Police accountability is now on the agenda of both of the main political parties: the Tories are promising to bring in elected police commissioners, while Labour has proposed giving ‘directly elected representatives’ the power to set local policing priorities.
The case for greater local accountability is strong. First, it is an important way of making the police service more responsive. Public confidence in the police is lower today than it was in the late 1990s – despite record investment and the highest ever number of police officers. This drop in confidence is closely linked to a growing perception that the police have become decreasingly responsive to citizens’ everyday concerns about crime.
The government’s response has been to introduce neighbourhood policing – each local area having a dedicated team of constables and police community support officers (PCSOs), out on regular patrol and taking a ‘problem solving’ approach to tackling crime. Early pilots have shown promising results and certainly the word from both the police and local authorities is that neighbourhood policing is having an impact on public confidence.
But having more ‘bobbies on the beat’ is only part of the solution: the fact is that local policing priorities continue to be set several steps removed from local people. Most of what officers spend their time doing is dictated by the need to meet Whitehall performance targets, which introduces an extraordinary degree of inflexibility into policing. In a recent speech Sir Ian Blair disclosed that almost every borough police commander in London has told him that their priorities would be completely different if they were set locally as opposed to being set by the home secretary. Even with neighbourhood policing there is a responsiveness gap.
But there is a second argument for accountability as well which is that we need robust mechanisms to hold chief constables to account for their performance. At the moment this is done through central targets which are far too inflexible and have often resulted in unintended outcomes on the ground. If we are to replace this centralised regime, we need powerful local agents capable of appraising police performance and ensuring delivery.
So, what is to be done? The proposal for elected police commissioners has its merits: there would be a clear electoral mandate which if combined with effective powers would ensure the public know who is responsible for policing and could hold them to account accordingly.
The problem with force-level accountability is that many police forces are very large – introducing accountability at this level would leave decision-making being made at a remote distance from local people’s concerns. An alternative would be to abolish police authorities and give local authorities the powers to set local policing priorities. This would introduce much more local responsiveness, but would require a radical overhaul of national policing structures.
In our new report ippr argues that it would be wrong to impose a ‘one size fits all’ model across the country: what might suit a small rural force like Warwickshire might not suit a large city like Liverpool or Birmingham. Far better to let local areas develop their own bespoke solutions.
Whatever new institutions are set up it is vital that they are given real powers. There are three in particular that are crucial: the power to control some of the police budget, the power to set local community policing priorities and the power to influence the appointment and appraisal of senior police officers. Without these powers local representatives would be unable to change the way their areas are policed and public confidence would be further undermined.