Last November we went to the polls to elect our first ever police and crime commissioners. The government wanted the PCCs, now in place in 41 of the 43 police areas in England and Wales, because it believed they would improve police accountability and allow the service to "reconnect" with the public. We were not especially convinced: 15.1% of us bothered to vote, significantly fewer than the 23% who turned out in the 1999 European polls. Surveys suggest 90% of us don't know who our elected PCC is.

Heartened by such a ringing democratic endorsement of their role, some new commissioners are now seeking to further boost their popularity by hiring salaried "youth commissioners" or "ambassadors" to act as "champions for young people". (The successful candidate is expected to do this "dynamically", "innovatively" and "proactively".)

This is going as well as you might expect. The first youth commissioner, Paris Brown, lost her £15,000-a-year job before she'd even begun after it emerged that she had posted a string of ill-advised tweets. Undeterred, the Kent PCC, Ann Barnes, is continuing her search and said last week she had 26 applicants for the job Brown was obliged to vacate.

The Cheshire police commissioner, John Dwyer, is also currently advertising for a "youth ambassador" on a salary of between £23,799 and £25,449. This has drawn predictable criticism – although to be fair, the job expects candidates to have three A-levels and three years' experience of working with young people.

Still, safer by far to adopt the approach of Conservative PCC for Humberside, Matthew Grove, who recently told pupils about his plans to appoint four youth ambassadors to be "the voice of young people at the very heart of policing", but made clear the positions would be voluntary.

Best tread carefully when most people don't know who you are or what you do – and the rest, on the whole, don't much care.