The growing need for elected police commissioners

Nicholas

"HMIC welcomes the proposed introduction of elected police commissioners"

But what do ACPO say? ACPO is supposedly "an independent, professionally led strategic body" which "In the public interest and, in equal and active partnership with Government and the Association of Police Authorities leads and coordinates the direction and development of the police service in England, Wales and Northern Ireland."

And what accountability must ACPO accept for this parlous state, given that its purpose was to improve the police service and co-ordinate the consistency of strategic direction which the report reveals is sadly lacking?

Of course we know that ACPO's interest is ACPO's rather than the public's and that the apparatchik members are having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that their New Labour sponsors and protectors are no longer in power.

Rhoda Klapp

ACPO is a racket, and should have no official role while it is also a commercial concern. Its records and activities must be subject to the FIOA if it is to be a player. If it is just a trade union for Chief Constables then that is all it should be.

Sir Graphus

Tower Hamlets have just "elected" a mayor with links to Muslim extremists.

How much closer to Sharia law would we be if Tower Hamlets elected their chief constable?

alexsandr

So who are the police authorities?

What do they do. and how do the members get on the authority?

Why cant they be elected

In2minds

Good to see ACPO being described for what it is. But there's more to this problem than just that, "the police have never been less publicly accountable for the money they spend". And again there's more as the accountability is not just financial. There's the philosophical aspect too. The police like to hide behind the public service and operational independence concept. But the former is a joke, it's all self service, and the latter is in shreds. So, a simple question, who do they serve?

Oedipus Rex

Sir Graphus - very good point.

This reminds me of the early 80s when every swivel eyed Bennite was advocating elections to almost everything - traffic wardens, probably.

Democracy is only effective with high turnout and most folk aren't going to get involved in specific policing policy arguments and details. It's an open door to corruption - as has just happened in my, until very recently, local borough of Tower Hamlets.

John I

Does anyone know when we are likely to see the first elected Commissioners?

In2minds

@Sir Graphus - Tower Hamlets is another part of 'the problem' of which leaving the police force as is, beyond accountability, is not the solution. Tower Hamlets, like the police, just spend, spend, spend. I want better from both.

Enoch was Right

The Police 'Service' needs urgent and drastic reform. At present the only service it provides is to itself - doing only what is necessary to ensure that its targets are achieved. Anything else goes by the way. All the senior officers above the rank of Inspector should at a stroke be compulsorily retired. There will then be far less impediment to the work of the elected Commissioners. (This will also take care of ACPO)
Day to day management ie proper policing of the streets can be achieved by patrol Inspectors.
The significant point here is that all senior police officers have been brainwashed and indoctrinated by the last Stasi government to ensure that they are all 'on message'. Regular attendances at the former Police College at Bramshill (now the European Police College I see) on Junior 'Command', Intermediate 'Command', Senior 'Command' courses and of course regular refreshers thereof has ensured that they are at best tools of the state.

David Raynes

Commissioners are an irrelevance. This is a key phrase from the HMIC report:

"Critically, only four authorities inspected were judged to have performed well in both setting strategic direction and ensuring value for money".

Value for money and effectivness are going to be critical. This cannot be achieved by the atavistic model of tiny County Constabularies that the Conservatives were locked into before they got in to government and which they seem to be sticking by, despite much advice to the contrary, including from the Head of ACPO.

The small forces just cannot hope to provide the specialist functions and policing necessary in the 21st century. They lack the critical mass.

The Home Office consultation documents talk grandly of cooperation between forces and imply this will lead to economies, it will not, it will lead to committee after committee to coordinate activity across force boundaries.

More effort will go into ensuring cooperation than into doing policing.

Because of lack of empowerment within Constabularies it will ensure huge amounts of time of senior Officers is used coordinating these activities.

The present plans perpetuate 43 Constabularies and 43 Police HQs, even 43 "Commissioners"! Duplication upon duplication of effort in often tiny adjoining forces.

The government apparently thinks that local policing needs local (tiny) forces on the 19th century model. It is wrong.

Strategic direction and value for money can only come about by giving all forces the critical mass to get things right, by cutting out duplication and waste and by creating a stable long term model that will last another 50 years or more.

Sir Graphus

It's not worth having an election unless there'll be a representative turnout. I learned this at university (but little else), where the idiots selling the Socialist Worker controlled the student union.

Elected police officers have to pander to the voters who can be bothered to turn out. In Tower Hamlets they might hint at a blind eye to those "enforcing" Sharia Law. Sinn Fein might win in Northern Ireland.

As I recall, all our hard left student union types had to take crap jobs in local govt because they were turned down for the much better paid jobs in the private sector. How we laughed ... but that's another debate.

Judy

As with strikes and BNP/Green Party electoral areas, the only sure solution is 100% democracy, ie the entire electorate required to vote the same way they are required to pay taxes or serve on juries. It isn't entirely foolproof; but it would prevent Islamist activists cornering the voting by their own community, and it would ensure that the whole of the entire electorate outvoted them.

It would also put an end to the plans of Bob Crow, Derek Simpson and the SWP/Trot/Old Time CP activists who dominate their activists.

And we would be far less likely to be saddled with coalitions.

Police chiefs elected by the entire electorate they serve sounds like a very good idea indeed.

No to AV!

David Lindsay

We need a return to preventative policing based on foot patrols, with budgetary sanctions against recalcitrant Chief Constables, and with Police Forces at least no larger than at present.

Those Forces must be subject to local democratic accountability. And that accountability must be though Police Authorities composed predominantly of councillors, not by means of elected sheriffs, which, like directly elected mayors, have no place in a parliamentary rather than a presidential res publica, and are wholly incompatible with the defence, restoration and extension of the powers of jurors, magistrates and parliamentarians.

As surely as elected sheriffs are incompatible with fiscal responsibility. On what sort of platform do you think that anyone would ever win any such election? On only one sort of platform, ever.

Drew

May I be allowed to introduce the elephant in the room - freemasonry. There is much evidence (try an internet search) to show that this organisation has long been the controlling force behind the police and the judiciary. Nothing will change until there is complete transparency and the public can see who is pulling the strings. Why should anyone with the power to arrest, fine and imprison people have secret connections with a secretive organisation? Any person seeking election to the post of police commissioner must openly declare their independance of this dubious outfit.

TGF UKIP

Of course ACPO is a Common Purpose body deliberately set up with Labour Party support for Gramscian reasons and to thwart any (most unlikely) alternative Home Office view.

Do not expect a Cameron lead government to confront, sideline or torpedo ACPO, though - it won't happen.

Verity

Oedipus Rex - "Democracy is only effective with high turnout and most folk aren't going to get involved in specific policing policy arguments and details."

A bafflingly dim comment. People wouldn't turn out to vote for a police chief they believed would be the best to protect their community? Again: "most folk aren't going to get involved in specific policing policy and arguments...".

Who asked them to?

See, this is why we elect a chief. The chief determines specific policy, not the voters. You seem to have a cloudy grasp of elected chiefs.

As I have bored for Britain in the past, I lived in a big city in Texas that had elected police chiefs and it was outstanding in crime control. Why? Well, the police chief wanted to be re-elected (and most elected police chiefs are strong personal believers in law and order) and the policing was outstanding. If you had a complaint about the police, you could go down to City Hall and complain, and your complaint would be taken seriously, investigated, and you would be informed of the outcome.

The police were wonderful.

Voting for police chiefs is a big issue in places lucky enough to have chiefs appointed by the public and not the political/favours/favourites system that is tethered to Common Purpose in Britain.

Your post is ill-informed on so many levels.

Dr David Lloyd

The article on Police Commissioners is so Londoncentric it is unbelievable. There exists differing systems in the UK in respect to Democratic Accountability of the police and how police authorities are structured, operate and funded. An exemplar system already exists in Wales...which unsurprisingly has missed Westminster Ministers...and they want to scrap what works incredibly well and answers to a devolved government. Not all life exists inside the M25. Authors and ministers should ventureat least once in their life to west of Offas Dyke.