Lisa Townsend is the Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey.
Liz Truss isn’t the primary Conservative in search of election to suggest a “bonfire of the quangos”. She advised The Sunday Telegraph final month that too many aren’t delivering for the general public. Her suggestion was that the cash can be higher spent on frontline providers. The present Prime Minister has already put the DVLA and Passport Workplace on discover. When talking to MPs, many will let you know that their inboxes have been bulging with tales from constituents unable to get passports or learner drivers unable to discover a date for a check.
But each clearly present a service that we want, and so another should be discovered to maintain the nation shifting, each on our roads and overseas. Permit me to subsequently suggest a quango that gives no discernible profit and that no-one would miss have been it to be abolished tomorrow. No-one, that’s, besides the Liberal Democrats who lobbied for its existence.
Again within the heady days of the early Coalition, when compromise and negotiation have been obligatory with the intention to get absolutely anything executed, two concessions have been made by Conservatives with the intention to get elected Police and Crime Commissioners by Parliament. This primary was Lib Dem favorite, proportional illustration. Earlier this yr laws was modified and the following PCCs can be elected underneath first previous the submit in Could 2024.
The second was the institution of Police and Crime Panels. Even way back to 2010 and on the peak of their powers, Nick Clegg and others realised that the one likelihood the Lib Dems had of being concerned in policing was to have their councillors sit on these panels – and so they have been proper. No Liberal Democrat has ever been elected as a PCC. Even their very own voters don’t belief them on regulation and order.
As Harry Phibbs wrote right here final November, “PCCs ought to be accountable to these they serve – not committees agonising over the that means of complicatedly worded rules in response to politically motivated complaints.” Phibbs’s column reported on the ‘misconduct’ course of I had simply been by for saying that trans women and men deserve help, however not on the expense of girls’s same-sex providers, together with hospitals, home abuse providers and prisons.
Complaints from a small variety of trans activists got here in, and the Surrey Police and Crime Panel cleared me of any wrong-doing, stating I used to be free in a democratic society to carry and share these beliefs on behalf of my constituents. Final week, I used to be once more cleared after a 3rd spherical of complaints (though some members felt that I ought to be sanctioned).
That’s three separate units of conferences utilising the authorized and administrative providers of Surrey County Council to come back to the identical conclusion, in addition to the time my workplace and I needed to spend defending my proper to say that trans girls usually are not feminine. I totally settle for that some folks discovered this offensive, however being offensive will not be an offence. Because the earlier chairman of the Surrey PCP needed to admit, the Panel has no powers to compel the PCC to do something – we’re held to account on the poll field by our residents.
For many who fairly maintain the view that PCCs themselves ought to be abolished, the primary query is: what ought to change us? The previous police authorities have been simply as political, however with out the transparency of figuring out who to carry to account. There have been many who used former PCC for Kent, Ann Barnes, as an argument in opposition to PCCs. She was changed after 4 years by the wonderful Matthew Scott after a sequence of own-goals and embarrassing disasters proved her unfit for workplace. However for the six years she was chair of the Kent Police Authority her unsuitability went unnoticed.
I don’t consider anybody would critically argue that police forces ought to be freed from scrutiny. Even Sadiq Khan was compelled to do one thing when it grew to become clear the Met wasn’t able to cleansing up its personal mess. Surrey residents count on me to ask the awkward questions, to place the Chief Constable on the spot and to get solutions – and to take motion if these solutions aren’t adequate. Nor am I suggesting that PCCs ought to be scrutiny-free: that’s the reason we’re elected. However what do you do when elected officers mis-behave between elections? I’m all in favour of equivalence for our elected workplaces and would welcome recall for PCCs.
We don’t put policing underneath ministers for native authorities – rightly it has its personal vital division of state. We shouldn’t expect councillors to do it at an area degree both. Let’s begin the bonfire with impotent Police and Crime Panels and depart the voters to resolve whether or not my, or any PCC’s phrases, are offensive.
