Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Baroness Henig and Lord De Mauley

Monday 4th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

I see the noble Lord’s point. He is right to point out that there is a compromise in that concession. However, the chief constable has to be responsible for his force. He or she is the person invited to attend with the PCC. On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, if they do not know an answer they should go away and find it, like a Minister does at the Dispatch Box. We are trying to avoid a situation where the force is split by allowing the same question to be addressed to different people. That would risk undercutting the authority of the chief constable.

[Baroness Henig]

I understand that perfectly but it is not what I am trying to do. I want to enable the panel, in exercising strict checks and balances—which, after all, is what we are trying to do—to scrutinise the commissioner effectively. To enable that to happen, the panel should be able to ask questions of a chief constable that relate to a commissioner’s performance. This is all about the scrutiny of the commissioner; it is not about holding the chief constable to account. I agree with the noble Lord that that would not be acceptable; it is not what we want to see happen. We are trying to increase the ability of the panel to scrutinise effectively. That is what we are all trying to secure.

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, perhaps I may come back to that point and, for the moment, move on.

Amendment 143 would make the panel’s ability to request information more explicit. As discussed, it is important that panels can carry out their functions. However, panels already have powers appropriate for the scrutiny role they will perform. They can require the attendance of the police and crime commissioner or members of the PCC's staff to answer questions that they deem necessary. They can also require information from the commissioner and their staff, except where this would compromise security, so I hope that I can persuade noble Lords in due course to withdraw these amendments.

We are proposing in this group a number of government amendments which will address many of the issues raised by your Lordships during Committee. Amendments 145 and 181 would allow the police and crime panel to request the attendance of the chief constable in the exercise of their duties. We have noted your Lordships’ comments and we thank my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lord Shipley in particular for their contribution. It is still one of the fundamental principles of this reform that it is the police and crime commissioner who holds the chief constable to account. As has been said, we believe that such dual accountability would lead to a confusing landscape, with the chief constable being pulled in two different directions and the public unclear as to who they were holding to account for their policing service.

However, it is recognised that in order for the police and crime panel to fulfil its role in holding the police and crime commissioner to account, there might be times when the chief constable’s attendance is desirable, so it is proposed to give the panel the ability to request their attendance. That stops short of it being able to compel him or her to attend and it will be for the chief constable, in consultation with the police and crime commissioner, to decide. As I said, the principle is that the PCP’s function is to scrutinise the PCC rather than the chief constable but we acknowledge that there may be occasions when it is desirable for the PCP to meet the chief constable.

I turn to information provided to PCCs and to government Amendments 182 and 186. Noble Lords will be aware that, as originally drafted, the Bill provided that a chief constable could be required to provide a police and crime commissioner with any report that he or she saw fit. That matched the existing provisions for police authorities and one may well ask what these government amendments add to that. It is arguable that a report is a document containing or consisting of information—we certainly take this view—so that a power to require reports necessarily encompasses a power to require information. While this was not discussed in your Lordships’ House, a number of parties have raised with us concerns about the existing provisions.

Those concerns were, essentially, that by requiring a report rather than information, the PCC might only be able to obtain the chief constable's interpretation of data rather than being able to analyse that data themselves. I am confident that chief constables would not in any way seek to misrepresent data or use them selectively. However, in order for the PCC to be able properly to hold the chief constable to account, they will need to be able to see raw data for themselves so that they can give their own thought and analysis of them. This amendment will ensure that happens and that there can be adequate and appropriate flows of information between the chief constable and the PCC. It will also achieve consistency throughout the Bill, since similar provisions such as Clauses 14 and 94 are couched in terms of information rather than reports. Comment, opinion or analysis are kinds of information, so a PCC will still be able to use this clause to require the chief constable to give an account or explanation of any matter of concern. As such, I hope that noble Lords will support these government amendments.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Baroness Henig and Lord De Mauley

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Henig]

Amendment 77 is in my name, so perhaps I may say a few words about it. Before I do so, I did not declare my interest on the previous occasion and perhaps I may seek clarification. Do I need to declare my interest at the start of every Committee day, or does the fact that I did so on the first day mean that I do not need to do so again?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I am reliably informed that once is enough.

[Baroness Henig]

I am grateful for that. Amendment 77 relates back to an issue that this House discussed on our previous Committee day—that is, exploring the role of the police and crime commissioner in relation to the crime aspect of their portfolio, in addition to the aspect relating to policing.

In that debate I mentioned my concern that this aspect of the police and crime commissioner’s role is underdeveloped in how it is described in the Bill, which seems largely to focus on the ability to make grants to organisations engaged in crime reduction. The amendment seeks to link the role of the police and crime commissioner to this wider role in preparing policing and crime plans. It is clear that it is the Government’s intention to enable crime-related issues and priorities to be included in the functions of the police and crime commissioner and therefore, by extension, in these plans. The issue here is whether it would be possible, without explicit powers, to do what the Government want. Therefore, I am trying to make explicit what the Government hope the police and crime commissioner will do and to give a permissive power to the police and crime commissioner to work with partner organisations, and not just the police, and include them in crime reduction plans.

I have indicated before that I consider the Government’s proposals regarding police and crime commissioners to be very ambitious. I quote what the policing Minister stated in a speech at the IPPR on 28 March 2011:

“The role of commissioners will be greater than that of the police authorities they replace. That is the significance of the words ‘and crime’ in their title. They will have a broad remit to ensure community safety, with their own budgets to prevent crime and tackle drugs. They will work with local authorities, community safety partnerships and local criminal justice boards, helping to bring a strategic coherence to the actions of these organisations at force level”.

I hear that, and it is what I should like to happen but there are no explicit linkages in the Bill to ensure that it does happen. It is an aspiration but I want to make sure that it happens in delivery terms, and I am therefore trying to put something explicit in the Bill. We all know about good intentions but that does not necessarily mean that delivery happens on the ground, and I am most concerned about how this works out on the ground.

Therefore, perhaps in her response the Minister can address whether she believes that the plans, as currently set out in the Bill, will be able to pick up priorities related to this wider crime role and not just policing priorities or whether she thinks that what I am trying to suggest here in my amendment is helpful. Again it comes down to collaboration with a whole range of bodies that exist at local level at the moment, and on giving the police and crime commissioner an explicit remit to go out and do all these things. They have been mentioned but I would like to know that they will happen.

I was disappointed that the Minister did not address my query at our previous sitting about how the Government see the wider crime role of the police and crime commissioner fitting in with the new payment-by-results approach, which the Ministry of Justice is developing in relation to criminal justice bodies. That was not addressed but it is an issue, and it would be helpful if she could address it in her response. I remain concerned about timing. The Bill risks putting in place premature arrangements while the landscape in relation to criminal justice is still being developed. It is not yet clear so I hope that she can reassure me on that point.