Police and Crime commissioners will be abolished by Labour in bid to cut red tape with policing oversight handed to councils and mayors instead

Police and crime commissioners will be abolished in a move Labour claims will save taxpayers £100million. 

The Home Secretary  is getting rid of the position and handing oversight over local policing to mayors or policing boards made up of local councillors. 

Shabana Mahmood said PCCs will be abolished from 2028 to coincide with the next slate of elections – which typically suffer from low turnouts. 

The position was created by Baroness May in 2012 to make police forces and fire services answerable to elected officials. 

They have the power to dismiss chief constables, draw up crime fighting plans and set local police budgets and council tax precepts. 

But critics have long dismissed PPCs – who receive salaries of up to £101,900 – as ‘an extra layer of bureaucracy’ and a waste of taxpayer money. 

Ms Mahmood said today: ‘The introduction of Police and Crime Commissioners by the last government was a failed experiment.

‘I will introduce new reforms so police are accountable to their local mayoralties or local councils. The savings will fund more neighbourhood police on the beat across the country, fighting crime and protecting our communities.’

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp claimed the move ‘would not really save any money’ and risked replacing named elected officials with ‘a committee of faceless bureaucrats’.  

The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) warned it risked creating a ‘dangerous accountability vacuum’ and complained there had been a ‘lack of engagement’ by the Home Office over the decision. 

The axing of PCCs may be attractive to the government as there are currently only 14 Labour PCCs compared to 18 Conservatives.  By contrast, just two directly elected mayors are Tories, versus 10 that represent Labour and two Reform. 

APCC chairman Emily Spurrell, who is also the PCC for Merseyside, said: ‘On behalf of our communities we are deeply disappointed by this decision and the lack of engagement with us.

‘For more than a decade, directly elected PCCs have transformed policing accountability and delivered essential support services for victims of crime.

‘Having a single, visible local leader – answerable to the public – has improved scrutiny and transparency, ensuring policing delivers on the issues that matter most to local communities.

‘Abolishing PCCs now, without any consultation, as policing faces a crisis of public trust and confidence and as it is about to be handed a much stronger national centre, risks creating a dangerous accountability vacuum.’

She said: ‘Whatever follows in our place must be rooted in local and national accountability, clear and identifiable leadership and connected to local communities. The public deserve nothing less.’

Today’s move set the scene for more extensive policing reform under Ms Mahmood.

Measures already outlined by Labour include a new National Centre of Policing, which will centralise services including IT and forensics. 

Over the summer, Sir Mark Rowley called for Britain’s 43 county constabularies to be axed and replaced with 12 ‘mega forces’ in what would be the biggest overhaul of policing in 60 years.

In a damning review of the UK’s crime fighting set up, the Met Police chief said the current system has not ‘been fit for purpose for at least two decades’.

Sir Mark believes bigger forces would be better able to utilise modern technology and would reduce ‘expensive’ governance and support functions.

And he said slashing the number of forces by two-thirds would make ‘better use of the ‘limited funding available’.

Sir Mark has previously criticised Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ decision to increase police funding by 2.3 per cent above inflation each year as ‘disappointing’.