MPA welcomes Government proposals for greater police accountability to local communities

88/03
4 November 2003

“The MPA welcomes Government proposals to make the police more accountable to their local communities,” Toby Harris, Chair of the MPA, said in response to the Home Secretary David Blunkett’s consultation paper ‘Policing: Building Safer Communities Together’. He continued:

“We have already done a great deal to increase accessibility and transparency to our police service. This is the bedrock for building safer communities and enabling our officers to police with the co-operation of the communities they serve.

“The MPA has put several strategies in place to make policing more responsive: funding Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships, public consultation on Stop and Search, rape investigation and gun crime, and inviting members of local communities to act as advisors in the process of officer selection at Hendon training school.

“The establishment of the MPA introduced London-wide democratic accountability for the first in the MPS’s history but we also really value our independent and magistrate members, who bring a wide and diverse extra dimension to our work.

“The Authority’s responsibility is to retain a strategic overview of how London is policed although we are keen to see a review of the formal relationship between police authorities and operational policing.

“Our role is to ensure that Londoners can feel confident that their views inform their police service. We are shining a light into all aspects of how our communities are policed.”

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