Concerns about the Police and Crime Commissioners

The UK's police and crime commissioners voted in today are the replacement for the police authorities, singular locally elected leaders to replace the previously less transparent bodies - as committed to in the Coalition Agreement.

While they offer an increase in democratic control, these elections also expose key public services to partisan politics. The Liberal Democrats, though junior partners in the government, have none the less expressed some concerns and even some opposition to the commissioners (Tall, 2012).

On the opposition benches, Labour have also expressed concern. Their worries centre on partisan elected police commissioners opening the police to privatisation (Wintour, 2012) - and as such are standing their candidates with a commitment to transparency in all of their commissioners' meetings to prevent secret deals.

The Conservative Minister for Policing, Mr Damien Green, has been attempting to reassure voters that the elected position would serve to end the cosy relationships at the top of police forces (Travis & Perkins, 2012). There was also a promise of an oath of impartiality for elected commissioners to prevent partisanship.

An oath is simply not a good enough fall-back. There are real concerns that have not been addressed in making Police Commissioners elected - concerns that are not improved by establishing a singular elected party-partisan figurehead. With turnouts at the polls expected to be low and concerns remaining unaddressed, it might have been better for police commissioners to go back to the drawing board.

But election day has arrived. It remains to be seen if the expected poor turnout forces a rethink.

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References:
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+ Stephen Tall's '76% of Lib Dems reject elected police commissioners - but 73% want there to be Lib Dem candidates'; on libdemvoice.org; 8 November 2012.

+ Patrick Wintour's 'Yvette Cooper: Labour police chiefs won't cut secret deals on privatisation'; in The Guardian; 9 November 2012.

+ Alan Travis & Anne Perkins' 'Police commissioner elections will end cosy relations with officials - minister'; in The Guardian; 12 November 2012.