One year on, Police and Crime Commissioners are beginning to show their potential
A year ago today, the first generation of police and crime commissioners (PCCs) was elected.
With just 15% of us turning out for the election, expenses scandals highlighted in the press, frequent criticism from the Home Affairs Select Committee, and even West Midlands PCC Bob Jones calling for his own position to be scrapped, the casual observer could be forgiven for thinking their first year has been a bit of a car crash.
However, as our new report First Generation: One Year On shows, behind the negative headlines many PCCs have been busy turning themselves into important local leaders, with significant potential to drive partnerships that could cut crime and reduce reoffending in their area.
We reviewed all 42 police and crime plans, and spoke to a number of PCCs across the country. We were looking at how PCCs are using the broader “and crime” part of their remit to tackle some of the underlying causes of crime, including the multiple and complex needs faced by many ‘revolving door’ offenders and the difficult transitions faced by many young adults (18-24), who are the most likely group to come into contact with the police as both victims and offenders.
While not all plans recognised these key issues specifically, many did cover a number of linked and cross cutting areas, such as mental health, substance misuse, and the need to engage with young people more broadly. They also placed a strong emphasis on preventing crime and reducing reoffending, with a wide range of local partners identified in many police and crime plans.
Promising practice we identified included:
- Close working between the PCC, Director of Public Health, CCGs and Probation in Hertfordshire.
- The development of a Young Person’s Strategic Planning Group in Cleveland, with a remit up to the age of 24 to help manage the transition to adulthood.
- Bedfordshire’s development of a Criminal Justice Demand Reduction Board, to lead preventative work with partners.
Most importantly, many of the PCCs we spoke to showed a strong ambition to achieve more comprehensive system change in their area – understanding that these issues are interlinked and bigger than any one agencies remit, and seeking to lead partnerships with a wide range of agencies at a strategic level to tackle them. As the assistant PCC in Bedfordshire commented to me:
“It is widely accepted that working in a multi-agency partnership is a more effective and efficient way of reducing and preventing crime. Working together with other local leaders, Police and Crime Commissioners can drive local public services to deliver more than the sum of their parts and bring about real change at a systemic level. In the future as budgets become more devolved, this will to a greater extent include a range of co-commissioned public services across local authorities, public health and the wider criminal justice sector that will produce a holistic and integrated approach to helping the most vulnerable people in our communities.”
Of course there is a long way to go, and PCCs have only just begun to tackle these issues in a difficult and rapidly changing local partnership environment.
However, it is clear from our research that there is a lot that PCCs can learn from each other as they develop their role and try to address some of the complex problems underlying crime and reoffending.
