I will make just a few brief comments on these government amendments. I suppose we have achieved a great deal if we have managed to get away without endless discussion of what the new title of a police and crime commissioner who takes over responsibility for the fire and rescue service should be. That is the kind of issue on which there are usually interminable discussions.
Looking at the proposal that the individual who takes over responsibility for a fire and rescue service should be renamed the police, fire and crime commissioner, that title does not include reference to the rescue function. It is a fire and rescue service but the title simply refers to a police, fire and crime commissioner. I note that the Minister said that there had been consultation and discussion on this and that the proposed name change seems to have found general favour. I simply ask: why was it decided to exclude the reference to the rescue activity of the fire and rescue service from the renamed PCC where that PCC takes over responsibility for a fire and rescue service?
The other point I would raise refers to Amendment 72, which deals with the change of title to the police and crime panel. I do not intend to repeat the point I made about the new title of the police and crime commissioner in relation to these panels. However, have the Government carried out or do they intend to carry out any assessment of the effectiveness of these panels, bearing in mind that greater responsibility will be placed on them where the police and crime commissioner takes over responsibility for a fire and rescue service?
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I ask that in the context of the findings of a recently published book on police and crime commissioners, which contains some observations about police and crime panels. It says that it is,
“unfortunate that Police and Crime Panels have to date proved less effective than hoped in modifying the actions of a PCC or in calling him or her to account”.
It goes on to refer to the views of a number of police and crime commissioners, who the authors of the book say have told them that police and crime panels seem,
“to be largely ineffectual and largely irrelevant to what the Commissioner does or decides”.
In a summary of a later chapter in the book, the authors state that they have to,
“conclude that the role of the Police and Crime Panel was ill-defined at the outset (of a piece with the vagueness of the PCC’s remit) and it is likely that at some point to come there will be tinkering with the legislation and some imposition of mechanisms to hold the PCC more firmly to account, outside the four-yearly process of election”.
Since the role of the panel is to be expanded in a situation where the PCC takes over responsibility for a fire and rescue service, it seems that there is a need for an assessment of how effective and relevant these bodies are in holding the PCC to account in any meaningful way, and to look at their relevance in relation to the activities of the PCC and the kind of decisions that a PCC has to take in the course of their duties. I would be grateful if the Minister could address the points that I have raised about the reasons for excluding the reference to “rescue” in the renamed PCC and, perhaps rather more significantly, whether there is to be any examination of the effectiveness of police and crime panels, particularly bearing in mind that they are to take over more responsibility in relation to the expanded role of the PCC.