Councils are the key to ensuring police are answerable to communities  

Local authorities are the key to ensuring police services are more accountable to local people.

That's the response from London Councils to plans set out in the draft Queen's Speech to introduce a new directly elected representative to give local people more of a say over how crime is tackled in their area.

London Councils believes that creating a new role to carry out this function could fracture the accountability of public services at a time when a joined up approach is needed to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing the capital.

London's borough leaders argue that local councils are the key to ensuring the police are accountable to the local community - as well as to ensuring all of the capital's public services are pulling in the same direction.