Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 2 May (HL7063), whether they have any responsibilities relating to the performance of Police and Crime Panels; and if not, to whom Police and Crime Panels are accountable.

Police and Crime Panels (PCPs) have the appropriate powers, as set out in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, to scrutinise the actions and decisions of elected Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) and enable the public to hold them to account.

The Home Office provides grant funding to support PCPs in discharging their statutory functions, as set out in the Act, ensuring effective scrutiny of PCCs.

However, as PCPs are local bodies, modelled on local authority scrutiny committees, the Government does not have direct responsibility for their performance. PCPs are accountable to the constituent local authorities within their PCC’s force area which nominate members to the Panel.