House of Commons Home Affairs Committee Police and Crime Commissioners: progress to date Sixteenth Report of Session 2013–14 Report, together with oral evidence Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 30 April 2014 HC 757 Published on 5 May 2014 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £0.00 Home Affairs Committee The Home Affairs Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Home Office and its associated public bodies. Current membership Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP (Labour, Leicester East) (Chair) Ian Austin MP (Labour, Dudley North) Nicola Blackwood MP (Conservative, Oxford West and Abingdon) James Clappison MP (Conservative, Hertsmere) Michael Ellis MP (Conservative, Northampton North) Paul Flynn MP (Labour, Newport West) Lorraine Fullbrook MP (Conservative, South Ribble) Dr Julian Huppert MP (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge) Yasmin Qureshi MP (Labour, Bolton South East) Mark Reckless MP (Conservative, Rochester and Strood) Mr David Winnick MP (Labour, Walsall North) The following Members were also members of the Committee during the Parliament. Rt Hon Alun Michael (Labour & Co-operative, Cardiff South and Penarth) Karl Turner MP (Labour, Kingston upon Hull East) Steve McCabe MP (Labour, Birmingham Selly Oak) Bridget Phillipson MP (Labour, Houghton and Sunderland South) Chris Ruane MP (Labour, Vale of Clwyd) Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publication Committee reports are published on the Committee’s website at http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons- select/home-affairs-committee/publications/ by The Stationary Office by Order of the House. Evidence relating to this report is published on the Committee’s website at http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons- select/home-affairs-committee/inquiries/parliament-2010/police-and-crime- commissioners1/ Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Tom Healey (Clerk), Robert Cope (Second Clerk), Duma Langton (Committee Specialist), Dr Ruth Martin (Committee Specialist), Andy Boyd (Senior Committee Assistant), Iwona Hankin (Committee Assistant) and Alex Paterson (Select Committee Media Officer). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Home Affairs Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 2049; the Committee’s email address is [email protected]. Police and Crime Commissioners: progress to date 1 Contents Report Page 1 Introduction 3 PCCs and the public 3 Training and transition 5 Register of PCCs’ disclosable interests 6 2 The work of commissioners to date 8 Collaborative working 8 Transparency 11 Appointment of deputy and assistant commissioners 13 Target setting and crime statistics 15 Support for victims 18 Commissioner-led campaigns 19 Overall effectiveness of commissioners to date 19 3 The relationship between commissioners and chief constables 21 Holding chief constables to account 21 The process for the removal of a chief constable 24 4 Scrutiny of commissioners by police and crime panels 28 The developing role of panels 28 Strengthening the role of panels 31 Panel resources 33 Annex: Register of police and crime commissioners’ disclosable interests 34 Conclusions and recommendations 45 Formal Minutes 51 Witnesses 52 Published written evidence 54 List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament 56 Police and Crime Commissioners: progress to date 3 1 Introduction 1. The introduction of police and crime commissioners (PCCs) marked a major change to the governance of policing in England and Wales. During this Parliament, the Committee has taken an active interest both in the development of the Government’s proposals, and aspects of the work of PCCs since their election.1 This Report examines the work of the commissioners during their first 18 months in office. It considers their effectiveness to date in, for example, engaging the public and developing collaborative ways of working. It also looks at the relationships they have developed with their chief constables, including commissioners’ power to hire and fire, which has attracted significant controversy. In addition, we make recommendations to strengthen the role of police and crime panels so that they are better able to scrutinise the work of PCCs. PCCs and the public 2. One of the main aims of the PCC reforms was to introduce democratic accountability to the determination of local policing priorities—as the Home Office told us: “We have put policing back in the hands of the public”.2 A number of our witnesses emphasised the benefit of vesting in an individual, or “go-to person” as the Chief Constable for Thames Valley put it, the power to set those priorities, and in so doing, providing a clarity of leadership that was not present under the former police authorities.3 For example, the Lincolnshire PCC told us: “I can promote local policing priorities because, unlike police authorities, I know what they are”.4 Elsewhere, the Sussex PCC said: “ultimately you want somebody who can make a decision. If the public don’t like the decisions […] they can make their voice heard at the ballot box”.5 3. The turn-out for the PCC elections in November 2012 was exceptionally low. It ranged from just 11.6 per cent in Staffordshire, to 19.5 per cent in Northamptonshire, and averaged 15.1 per cent across England and Wales. Several factors contributed to the low turn-out, including the darker evenings and bad weather associated with the time of year, the lack of a freepost mailing for candidates, and the timing outside of the normal electoral cycle.6 Furthermore, a large proportion of the electorate did not understand what they were voting for. As the Cambridgeshire PCC put it: “I spent all of my time not asking people to vote for me, but telling people what the job was all about”.7 The PCC for Bedfordshire summed up the turn-out for the elections as “little short of calamitous”.8 Not only has it 1 Home Affairs Committee, Second Report of Session 2010-12, Policing: Police and Crime Commissioners, HC 511; First Report of Session 2012-13, Police and Crime Commissioners: Register of Interests, HC 69; and Sixth Report of Session 2012-13, Police and Crime Commissioners: power to remove Chief Constables, HC 487 2 PCC0001 (Home Office), para 1 3 Qq 82 (Sir Hugh Orde, Association of Chief Police Officers), 232 (Chief Constable for Thames Valley), 363 (Policy Exchange), 447 (Local Government Association), and 541 (Chair of the Surrey Police and Crime Panel) 4 PCC0031 (Police and Crime Commissioner for Lincolnshire), para 6.1 5 Q 226 (Police and Crime Commissioner for Sussex) 6 Qq 46 (Police and Crime Commissioner for Cambridgeshire), and 462 (Local Government Association) 7 Ibid. 8 PCC0040 (Police and Crime Commissioner for Bedfordshire), para 10 4 Police and Crime Commissioners: progress to date raised a legitimate concern as to whether the commissioners have a sufficient mandate on which to set policing priorities for their areas, it also fails to reflect the extent to which the general public is interested in policing issues.9 4. Since the elections, however, public awareness of police and crime commissioners has increased greatly. In their evidence a number of witnesses quoted the results of a poll carried out by ComRes for the BBC, which found that 62 per cent of people were aware that they had a PCC for their area. They contrasted this with previous research showing that only seven per cent of the general public were aware of the old police authorities.10 Many commissioners attributed the greater level of awareness in part to the work they have undertaken to engage with the public since taking office. We heard a number of examples in this respect. The West Yorkshire PCC told us he had met hundreds of people and a large number of community groups in the course of his work, and ran a monthly public perception survey, which received 15,000 responses in its first year.11 The Thames Valley PCC said: “I have a huge number of meetings, I go to all the councils, and I have public meetings in every area”, while the Staffordshire PCC claimed to have engaged face-to-face with over 12,000 people in the county since January 2013.12 5. Some commissioners highlighted the level of correspondence they received as an example of the extent to which public awareness of PCCs has increased. For instance, the Kent PCC told us she had received almost 9,000 pieces of correspondence since taking office, compared to a handful a week when she was chair of the Kent Police Authority.13 The Avon and Somerset PCC told us she received 20 times more correspondence than the defunct authority had in its last year of existence.14 Greater public awareness of the work of commissioners has been demonstrated in other ways. The Sussex PCC reported regular viewing figures of 500 for the live webcast of her accountability meetings with the chief constable, whilst the West Midlands PCC told us more than 700 people had watched the streaming of a recent road safety forum.15 6. Unfortunately, public awareness of commissioners has stemmed not only from conscious engagement work, but also from a number of adverse media stories concerning their activities. These have included the controversial removal of chief constables, the hiring