Jeremy Rowe

Police Commissioners 6 September, 2011

Cornwall Council debated an obscure-looking recommendation from the Electoral Review Panel this morning which would have made provision for the authority’s Chief Executive to take the job of Returning Officer for next year’s proposed Devon & Cornwall Police Commissioner elections. After a surprisingly long debate the Council voted against the proposals and in favour of an amendment which hopes to toughen the authority’s position on policing and ‘Devonwall’ in general.

Parliament is due to debate the provisions of the Policing bill next week, which include the abolition of the existing police authorities and their replacement with directly elected ‘Commissioners’. I am still struggling to understand why the government want to waste time and money on something so completely unnecessary and potentially counterproductive. The idea is particularly damaging for Cornwall as whichever politician wins next year’s proposed vote is almost certain to come from our larger neighbour, Devon.

There is also the question of what the government expect us to gain from a directly elected commissioner. They would tell you that it will improve accountability, but it will surely become a muscle-flexing exercise between the different party machines, inflicting the same curse of short-term thinking which now infects much of our political processes.

No one seems to recognise that the current system – a Police Authority made up of a mix of Councillors and independent members – actually works quite well. Yes, it has its faults, but no one has yet made the case for a Politician-Commissioner holding the sort of powers so poorly exercised by Boris Johnson in London.