Police and Crime Commissioners: Preparing for a New Public Leadership Role

John Raine, Professor of Criminal Justice Management at the University of Birmingham's Institute of Local Government Studies, reflects on preparations for
the new public leadership role of the Police and Crime Commissioners to be elected later this year.

Last month the Mayor of London took on the new powers recently approved by Parliament for Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) and in just eleven months time voters around the country will have the opportunity to elect their own PCC for their police force area. The idea of directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners has been a contentious one. But eventually Parliament voted to approve the main provisions of the Police and Social Responsibility Act 2011 and it is now time for detailed preparation for the new governance arrangements for policing in England and Wales.

Those elected to the office of PCC will have a hugely important public leadership role to perform. As well as having to get to grips with the huge range of functions and responsibilities of policing and the raft of policy and management issues in their local force areas, the new PCCS must quickly look to building effective working relationship with their chief constables as well as establishing the administrative and advisory support arrangements they will need in
their own offices. Quite as important as all that, however, will be the need to devise and put in place mechanisms and processes for engaging with local communities and for keeping in close touch with people across what, in every case, will be an extensive geographical, and socially diverse, area. And above all, it will, of course, be this essentially 'externally-facing' component of the new role that will ultimately define success or otherwise in this fascinating
new 'public leadership' responsibility, with its potentially very high profile approach to ensuring the public accountability of policing in this country.

It is often suggested that great leaders are born as such; and, while training is likely to help, fundamentally, people either have or have not got the vital qualities in their persona. But whether or not there is a grain of truth about this, the main problem with such an idea is that it rather presumes one style of leadership (that individuals either have or have not) and, as such, represents a gross over-simplification of the complexity and highly contested nature of the great leadership debate. One thing at least, in this respect, on which there is pretty widespread agreement these days is that different leadership styles are called for in different contexts, and so we should work from the premise that the new public leadership role of Police and Crime Commissioners is likely to require some very different skills and other attributes than that of, say, the chief constable - responsible for operational leadership of the force, and no doubt different again from that of the chairman/chief executive of a major commercial or industrial conglomerate.

And now that the Police and Social Responsibility Bill has become an Act, and as we are now well into the year 2012, it does not seem too early for those contemplating putting their names in the ring as candidates for the PCC elections to start thinking and preparing carefully about their leadership approach to the new public office to which they aspire. How, in particular, might they approach the challenge of building links with, and creating a real sense of public accountability across their force areas? How, as a PCC, might they judge whether they are making a success of their new role in this respect during (rather than simply at the end of their
term of office through the ballot box)? What different models and options for public leadership might be considered here? And which model(s) in particular might they most aspire towards and feel most suitable for them and for the role?

Such questions deserve personal reflection and response from each and every candidate for November's Police and Crime Commissioner elections. 'Muggingup' on national and local policing issues, and drafting out a set of electoral manifesto pledges will surely be important
preparatory steps for all serious candidates. But those who want not just to succeed at the ballot box, but also in the important role that follows, will additionally need to be very clear, not only with themselves and with their police forces, but also with their electorates, about how they view (and expect to perform) their roles as public leaders. To that end, candidates might usefully give serious consideration to enrolment on a structured leadership developmental programme - and ideally on one that is specifically tailored for public leadership responsibility. Doing so might just make the difference that counts in the campaign and beyond.

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