New Beds Police and Crime Panel does not include any female councillors

An absence of female councillors on the Bedfordshire Police and Crime Panel is “disappointing”, a charity campaigning for gender equality and women’s rights has said.

The panel challenges, scrutinises and supports the county’s police and crime commissioner (PCC).

And following last month’s local elections a new panel has been selected, with three councillors each from Bedford Borough Council and Luton Borough Council, and four from Central Bedfordshire.

However, none of the ten councillors selected are female.

Alesha De-Freitas, head of policy at the Fawcett Society, said: “It’s disappointing, though perhaps unsurprising, that all ten positions on the Bedfordshire Police and Crime Panel have gone to male councillors.

“Fawcett research has shown that, prior to the most recent elections, a whopping 95% of local councils in the UK were male-dominated,” she said.

In the run-up to May’s local elections, the Fawcett Society and Democracy Club analysis revealed that only 18 of 382 councils had the minimum gender representation parity.

“Progress on women’s representation in local government is moving at a snail’s pace, despite women being more likely to be impacted by decisions made at a local level on things like social care and social housing,” Alesha said.

“It is particularly egregious that at a time when policing by consent is in crisis in the UK, with cultures of misogyny rife throughout police forces across the country, that women are being frozen out of these key decision-making roles.

“Government, local authorities and political parties must all take action to make local politics more accessible to women, and to put women’s and marginalised voices at the heart of decision-making processes about the police,” she said.

The criteria for selection to the panel is set by the Bedfordshire Police and Crime Panel Arrangements, and appointments “as far as is practicable” must be politically balanced within and across the three councils.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service approached all the political groups represented on the panel about the appointments.

They were asked if more should have been done across the three councils to ensure that there was a better representation of Bedfordshire’s residents on the panel.

A Bedford Borough Labour Group spokesperson said: “It is up to each of the political groups on the council to nominate members for each of the committees.

“In doing so, we have to consider the individual circumstances – work commitments, family commitments, access to their own or public transport (where meetings are held in various locations throughout Bedfordshire), dates and times of other committees or parish & town councils they may be on.

“Ideally of course there should be more representation of women on the Police & Crime Panel, and in previous years Bedford Borough Labour Group has been represented on the Police & Crime Panel by Colleen Atkins who was Vice Chair.”

A statement from the Bedford mayor’s office said: “Bedford’s Conservative group has a firm commitment to gender equality as evidenced by the makeup of our current administration’s Executive where 50% of the appointed positions are held by Women.

“The Police and Crime Panel had been offered to our female colleagues; however, they had chosen to focus on other commitments or priorities which are perfectly within their rights.

“We will always prioritise our councillors – regardless of race, sex and age – taking up positions they feel passionate about and would not force our councillors into responsibilities they are not comfortable with.

“For the Conservatives, Marc was chosen by all councillors unanimously because of his knowledge and expertise in this field and we are all confident he will do an incredible job.

“We cannot speak on other councils and parties however, we do understand the need for more accurate representation and for the council to reflect its surrounding communities.

“The current panel should have been more representative of our community and we would encourage all parties and council’s to look at assisting not just more women but also ethnic minorities into taking up positions to more accurately represent the cultural mix of our society.”

A spokesperson for Bedford Borough Liberal Democrats said: “We agree that representation should be improved and call on the councils to work on this together and look at co-opting members to improve the gender balance if necessary.”

The leader of Luton Borough Council, councillor Hazel Simmons (Labour) said: “Yes it is disappointing especially as for the last four years we have had two women on the Police and Crime Panel.

“We do a lot to keep a diverse and gender balance on most of our committees, for example we have 5/5 gender balance on our Executive.

“However, it was not possible this year on this committee. We will continue to review this over the course of the Administration.”

The leader of Central Bedfordshire Council, councillor Adam Zerny (Independent), said: “We agree with the Fawcett Society that it’s right women are proportionately represented in society.

“The Independent Group on Central Bedfordshire Council has a greater proportion of female councillors than any administration in the council’s history.

“We will continue our policy of nominating those councillors we feel are best, for each role.”

The remaining political groups across the three councils that have representatives on the panel did not respond by the time of publication.

The panel councillors are:

Bedford Borough – councillor Mohammed Nawaz (Labour), councillor Tim Caswell (LibDems) and councillor Marc Frost (Conservative)Central Bedfordshire – councillor Gareth Mackey (Independent), councillor Patrick Hamill (Independent), councillor Steve Owen (LibDems) and councillor Blake Stephenson (Conservative)Luton Borough – councillor Steve Moore (LibDems), councillor Ghulam Abbas (Labour) and councillor Basit Mahmood (Labour)