London ‘should have Question Time TV debate to help select next Met chief’

Met Commissioner Sir Bernard-Hogan Howe is due to step down early next year

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30 November 2016

Londoners should be given a say in choosing the next Met commissioner with a “Question Time”-style TV debate to decide the final candidates, a new think tank said today.

A report for the Centre for Public Safety urged the Mayor to change the selection process for policing’s top job, with community panels of Londoners picking a list of candidates.

CFS director and report author Rory Geoghegan said the current process lacked transparency and public involvement and changing it would build trust between Scotland Yard and London’s diverse communities — even helping to prevent future riots.

At present the commissioner is chosen by the Home Secretary and Mayor with a Home Office panel of senior civil servants and a senior police officer scrutinising the candidates.

The report says three community panels, made up of ordinary people nominated by members of the London Assembly, and in-cluding police representatives, should pick three candidates whose names would go to a Home Office panel.

This body would choose three finalists who would attend a televised “job interview” with a public audience. The final appointment would remain with the Home Secretary and Mayor.

The report includes proposals for a wider selection process for candidates for the Met Commissioner and shelving the current "convention" that they should have worked as chief constable outside London.

This could open the way for more candidates to put their names forward.

These could include the Met's Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, the recently appointed national co-ordinator for counter terrorism policing, DAC Alison Newcomb, one of the most senior black women officers in the force, and the Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewett, currently in charge of Territorial Policing.

Mr Geoghegan, a former research fellow at the Policy Exchange who spent three years as a frontline Met officer, said: “The current process for selecting the Commissioner denies Londoners a voice.

“The Met is many things, but fundamentally it is the local police for 8.6 million Londoners. It is time for the process to reflect that by engaging and involving Londoners.”

He added: “The riots in 2011, like the more recent and frequent scenes in the United States, demonstrate what happens when there is a lack of trust in senior police leaders and a breakdown in community relations.

“Making the selection process more transparent and engaging Londoners can help avoid us seeing a repeat.”

The report says that at present the Met commissioner is chosen by a Home Office selection panel made up of senior civil servants and a senior police officer with an average salary of £165,000, while all of the panel members are white.

The study recommends a process based on the selection model used in the United States city of Phoenix which recently led to the appointment of the city’s first black woman police chief.

In a series of radical proposals the study recommends that candidates should be selected by three community panels made up of ordinary people nominated by members of the London Assembly.

The panels would also include representatives from the Police Federation, the Superintendents’ association and trade unionists who would be expected to consult their members.

Each panel would select three candidates whose names would go forward to a Home Office selection panel similar to one that exists now.

In turn, this panel would choose three finalists who would then be invited to attend a TV screened “public job interview” with members of the public as the audience in a style similar to that of BBC’s Question Times.

The final appointment would remain that of the selection panel, the Home Secretary and the Mayor.

Stephen Greenhalgh, who served under Boris Johnson as London’s first Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, said : “The selection process for the Met Commissioner takes place behind closed doors currently and that needs to change.

"These exciting proposals from the Centre for Public Safety would signal a fresh new approach that is more transparent and involves both the public and London’s elected politicians in a meaningful way."

Baroness Jones, former Green Party London Assembly Member, said : “The job of Commissioner in London is huge, both in policing terms and in its public facing role.

"It therefore makes sense for Londoners to have some say in the person who runs the Police Service. We need someone who understands diversity and can create a Service that reflects London's diversity. We also need someone who understands liberty and peaceful protest at the heart of Government.”

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