{"id":69579,"date":"2016-04-13T16:44:50","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T16:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=30160cf72012ed8a5c524641e528d781"},"modified":"2016-04-13T16:44:50","modified_gmt":"2016-04-13T16:44:50","slug":"speech-police-and-crime-commissioners-the-choice-is-yours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=69579","title":{"rendered":"Speech: Police and crime commissioners: the choice is yours"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

When I became Home Secretary in 2010, police governance was broken and in need of radical reform.<\/p>\n

At that time, police authorities were theoretically responsible for holding forces to account. Yet in reality these bodies were nothing more than invisible committees of appointed councillors.<\/p>\n

They were tasked with acting on behalf of the public and had a duty to engage local people and businesses in setting priorities and local taxes, but they did nothing of the sort. <\/p>\n

Attendance at public meetings was often very poor, only 1 in every 15 people knew that police authorities even existed, and their decisions were far from easily available, often hidden amongst lengthy minutes posted on their websites.<\/p>\n

In 2010, an inspection by Her Majesty\u2019s Inspectorate of Constabulary<\/a> found that only 4 of the 22 police authorities inspected were judged to have performed well in 2 of their primary functions \u2013 setting strategic direction and ensuring value for money for taxpayers. <\/p>\n

That is why, in 2012, I introduced police and crime commissioners (PCCs<\/abbr>)<\/a> to be powerful local figures, directly elected and accountable to the people they serve. <\/p>\n

They have engaged with the public over the past 3 and a half years in ways that police authorities never did or could. <\/p>\n

Collectively their websites are being visited by over 85,000 people and they receive upwards of 7,000 pieces of correspondence every month.<\/p>\n

They are elected, visible, well-known in their communities and accountable for the decisions they take. <\/p>\n

But there is scope for PCCs<\/abbr> to go further. We have included new measures in the Policing and Crime Bill<\/a>, which is currently passing through Parliament, which enable PCCs<\/abbr>, where a local case is made, to take on responsibility for fire and rescue services and even create a single employer for the 2 services. <\/p>\n

We have also been exploring what role PCCs<\/abbr> could play in the wider criminal justice system. There is after all a reason why we included the words \u2018and crime\u2019 in the title of PCCs<\/abbr>.<\/p>\n

According to the Independent Crime Survey for England and Wales, PCCs<\/abbr> have presided over a fall in crime of more than a quarter since their introduction, during a time when police funding has reduced by a fifth. <\/p>\n

This is no mean feat. The accomplishments of PCCs<\/abbr> matter, they matter to local people and they matter for the integrity of the policing system as a whole.<\/p>\n

But, most importantly they matter for the historic principle of policing by consent. Because if you haven\u2019t been impressed by your PCC<\/abbr>, or you think they haven\u2019t achieved what they said they would, in just a few weeks\u2019 time you can say so in the strongest terms possible – by voting for someone else at the ballot box. <\/p>\n

Conversely if you believe your PCC<\/abbr> has made a real difference then you can vote for them to continue their important work. The choice is yours.<\/p>\n

\n

For more information on the PCC<\/abbr> elections on 5 May, and to find out who is standing in your local area: www.choosemypcc.org.uk<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Home Secretary Theresa May on the local police and crime commissioner elections taking place on 5 May 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69579"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}