Who would want to be a police commissioner?

The Tory-led government’s Police and Crime Commissioner initiative seems almost designed to fail, so inauspicious will be the circumstances surrounding its introduction.

The new Police and Crime Commissioners will hardly have sat down at their desks before they will be confronting unpalatable choices, as they wrestle with the Tories’ 20% budget cuts. Police numbers are already falling and will quite possibly fall further as the cuts continue to bite.

The Prime Minister tried to convince us that you can make 20% budget cuts without any impact on the front-line. Incredibly he even tried to claim that although police numbers are falling, the number of officers on the frontline are rising. An assiduous FOI trawl by Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, detailed in Sunday’s Observer, blew that claim clean out of the water. In fact the number of police officers engaged as what Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) defines as ‘first responders’  has fallen by more than 5000 in the last year. At the same time personal crime is up 11% according to the British Crime Survey, its fastest rate in more than a decade. Nonetheless, David Cameron claims that crime and police effectiveness “do not depend on numbers”. Well he would say that, wouldn’t he?

‘Externalisation’, ‘outsourcing’, or whatever other euphemism for privatisation you prefer, is another issue that will confront PCCs as a result of these ideological budget cuts. As HMIC identified, there was scope for making some 12% savings by redeploying warranted police officers out of back-office roles and onto the front-line, replacing them with civilian staff. Going for 20% instead will mean not only falling police numbers but pressure for sweeping privatisation of policing, pushing the very boundaries of what the public will accept. When, for example, 87% of the Bedfordshire police budget relates to staffing costs, what else can it mean?

Police privatisation’s proponents seek to reassure us that the list of potentially contractable services detailed in the recent West Midlands and Surrey procurement exercise (investigating crimes, detaining suspects, developing cases, responding to and investigating incidents, supporting victims and witnesses, managing high-risk individuals, patrolling neighbourhoods, managing intelligence, managing engagement with the public, according to the Guardian) is purely theoretical and there is no intention of letting private firms take over core police activities. But this begs the question: why are these activities being scoped at all?

PCCs will take over responsibility for administering a number of community safety related funding streams, such as local authority community safety grants, domestic violence aid, drug intervention money, and victim support funding. In terms of joined up thinking this clearly makes sense. However, there has to be more than a sneaking suspicion that to this government ‘localism’ means abdicating responsibility for their unpopular decisions. The overall budget squeeze will inevitably feed through into these funding streams, having worked for Victim Support and been a local councillor, this is not a prospect I relish.

The PCC role is one that few people outside politics understand (will I get another uniform I was asked as I tried to explain the office I’m running for to my army reserve colleagues). The practically invisible police authorities are being replaced by holding an election in the middle of November. This hardly seems like the best recipe for achieving the democratic mandate required if police commissioners are to have credibility.

So there we have it. Police officer cuts, privatisation and shrinking grants are to be the lot of PCCs across the country. All in all the role might better be described as ‘Police Cuts Commissioner’. Compounded by the botched implementation, with an election in November. Sounds like my military training and a bit of army determination might come in handy. What is more, for Labour Party members there is the added complication that in Parliament we fought against PCCs tooth and nail and are pledged to abolish them. So what Labour member in their right mind would put themselves forward for the PCC elections?

The answer is, those who recognise that the alternative, Tories cheerleading for more cuts and privatisation, is much worse. As Labour council leaders and their colleagues across the country demonstrate, having a Tory-led government wedded to austerity means we have an even greater duty to stand up for the communities that we represent. Labour PCCs will fight the cuts, not just roll over. They will work hard to ensure communities are not once again abandoned to crime and anti-social behaviour. Just as with the NHS, there must be equality of service for those who need the police. Only Labour PCCs can be relied upon to defend this principle.

Olly Martins is seeking the Labour nomination for the Police and Crime Commissioner election in Bedfordshire. Follow him on Twitter @OllyMartins