The City of London Corporation is the Police Authority for the
Square Mile
The Court of Common Council is defined as the police authority for
the City of London Police area in accordance with the provisions of
the City of London Police Act 1839 and the Police Act 1996. Our job
as a police authority is:
- to make sure the City of London Police runs an effective and
efficient service by holding the Commissioner to account;
- to give you value for money in the way the police is run;
and
- set policing priorities taking into account the views of the
community.
These, and other key duties, are specifically delegated to the
Police Committee which, like most police authorities in the
country, is made up of 17 members. Fifteen of the members
are elected members of the Court of Common
Council, thus ensuring a direct accountability to the
electorate. The remaining two are independent persons drawn from
the City community who are appointed through an open recruitment
process. The Committee’s membership is representative of the City’s
residents, businesses and the hundreds of thousands of people who
come to work in the Square Mile every day.
The current Chairman of the Police Committee is Simon Duckworth
and the Deputy Chairman is Henry Pollard.
The Police Committee meets eight times a year to rigorously
scrutinise the work of the City of London Police. Other City
Corporation committees, such as the Finance Committee and Audit and
Risk Management Committee, complement this scrutiny function and
secure value for money in all aspects of police work. But it is
ultimately our local communities that decide how the Square Mile is
policed; both the City Corporation and the City Police organise
regular events to engage with residents and businesses in the City
and obtain views on what our local policing priorities should
be.
To achieve outcomes that matter to local people, the City
Corporation is able to draw from expertise in the wide-ranging
areas of services it provides and establish effective and strong
partnership working, for example, through the
Safer City Partnership, the City of London’s Community Safety
Partnership (CSP).
At a national level, the City Corporation plays an active role at
the Association of Police Authorities (APA). We are a part of the
group of authorities with a national role for policing – in our
case, for Fraud –, part of the group of non-geographic authorities,
and the City has represented that group on the APA Board since its
restructure in 2008.
Links
Please use the links below to access other websites that may be
of interest.
Freedom of Information
To make enquires about the City of London Corporation as a
police authority under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 please
visit
Access to Information. Published information about the role of
the City Corporation as a police authority is available through the
Publication Scheme. The Scheme is adopted by the City of London in
respect of those of its functions which fall within the Freedom of
Information Act, including its function as a police
authority.