Police and Crime Panels

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Bach for bringing this important topic of debate here today. The tripartite structure of police accountability, whereby the governance of policing was until 2012 a responsibility shared between the Home Secretary, chief constable and the relevant police authority, was disassembled by the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, following widespread criticism. The deficiencies of the tripartite structure were inflamed by the strong and persistent criticisms directed at police authorities, widely considered the weakest link.

It was noted at the time that one major reason why police and crime commissioners were established was to create greater engagement with the public, and stronger accountability and transparency within our local policing systems. So the Home Secretary has retreated from day-to-day policing matters, leaving responsibility for police governance and accountability between the PCC, PCP and chief constable. Every PCC, PCP and chief constable in each police area in Wales and England is required to have an effective, constructive working relationship.

In carrying out their functions, PCCs are required to have regard for the views of local people within their policing area. They are also required to issue a police and crime plan and keep it under review. In forming this plan, the PCC is also required to take account of a number of issues, including consultation with the chief constable, while taking regard of any report or recommendation from the PCP. The PCC holds the chief constable to account not only for the exercise of their functions but for eight specified criteria.

Updated guidance was produced for police, fire and crime panels in January this year. Within its focus was a commitment to strengthen the accountability of police and crime commissioners and expand their role, together with the need for better guidance and training for panels, which policing stakeholders have regularly highlighted as an important area to address and a weakness within the structure.

One always hopes that training will help by enabling panels to perform their role more effectively, but also by providing constructive support and that very important challenge to PCCs: acting as the critical friend where needed. Panels have a pivotal role in the current model of police accountability, as they are solely responsible for supporting, scrutinising, providing and maintaining a regular check and balance.

The critical friend role is increasingly important, and the statutory role of panel members—to scrutinise decisions and actions taken by the PCC, review the plan and annual report, resolve non-criminal complaints about the conduct of the commissioner, and make recommendations to the commissioner as needed—is extremely important. I recognise that very many panel members across the UK take their roles seriously, as indeed did my former colleagues at Newport City Council who served diligently as panel members for the Gwent PCP, working with the Gwent commissioner, Jeff Cuthbert, and the excellent chief constable, Pam Kelly. However, there are significant concerns that the critical friend aspect and the holding to account need to be strengthened.

Given the key role of PCPs, a number of reports and reviews have questioned their effectiveness. The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee in 2014 noted that there was no national standard as to how PCPs work and warned that some members struggled to understand their powers and role. Indeed, in my reading for today’s debate, some were highlighted as powerless and compared to a “crocodile with rubber teeth”.

PCPs are nothing more than a symbolic function if they do not properly discharge their scrutiny role. If commissioners are not benefiting from scrutiny by PCPs, there may be limited accountability between elections, as current governance arrangements make PCPs exclusively responsible for scrutinising and providing checks and balances. That may cause unintended consequences, such as in the exercise of accountability, with the governance of policing reactive to the one-to-one accountability relationship between commissioners and chief constables. That one-to-one is problematic, possibly unpredictable and, in the absence of panels being effective and credible, potentially unproductive.

I turn to another issue already mentioned by noble Lords: the low turnout in police and crime commissioner elections. It is a concern and demonstrates that the remit is not being totally fulfilled by commitment from and with the wider public. In 2012, turnout was 15.1%; it went up in 2016 to 27.4%; and in 2021 it was 33.9%. It is going in the right direction but is woefully short of democratic engagement. What are the Government doing to ensure that the system of police and crime commissioners and the panels which hold them to account have the democratic endorsement of the public?

My noble friend Lord Bach has asked some searching and probing questions today, but I will add to them a little. Will the Minister address the ongoing concern about party politics getting in the way of scrutiny? Can he answer on how many panel chairs are of the same political party as the commissioners whom they must hold to account? The Government brought in guidance last spring to create better accountability for the panels. Can the Government say yet whether this has had any impact on their functioning, or whether the Government plan to report back on its implementation?