No to elected police authorities, right decision says WLGA
18 December 2008
The WLGA has today welcomed the decision by the Home Secretary to abandon her plans to have directly elected police authority members across Wales and England.
This follows strong opposition from across local government, both in Wales and England and particularly amongst the police authorities who argued that the plans were overly bureaucratic, costly and could result in the election of single issue candidates or even extremist candidates.
Under the current system police authorities are made up of councillors appointed by their own authority as well as magistrates and other independent members. However, under this new plan all councillors with except for one on every police authority would have been replaced with directly elected Crime and Policing Representatives (CPR’S) - a plan that was unanimously rejected by every local and police authority in Wales.
Cllr John Davies (Pembrokeshire), WLGA Leader said:
“This is excellent news for communities across Wales. Local government has always maintained that this was a half-baked proposal. The introduction of direct elections would have undermined the strength of the current system in Wales. Not only would it have added another level of unnecessary and extremely costly bureaucracy to an already cumbersome policing system but it would have devalued the legitimate role of the local council which already has the democratic mandate to deliver services that meet local community needs. Sidelining the role of democratically elected councillors could have proved to be a recipe for disaster, particularly if police authorities and councils were to work to different local political agendas.”
Councillor Lindsay Whittle (Caerphilly), WLGA Spokesperson for Equality and Social Justice said:
“This is absolutely the right decision by the Home Secretary. There was real potential for extremist candidates to gain control over policing, which must be firmly resisted.”
The Home Secretary is still committed to reforming the Police across Wales and England in a bid to make it more accountable and has asked former Home Secretary David Blunkett to prepare a report which he will present to her before the next general election for proposals to go in a manifesto.
Ends