Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen told BBC Tees he didn't think current PCC Barry Coppinger should run for re-election next year and called for him to step down immediately.
He said: "We need to dispel this myth (about funding), we've had the independent inspector say that actually resourcing isn't the issue. There's an issue around where the resources are spent, but actually when you look, the Cleveland Police area has £222 spent per head of population, and we have more police officers per head of population than anywhere else in the country outside of London.
"So this idea that people like Barry can hide behind resources and blame other people is just his modus operandi, and the one thing I was fully expecting, and he hasn't disappointed, is that Barry has come out today and said this isn't his responsibility, and I've started saying this morning, who is responsible?
"Who is responsible for overseeing this force going from not being a great force, an average force, to the worst force in the history of England and Wales? That's what the report shows. There has never been a force rated as lowly as this. Who's responsible?
"Now what we can't do, us we can't have people hiding behind 'we're going to learn lessons', 'it's going to be different this time', I've heard that from five chief constables already. I've heard from Barry today that he's putting in a plan, well hang on, well what has he been putting in for the last seven years?
"At what point does somebody take responsibility? And at what point does somebody say 'right, the buck stops with me, this is my fault, and we need to fundamentally change things?'
"Because at the minute, nobody is taking responsibility for this mess, and the reason I'm getting so angry about this is that ultimately it's about real people that are affected. Domestic abuse victims are not being taken seriously, we are not investigating crimes, people are being abused and violently assaulted in their own homes, we are not protecting young children who go missing.
"This is affecting real people. Who is taking responsibility for that?
"I have asked repeatedly for chief constables locally to deal with this, I don't expect Barry to do anything because he is as useless as a chocolate fireguard, and he's never done anything useful in his role as PCC, so I think we've got to take another step and the Home Office need to step in.
"The government needs to step in and pull the whole force apart and decide what needs to happen now. Does that include disbanding the force? Does it include merging it with North Yorkshire and or Durham? Does it mean ripping out the senior management at Cleveland Police and keeping the force area? I don't have the answers but we need that type of fundamental review of this.
"Nothing can change until we have new leadership, and that means Barry Coppinger has to go. How can somebody who gets paid £80,000 a year to oversee the running of the force, dare to come out and say it's not his responsibility. How dare he do that."
