Policing (Devon and Cornwall)

Dan Rogerson Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

I am grateful for this opportunity to raise policing in the Devon and Cornwall force area. Many people do not consider the police in detail until such time as we need to call on their support, services and advice. Complaints against the police are occasionally brought to the attention of MPs. As with all services, there is a tendency to focus on negative reports—people do not often take the trouble to come to their MP’s surgery to express their admiration and gratitude for a service—but hon. Members appreciate and are incredibly grateful for what police officers, police community support officers and police staff do in their constituencies to ensure that there is a great deterrent to crime and community engagement on tackling and resolving problems confronting that community, and that those who commit crimes are detected.

Devon and Cornwall is the largest force area in England—it is more than 180 miles from one end to the other. Fortunately, it is also one of the safest places to live and work. Recorded crime has been low in recent years in the area compared with other parts of the country, although in recent months, there are signs of a reverse in that trend. Perhaps we can expect that at times of economic hardship—sadly, we have seen crime rise in such circumstances in the past. That reverse is at an early stage, and we must keep it under close review.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that Charles Cross police station in my constituency is one of the busiest police stations—if not the busiest—in the whole of England, principally because of drug and alcohol abuse?

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point on one of the pressures on the police. That problem requires close cross-agency working, including health and social services, and local housing officers. The police have a great demand made of them from cross-agency working and they also have a huge contribution to make.

As I was saying, Devon and Cornwall police cover a huge area. It is mix of urban areas, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out—it includes Plymouth and other larger settlements—and rural areas. Another characteristic of the force is that its officer base is at the higher end of the age profile, which is somewhat driven by the high number of transfers into the force area. That brings with it the benefit of experience and a range of skills, but it also changes the characteristics of the force. Officers have raised that with me.

Devon and Cornwall police are highly thought of: according to studies, 68.7% of those who responded said that the force was good or excellent, placing it second out of the 42 forces, and 90% expected to be treated respectfully by the police, again putting them second. As I have said, it is also one of the safest places—in fact, in the top 10—in the country.

We are, however, in a time of deficit reduction, and the Liberal Democrats and our Conservative coalition partners have signed up to doing the right thing, which is to tackle the deficit left to us by the previous Government. Sadly, no one from Her Majesty’s Opposition is with us, but they have admitted the need to tackle the deficit. Of course, though, they are now in the happy position of being able to claim that they would not make a single cut to a single service when they are being debated in isolation, while claiming that they would still tackle the deficit, if over a slightly longer period.

The Government, on the other hand, must deal with deficit reduction as it manifests itself on the ground, which means cuts in public spending. The police service, like other services, has had to bear its share, although, as was made plain to me by officers and former officers, some feel that it has been made to take more than its share of the burden of deficit reduction. In Devon and Cornwall, as in other forces, it will mean a cut in police staff—the number of officers—and therefore in the force’s ability to deliver the full range of services they have been delivering in recent years.

[Mr Adrian Sanders (Torbay) (LD)]

An unintended consequence that could have severe implications in Devon and Cornwall is the simultaneous cutbacks in the Ministry of Defence police force, which will put pressure on the civilian police force to move into areas that, in the past, they relied on the MOD force to police. Dartmouth is an example, and so too is Plymouth. I am extremely worried that there might be a double-whammy effect from the necessary austerity measures.

[Dan Rogerson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There has been close working between MOD police and the local constabulary, and as those pressures are brought to bear on the MOD police, changes in working practice will be inevitable.

Perhaps the cuts in Devon and Cornwall are compounded by one or two aspects of the funding formula. First, the formula does not take into account, as some other public funding formulae do, the huge influx in the number of visitors. In the summer, the population of Devon and Cornwall increases dramatically. I no longer represent the town of Newquay, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert), but I did once, and I saw at first hand the huge explosion in population. That was welcome, because of the money it brought to the local economy, but it also increased the pressure on policing.

In the health service, bills can be re-charged to primary care trusts in the areas from which patients originate. Of course, it is not so easy for the policing formula to charge local police authorities for the work carried out on behalf of citizens who happen to be in the south-west of the United Kingdom for that period. As the Government consider police funding, however, there might be an opportunity to make the base formula take that issue into account.

Secondly, there is the issue of the funding formula as currently constituted and its assessment of the funding level that each force should receive. As I understand it, Devon and Cornwall force could receive an extra £4.9 million were they to receive their full allocation, as one would expect, under the formula. The reason they do not is the damping mechanism, which ensures that forces seen to be overfunded do not lose out in short order on a lot of funding to benefit forces such as Devon and Cornwall in the correct manner. I would, however, like to see a mechanism that shows that some progress is being made on the funding due to Devon and Cornwall. If that £4.9 million were to be made available, it would equate to 100 officers, which would make a huge difference to the programme of change and to the cuts being delivered as a result of deficit reduction.

Under the area cost adjustment, areas seen to be high cost—I could stray into the controversial topic of regional pay, but I will resist the temptation—are given extra funding. This spreads out from London as one heads westward. Sadly, it peters out around Dorset, so the Devon and Cornwall force does not benefit from area cost adjustment, whereas other forces in the south-west do. Yet again, I would suggest, there is an element of unfairness there.

We face the challenges of policing across a diverse, geographically widespread peninsular environment, the funding for which is, sadly, deficient in a number of respects. I fully accept that this is an historic issue—it is one that this Government have inherited, but I look to them to consider some of the issues so that they might be resolved in the future.

The cuts manifest themselves in planned cuts to the sworn officer base from 3,580 in 2010 to 2,810 in 2015—a 21.5% reduction, with 700 fewer officers. At the same time, there is a reduction in police staff of about 500. This puts pressure on the ability to deliver such services as specialist traffic police and accident investigation—not during the middle of the day, but perhaps over weekends and late at night, reducing the ability to examine the scene of an accident in detail. We could be looking at some reduction in the excellent community policing performed by the neighbourhood teams, and another stretched resource is response cover. That is particularly challenging in rural areas, as response times can be affected when areas are stretched. There are also more specialist areas of work—in diversity, for example—and there will inevitably be a reduction in the vehicle fleet infrastructure and estate. As I said earlier, we accept that some of these cuts had to come because of the strategy for dealing with deficit reduction. It is important, however, to look at how we can support the chief constable and those who have to deal with these issues on the ground.

It would be fair to say that, because of the financial challenges, police morale is pretty low. They are doing a fantastic job, but they are concerned about the future of the service and about their own careers. A few months ago, I attended a meeting in Launceston—I pronounce it that way for the benefit of those taking notes of our proceedings—and more recently in Bodmin, when I had discussions with a number of officers who work on the front line. They are feeling it pretty hard at the moment. They are concerned about the level of reduction in the number of officers and about one or two other changes under consideration at the moment and how they might impact on them.

Let me refer briefly to the pensions issue; it is not my main focus this evening, but as with those working in public services elsewhere, this is a matter of concern—particularly to officers who have served for some time and are worried that things might change during their period of service. With the Winsor review in mind, there is concern about pay, particularly about how a mechanism based on incremental points and length of service is going to be changed, while a skills threshold will also be introduced. For someone at the top of the constable scale, that could represent a reduction in pay if they do not qualify for the skills threshold. In the longer term, there is the problem of moving towards a different framework, while those serving for some time are also worried about possible loss of earnings through a structural change that does not reflect their policing career and their abilities.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

Police officers have raised such concerns with me as well. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that he disagrees with the Winsor proposals, or does he accept that such measures are necessary to modernise and reform the police force and make it more responsive to the needs of today?

[Dan Rogerson]

I bow to the hon. Gentleman’s understanding. He may be more of an expert on these issues than I am. However, I have been guided by discussions with serving officers, among whom there is a range of opinion. Some feel strongly that the status quo should continue, while others are open and sympathetic to change as long as it reflects performance and the reality with which they live from day to day. They fear that the proposed reforms may not entirely pass that test. I wanted to share the views of those local officers with the House for the Minister’s benefit.

One issue that has been brought to my attention is that of the starting salary, which will rise as a trainee moves towards becoming a constable, but may still be lower—at least at the beginning—than that of a police community support officer. Points have been made about their respective roles. There is also the issue of unsocial hours. It has been pointed out to me that the new way of rewarding officers for working at night may create perverse incentives. For example, officers who had been rostered to do evening work for which they were to have been be rewarded might be worse off if some of those hours were shifted to the daytime so that they could make a court appearance. That strikes me as a rather strange state of affairs.

We are understandably asking the police service, as we are asking other public services, to bear down on cost and deliver the most efficient service possible, and to deal with cuts in numbers. We should ensure that other changes that we are calling on the service to make at the same time pass the test—that they constitute the most efficient use of resources, that they will provide incentives and rewards for good performance, and that they will not act as a disincentive and further undermine the morale of the service.

The key points that I hope that the Minister will take on board relate to funding. The damping mechanism means that some areas are being overfunded and some underfunded, a process with which we are all too familiar in Devon and Cornwall in the context of other public services. There is also the issue of the area cost adjustment versus the huge costs of delivering a service across a rural area such as ours.

Given all the changes that we are asking police forces to make in order to bring about some kind of modernisation of the service, I should like to be reassured that we are listening closely to those on the ground who will have to live with those changes, so that we maintain their trust and good will. We are very fortunate to have a band of officers who are committed, who want to make a real difference in their communities, and who want to protect the public and community safety. I hope that when we reach the end of this period of change, we shall have a police service that is fit for purpose and does the best that it possibly can with the resources that we are able to give it, but which also motivates its members to give of their best.