Received by email overnight from Theresa May, Home Secretary
Dear Nigel,
Today we unveiled radical new reforms to put the public back at the heart of our drive to cut crime, and give people more influence over their local communities.
For the first time you will have a real say in how your local area is policed through directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners. From May 2012 these Commissioners will replace faceless police authorities and they will set goals and priorities for their police forces according to the wishes of the public who elect them.
On top of this, we are strengthening the powers that police and councils have to tackle crime and, in particular, alcohol-related disorder.
We are putting in place these changes because, for too long, the fight against crime has been tangled up in a web of centrally imposed red tape, driving a wedge between the police and their local communities.
Under Labour the police were behind desks, not out on the streets; they were chasing targets, not fighting crime. As the former chair of the Police Federation said, because of 'Government diktats, the service has been reduced to a bureaucratic, target-chasing, points-obsessed arm of Whitehall'.
Instead, our reforms will help make the police more visible, available, and accountable - putting the public back at the heart of policing.
NF adds: I think I've had a lucky escape. Last year I applied to become a member of Humberside's Policy Authority, but they didn't think I fitted the Bill (ha! ha!). Now the Home Secretary says "faceless police authorities" are on the way out. She makes reference to "putting the public back at the heart of policing" to which I'll respond by asking whether, in that case, she's going to give us back our quarterly Brigg Neighbourhood Police Public Meetings in the Angel Suite, so recently cancelled by the existing regime in Humberside. As Ms May is a Conservative like Andrew Percy, our new MP, we'll ask him to take up this point on behalf of the community in Brigg. We know he follows Brigg Blog, but if he happens to miss this posting, Coun Nigel Sherwood and Coun Carl Sherwood will, we are sure, bring it to Andrew's attention.
Hands up who fancies becoming a Police and Crime Commissioner!
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3 comments:
There is a real danger that we could have an American-style police States with the Sheriff being elected, rather than attaining status on merit.
Allowing the local public to dictate policing priorities can offer an open door to political action groups/self-interest groups having a disproportionate influence on police working.
In addition, communities seem to view concerns on what is the 'flavour of the month' - rather than medium/long-term crime fighting stategy. As such, vociferious groups can influence, for instance, police to fight dog-fouling in specific areas, instead of tackling crime on the local housing estate.
I just wondering how and by whom these proposed Police Commissioners are elected.
Will candidates be sponsored by political groups, trade unions, or NIMBY groups.
Will they be elected on single-issue concerns, such as a proposed bail hostel being opened in the neighbourhood.
Collectively, police have to be apolitical, but what guarentees will be given that PC are not national, or local political puppets? And will they represent the policing concerns forf the whole community, or just act in the interests of a self-selecting few?
The policy of directly-elected Police and Crime Commissioners isn't very good. Simply moving to a directly-elected Police Authorities would increase the legitimacy of the existing structures, while avoiding the problems that could come from a single individual.
If elected by a simple plurality vote, most residents of an area will end up with a Commissioner that they *didn't* vote for. That might not be a problem in Parliament where members are balanced by other members, but a single individual being granted powers on less than 50% of the vote?
It's a recipe for somebody to be elected on a hard line platform, as they only have to appeal to the problem of crime, not to other issues surrounding it. An example of this is actually "alcohol-related disorder", mentioned by May. It is probably best tackled by a combination policing, licensing and incentives where a problem exists. But if a commissioners only have the powers to control policing, then we'll see a very lopsided response.
I'm not hopeful.
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