Section 7: Police and crime plans
75.Section 7 provides for the content and duration of a police and crime plan.
76.Subsection (1) provides for the police and crime plan to set out various matters including the police and crime commissioner’s police and crime reduction objectives, and the policing which the chief constable is to provide for the police area.
77.Subsection (3), read with subsection (7), provides for a police and crime plan to continue in effect until the end of the financial year in which the next ordinary election to the office of police and crime commissioner is expected to take place, unless a new plan is issued in the interim. The effect is that, in the period between a police and crime commissioner being elected to the office and issuing his police and crime reduction plan, the plan of the previous administration will remain in effect, ensuring that there are always objectives in place for the chief constable to work to.
78.Subsections (4) to (6) allow the Secretary of State to give guidance about the matters to be dealt with in police and crime plans, to which the police and crime commissioner must have regard.