Police and crime commissioner roles to be abolished

Police and crime commissioner roles will be abolished, the policing minister has announced.
The 41 elected officials in England and Wales will continue until the end of the current term in 2028.
Their powers will be transferred to mayors “wherever possible”, and council leaders will lead new policing and crime boards.
At least £100 million will be saved by the end of this parliament in 2029 through scrapping the roles – enough to fund about an extra 320 police constables a year, policing minister Sarah Jones said.
“The model has failed to live up to expectations,” she told the House of Commons.
She said PCCs do important work and thanked all those who have held the office, as well as their staff, but said the model “has weakened local police accountability and has had perverse impacts on the recruitment of chief constables”.
Ms Jones also said less than a quarter of voters turned out to vote for them last year, and two in five people are unaware they even exist.
First elected in 2012, PCCs oversee non-operational aspects of policing such as managing their local policing budgets and holding the chief constable to account.
Introduced by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government, they replaced police authorities.
Although candidates can stand as part of a political party, police and crime commissioners (PCCs) are required to swear an oath of impartiality before taking office.
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