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The idea that someone independent of the main political parties could successfully win an election as a Police Commissioner without Government money is a joke. The Police Minister - Nick Herbert has said that independent candidates will not get Government money for even a single mail shot - which is something they would get for other elections. He has said that there will be a website that voters can go to in order to find out who is standing and they can request details be sent to them as required.
The Electoral Commission says that seven million people who do not have the internet will be excluded from even this information. More to the point the majority of the electorate will simply not go and look up who the candidates are. Anyone with any experience of what it takes to get elected knows this!
This is the electoral equivalent of Douglas Adam's fictional Vogon invaders telling Arthur Dent that the plans for the destruction of Earth were clearly displayed in a locked cabinet in a cellar with no light or stairs - sorry if you have not read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
More to the point - Mr Herbert must know this - he has stood for election at least twice. He must know that no one stands a chance of being elected to these posts without thousands of people knowing something about them and that to get elected to anything you have to tell people about yourself and send them information and knock on their doors and phone them. All of this the main political parties can do - anyone but the richest of independent candidates cannot.
I have stood as candidate in three small local elections (won two, lost one) - the same principles apply to bigger elections - you have to tell people about yourself and then tell them again. Mr Herbert must know what it takes to win an election so why does he dismiss the concerns of potential independent candidates?
If the Government is serious about having independent candidates with even a remote chance of winning then they should pay for at least one mailshot. Mr Herbert has claimed that this would be too expensive at £25-35 million and that we simply cannot afford this in these difficult times - but apparently we can afford to pay for the change to elected Commissioners itself in these difficult times. Does this suggest that the Government simply does not think the election process for Police Commissioners is important enough to invest in or are they content that the main political parties should be left to contest the elections - with a number of Conservatives winning of course?
More worrying is that we are drifting towards a fundamental change in the way policing is run in this country with a predicted low turnout and a lack of public interest and consultation.
We can all recognise that there is room for improving the way Police are held to account - but it is wrong to suppose that simply putting politicians from the main political parties in charge of policing is guaranteed to improve accountability. After all Mr Herbert is an elected politician and he did not seem very accountable in a recent interview with Evan Davis about the issue of likely voter turnout for the Police Commissioner elections. Aren't we going to get more of the same from any elected Commissioners?
The idea of independent minded individuals with the right skills holding Police to account on behalf of the public is a nice idea - but that's all it is - an idea. In reality it is the main political parties that will take over policing with all the problems that will bring. If you belong to a Party and you are running the Police then you are likely to work to appeal to your core voters and they may not be the ones that need the protection of the Police the most.
Police are often criticised and mistrusted - sometimes with good cause and sometimes not. What is going to happen when they are known to a run by a Party politician? They are going to be accused of acting for political motives and it will be no good going on about the Chief Constable being independent of his political boss when that boss can fire him!
The Ipsos MORI Veracity Poll puts politicians at the bottom of the table of groups people trust (or don't trust) - the police rate much higher. How is putting the least trusted group in charge going to improve public trust and accountability in policing?
I can't see things changing at all, it's just a PR exercise that will cost the country more money.
Instead a truly independent, national and top down overhauled Police Force is what's required. Not one that's going to be controlled by the same self serving Khakistocracy as before.
The Association of Police Authorities mounted a campaign against P&CCs, but was unable to generate any interest so the Coalition government got its way. Whilst I remain sceptical about the impartiality of party sponsored P&CCs, I will have the right to vote this individual into or out of office. This is not the case under the present system of appointments to Police Authorities which consists of representatives nominated by the local authority(ies), independent members, and magistrates – none of whom have ever had to seek a direct electoral mandate to sit on a Police Authority.
If Labour is returned at the next election I hope it will review the success or otherwise of the new P&CC. However, if they are to be replaced then I hope that they will not be replaced with what we have now. The Police Service should be accountable to the public, but not through the current unelected and invisible Police Authority system we currently have.
Although Lord Denning’s comments have been questioned somewhat as allowing the police far too much independence of action, he was adamant that direct political influence over operational matters was against the publics interest.
The currently Tory influenced policy that will be imposed on the nation as of November 2012, will lead I fear to latter day mini-Viscount Melbourne’s in the guise of Police & Crime Commissioners making equally questionably decisions that will undermine what confidence the public has in the police service today.
I have met and know of some very impressive people who will do their best to fulfill the role, but ultimately I feel that the current policy regarding the introduction of Police & Crime Commissioners is inadequate for all of the reasons mentioned by Bob Morgan. Further to this, ALL of the political parties have failed to explain to the public what their vision is for the policing of our society for the remainder of the 21st Century, but to some they may appear to have ‘jumped on the bandwagon’ to get their candidate voted in.
As for independence, there will be little, for the political parties I fear do not want any, and this is why it has been made virtually impossible for a true independent to compete against the campaigning machinery that the mainstream political parties possess.
Policing is, as has been said many time before "far too import and issue to be left to the police alone", but it is also far too important an issue to be left to politicians, who cannot help but get involved in trying to influence current operational matters, as was seen and heard throughout last summers disorders.
Since the earliest days of the police service direct political influence has been avoided at all cost, following the first direct attempt in a serious operational matter, during the Coldbath Fields Riots of 1833, by the Whig Home Secretary, Viscount Melbourne. The Viscount gave operational orders, that would reflect our current Home Secretary, demanding direct intervention, that led to further violence and the death of a police officer, that was, against the advice of the two Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police Sir Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne.
As recently as 1968, the doctrine of operational police independence was maintained as of great importance, by none other than Lord Denning (Master of the Rolls, 1962-1982), in the case of R v. Metropolitan Police Commissioner ex parte Blackburn, when he stated that:
“...every constable in the land, should be, and is, independent of the executive. He is not subject to the orders of the Secretary of State, save that under the Police Act 1964, the Secretary of State can call on him to give report, or retire…”
The current tripartite governance shared between the Home Secretary, Police Authority and The Chief Constable is not one that really fits in with the 21st Century, for as the Tories have rightly pointed out, neither the service itself or the Police Authorities in the main are fully engaged with the communities that they are meant to be serving.
Replacing the Police Authority with a politically elected Police & Crime Commissioner, who need not have (and in the main many of the candidates do not have), any experience in, or knowledge of the criminal justice system is not the answer either, for how can a single person lacking in any awareness of the matter in hand represent an entire geographic area, in what is thankfully now acknowledged as a very diverse society?
I am personally horrified how the Tories, and yes, even my own Liberal Democrat Party have failed to explain to the public the reality of what has been decided, which was without any electoral mandate from the public...