Decommissioning the commissioners

Labour should pledge to abolish police commissioners.

Halfway through the Parliament, the Coalition has gained an impressive reputation for incompetence. The roll call of government initiatives that have been launched-and in the case of ‘Big Society’, repeatedly relaunched-only to unravel as soon as they are challenged is long and growing. Yet even by the government’s herculean standards of ineptness, the failure of their policy on Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC) has been particularly swift and comprehensive.

The introduction of PCCs was meant to herald a revolution in the responsiveness and accountability of the police. Decision-making would shift from unaccountable senior officers and the largely anonymous quangos who theoretically oversaw them to high profile local figures who would have the mandate to hold forces’ feet to the fire. The creation of PCCs, so the argument went, would open up the police to public scrutiny and draw the public into a debate on police performance.

Or at least, that was the theory. However, it has been clear from day one that the policy lacks the public support and engagement that is absolutely critical to its success. Turnout in the inaugural PCC elections, held last November, was a paltry 15%, the lowest in peacetime history. As a result, most PCCs lack the democratic mandate – and even the visibility – to genuinely hold the police to account. Only one commissioner in the entire country won the support of more than 10% of their eligible electorate.

Moreover, several months on from the election, evidence suggests that commissioners have struggled to make a serious impact on the public consciousness. There are, of course, many admirable exceptions, with well-known Labour Commissioners like Tony Lloyd, Jane Kennedy, Vera Baird or Paddy Tipping having a strong impact and Labour commissioners up and down the country doing an excellent job. But all too many PCCs have struggled to register in the media and recent polling suggests that nine in ten voters cannot even name their commissioner. Moreover, when they have hit the headlines, it has all too often been for the wrong reasons, with a number embroiled in rows with senior officers or facing charges of cronyism.

Some of the problems PCCs have faced in generating public support stem from the manner of their selection. As a recent study by the Electoral Reform Society lays out in forensic detail, last November’s poll provided a master class in how not to run an election. Turnout was systematically undermined by a cocktail of poor decisions and inept administration that was compounded by a total lack of information about the elections and candidates.

But PCCs’ lack of popularity cannot be put down solely to incompetent electoral administration. It has deeper, structural causes as well. Poll after poll shows that people’s concerns about crime and policing are intensely local. Voters are most worried about how their neighbourhood is policed and how the very local challenges that most affect their quality of life, such as antisocial behaviour, are tackled. Yet most police commissioners represent areas covering multiple parliamentary constituencies and in a number of cases, several counties. Their regions are often too large for them to effectively represent the very local concerns most voters have on crime.

There is a strong case for giving the public more voice in how the police are run. Polling shows that while the public admire and respect the police for the job they do, they often feel that they aren’t responsive enough to the their needs. Tellingly, surveys tell us that the police are the only public service where people’s opinion of the service falls after interacting with it. Moreover, scandals like Hillsborough and phone hacking show the importance of making the police more transparent and accountable and ending the cosy regime of de facto self regulation.

But elected Police Commissioners are not the way to do it. There are a number of other ways the police could be made more accountable to the communities they serve. For example, local people could be given a direct say in policing priorities in their neighbourhoods, extending the approach that Labour introduced in government. Or perhaps borough commanders could be made partially answerable to local councils. Or we could consider local policing boards. Approaches like these could help make the police more responsive and bring them closer to their communities, rather than adding another layer of bureaucracy. What’s more, they would allow the government to reinvest the £75m it spent on PCC elections into actual policing. This money could pay for hundreds of additional bobbies on the beat or could fund a crime-fighting grant of £10,000 to every ward in England and Wales.

Labour rightly opposed the introduction of PCCs. However, when it became clear that the government was determined to plough ahead with this ill conceived experiment, the party did the right thing thing and contested the election. Now we should do the right thing again and promise to replace them with an accountability approach that will actually work and enjoy public support. PCCs are a typically Cameroonian creation: lots of hype, little detailed thought and poor execution. The British people deserve something better. Labour should pledge to put them out of their misery.

David Pinto-Duschinsky was formerly a special adviser at the Treasury and the Home Office.