What is the point of these police reforms?

Ideology pure and simple is the answer. This government is engaging in a form of shock and awe, announcing policies in a barrage one after the other. How well thought through are they?

Elected Police and crime commissioners which could cost more than £130 million to set up and run in the first year, are to replace police authorities, which will be scrapped. 

According to the Home Secretary the system will cost no more than police authorities and would "give people value for money".  

Elections, will be held every four years from May 2012, costing £50 million.

Shadow home secretary Ed Balls warned this upset a 150-year tradition of keeping politics out of policing and would entail unnecessary expense in the face of 20% cuts to police budgets. 

Holders of the controversial new posts are the focus of a dramatic shift in power from Whitehall.

 The Home Secretary will have no powers to sack a commissioner - or a chief constable and  police and crime commissioners can only be removed come the next election.

Critics say it is not inevitable that elected police and crime commissioners will give  power  to the public, and would depend both on the job description who is elected.

Vernon Coaker, Labour's shadow policing minister, says: "A single elected police chief for an area as large as Devon and Cornwall will do little to improve police accountability, but will risk politicising the police and at a huge cost to the public. 

He also pointed out that"At a time when police funding is being slashed by 20%, people will not understand why the Government wants to spend an estimated £100 million - the equivalent of 600 full-time officers - on this controversial top-down experiment. The Government should think again."

Rob Garnham, chairman of the Association of Police Authorities (APA), warned that the introduction of police and crime commissioners created "the very real risk of politicising police accountability through single-issue elections". 

There are concerns about the workload and large geographical areas that will need to be covered by the new commissioners. 

"At present 17 members, including nine elected councillors and eight independent members of the community, share the work of holding the force to account and managing finances," he said. 

"A single individual would need a significant number of support staff to enable him or her to be as effective as the current model.

"This would essentially mean employing staff to carry out the work that police authority members do now, but at a much greater cost."