Calls for police and crime commissioners to be scrapped as they cost £100m in four years
28 April 2023, 07:09 | Updated: 28 April 2023, 10:24
Police and Crime Commissioners in England and Wales have cost the taxpayer more than £100 million pounds since 2019, according to figures seen by LBC.
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The Liberal Democrats are now calling for the roles to be scrapped, claiming the money would be better spent on community policing.
Freedom of Information requests by the party revealed Welsh taxpayers have paid more than £14 million for the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner in Dyfed-Powys between 2019 and 2022.
Spending £100 million on staffing and supporting PCCs is simply not a good use of taxpayers' money at a time when we have seen a huge drop in community police officers
The West Midlands PCC spent almost £8 million in the same period to employ staff, on office running costs and expenses.
Sarah Olney MP, the Liberal Democrat treasury spokesperson, told LBC: "I agree local police forces need independent scrutiny but we think that would be better provided by a local police board, made up of people appointed from across the community.
"Spending £100 million on staffing and supporting PCCs is simply not a good use of taxpayers' money at a time when we have seen a huge drop in community police officers.
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"That sort of money would be much better spent hiring more police officers and particularly community police officers. Frankly, Police and Crime Commissioners have become a waste of money."
I think the call is remarkably ill-judged. A part of me thinks the grapes taste very sour that they haven't managed to achieve getting a Liberal Democrat Police and Crime Commissioner anywhere in England and Wales
More than 1,200 police community support officers have been lost across England and Wales since 2019, while one Police and Crime Commissioner was found to be employing three staff members to run their social media account.
The chairman of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners - and Conservative PCC for Lincolnshire - Marc Jones, defended the role, though, telling LBC the Lib Dems are "sour" for not having won a PCC election.
Mr Jones said: "I think the call is remarkably ill-judged. A part of me thinks the grapes taste very sour that they haven't managed to achieve getting a Liberal Democrat Police and Crime Commissioner anywhere in England and Wales.
"They don't seem to understand the complexity of the role, the things that we do.
"If you did away with PCCs you would simply transfer the function of the office and all the people with it to something else - it would be no saving whatsoever.
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"It would just be massively disruptive to local services that really make a difference to people's lives. It's beyond ill-judged, it's irresponsible."
Earlier this week, the government celebrated the recruitment of 20,000 police officers since 2019 - a pledge they’d made in their manifesto.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman described it as an "historic moment" for the country.
But she faced criticism from opposition parties who claimed the Uplift Programme was more of a ‘replacement programme’ to bring officer numbers back to pre-austerity levels.
The Police Federation appeared to back the call from the Lib Dems to consider scrapping political Police and Crime Commissioners, telling LBC it was "concerned" that so much money had been spent on them.
Its national chair Steve Hartshorn said: "Naturally the Police Federation of England and Wales is concerned about the cost of a £100 million pounds spent since 2019 on what looks like office costs and expenses in relation to PCCs.
"In light of the recent comments which begin with 'Maintaining public confidence that requires the police to be seen as politically impartial' by the Home Secretary, it is a fact that the vast majority of PCCs are Conservative."
He said: "So the question is will we now see PCCs disbanded and a non-political oversight process introduced? This is part of a bigger set of questions about policing which should be addressed by a Royal Commission so that the public, businesses, police officers and other stakeholders can have a say in what the 21st century police service is for them and should be."
