Liverpool Lib Dems Spokesperson on Governance, Cllr Richard Kemp, has written to the Home and Community Cabinet Secretaries of State suggesting that when the position of Elected Police Commissioner is abolished in April 2028, they should be replaced with new Police Liaison Committees made up of representatives of the local upper tier or unitary councils in the areas that they cover.
Lib Dems campaigned against their establishment and welcome their abolition for the same reasons. They are pointless, costly, confusing, are inadequately scrutinised and lack the gravitas to push innovative ideas forward.
There are two ways forward, the attachment of the role to Regional Mayors or creating a new Police Liaison committee with the local authorities that they cover
I strongly favour the latter approach. In practice there are no other services provided by the Mayor which provide adequate links to the actions required outside crime fighting.
For example, a Merseyside Police Liaison Committee composed of members from the 5 councils who have responsibility for crime prevention and community safety would ensure that strong links are created between the police service and councils who are responsible for most of the services that could, in the long term, prevent criminality and in the short-term deal with problems faced by communities.
If we take drugs as an example, we can see work at two levels. The Police must work at a high-level sub regionally, regionally, nationally, and internationally to deal with the big business Mr Bigs who dominate the global trade in these matters.
Much of the crime committed is done to feed the drugs habit. Communities are terrorised by burglars and other offences. It is councils that can ensure that alley gates are locked up, that street lights work and that community groups are helped deal with the problems faced within their areas.
The responsibility of assisting drug users quite is largely a public health responsibility shared between councils and the NHS. It is councils that take much of the lead in prevent and rehabilitation.
It is clear to me that the key links therefore are between police and councils and so my suggestion is that the forward is, in part, a return to the past.
Just giving the Police Commissioner’s job to a Mayor does not deal with the practicalities of creating effective methods of linking efficiently the public sector’s agencies. It would be a cop out, sorry for the joke, because it would not provide the relationships that the police need to carry out their job. It would create another unseen person with no status except to be the Mayor’s bag carrier on these issues.
* Cllr Richard Kemp CBE is Lord Mayor of Liverpool for 2024-2025.
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4 Comments
Richard’s article is very welcome, however I do wish we looked a bit wider when seeking to increase police accountability.
It really is worrying how police forces have so much discretion in England and Wales over how they maintain important records, as this article highlights:
“Since the police introduced their updated Code in July 2023 both South Yorkshire and Northumbria police forces have admitted destroying records related to Orgreave. In June 2025 the ICO issued a public reprimand to South Yorkshire police relating to other record keeping matters. The police continue to ignore their own Codes of Practice and remain unaccountable.”
https://www.campaignforrecords.org/blog/why-arent-police-records-covered-by-the-public-records-act
I am a police officer. I fear the general public really have no idea how broken policing is now.
My “patch” as a response officer covers about 105k people and area about 18 miles by 18 miles. There will be 1 sergeant and 8 officers (so four deployable units) on tonight if everyone is in.
Almost certainly one of more of those deployable units will go early on to a domestic incident phones in by a well meaning neighbour. On arrival it will be clear as day that it is a minor verbal argument over something trivial between two people who have never come to police attention before. It will still take 2 hours to write up- even as a non crime. There will be an opening account a DASH (for two people who don’t want to do it), a vulnerability assessment. Body worn video will need to be uplaoded and marked up, and signposted on the investigation. A justification for filing, which will have to be reviewed by an inspector will have to be written up.
There is no discretion to not do any of those things- and save it for when it is clear concerns exists.
If that unit gets that done, they might take the opportunity to complete a case file while it relatively quiet overnight. That will involve redacting numerous documents on behalf of the CPS- a soul destroying and slow process and completing documents like the IMD and MG6- which contain almost identical information but which the CPS re
Perhaps Cllr Kemp would like to explain how his proposal would work in London, where the Metropolitan Police not only has responsibility for crime-fighting in Greater London outside the City of London, but also has responsibility for Counter-Terrorism nationally as well as the protection of the Royal Family, Government, and Diplomats. Meanwhile the City of London Police are the national lead on fraud, as well as general crime-fighting in the City. As little faith as I have in the Mayor of London, I cannot see the Government handing control of the Met Police over to a committee of representatives of the London Boroughs (which are all unitary authorities) as likely; more likely we would find control of the Met grabbed back by the Home Secretary on the basis of its national responsibilities, resulting in even less local democratic accountability.
The obvious answer is to see the Met split between its regional responsibilities (under a chief constable of London and answerable to the Mayor and Assembly) and the national functions (under their own operational head responsible to the Home Secretary and Parliament).