in the value of things. And value isn’t always monetary.

“Sometimes the value of something lies in the value it gives to the community. You sometimes have it look above the financial cost.

“Say for example we have a small police station somewhere which is a pain to upkeep. Even so it has absolute value to the community there. People know where the police are, they know they are accessible, they know they are visible.

“This is another key part of community policing.”

Moving on to the current PCC, he said the main difference between them would be the police precept of council tax.

Mr Surl, he said, had made a big mistake by not putting the precept up for two years and also not putting it up high enough this year.

“Certainly for the first two years I would raise the precept by 1.99 per cent (the highest possible) each time,” he said.

“I would do this because for the last few years the force has bene underfunded. Unfortunately we are stuck with a Tory government for the next four years.

“Even with a crystal ball, we don’t know what they are going to swing at us. There is a really good chance we are going to have more cuts in the pipeline.

“We need to be ready to deal with this. Alongside greater devolution and the possibility of the Cotswolds breaking away from Gloucestershire – the future is somewhat uncertain.

“To make sure the police are braced to cope with this I think it’s important we raise it by 1.99.”

Also in contrast to his rival Martin Surl, he believes that fundamentally the role of PCC is a political role.

“Politics is involved. Being PCC is a political role,” he says, referring to himself as a “centre-left” Labour man.

“Even if you an independent candidate, you are political. We just don’t know what your politics are. I have known Martin for a few years now and I don’t know what he stands for.

“People know that as a Labour candidate I will stand for fairness, equality and diversity. People want a police force that is all these things.

“I will use these values in my decision making. My political background will influence my decisions. But these politics will always stop at with the Chief Constable.”

To find out more about Barry Kirby and his policies go to www.barrykirby.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @BK4PCC

The vote will be held on Thursday May 5 – the same day as elections for Stroud District Council elections.

Click here for an interview with independent candidate and current PCC Martin Surl

Click here to see the SNJ's interview with Conservative candidate Will Windsor-Clive