PCC role will be abolished, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood confirms
The elected officials were first introduced in 2012 and their responsibilities include setting budgets for their police forces and appointing the most senior officer – the chief constable – for their area.
Policing minister Sarah Jones confirmed the plans to scrap them in a statement to the Commons today.
In a statement, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “The introduction of Police and Crime Commissioners by the last government was a failed experiment.
“I will introduce new reforms so police are accountable to their local mayoralties or local councils.
“The savings will fund more neighbourhood police on the beat across the country, fighting crime and protecting our communities.”
Reacting to the news, Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) chairwoman Emily Spurrell accused the Government of failing to engage with officials while making the decision.
She warned: “Abolishing PCCs now, without any consultation, as policing faces a crisis of public trust and confidence, and as it is about to be handed a much stronger national centre, risks creating a dangerous accountability vacuum.”
Ms Spurrell, who is also PCC Merseyside, said having directly-elected PCCs has “transformed policing accountability”.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp accused the Government of “tinkering around the edges”, which the policing minister denied.
Mr Philp told the Commons: “The minister mentioned at the beginning the Government’s plans to bring forward a police reform white paper, announced, from memory, about a year ago.
“But there hasn’t been a single sniff of that white paper since then. Perhaps she can tell us when we can expect it and why the Government is so bereft of ideas, it has taken a year or more to publish that white paper.
“Now, today’s statement about police and crime commissioners represents, in my view, a tinkering around the edges from a Government which is failing on crime and policing.
“If you like, it is simply rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, because this Government is failing, police numbers are falling – they fell by 1,300 during Labour’s first year in office on a like-for-like March-to-March comparison – and not only are police numbers falling, they are continuing to fall and will drop even more this year.”
In response, Ms Jones said: “Saving £100 million, I think, is quite substantial and not ‘tinkering around the edges’ as he suggests.
“But what I would say to him is, if he waits a few more weeks, he will see the reform agenda that the Home Secretary (Shabana Mahmood) is designing in its totality.
“And it will put policing on a much better footing than he left it.”
