The cost of Police and Crime Commissioners

Sir – Terry Holloway makes a very good point (Letters, March 26). What do Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCS) actually do?

Here in County Durham, the PCC, Joy Allen, has an enormous staff, including two personal assistants, a media officer, an engagement and events officer, a strategic partnerships manager, a head of projects, policy and commissioning, a policy and commissioning assistant, a senior governance officer and a performance analyst.

This staff, which in 2021-22 cost £1.1million, replaced the former Police Authority, which consisted of five magistrates, five county councillors and five independent members, who were paid expenses.

This cross-section of the local community appointed the chief constable, who remained answerable to his or her local Police Authority.

Who was it who promoted this change, which politicised the police with PCCS, who are sponsored by the main political parties? It was, in fact, Theresa May, when she was the home secretary, and the former prime

minister, now the Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron. James A Cowan

Belmont, Co Durham

Sir – When I was elected as Warwickshire’s first PCC in 2012, I replaced a 17-member bureaucracy that comprised the Police Authority.

A fundamental principle of British policing is that the police are ultimately answerable to the public. In England and Wales, this is effected through the mechanism of elected PCCS.

I would argue that PCCS have been far too compliant in allowing police to be sidetracked into supporting “woke” causes, but the forthcoming elections are an opportunity for the public to have their say.

Scotland – a country where JK Rowling is being targeted for saying that a woman is an adult human female – has chosen a different route, and its force is increasingly behaving like an arm of the Scottish government. Ron Ball

Solihull