In the eight months since the election of the 41 Police and Crime Commissioners across England and Wales, the relationship between Chief Constable and Police and Crime Commissioner has varied from the positive and warm to the down right hostile in different areas. In some cases this has led to costly Court cases which will ultimately be paid for by local people as Police numbers are cut in order to make budgets balance. The Chief Constables are all part of an organisation known as the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). The head of ACPO, Sir Hugh Orde had arranged a meeting with Theresa May to discuss the concerns of his members. According to this report Ms May cancelled the date due to some urgent constituency business and she has yet to offer a new date to the senior Police Officer. Clearly he and his colleagues must feel disappointed, and lacking support. 

The story also raises concerns that the Home Secretary may have been unable to fulfil other Minsterial responsibilities, one presumes her role as Minister for Women and Equalities has also suffered. However it must be reassuring for the electors of Maidenhead that as a local MP Ms May understands who she is accountable to. When challenged about PCCs by MPs, Ms May said the office had been established to “reflect the voices of local people in local policing” and it was ultimately for the electorate to determine if they had been successful. This yet again points towards a focus on local electors being in the driving seat on such matters.

Historically the role of Home Secretary was a very powerful one in the context of Policing and at one time where the relationship between a Home Secretary and a Senior Police Officer broke down, the Home Secretary would act and remove Senior Police Officers. This reportedly happened in Sussex when David Blunkett acted to sack Paul Whitehouse following a tragic operation in Hastings which led to the death of an unarmed man. This lack of focus by Ms May a mere 8 months into these new roles, along with her comments about local elctors shows that we are in very different territory to the days when Policing was organised in a tri-partite manner. Previously the three Parties were the Police Authority, Home Secretary and Chief Constable. Local People were represented by the Police Authority (half the members were elected Councillors) and indirectly through the Home Secretary.

If this story was merely about who sacks who, then perhaps it would have all the importance of a dog bites man story. However as was made clear at the time of the November PCC elections, the Chief Constable remains soley responsible for operational policing. The need for senior police officers to be effectively linked to the Home Office in terms of the operational aspects of their work is vital. If this relationship has begun to break down over employment processes, there is a risk that the safety of our nation is also vulnerable. We cannot have Chief Constables in meetings with their PCC on a day when the Home Secretary wants to discuss national security. There is also a challenge for areas where the PCC is not of the same political party as the current Home Secretary if the only way of securing meetings in Marsham Street (the Home Office HQ) is through the use of the Party structures.

Let us hope that Ms May will use the Summer to re-arrange the meeting with Hugh and that by the time she returns to the Commons on 2nd September, all has been resolved with the Chief Constables. The people who need to intervene if not will be the PCCs (clearly not those who are in dispute with their own Chief Constable). The risk is that the Conservative PCCs won’t want to upset the future leader of the Party, and that Theresa May won’t want to listen to the Labour PCCs. Thank goodness we have some Independent PCCs!