Police Federation

Debate between Lord Grocott and Baroness Browning

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning]

I hesitate to criticise my civil servants. It is not something that I would wish to do. In terms of the issues around police federations, the substance of the Question was not specifically about that consultation. It was about how much contact Ministers had had with the Police Federation, which I answered in terms. As I have explained, I am very happy to write to the noble Lord because I do not know off the top of my head what opportunities or attempts there were for any consultation specifically on that issue. But I will inform the House in writing and it will be a substantive reply.

[Lord Grocott]

I would ask the Minister to give a reminder to her colleagues, who can sometimes be careless with statistics when they talk about the proportion of police officers who are on the beat at any given time and complain about it being a low figure. The simple arithmetic, which I know she is aware of, shows that on a three-shift system, the maximum number of people available to be on the beat, even with no holidays, sickness or days off, would be 33.3 per cent of the available force. Very misleading statistics are being given out when Ministers complain about what they describe as being the low proportion of officers on the beat. I am sure they understand that in a 24-hour system of cover, that is bound to be the case.

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, we understand the shift patterns, but other reasons can affect the number of police officers on the front line at any given point. As I have said many times in this House, we leave matters regarding individual policing and independent decision-making on force deployment to chief constables, and rightly so. None the less, we are aware that we are asking the police to take some tough decisions, and chief officers are responding well to that. In turn, they have to make difficult decisions about back office, middle office and front-line police officers. We also rely on Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary which, in several reports including its most recent one, has indicated some trends which I think will be helpful to chief officers and to inform the rest of us.