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Police and crime commissioners

What are police and crime commissioners?

Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) were established under the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, which requires that all police forces in England and Wales have a directly elected politician with responsibility for overseeing policing in their area.

In most areas, the PCC delivers this role. In some areas, it is the mayor of the combined authority. The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners provides a list of PCCs (and mayors delivering PCC functions) in each area.

What do PCCs do?

The main responsibilities of PCCs (and mayors delivering PCC functions) are:

• setting an annual budget for the police force
• appointing a chief officer
• setting a five-year police and crime plan
• commissioning victims’ services

PCCs can also choose to oversee the local fire and rescue service and handle complaints made against the police.

All operational matters such as investigating crimes and deploying officers remain the responsibility of chief officers of each police force. Chief officers must make operational decisions free from political interference.

How are PCCs being reformed?

In November 2025, the government announced it would scrap PCCs at the end of their current terms in May 2028. At that point, elected mayors of a combined authority (or combined county authority) will become the policing body for their force. If there are no relevant mayoral authorities for that police force area, new police and crime boards made up of local government leaders will deliver this role. This will require primary legislation that, at the time of writing, has not been introduced.

There will be bespoke arrangements for Wales, where there are no combined authority mayors.

In an oral statement to Parliament on 13 November 2025 the Policing Minister, Sarah Jones, said the PCC model had “weakened local police accountability”, “had perverse impacts on the recruitment of chief constables” and “failed to inspire confidence in local people”. Emily Spurrell, Chair of the APCC, said the decision risked “creating a dangerous accountability vacuum”.

The announcement aligns with the government’s wider plans to align public service boundaries with mayoral combined authorities. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 makes it easier for the Home Secretary to transfer policing oversight functions from PCCs to combined authority mayors. This could lead to more mayors taking on PCC functions before the abolition of PCCs in 2028.

In the King’s Speech 2026, the government committed to legislate to abolish PCCs via a Police Reform Bill. At the time of writing, the bill had not been published.

The bill might also implement other measures proposed in the government’s police reform white paper, From local to national: a new model for policing (published January 2026). These include proposals to merge existing police forces into larger forces. The Library briefing Policing in the UK: Current structures and proposals for reform provides more information on the white paper.