The Gwent Police force area is to have an elected commissioner from November 2012 after a new law was passed.
Despite opposition from the Welsh Government, Gwent Police Authority and political parties, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill was granted Royal Assent last week – meaning it will become law.
From November 2012, Gwent Police Authority, which oversees policing in Gwent, will be replaced by a directly elected Police and Crime Commissioner.
Responding to the reform, Gwent Police Authority Chair Cilla Davies said: “The authority, and indeed the Welsh Government, the Welsh Local Government Association, policing professionals and the House of Lords all opposed the plans to introduce this new system.
“However following the Bill’s Royal assent, all police authority members are totally committed to ensuring that the public of Gwent continue to receive the best possible police service during the transition period. We will continue to work diligently to provide a smooth and positive transition from Police Authority to Police Commissioner, leaving the best legacy possible.
“Over the years Gwent Police Authority can be proud of a record which has helped to ensure that Gwent Police delivers the best possible service. There are many challenges currently facing Policing, not least finance, and over the next 14 months Gwent Police Authority will continue to play a full and constructive role in addressing these.”
This may be good news, only time will tell. It strikes me as a good, democratic, way of bringing accountability to the police force. The current system involves the appointment of a police authority whose members are unknown to the vast majority of the population and cannot be removed by them.
Whoever gets elected will, necessarily, have to be well known by the general public. This makes it possible that policing priorities will have to follow those of the people who pay for the police. In other words, we, the voters. This system works well in the USA and elsewhere, a good commissioner will be retained, a poor one will be dismissed by the people.
This IS good news.
But the devil will be in the detail of course.
Election fixed for late 2012 I understand?, that should give those who aspire to the new role time to get their act together, even if they have already expressed opposition to the creation of these roles. It will be very interesting to see who can eventually portray a populist agenda, and what those adgenda are, to win our vote.
When police commissioners arrive, the resource-intensive, low performance, culture of British policing will at long last get a democratic makeover. They should introduce accountability into a frontline public service, and, a poke in the eye for complacent chief constables. The public’s/local citizens, priorities might, for once, get a look in. Where political influences are now allowed to intrude into local policing priorities by the actions of local police managers, these should be consigned to the dustbin.
Local policing can only be improved by an active and independent Commissioner who will be prepared to ensure the `Dog wags the tail` and not the other way around, or, of course he or she would be booted out at election time and replaced by someone who actually promises to do that.
The simple fact is Her Majesty is being made the villan of the piece here, when if fact she has not personnelly given the assent since the 1960's a committee of 5 government appointed peers give the assent in her name. Needless to say they will always give the assent to every government bill.