This time round, police and crime commissioners know how tough it gets

For now, last Thursday’s election results cement the place of police and crime commissioners (PCCs) in the rapidly-shifting constitutional landscape in England and Wales.

With turnout more than double the 2012 level, those elected have a far stronger democratic mandate, notwithstanding the fact that higher turnout was almost entirely because voting took place on the same day as local and Welsh Assembly elections.

The big story was the slump in the number of independent candidates: down from 12 to three, with the Conservatives the main beneficiary. Again, this was largely a result of other elections being held at the same time: many voters will have simply voted for the party they support rather than making a decision based on policy differences between the candidates.

Successful candidates this time round will be better prepared than in 2012. Many then didn’t know how tough the job could be. Now PCCs know it can be uncomfortable under the spotlight: the revelations of widespread child sexual exploitation in Rotherham led to the eventual resignation in September 2014 of South Yorkshire Labour PCC Shaun Wright.

PCCs are here to stay, and have been made more powerful now the home secretary has given them oversight of fire and rescue services. But they must prove their worth.

During their campaigns, PCC candidates offered rather familiar messages: to protect funding, to secure more “bobbies on the beat”, and in a few cases to protect police station closures. Some promised investment in police technology, but the harsh reality is that while the government recently confirmed that overall police funding would not fall before 2020, there is no extra money to fund these promises.

The government’s pledge bakes in an assumption that PCCs will raise a part of the council tax known as the “police precept”, which some PCCs have indicated they will not do. A portion of police funding will be drained by rising police pension costs, an ongoing pressure to deal with historic as well as current cases of sexual abuse, and a local landscape in which other agencies are cutting back on services such as drug treatment that can support policing activity.

This means PCCs face difficult choices. They can either club together to put pressure on the government for increased resources. Or they can find ways of spending more effectively.

Unfortunately, the endearing pledges of Lincolnshire PCC candidates to give up their privileged parking spaces and turn down a small part of their salary just won’t cut it. And there are limits to the savings that can – or should – be found through “back office” efficiencies. Cutting back on staff who provide vital technology, training and other support often just leaves frontline officers less equipped to do their jobs well, or back at the station filling in forms that others used to do much more effectively and for much lower salaries.

PCCs therefore need to get creative, and recognise that policing is only part of their remit. Crime is influenced by the police, but it has never been the police alone that can reduce it. Businesses can design their shops to minimise the risks of theft, local health and housing services can be provided (or withheld) from those likely to commit crime, and transport connections can be designed to minimise or increase risks.

Prisons, courts and probations services, run largely by national government can make good – or bad – choices both about how to tackle crime and how to treat victims.

PCCs need to recognise this and stop thinking that crime is just about the police and the number of “bobbies on the beat”. Unless they take a broad view and start leading crime reduction efforts across agencies, they will fail the voters who have just elected them.

Tom Gash is a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and a visiting senior fellow at the London School of Economics’ Mannheim Centre for Criminology.

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