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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)
I welcome you to the Chair, Ms Clark. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) on raising a number of significant and important questions relating to the Association of Chief Police Officers to which I will respond.
My hon. Friend has made a number of criticisms about the leadership of the police service in England and Wales, but I welcome his positive statement about the work of front-line officers. We must be clear that police officers and staff throughout the country have our support in their fantastic work in keeping us all safe day in, day out.
In the context of some of the specific issues that my hon. Friend raised, I am aware that Sir Hugh Orde, president of ACPO, has written to my hon. Friend about the issues he has raised, and I am satisfied that ACPO has taken and is taking those criticisms seriously. That was demonstrated by the decision of the ACPO cabinet earlier this month to conduct a review of spending on consultants within ACPO. As its president outlined in his letter to my hon. Friend, that review will also look at how financial controls have been applied over the last three years. The whole process will be subject to external scrutiny by Transparency International, and the results will be made public.
A review is the right course of action, and it is appropriate to allow it to proceed and its report to be published before commenting further on the details. I agree that every organisation that receives money must be open and transparent about how that money is spent. Sir Hugh Orde stated that clearly to my hon. Friend in his response to him, and I note that he has agreed to meet my hon. Friend to discuss any further issues in detail.
My hon. Friend highlighted a significant point about ACPO’s independence. It is a private company limited by guarantee. It is not owned or controlled by the Home Office, and is operationally independent. The discussion of ACPO’s future role and funding must be framed in the light of the wider work taking place on police reform. As part of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary’s intention, which is laid out in the White Paper, “Policing in the 21st century”, the Government have embarked on the most radical programme of reform to policing in 50 years. We are currently developing the bodies necessary to support and reinforce those reforms. That work will help to deal with many of the concerns raised today regarding accountability and transparency within policing in England and Wales. We are grateful that ACPO agrees that change is necessary and for the constructive way in which its presidential team are engaging with the Home Office regarding the future of ACPO.
In August 2010, the Home Secretary asked Peter Neyroud to carry out a fundamental review of the delivery of leadership and training functions in policing. In response to the review, the Government announced their intention to create a new police professional body, which presents a unique opportunity further to professionalise policing and increase public accountability. As part of that work, the National Policing Improvement Agency will be phased out by the end of this year.
The Home Secretary has acknowledged a continued need for chief constables to come together for discussion on key operational issues and also when it is in the public interest for them to do so. Indeed, we are clear that chief officers will continue to play a vital role, both within the professional body and as part of a chiefs council, which will work with the new professional body. Together, those two bodies will equip the service with the skills that it needs to deliver effective crime fighting in a changing, leaner and more accountable environment. We are currently working with ACPO and key partners to consider the precise remit of the chiefs council, its relationship with the new body and the transition of ACPO functions. The Government have agreed to continue to fund ACPO’s grant-aid during the 2012-13 financial year while those discussions take place.
Mr Andrew Smith
Is it the Government’s intention that the two bodies to which the Minister refers will take on all ACPO’s present responsibilities, or will certain areas—perhaps co-ordination on counter-terrorism or serious crime—be the responsibility of a separate body?
James Brokenshire
It is precisely those issues that are the subject of the detailed discussions between the Government and ACPO. We will come forward in due course with further details of the police professional body and its precise functions. That will be the right time for the Government to set out in detail proposals for the police professional body, but it may help the right hon. Gentleman if I say this. As the Government have made clear, the challenge for the police service is to reduce crime to make communities feel safer. At the same time, forces must deliver significant savings to meet the challenges set by the spending review. Tackling those two challenges together will require transformational change; it cannot be done by relying on the existing structures at national level in policing. They require a fresh way of thinking. In particular, they require the development of a professional model for policing. At the heart of that model is the creation of the police professional body.
The new body will safeguard the public and fight crime by ensuring professionalism in policing. It will develop skills and leadership, facilitating the drive to reduce bureaucracy, and will have greater public accountability. The professional body will speak for the whole of policing and will directly support police officers at all ranks and civilian policing professionals. It will set and improve standards of professionalism in the police service and will take responsibility for specialist police disciplines. Work is under way on the detailed design of the new body.
The role of the professional body must be understood within the wider policing landscape and, in particular, the transformation in accountability that the introduction of police and crime commissioners will bring. It will need to reflect that shift in how it is constituted, in what it delivers and in how it delivers that. Its most important role will be to act in the public interest.
Key to that, and reflecting the move towards greater accountability, will be the way in which the professional body is structured. It will be chaired by someone independent of the police service, and its board will have an equal balance of police service and non-police service representatives, including police and crime commissioners. It will be open and transparent. In taking its work forwards, it will need to take into account public need in setting and inculcating standards among officers and staff. It will also need to take into consideration the cost of any changes it recommends to develop professionalism. That will form a crucial part of its ability to enhance the British model of policing by consent.
Many criticisms have been made today of the accountability and transparency of decision making by senior police officers. There are, however, clear examples of where the police have responded impressively to the need for change. This is one public service whose leaders generally recognise the difficult economic times and understand the benefits that reform can bring. Greater Manchester police, for example, have saved £62 million a year from their support functions, releasing 348 police officers from those roles so that they can get back to front-line work. Surrey police have carried out a significant restructuring, which has allowed them to commit to increasing constable numbers by up to 200 over the next four years.
Some forces are going even further, moving beyond restructuring and outsourcing, to building strategic relationships with the private sector. This is not about privatisation; policing will remain a public service. However, by harnessing private sector innovation, skills and economies of scale, forces can transform how they work and improve the service they provide to the public.
As well as saving money, our reforms are about making policing better. We are rebuilding the link between the police and the public. In November, the first elections for police and crime commissioners will take place. Elected by local people, commissioners will have the democratic mandate to set their local police force budget, and they will respond to local people’s concerns by setting the force’s priorities.
The direction of police reform provides a clear basis for the way in which the police professional body will operate. The police service is becoming more open, more transparent and more accountable to the public, and it is right and proper that that is the case.
In “Policing in the 21st Century”, we said that we expect chief police officers to continue to play a key role in advising the Government, police and crime commissioners and the police service on strategy and best practice. We will also expect chief constables to play a leading role in driving value for money and to have the capability to drive out costs in their forces.
ACPO is operationally independent of the Home Office, so it is a matter for the company directors to determine its future. ACPO has played a valuable role since it was established in 1948, providing a means for chief constables to come together to agree a common way of working in the absence of any federal policing structures. I re-emphasise that the Government fully appreciate the contribution that chief officers continue to make at a national and local level, particularly those chiefs who are directly supporting the substantial reform agenda. We look forward to building on all that ACPO has achieved.
The Government’s agenda for police reform is strong and coherent, and will free the police to fight crime at a national and local level, deliver better value for taxpayers and give the public a stronger voice.