The Achilles Heel
| Date | 01 July 1963 |
| Published date | 01 July 1963 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6303600702 |
| Author | Robert Mark |
| Subject Matter | Article |
ROBERT
MARK
Chief Constable
of
Leicester
" We recommend that standing joint committees be required to submit
estimates
of
police expenditure for the approval
of
county councils."
(Recommendation 30 of the Royal Commission's Final Report.)
THE
AfJHILLES HEEL
The final report of the Royal Commission on the Policeis probably
the most informative and easily readable description of the admit-
tedly complex system for policing England, Wales and Scotland. To
the layman seeking an outline of the background and organization of
the police it offers much of interest. To the student of constitutional
history and local government affairs it provides many fascinating
themes for argument. So persuasive and convincing is its author that
only the reader with considerable practical experience of police
affairs-and
particularly of police administration-will appreciate
that notwithstanding its many excellent qualities the report makes
one dubious assumption from which it draws a questionable con-
clusion. After failing adequately to examine the present system for
the financial control of borough police forces it expresses support
(see Recommendation 30) for the extension to counties of a system
which more than anything else is likely to prevent or nullify many of
the changes which the Commission urges. This is not, however, the
fault of the writer; nor of the Royal Commission itself. Sadly
enough, it is the fault of those present and former chief officers of city
and borough police forces who were in a position to offer evidence
of the difficulties which have arisen from time to time from the
present system of financial control; but who did not do so.
The Commission, in the absence
of
evidence to the contrary,
assumed that it could accept the assertion of the chairman of the
police committee of the Association of Municipal Corporations that
the present system is satisfactory.
It
is a pity that it did not appre-
ciate that chief constables might be reluctant to complain
of
limita-
tions imposed by their own police
authorities-or
by finance com-
mittees in disregard of the recommendations of police authorities.
It
might have been illuminating if the Commission had invited every
pensioned chief constable, assistant chief constable and admini-
strative superintendent to give their opinions of the extent to which
the efficiency of their former forces had been lessened by the arbitrary
reduction
of
police estimates, or by the exclusion from estimates in
course
of
preparation
of
financial provision for much needed
313 July 1963
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