It is one year on from the election of the police and crime commissioners (PCC) in one of the biggest reforms ever made to Manchester’s police force.
The election brought an average turnout of just 14.9% nationally as 41 PCCs were put in place in all areas of England and Wales.
In a speech to Policy Exchange last week, home secretary Theresa May said that PCCs were introduced to make policing more efficient and that their purpose was clear.
“They’d be elected, visible, well known in their communities and accountable to the electorate,” she said.
Yet a year after their introduction, a BBC poll has found that more than a third of people don’t know if they have a PCC in their area.
A ComRes poll for BBC One’s Sunday Politics revealed that 68% of over 65s knew they had a commissioner compared to only 51% of 18 to 24-year-olds.
Tony Lloyd was elected as PCC for Greater Manchester, securing more than 50% of the vote.
Mr Lloyd published a ‘Police and Crime Plan’ in March in which he pledged that community safety was his top priority.
“By working together to deliver this plan we can make a difference to the lives of everyone right across Manchester,” he said.
As part of the plan, Mr Lloyd set out his nine major priorities for policing Greater Manchester.
These were driving down crime, building and strengthening partnerships, tackling anti-social behaviour, protecting vulnerable people, putting victims at the centre, maintaining public safety, dealing effectively with terrorism, building confidence in policing services and protecting the police service.
He said Police and Crime Commissioner should ‘seek and reflect the views of the public and particularly victims of crime’.
Over the last 12 months, Greater Manchester’s PCC has been involved in the introduction of a number of new policies.
Earlier this month Mr Lloyd introduced a scheme which will see domestic abuse experts being based in Greater Manchester hospitals A&E units.
After successfully trialing the scheme at Fairfield Hospital in Bury it is now being extended to Rochdale, Oldham, Bolton and Tameside.
In July, Mr Lloyd introduced the role of Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner, with the job going to Jim Battle.
At the time the new £55,000 job was heavily criticized as a waste of tax payer’s money but Mr Lloyd said Mr Battle would help him to make communities safer.
Also in July, Mr Lloyd backed the plan which would see money and assets confiscated from criminals used to fund policing.
Figures released in October showed overall crime in Greater Manchester fell by 9% – how much of this was due to the introduction of the PCC is open to debate.
Theresa May said that before the introduction of crime commissioners only 7% of people knew that police authorities existed.
“Even though police and crime commissioners have been in place for just one year, they are already receiving ten, twenty, sometimes even fifty times the volume of correspondence received by police authorities,” she said.
One of the aims of the PCCs was to provide a stronger link between the public and the police force.
The figures on how many people are aware of their police and crime commissioner suggests there is still plenty of work to do.
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