Police and crime commissioners roles will be abolished under plans being announced by Labour.
The Home Office is getting rid of the position and handing oversight over local policing to mayors or policing boards made up of local councillors.
Sarah Jones, the policing minister, is set to tell the Commons today that PCCs will be abolished from 2028 to coincide with the next slate of elections – which typically suffer from low turnouts.
PCCs were created by Baroness May in 2012 to make police forces and fire services answerable to elected officials.
They have the power to dismiss chief constables, draw up crime fighting plans and set local police budgets and council tax precepts.
But critics have long dismissed PPCs – who receive salaries of up to £101,900 – as ‘an extra layer of bureaucracy’ and a waste of taxpayer money.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has claimed the reform will save £100million.
The axing of PCCs may be attractive to the government as there are currently only 14 Labour PCCs compared to 18 Conservatives.
By contrast, just two directly elected mayors are Tories, versus 10 that represent Labour and two Reform.
The Home Office is getting rid of police and crime commissioners and handing oversight over local policing to mayors and councils
Emily Spurrell, PCC for Merseyside and chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC), said she was ‘deeply disappointed’ by the decision.
‘For more than a decade, directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners have transformed policing accountability and delivered essential support services for victims of crime,’ she said.
‘Having a single, visible local leader – answerable to the public – has improved scrutiny and transparency, ensuring policing delivers on the issues that matter most to local communities.
‘Abolishing PCCs now, without any consultation, as policing faces a crisis of public trust and confidence and as it is about to be handed a much stronger national centre, risks creating a dangerous accountability vacuum.’
Today’s move could set the scene for more extensive policing reform under Ms Mahmood.
In the summer, Sir Mark Rowley called for Britain’s 43 county constabularies to be axed and replaced with 12 ‘mega forces’ in what would be the biggest overhaul of policing in 60 years.
In a damning review of the UK’s crime fighting set up, the Met Police chief said the current system has not ‘been fit for purpose for at least two decades’.
Sir Mark believes bigger forces would be better able to utilise modern technology and would reduce ‘expensive’ governance and support functions.
And he said slashing the number of forces by two-thirds would make ‘better use of the ‘limited funding available’.
Sir Mark has previously criticised Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ decision to increase police funding by 2.3 per cent above inflation each year as ‘disappointing’.
