Senior members of police authorities have continued to attack the cost and viability of government plans to introduce Directly Elected Police and Crime Commissioners.

Cllr Dave McLuckie (pictured) – Chair of Cleveland Police Authority – says that ministers have “failed to provide a single scrap of genuine evidence” for the proposals, which he claims will “undermine the very foundations of policing”.

Meanwhile his opposite number in Kent, Ann Barnes, says that the cost of elections in the county could run to £2 million – the equivalent of around 20 officers.

Under the government proposals, police authorities will be abolished and replaced with directly elected individuals with the first elections taking place in 2012.

But highlighting that her police authority has submitted its response to the plans – outlined in the Policing in the 21st Century Consultation paper – Ms Barnes asserted the initiative is unjustifiable in the current financial climate.

The Chair maintained: “I do not think that now is the time to be putting money that we haven’t got into an uncosted proposal that lacks clarity and detail.

“At a time when we are having to significantly reduce our budgets, spending money on new organisations does not make any sense,” she added.

“There has been little vocal support for these changes – according to our research there is at best apathy. Now is not the time for this and the haste with which it is moving leaves little room for genuine consultation or alternative options.”

Cllr McLuckie said that members of Cleveland Police Authority believe that plans to create directly elected individuals are flawed in a number of areas.

He also says there is lack of detail about the costs of the proposals, no information about what commissioners would be paid and an apparent dearth of safeguards to stop them pursuing either narrow or extremist agendas.

Cllr McLuckie added: “At the heart of these proposals are two assertions that are false – firstly that police authorities are invisible and secondly that putting control in the hands of a single individual would reconnect policing and the public.

“To suggest that Cleveland Police Authority is invisible is nonsense. We have a very high profile and the public never find a problem in letting us know what they think.”

The latest discord came as senior representatives of policing organisations voiced their concerns on the issue at the Superintendents’ Association conference in Chester.

During a question-and-answer session, ACPO President Sir Hugh Orde said the operational independence of Chief Constables is “the die in the ditch issue” when deciding how to introduce Directly Elected Police and Crime Commissioners.

Sir Hugh – who is a former Chief Constable with the PSNI added: “It is this that makes our service unique – no politicians can tell me what to do and I can tell you that I had some pretty difficult politicians in my last life.

“It is about how this will be delivered – we must understand how it will work.”

Derek Barnett, President of the Superintendents’ Association agreed. He added: “The devil is going to be in the detail that we must now work through – the government has been very clear that there will be checks and balances.”

The Home Office has re-iterated that ministers remain committed to the introduction of directly elected individuals as an improvement to the police governance model.

A spokesman stressed that the government would also do everything in its power to keep down the cost of elections. He added: “This must be viewed in the context of overall reforms, which will replace bureaucratic accountability with democratic accountability and help us deliver more with less.”