Police: Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, I also thank the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for the debate. I note his comments about crime figures being underrecorded by the police—was there ever a greater case of shooting yourself in the foot, bearing in mind the justification that the Government have given for reducing police numbers by so great an amount is the drop in crime?

I have a great deal of sympathy for what the noble Lord, Lord Blair of Boughton, said about the way his career came to an end, which I think was entirely inappropriate. As far as the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, is concerned, the report majors on holding PCCs to account. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bew, not only for the report but for raising that as an issue, because I want to concentrate on concerns with the police and crime commissioners, rather than concerns with police leadership.

In 2010, the Liberal Democrats raised concerns about PCCs. We had concerns about concentrating so much power in one individual. As an alternative we suggested that, where police authorities were coterminous with local authority areas, the police authority should be made of the local elected councillors. Where they were not, there should be directly-elected police authorities, but not just one individual. In particular, concerns are highlighted in the report about the hiring and firing of police constables, the transparency of the selection processes and the ability to hold the police and crime commissioner to account when their conduct falls below the standards expected of them but short of criminal conduct.

I will illustrate the report’s abstract concerns by reference to a real-life example. A police and crime commissioner selected and appointed a chief constable to head their force. Some time after appointment, serious allegations of misconduct against the chief constable were reported to the PCC by a whistleblower. The allegations were of a sexual nature, involving the alleged abuse of authority, with the chief constable using his position, as both the chief constable and a man, to behave in inappropriate ways towards female staff. Because the chief constable had only recently been appointed by the PCC, there was clearly potential for the allegations to cast serious doubt over the judgement of the PCC in appointing the chief constable in the first place.

It has been brought to my attention by some of those involved that this confidential report of serious misconduct, including the name of the whistleblower, was passed to the chief constable by the police and crime commissioner. Those who brought the matter to my attention felt that, as the PCC was elected, and because of the sensitive nature of the allegations and the impact on the victims if their identities were made public, there was nothing they could do about what they considered to be the entirely inappropriate behaviour of the police and crime commissioner.

Eventually the allegations against the chief constable were formally recorded and investigated, and findings against him were made, short of requiring him to resign. Only after relentless pressure, mainly from his own officers, whose representative organisations, rather than the PCC, said they no longer had confidence in him, did the PCC finally agree to start the proceedings that would result in requiring the chief constable to resign. Eventually he did resign of his own volition.

Apart from the question of lack of judgment by the PCC in the first place, there are serious questions about her conduct—such as the leaking of confidential information about the identity of the complainants to the perpetrator—that have still not been addressed. This report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life queries the robustness of the selection of chief constables by PCCs, the effectiveness of police and crime panels in holding the police and crime commissioner to account, the confused complaints system in relation to PCCs, the lack of a code of conduct for PCCs, and insufficient powers to take action against PCCs whose conduct falls below the required standards.

Those are not abstract or theoretical concerns. As I have outlined in this one case, of which I have some detailed knowledge, the whole system by which PCCs work together with chief constables, how they are appointed and how they are then held to account and disciplined is, in my opinion, flawed. As the report highlights, because there is only one person holding the chief constable to account—in an increasing number of cases, the same person who appointed that chief constable—the relationship between the chief constable and the PCC in terms of their combined skills, their experience and their personalities becomes critical.

Do the Government not accept that, with the best will in the world, even if we have the codes of conduct and an independent element in the chief constable appointments process—as the report recommends—and a clear understanding of operational independence and effective measures to hold an elected police and crime commissioner to account, is having only one person responsible for selecting the chief constable and co-operating with the chief constable to deliver politically critical goals, for holding the chief constable to account and for sacking the chief constable really a workable system? I raise that not as a theoretical question but in relation to the case that I have outlined to the Committee this afternoon.