Sir Ian Blair will perform his last duty as Metropolitan Police Commissioner tomorrow afternoon. Ironically, the first commissioner in more than 120 years to have his term of office cut short will be handing out long-service awards to fellow officers at Scotland Yard.

There has been a sense of mounting impatience for Sir Ian to go since Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, ousted him from the top job in policing at the beginning of October. But Sir Ian has been in no hurry. He has been waiting for the race dispute with Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur to be settled (which it was this week), preparing for his farewell party (at Scotland Yard tonight), negotiating the terms of his payoff and choosing the right artist for his official retirement portrait.

The start of the post-Blair era will have to be delayed until Monday. That is when Sir Paul Stephenson becomes Acting Commissioner and midday on Monday is also the deadline for would-be successors to Sir Ian to submit their applications, which must include a three-page career summary.

Although he had to bear a prolonged political and media drubbing, Sir Ian reached the pinnacle of policing. The post of Metropolitan Police Commissioner carries a national leadership role, huge responsibilities and handsome rewards, the most obvious of which is a £253,622 salary.

The perks are not bad either. The commissioner has the use of a large riverside apartment in West London, a car and driver on call 24 hours a day, first-class air and rail travel from London, a minimum leave entitlement of 48 days a year, a hospitality allowance and the chance to earn a substantial bonus.

There are also a few unspoken rewards: a passport to the Establishment, a knighthood (if the successful applicant does not already have one) and a seat in the House of Lords after retirement in five years.

With such generous pay and perks it is hardly surprising that there is talk of as many as a dozen candidates. But some of the strongest potential candidates have been agonising over whether or not to apply.

The Blair legacy and the well-known foibles of police chiefs such as the late Michael Todd, of Greater Manchester, have made the commissioner fair game for the media and made some police chiefs think twice about throwing their hats in the ring.

A leading candidate told The Times that if he got the job he would make sure he kept quiet for a year. Kit Malthouse, deputy mayor for policing, has said that after Sir Ian’s colourful tenure he would like a “pretty boring” replacement.

Potential applicants are deterred not only because the private life of the office holder might become public property or that every word that he or she utters is a potential “gaffe”. The job also sits on a political fault line.

Sir Ian used to be fond of recalling the days when the commissioner was appointed by the Home Secretary and they hardly ever spoke again. But those days are long gone and the running of Scotland Yard has become an incendiary issue in politics.

Labour created a powerful mayoralty in London, gave the office huge influence over the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) and then lost the post to the Tory party’s most charismatic politician. Boris Johnson swiftly ousted Sir Ian because, in part, he was “new Labour’s favourite policeman”. In truth, the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, was not greatly concerned by his departure, but the potential for party political conflict is huge.

The Home Office and the Tory police authority have already squabbled over the wording of the job advertisement and in the next three months there is every prospect of clashes over who should get the job.

Initially, all the candidates will be assessed, interviewed and vetted by a panel headed by Sir David Normington, the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, who will have Charles Farr, head of the Office for Security and Counter-terrorism alongside him as well as representatives from the MPA. That panel will then submit a shortlist of no more than six candidates to the police authority for a second round of interviews.

The MPA will make its recommendations to the Home Secretary, who will carry out one more round of interviews and has insisted that she will have the final say over the name put forward to the Queen.

But what if Boris Johnson’s MPA passes on only one name to Ms Smith? If that name is not that of her preferred candidate, will she reject it? And will anyone bother to consult Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Home Secretary, who could be in charge of the Home Office by 2010?

The politicisation of the process has already deterred Sir Norman Bettison, the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, from applying. He condemned the sacking of Sir Ian as “an act of political will” and said he was staying put. He added: “I think there is much to be said for remaining in a role where, for the time being at least, I am allowed to get on with the job of policing without political interference.”

The new commissioner will face huge policing challenges when he or she finally takes up the job in the spring. At the top of the in-tray will be policing the 2012 Olympic Games on a tight budget, addressing the murderous teenage gang culture in London, dealing with the inevitable upsurge of crime in a recession and restoring morale in a force that has lost faith in its leadership.

It is hardly a job for either a dullard or a politician.

The front-runners

Sir Hugh Orde, 50 Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland The job advertisement says the successful candidate will “demonstrate an outstanding track record in countering terrorism, serious and organised crime and serious violent crime”. Few applicants can tick those boxes quite as confidently as Sir Hugh, who has transformed his present force

Sir Paul Stephenson, 55 Deputy Commissioner In the eyes of many, this race is Sir Paul’s to lose. Perform well as Acting Commissioner and it will be hard to pass him over. The former Chief Constable of Lancashire and Sir Ian Blair’s deputy from 2005 took effective operational control in October. The rate of teenage murders has since fallen

Bernard Hogan-Howe, 50 Chief Constable of Merseyside Demands that his officers wage a war on crime, in a philosophy he calls “total policing”. It seems effective – Merseyside has recorded the largest drop in crime in the UK. The Matrix squad, tackling organised and gun crime, is an example of how the model works – using overt and covert tactics to disrupt and deter

Sir Paul Scott-Lee, 55 Chief Constable of West Midlands A late entrant to the race, Sir Paul is the only one of the four leading candidates never to have served in the Metropolitan Police. Widely respected, he has previously commanded Suffolk Constabulary. After years of internal politicking, a complete outsider might be exactly what is required at the Metropolitan Police

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