It’s time to abolish Police and Crime Commissioners

When the idea of having Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) first arose it seemed so promising. These would be locally elected candidates, tough and charismatic and they’d be given the power needed to transform the country. Bureaucrats have taken control of British policing, said David Cameron at the time, and cops should be dealing with anti-social crime not fining motorists. PCCs were the local heroes who would revive proper policing, and hold bad police to account. 

At the Conservative conference in 2011, the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, declared that the commissioners would be ‘powerful public figures’ of ‘the highest calibre’ who would ‘make the police truly accountable to the people’. 

More than a decade later, as voters in local elections prepare to chose new police and crime commissioners, what happened to those high hopes? What happened to the great policing reform that the PCCs were supposed to deliver? The commissioners have neither captured the popular imagination nor presided over a programme of major police reform.