Police: Performance Indicator Management

Lord Laird Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Laird]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for securing today’s debate. It is a good opportunity to express some opinions that a lot of us feel strongly about.

I have become increasingly worried about the build-up of resentment over actual or perceived corruption among police forces the length of this country. Corruption, where it exists, affects only a tiny part of the police service. Thankfully, this point has already been made. The majority of police are honest and decent, and it is for that majority that I would like to know from the Minister if he will set up a whistleblowing scheme for officers, preferably independent from the police service.

I have been made aware that some South Wales Police officers have contacted non-Welsh Members in the other place with their concerns over the improper actions of supervising officers or undue pressure to undertake actions that conflict with their oath to Her Majesty the Queen or their professional judgment. These actions have done much to damage the image of the police.

I am told that the police nationally now adopt a process of informal cautions. This apparently allows them to hold a database of information as a local criminal record. Does this enable them to circumvent the DNA issue and to hold such material indefinitely? Such local data are not accessible via the police national computer and do not necessarily show up on a standard Criminal Records Bureau check or on enhanced disclosure or subject access requests. Persons entered on these databases usually have no idea what is logged or why, and cannot challenge the accuracy of something that could easily affect their personal finances, employment or later be dragged up in court proceedings or other activities.

This practice has apparently been going on since 1997 and was raised in correspondence in early 2007 between Ken Jones, ACPO’s president, and Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner. I gather that even a fixed penalty notice or a police warning letter is sufficient to trigger a “non-sanction detection” and resultant entry on a computer. Needless to say, the Information Commissioner was most concerned and I would like to know if this issue has been addressed. Does the Home Office know how many such databases are operated by police forces or associates, what they are used for and how they are authorised, and will it ensure from today that all data are disclosed to those whose names are so held? Further, is it going to regulate the activity and insist on a formal register?

I now turn to south Wales and a matter that I last raised on 15 May 2012 in a debate on the Queen’s Speech. It would appear that little attention was paid by the Home Office to my comments, nor did it take steps to use the powers it already has or, if necessary, to seek new regulations. South Wales, its police force and the independence and governance of its commissioner concern me. It seems that the chief constable, Peter Vaughan, was part of the selection panel for the deputy and assistant commissioners, the deputy being a political appointment. I do not feel comfortable with this, or with the appointment of his former ACC, David Francis, as assistant commissioner. Surely this process should have been free of cronyism? I thought that the idea was to introduce independence and new ideas.

What I previously called systemic corruption by a small number of that force’s officers seems to have been endemic in the area for many decades, and now appears to have been compounded. I wrote to Assistant Chief Constable Matt Jukes on 17 July 2012 and in that letter I included a number of FOI requests, which he neither answered nor acknowledged receipt of in his reply of 10 September 2012. I therefore submitted a complaint to the Information Commissioner for him to pursue answers in full. The answers to the FOI requests appear to have been blocked by the sector inspector for east Cardiff, Inspector Nicky Flower, whose actions and management they concern.

An appalling case happened in south Wales that was very similar to the type of case that the noble Lord, Lord Condon, was referring to in Kent. A young person was taken out of the prison in Bridgend and treated in the sort of way mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Condon, except that he was plied with four cans of cider and then asked to agree to a considerable number of “taken into consideration” dwelling burglaries that he had not committed. Unfortunately for the police officers doing the questioning, the young chap was actually in police custody on the days concerned. The two detectives received written warnings only as a result of the IPCC investigation; the chief constable would have exposed himself if he had committed the officers to trial. Why am I not surprised? How long do we have to wait for a criminal judge or judges to be appointed by the Home Office to carry out a root-and-branch investigation of that force?