Policing and Crime Bill

The amendment aims to do two things. First, it puts councillor nominations on a more competency-based footing. This is intended to support the Green Paper’s ambitions, which I fully endorse, to strengthen police authorities. It aims to contribute to this by improving the capacity and capability of police authority members. Independent members of police authorities are already selected through a competency-based process but the amendment extends this requirement to councillor members. At present, the only requirement in selecting councillor members is political balance. In my view, this must remain the overarching consideration. We discussed this on earlier amendments. The ability of police authorities to reflect a balanced range of views has been fundamental to keeping them independent and largely free of party-political domination over the past 15 years. However, there must also be room for improvement in the quality of councillor members. As an ex-councillor and ex-police authority chair, I am well aware of the weaknesses in the present system of appointment. Many councillor members are excellent, but some are still appointed for a range of reasons through a process that lacks transparency. Police authorities in some areas still struggle to find councillor members who will turn up and make an effective contribution, and in some cases, this amounts to attending no more than quarterly meetings of the full authority. Councillor members have a vital role to play in providing a link to democratic processes and credible accountability to local communities. Poor attendance or questionable commitment, or a lack of particular capacity to do the job, which is demanding, are not acceptable if this vital link is to be maintained. I am not arguing that councillor members should necessarily be expected to bring the same competences to police authorities as independent members. They have a different role to play, focused on engaging with local communities, understanding their needs and better joining-up policing with local councils. But the public have a right to expect that councillors should discharge this responsibility effectively and that the enthusiasm and suitability of candidates should be considered in deciding whether to appoint a councillor to a police authority. Secondly, the final paragraph of this amendment corrects a possible anomaly in the current legislation about appointing independent members. A significant round of appointments to police authorities took place last year across the country, which threw up some queries about whether the final stages of the appointments process need to be conducted by the full authority, or whether it can be done by a committee of the authority. Good recruitment practice suggests that it is not particularly effective to subject a candidate to an interview panel comprising 17 or more people, which is the number of members of a full authority. However, there are some doubts about whether it is adequate under current legislation to conduct final interviews through a committee and then ask the full authority to endorse the recommendations of the committee. In theory, a police authority can delegate any of its functions to a committee unless the law says otherwise, but this amendment is designed to put the matter beyond doubt and make it clear that the decision on who to appoint can be delegated to a committee of the authority, if desired. I beg to move.