What should we make of the government’s plans for Police and Crime Commissioners?
This week’s policing White Paper – From Local to National: A New Model for Policing – reaffirmed the government’s intention to “abolish the PCC model at the end of PCCs’ current term of office in May 2028 and transfer police governance functions to existing local government structures”.
The formal abolition of PCCs forms part of a major reorganisation of local and regional government, currently under way. Under these plans, a new category of Strategic Authority, headed by directly-elected metro mayors, will be established to coordinate a range of public service and governmental functions at a regional level.
Under the policing White Paper plans, the PCC role and powers will be transferred to the metro mayors. In those areas without metro mayors, a Policing and Crime Lead, working with Policing and Crime Boards made up of local council leaders, will perform the PCC function.
Into the next decade, the government plans a major consolidation of the existing 43 territorial police forces into fewer, larger forces, overseen by metro mayors, with a national police service, accountable to the Home Secretary, operating across the country.
While the government claims it is abolishing the PCC model of police oversight, the reality is more nuanced.
Some police forces – in London, Manchester, and Yorkshire – are already overseen by metro mayors (or the Mayor of London in the case of the Metropolitan Police), who discharge the PCC duty. This is an evolution of the PCC model, intended to integrate the PCC function more clearly into local government decision-making.
The proposed Policing and Crime Leads, in areas without metro mayors, sound a lot like a PCC by another name. They mirror, as the White Paper points out, the role of the deputy mayor for policing and crime under the metro mayors.
The White Paper proposals, in other words, build on the PCC model, rather than rejecting it. While the government is proposing the formal abolition of Police and Crime Commissioners, the spirit of PCCs looks set to live on.
Whether the White Paper proposals are ever implemented in full is a moot point. When Labour last attempted a major police reform package, in 2006, it ended in a humiliating retreat.
This time round, staying in power long enough could be the biggest obstacle Labour faces to successful implementation.
