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UK home secretary Shabana Mahmood said on Thursday that the government was ending the “failed experiment” of directly elected police and crime commissioners in England and Wales.
The step reverses an initiative taken in 2012 by the coalition government, which was intended to improve police forces’ accountability to local communities.
The government said abolition of the posts would save £100mn annually and allow £20mn each year to be reinvested in policing.
Mahmood said the commissioners’ responsibilities would be handed over to council leaders or elected mayors.
Announcing the decision in the Commons, policing minister Sarah Jones said the abolition was being announced ahead of other “wide-ranging” policing reforms to be put forward in a white paper.
The posts were created in an attempt to increase the accountability of forces to their communities, with responsibilities including setting the strategy for their area. However, each force’s chief constable has retained day-to-day operational responsibility for policing.
“The introduction of police and crime commissioners by the last government was a failed experiment,” said Mahmood. “I will introduce new reforms so police are accountable to their local mayoralties or local councils.”
In a statement announcing the abolition of the posts, the Home Office said: “Since 2012, PCCs have been elected to hold forces to account, but turnout at the polls and public knowledge of who their local PCC is has been incredibly low.”
Speaking in the Commons, shadow home secretary Chris Philp called the change “tinkering around the edges”.
“It is simply rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic because this government is failing,” he added. “Police numbers are falling.”
The government said the roles would be phased out after the current terms of serving commissioners end in 2028.
Emily Spurrell, police and crime commissioner for Merseyside and chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, said her organisation was “deeply disappointed” by the government’s decision.
“For more than a decade, directly elected police and crime commissioners have transformed policing accountability and delivered essential support services for victims of crime,” she said.
The posts replaced the previous structure of police authorities made up of local councillors.
There has been speculation that the white paper could propose mergers between some of the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales, many of which cover relatively small areas.
The government last year announced plans for a new National Centre of Policing to co-ordinate the work of forces in England and Wales and replace some existing bodies.
Tom Gash, managing director of Leapwise, a specialist policing and crime consultancy, said it was “sensible” to transfer responsibility for overseeing policing in areas with elected mayors. But he added that there would be greater challenges in areas such as Devon and Cornwall where force boundaries did not match those of local authorities.
“There are hundreds of people working in police and crime commissioners’ offices who do jobs that will still need to be done — be that buying victim support services, ensuring transparency of police performance, dealing with public complaints and so forth,” he said. “Their roles will have to go somewhere.”
