Which PCC candidates have signed up to behaving ethically?

Last June the Committee for Standards in Public Life – who advise the Prime Minister on ethical standards across the whole of public life in the UK – published ‘Tone from the top’, their report into the leadership, ethics and accountability in policing. Building on the information received from PCCs, Chief Constable and Police and Crime Panels over their 8 month evidence gathering exercise, the Committee called for all PCC candidates to declare their approach to conduct, appointments and hospitality so that the public can make an informed judgement when casting their vote.

The Committee have strongly emphasised the importance of embedding ethical principles in PCCs and their offices, and recognised that thinking about such issues once every four years is not enough. They recommend that both candidates and PCCs should commit to ethical standards, beyond just the Nolan principles, but including a national code of conduct, and a memorandum of understanding between PCCs and Chief Constables. Furthermore they recommend that the PCC induction process should include an ethical component, and that all the appointments they make must be made on merit, independence and skills with an independent member present.

The Committee has partnered with CoPaCC to highlight the importance of ethics to PCC candidates, and we are pleased to publish the complete list of all PCC candidates who have signed up to the Ethical Checklist (as of 5pm on Friday 29th April).

Lord Bew, Chair of the independent Committee on Standards in Public Life, told Policing Insight:

“The public expect high standards of conduct and accountability from PCCs. I am encouraged that half of PCC candidates have already signed up to the ethical checklist. We have written to each candidate and been publicising individual responses on our twitter account. With less than a week to go we hope more candidates will sign. The aim of the checklist is to give the public a means to find out about their candidates’ approach to standards issues and, after the Election, we hope that Police and Crime Panels will hold PCCs to their promises. These are important and challenging positions and set to become more so with the proposals to give PCCs responsibility for fire and rescue services. The public need to be able to make an informed choice when casting their vote on May 5th.”

Bernard Rix, Chief Executive of CoPaCC said:

“Whilst an ethical culture can be a difficult concept to articulate and measure, PCCs should be held, and hold others, to appropriately high ethical standards. Importantly, it is not enough to simply have an ethics board, this desire must stem from the top and be embedded throughout the both the OPCC and the force.”

“I find it surprising and disappointing that only 52% of PCC candidates have so far committed to the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s PCC Checklist. The Committee is, after all, the body that advises the Prime Minister on ethical standards. All candidates should get in touch with the Committee and commit to their checklist of ethical behaviour, ahead of the PCC elections this coming Thursday.”

The current list – as at Friday, 29th April – of PCC candidates who have signed up to the Committee for Standards in Public Life’s Ethical Checklist is as follows:                     

Have your local PCC candidates all signed up?

Lord Bew continued:

“So far, 97 of the 187 candidates have signed up. This is encouraging but I hope that in the final week of the campaign, the public and the media will increasingly be asking those who haven’t signed up, whether they intend to?”