Police and crime commissioners to be scrapped

Police and crime commissioner (PCC) roles are to be abolished, it has been announced.

The 41 elected officials in England and Wales, who get paid between £73,300 and £101,900 a year, will continue until the end of the current term in 2028. Their powers will then be transferred to elected mayors "wherever possible" and council leaders, who will lead new policing and crime boards.

The transfer to regional mayors will bring other areas in line with London, where the mayor oversees the Metropolitan Police and holds its operational head to account. Politics latest: Investigation demanded into PM's comms chief's lobbying links At least £100m will be saved by the end of this parliament in 2029 through scrapping the roles - enough to fund about an extra 320 police constables a year, policing minister Sarah Jones said.

"The model has failed to live up to expectations," she told the House of Commons. She said PCCs do important work and thanked all those who have held the office, as well as their staff, but said the model "has weakened local police accountability and has had perverse impacts on the recruitment of chief constables".

Ms Jones also said less than a quarter of voters turned out to vote for them last year, and two in five people are unaware they even exist. She said there are no plans to create mayors in Wales in order to transfer PCC powers to them.

First elected in 2012, PCCs oversee non-operational aspects of policing, such as managing their local policing budgets and holding the chief constable to account. Introduced by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government, they replaced police authorities.

Although candidates can stand as part of a political party, police and crime commissioners (PCCs) are required to swear an oath of impartiality before taking office. Former Dorset PCC Martyn Underhill, also a former police officer, told Sky News he welcomed the news and said he stepped down in 2021 after two terms because "I didn't think it was working".

He said the mayoral model is a "better version" because they can bring in experts, but said he was concerned for the areas that do not have mayors. Mr Underhill said he does not support elected people holding policing to account "because it becomes too political" - and said it was "rubbish" that PCCs are able to set budgets, because he was "dictated to by the central government".

Read more:How No 10 plunged itself into crisis ahead of perilous budget 'Tinkering around the edges' Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp accused the government of "tinkering around the edges" as he said they are "failing on crime and policing". "It is simply rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic," he added.

He said his government had already begun transferring PCC roles to mayors, but questioned how that is superior to PCCs and said it "won't really save any money". The Lib Dems' shadow attorney general Ben Maguire said his party welcomed the announcement and had been calling for PCCs to be scrapped for years, calling it a "failed Tory experiment which cost taxpayers dearly".

But he said transferring their roles to mayors "is not the answer" as he said it would give "even more power to single individuals with dubious democratic mandates and little scrutiny or accountability". Ms Jones thanked his "robust attack on a policy that his own party introduced as part of the coalition"..