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Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

I am happy to take up the point made by the right hon. Gentleman. Jan Berry did a very good job in looking at police bureaucracy. Obviously, she had considerable experience which enabled her to do that. I can reassure the right hon. Gentleman that the work will continue. We are already taking forward further work in a number of ways to examine the bureaucracy surrounding policing so that we can take further steps to reduce the amount of bureaucracy that the police have to deal with. With a strong democratic mandate from the ballot box, police and crime commissioners will hold their chief constable to account for cutting crime. They will have the power to appoint and dismiss chief constables if they do not believe they are performing effectively. If the public do not believe that their police and crime commissioner is performing effectively, the commissioner will face the ultimate sanction of rejection at that same ballot box. Importantly, police and crime commissioners will set the annual budget for their force and will determine the local precept—the local contribution to policing costs. Police authorities are not properly accountable for how public money is used, so they do not drive value for money in their forces. The democratic mandate of police and crime commissioners will put them in a much stronger position to drive the efficiencies and value for money needed to ensure that resources are focused on the front line.