Rick Muir (London, IPPR): A lot of contradictory claims have been made in recent weeks about ‘police independence’. The Home Secretary says that she could not have intervened in the police investigation into Home Office leaks because it is for the police, not politicians, to initiate criminal investigations. Jackie Ashley argues simultaneously that Jacqui Smith should have intervened, but that it is dangerous for elected politicians to get too involved in policing. Sir Ian Blair says that the elected Mayor of London should not have the power to sack him but concedes at the same time the police should be accountable to the public.  So, what is going on here?  

The problem is that none of the participants in this debate share an understanding of what is meant by police independence.  No one wants to ‘politicise’ policing, with police officers taking their operational instructions from ministers or US-style elected sheriffs. We do not want to go back to the days of the Sidney Street Siege, at which the then Home Secretary Winston Churchill took personal command of a police raid in the East End, standing in the street issuing instructions dressed in a top hat and fur coat. Everyone agrees that the police should impartially apply the laws of the land, rather than serve the executive branch.  At the same time everyone agrees that police officers should be accountable to someone, and in a democracy, that someone has to be elected. 

Rick Muir (London, IPPR): Police accountability is back on the political agenda. In its draft Queen’s Speech the Government announced that it would allow ‘directly elected representatives’ to oversee local police forces. The Tories too are in favour of greater accountability, promising to abolish police authorities and replace them with a directly elected commissioner for each force.

The case for greater local accountability is strong: despite unprecedented increases in police funding public satisfaction with the police has fallen. Whereas in 1996 64 per cent of people felt that the police did a good or excellent job, this had fallen to just 48 per cent by 2005. Those members of the public who have direct contact with the police as victims of crime tend to rate police performance poorer than members of the public who have not had direct contact with them (the opposite is the case with schools and hospitals).

There are a number of factors behind declining levels of satisfaction with the police service, but by far the most important is the fact that people believe the police have become less responsive to local concerns. Part of this is due to the decline in the number of officers out on the beat - something which the Government is now addressing through its neighbourhood policing programme.