Police and crime commissioners
What police and crime commissioners do and the government's plans to scrap them.
Under the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, all police forces in England and Wales must have a directly elected politician with responsibility for overseeing policing in their area.
In most areas, this is the police and crime commissioner (PCC). However, in some areas, the mayor of the combined authority delivers these responsibilities. The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) provides an up-to-date list of PCCs (and mayors delivering PCC functions) in each area.
What do they do?The main responsibilities of PCCs are:
- setting an annual budget for the police force,
- appointing a chief officer,
- setting a five-year police and crime plan and scrutinising the force’s performance against the delivery of the plan, and
- commissioning victims’ services.
Mayors delivering PCC functions have the same responsibilities.
They can also choose to oversee the local fire and rescue service and handle complaints made against the police, though only a handful have chosen to do so.
All operational matters such as investigating crimes and deploying officers remain the responsibility of chief officers of each police force. Chief officers must make operational decisions free from political interference.
How are they being reformed?In November 2025, the government announced it would scrap PCCs at the end of their current terms in May 2028. At that point, elected mayors of a combined authority (or combined county authority) will become the policing body for their force. If there are no relevant mayoral authorities for that police force area, new police and crime boards made up of local government leaders will deliver this role.
There will be bespoke arrangements for Wales, where there are no combined authority mayors.
In an oral statement to Parliament the Policing Minister, Sarah Jones MP, said the PCC model had “weakened local police accountability”, “had perverse impacts on the recruitment of chief constables” and “failed to inspire confidence in local people”. Emily Spurrell, Chair of the APCC, said the decision risked “creating a dangerous accountability vacuum”.
The announcement aligns with the government’s wider plans for English devolution, specifically to align public service boundaries with mayoral combined authorities. Earlier in 2025, the government introduced the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, which would, amongst other things, make it easier for the Home Secretary to transfer policing oversight functions from PCCs to combined authority mayors. If the bill becomes law, it should facilitate more transfers of functions from PCCs to combined authority mayors before the abolition of PCCs in 2028.
The decision to abolish PCCs requires legislation that has not been tabled yet. More information on these plans should be published in a police reform white paper, which the government has said will propose wider changes to policing in England and Wales.