The impact of police and crime commissioners on community safety agendas in England and Wales : a comparative study of South Wales and Avon and Somerset, 2012-2016

• Main Author: Chambers, Sophie Julia
• Published: Cardiff University 2017
• Subjects: 363.2; K Law (General)
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.720902

In 2012, Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) were elected in 41 police forces across England and Wales. This reform significantly changed the structure for police governance for the first time since the formalisation of the tripartite system in the Police Act 1964. Elected by the local public, with powers to set the police budget, hold the Chief Constable to account, create local policing strategies through public consultation, and allocate funding for community safety activities, PCCs were criticised as likely to have omnipotent power and potentially politicising the police. This theoretically driven thesis uses urban political analysis to identify the impact of these new actors on local community safety policy, specifically how the agenda is set in negotiation with other relevant actors, and the type of agenda that this negotiation produces. The multiple-embedded comparative case study design enables insight into the significance of the English and Welsh Context for PCCs, through the examination of two case study sites: Bristol, in Avon and Somerset, and Cardiff, in South Wales. Through the use of interviews, document analysis, observations and social media analysis, the impact of PCCs on local community safety agendas is evidenced to be limited due to their necessary operation within a policy network, in which other actors have community safety agenda-setting responsibilities, and resources to pursue these. The creation of PCCs’ agenda is reliant on local contingencies within the policy network, including PCCs’ claims to expertise and how they view their role, how other agencies engage with the new actor, and the local context of the case study site. This dependence on established agencies within the policy network, results in convergence of PCCs’ agendas, focused on risk management and situational crime prevention, favoured by local authorities in the era of austerity.