A very cautious welcome to ‘Commissioner Boris’
November 27, 2009 by Martin Hoscik · 3 Comments
According to today’s Evening Standard the Tory Shadow Home Secretary has been talking about making Boris the first elected Commissioner of the Met with the scrutiny role of the Metropolitan Police Authority being transferred to the London Assembly.
Grayling promises that: “no reform we introduce will allow any elected politician to interfere in operational policing and we will make absolutely certain that the independence of operational policing is protected in law.”
It’s not a universally popular idea, several Assembly Members have already spoken out against it:
Labour’s Joanne McCartney says: “Of course the police need to be held to account, but this would lead to less accountability, not more. Senior officers are rightly resisting this and I don’t think there is much public appetite to see Boris Johnsons up and down the country running the police. The idea that we go down the American route of commissioners, mayors and politicians all trying to out tough each other with one eye on their next election is deeply worrying.”
Green Party AM has issued the following statement: “The MPA has always struggled to hold the Met to account, now more than ever under a Tory mayor, but that’s because it’s a small number of members dealing with a huge organisation. A single person like a mayor, even with a dedicated team, or using the Assembly as a scrutiny body, simply couldn’t do the job. If the MPA needs reforming, then it should have more members, not fewer.”
Both make fair points and I’d want to see the finer details of Grayling’s policies before endorsing them too enthusiastically but the general idea of London’s Mayor having control over such a vital service is something I’ve been in favour of long before Boris was enjoying the view from City Hall.
There’s no reason why a beefed up, properly resourced Assembly couldn’t hold ‘Commissioner Boris’ to account. To properly fulfil such a role it’d need more cash and staff but, more vitally, will require AMs from all parties to set aside the time wasting personal jibes they currently indulge in long enough to research the issues they’re debating.
A lot of thought would need to go into making such a radical change work but ultimately Londoners deserve to be trusted with responsibility for their own policing and those committed to meaningful devolution for the capital should play their part in making any changes work.
PS: For other takes on the issue pop along to Tory Troll and Dave Hill’s London Blog.
“There’s no reason why a beefed up, properly resourced Assembly couldn’t hold ‘Commissioner Boris’ to account. To properly fulfil such a role it’d need more cash and staff but, more vitally, will require AMs from all parties to set aside the time wasting personal jibes they currently indulge in long enough to research the issues they’re debating.”
Can you really see any of this happening though?
Adam
Not sure why certain individual AMs couldn’t decide to start acting with some dignity and take their roles seriously, it would certainly aid them when it comes to informing any changes which do get implemented.
As for the idea of the Mayor being in charge of policing, I don’t see it’d lead to any more polticised policing than the ‘very close’ relationships between former Home Secretaries and Commissioners did, other than bringing the welcome bonus of transparency.
It may mean the role of the Mayor and Assembly become sufficiently important that people need to bother to listen to policies and turn out to vote, I don’t see either of those as anything other than positives.
The Green Party AMs statement really does sum it up. I was a Member of the MPA for four years and yes I agree Martin, we need to see the details before being overly critical. But it would be completely impossible for the London Assembly to take on this role of overseeing the Met. No amount of beefing up of resources or reduction in time-wasting personal jibes at City Hall could make up for the time needed. And AdamB is right – this will not happen anyway. There is a truly vast amount of work to do trying to hold the Met to account and the MPA has developed well – if gradually – in its 9-10 year existence. For this to be replaced by one elected person whose role would inevitably be entirely different to the present Commissioner…a lot of thought needs to go into this. One thing they should surely consider is an elected MPA – oh, but sorry, of course that would give the MPA far too much clout. Can’t have that…better for the politicians to have one man answerable to government. BTW have you noticed the bizarre media coverage of this – talking about “an elected Commissioner” then saying that the Tories would “install” Boris. Just check out the first two lines of the PA statement. Is it planned that there will be a choice? Or does the media once again fail to understand practically every aspect of (the admittedly confused) structure of government in London.