According to Herbert, the policing and criminal justice minister at the Home Office, change is needed because the current model of police authorities is not working well enough.
The minister pointed to statistics showing only four out of 22 of those forces inspected have been assessed as ‘performing well’ in their most important functions.
Only 7% of the public understand they can approach their police authority if they’re dissatisfied with local policing.
“They may be doing a worthy job, and I thank authority members for their commitment, but this democratic deficit cannot continue,” said the minister.
The much-discussed police and crime commissioners will replace police authorities. Democratically elected by the public, they will return power to ‘people and communities’.
“These new commissioners will be big local figures with a powerful local mandate to drive the fight against crime and anti-social behaviour,” continued Herbert.
“They will decide policing strategy and set the force budget, set the local council tax precept and appoint – and, if necessary, dismiss – the chief constable on behalf of the public.”
Checks and balances in place
There are safeguards to make sure that too much power is not handed to one individual. Police and crime panels will include representatives from local authorities and scrutinise the actions of commissioners.
Forces will remain under the control of their chief constables, ensuring that the police retain their operational independence.
This means they will not direct individual officers or tell them ‘how to do their job, who to arrest and where to be’
Concluding his speech, Herbert said that reforms are an ‘essential’ if Whitehall’s bureaucratic control is to come to an end.
“I accept that police authorities will be the losers since they will be abolished, but I believe that everyone else will gain.”
Elected police commissioners
On Monday, Herbert wrote on the issue of elected police commissioners in The Telegraph newspaper. Here’s what he had to say…
Do you know who runs your local police force? They are supposed to be held to account by police authorities, but how many people could name their chairman?
A recent survey found that a typical authority receives barely two letters a week from the public. Over the years, the police have become estranged from the municipalities from which they sprang and increasingly look to the Home Office. But they are a monopoly service and officers must be accountable for their actions and performance.
Far better, surely, that they should answer to local communities than to box-ticking officials in Whitehall?
As a Government, we are axeing policing targets, scrapping unnecessary forms and ditching the so-called ‘Policing Pledge’. The aim of these reforms is to restore professional discretion. We want cops to be crime fighters, not form writers.
What we also need is to swap bureaucratic control for democratic accountability and, this week, legislation to do just that is due to complete its progress through the Commons.
The Bill replaces police authorities with directly elected police and crime commissioners for the 41 forces in England and Wales (the City of London is an exception and London already has its Mayor).
From the first elections in May next year, the public will have a real say over how their area is policed.
Powerful mandate to fight crime
These new commissioners will be big local figures with a powerful mandate to drive the fight against crime and anti-social behaviour. They will have a broad remit to ensure community safety, with budgets to prevent crime, tackle drugs and work with local authorities and agencies.
In future, their role could be extended to other elements of the local criminal justice system, ensuring that the police and those who manage offenders operate together in working to break the cycle of crime.
Commissioners aren’t an American idea. We don’t need to look across the Atlantic to see that an elected individual holding the police to account is popular. In London, Mayor Boris Johnson has delivered on his pledges to tackle knife crime and put uniformed officers on public transport. He has committed to keeping cops on the streets.
Strikingly, at a time when most forces have frozen recruitment, the Met is about to begin hiring officers again. How many Londoners would prefer their police force to answer to an invisible committee?
Our critics say that elections will politicise the police – a peculiar argument when you consider that any Home Secretary is an elected politician and a leading member of the governing party.
But if the police aren’t to answer to an elected representative of the people, who exactly will they answer to?
Police must remain operationally independent
It’s fundamental to our system that the police must remain operationally independent. No politician can tell a constable – a sworn officer of the crown – who to arrest. Forces will continue to be under the ‘direction and control’ of their chief constable and a new protocol will ensure this is the case.
But elected police and crime commissioners will give the public a voice in how they are policed, setting the long-term strategy for the force and its budget, and appointing the chief constable.
In turn, chief officers will be liberated to be crime fighters rather than Government managers.
Some say that too much power will be vested in a single commissioner, but that argument ignores the strict checks and balances we are putting in place, including local Police and Crime Panels comprising representatives from each local authority as well as independent members to scrutinise the commissioner’s actions.
We will demand transparency in a system that already has significant safeguards, with Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, an Independent Police Complaints Commission and national checks to ensure the integrity of local crime figures.
Another concern often voiced is that extremists will be elected – even BNP candidates. This is nonsense: they polled just 2% of the national vote in the General Election.
The same disreputable arguments – that you can’t rely on people to make the right decisions – were advanced against votes for women.
Dig deeper and what you find is an elitist fear that elected commissioners might actually reflect public concern and pledge to get tough on crime. It’s strange that so many democrats are wary of democracy.
We can – and should – trust the people
For my part, I believe that we can and should trust the people. As David Cameron said recently, we have the finest police service in the world and should be proud of this British institution and protect what is best in it.
We also need to ensure that the police are able to meet today’s challenges and command broad public support.
Sir Robert Peel, the founder of modern policing, said that: “The police are the public and the public are the police”.
Under our reforms, forces will continue to be run by chief constables – but their legitimacy depends on the principle that the police must answer to the people they serve.
