Scrap PCCs

Proposer
philipjohn
State

Rejected

Vote Score

-11

Age

3641 days


@philipjohn edited manifesto/crime.md - almost 10 years ago

All frontline Police officers will be equipped with personal cameras for the potential reduction in complaints and violence[^1]

Police and Crime Commissioners will be abolished and replaced with the previous system of Police Authorities comprised of local elected representatives, independent community members and magistrates.

Courts

A single, secular oath will replace the current options for witnesses in all court proceedings.

Specifically outlaw 'religious courts' and implement rigorous protection regimes for whistleblowers.

philipjohn

@philipjohn - almost 10 years ago

It's probably worth reviewing the composition of Police Authorities with this...

PaulJRobinson

@PaulJRobinson - almost 10 years ago

PCCs have yet to prove themselves but will I think after they've come up for election once or twice. I would tend towards backing a system of democratically elected (and therefore accountable) representatives over a bureaucratic and unaccountable body. 👎

philipjohn

@philipjohn - almost 10 years ago

The Police Authorities weren't simply bureaucratic and unaccountable for a start though.

PCCs have the support of a tiny fraction of the electorate and on average cost more than the Police Authorities.

I accept that the PAs could be more democratic, but PCCs are less so.

Floppy

@Floppy - almost 10 years ago

✋ because I don't know enough about PCCs or PAs to agree or disagree here, but my thoughts are: - Having elected representatives involved in policing is a good thing. - Having party politics entering policing is a very BAD thing. - So if people do stand for PCCs, they shouldn't be allowed to be a member of a political party, and party affiliations shouldn't be on the ballot.

PaulJRobinson

@PaulJRobinson - almost 10 years ago

Agree political parties shouldn't be mentioned on ballot papers. They should all be independents.

philipjohn

@philipjohn - almost 10 years ago

Thinking about this... why do we need elected governance of Police forces? Should we be re-considering whether we have regional forces too (or have we done that already)?

Floppy

@Floppy - almost 10 years ago

Barring any reorganisation of the policing system (which we can consider separately), I think having some democratic accountability is a generally good idea. Whether it should be an individual commissioner I can't say, but I'm all for having democracy in policing as long as it doesn't become party political.

Floppy

@Floppy - almost 10 years ago

An idea for improvement: rather than simply saying "replaced with the previous system", can we say what that previous system was and how the accountability aspect worked? Or, how we would want it to work if we weren't just "going back", but forward instead.

@philipjohn edited manifesto/crime.md - almost 10 years ago

All frontline Police officers will be equipped with personal cameras for the potential reduction in complaints and violence[^1]

We will work to abolish the system of Police and Crime Commissioners that garnered so little public support with a more democratic and publicy-acceptable system of accountability. One pre-requisite of any new system should be that it is unequivocally apolitical.

Courts

A single, secular oath will replace the current options for witnesses in all court proceedings.

Specifically outlaw 'religious courts' and implement rigorous protection regimes for whistleblowers.

philipjohn

@philipjohn - almost 10 years ago

Take a look at that change, which I think is a lot better and more open.

PaulJRobinson

@PaulJRobinson - almost 10 years ago

sorry I'm still 👎 given the opening line is about abolishing a democratic body and replacing it with an unaccountable one.

philipjohn

@philipjohn - almost 10 years ago

Would appreciate if you could elaborate on why you think it's unaccountable?

PaulJRobinson

@PaulJRobinson - almost 10 years ago

Sorry should have elaborated my thoughts:

PCC elections did have poor turnouts because: a) they were held in November which is at odds to normal election cycles held in May. Weather plays an big role in turnout. From now on they will all take place in May/June alongside other local/general/euro elections which is what should have happened in the first place. b) they were the first elections and so poorly understood by voters. c) Disagreements between coalition partners about the policy meant it was poorly communicated by the government.

As detailed 1.16-1.19 in http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/_data/assets/pdffile/0003/154353/PCC-Elections-Report.pdf

I don't think it is fair on the system of PCCs to say they have failed on the basis of just one election statistic. Let's judge them by the work that gets done, and whether interest in their work (ie turnout) improves at next one or two elections.

Would you propose abolishing Parliament/Councils if turnout at general/local elections continue their current negative trend?

The previous system of Police Authorities, whilst they had some elected politicians onboard, as a collective whole, were not democratically accountable. If residents were not happy with the quality of their policing for whatever reason: not enough bobbies in their neighbourhood; too many police officers sitting in cars with radar guns; numerous injustices committed against certain sections of community they could not look to anyone and have the power to kick them out of office. With PCCs they now do. Could you imagine if this was the case with the Met Police Commissioner after the Jean Charles de Menezes case? Or the Mark Duggan case? Or the Ian Tomlinson case? The Met Police Commissioner, if democratically accountable, would have been out on his ear on each occasion when up for election. But Londoners have no such power to hold the Met Police to account for their actions. Given they are the largest and most powerful police force in the country, I think this is a huge oversight with the PCC system. We should have more PCCs rather than abolishing them.

Let's give them sufficient time to prove themselves. It's far too soon to be calling it a failure. But even if it is, I wouldn't wish to go back to the Police Authority system of zero accountability.

philipjohn

@philipjohn - almost 10 years ago

"Would you propose abolishing Parliament/Councils if turnout at general/local elections continue their current negative trend?" The poor turnout is one of the prime reasons why I would love to see a complete overhaul of the system. I believe the decline in voter turnout is taking us headlong into a constitutional crisis, if we're not already there. No PCC, given they had such little support, has any mandate to carry out their policies at the moment. PCCs at the moment are operating as a side effect of a failed democratic process, not as the will of the people.

"have the power to kick them out of office" That's a complete misnomer though. The public do not have that power. They have the power to deselect their current PCC when they're next asked their opinion in a few years time (replacing with another politician no doubt), but that's it. There is no power of recall for PCCs so the idea that they can be "held to account" is devoid of anything actionable.

At least with the old PAs you had elected representatives (not just of the ruling party necessarily, reducing the risk of politicisation) sat around a table with the police force itself and working together. With PCCs you have a single individual, probably with a political ideology, enforcing that ideology of the Police, with the Chief Constable (who is likely better informed about Law and Order) incentivised to be a good little boy or girl because their entire career is subject to the whim of one ideologically-driven individual.

PaulJRobinson

@PaulJRobinson - almost 10 years ago

I'm all for introducing recall of PCCs alongside MPs!

What about the various alleged injustices committed by the Met Police that I mentioned? Do you not think Londoners should be able to kick out the Met Police Commissioner if they wanted? What has happened as a result of those incidents? Not much at all.

On 17 April 2014 20:24, philipjohn [email protected] wrote:

"Would you propose abolishing Parliament/Councils if turnout at general/local elections continue their current negative trend?" The poor turnout is one of the prime reasons why I would love to see a complete overhaul of the system. I believe the decline in voter turnout is taking us headlong into a constitutional crisis, if we're not already there. No PCC, given they had such little support, has any mandate to carry out their policies at the moment. PCCs at the moment are operating as a side effect of a failed democratic process, not as the will of the people.

"have the power to kick them out of office" That's a complete misnomer though. The public do not have that power. They have the power to deselect their current PCC when they're next asked their opinion in a few years time (replacing with another politician no doubt), but that's it. There is no power of recall for PCCs so the idea that they can be "held to account" is devoid of anything actionable.

At least with the old PAs you had elected representatives (not just of the ruling party necessarily, reducing the risk of politicisation) sat around a table with the police force itself and working together. With PCCs you have a single individual, probably with a political ideology, enforcing that ideology of the Police, with the Chief Constable (who is likely better informed about Law and Order) incentivised to be a good little boy or girl because their entire career is subject to the whim of one ideologically-driven individual.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/openpolitics/manifesto/pull/152#issuecomment-40752589 .

philipjohn

@philipjohn - almost 10 years ago

Entirely agree with you on the inconsistent treatment of the Met. Whatever the system, it has to apply across all forces, and especially the Met which has had a different system to the rest of the country for a while, and has been less accountable than PAs.