In January the mayor commissioned consultants to do an in depth review of troubled Greater Manchester Police, at a cost of ~£300k. The report is done and, according to several v well informed sources, it is very bad indeed. But we can’t read it. https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/300000-inquiry-reported-shocking-failures-20455288

PwC is said to be damning of leadership, governance, culture, IT, crime recording, budgeting...The GMCA/mayor’s office (hard to practically distinguish between the two) say it would be ‘inappropriate’ to release it until after the new Chief takes post after the election.

The new Chief has seen the report, but he needs to have time to draw up a plan to respond to it, apparently. Yet GMP already has an improvement plan, which had been widely promoted by the mayor/deputy mayor as evidence GMP is getting its house in order.

Worth mentioning that greater policing accountability features in the mayor’s re-election manifesto. Something has gone very wrong in GMP, though, and a lot of public money has been spent on a report that now won’t see the light of day until after the current election.

For anyone asking me why I don’t FOI it, I will. But the FOIA takes 20 days (at least; longer in my experience). Plus if the report is intended for future publication, that exempts it anyway.