Police

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to my noble friend Lord Bridgeman for instigating this debate. I should like to speak about issues of governance and, in particular, to comment on the recent government consultation paper, Policing in the 21st Century: Reconnecting police and people, in the context of forthcoming legislation. My simple question is: will directly elected police and crime commissioners deliver the Government’s aims? That question presupposes, of course, that police and people are disconnected. I cannot speak for the country as a whole, but I have no evidence that in Newcastle or in the Northumbria Police Authority area—here I declare my interest as a councillor in Newcastle and as a one-time member of the Northumbria Police Authority—there is any meaningful disconnection. For the most part, local people are happy with the policing that they receive.

I support the Government’s general direction to improve communication, to make people feel safer and more secure, to enable them to hold the police to account and to ensure that people have a real say in how their neighbourhoods are policed. However, there is no reason to suppose that, if we have directly elected commissioners, the Government’s desired outcomes will be delivered. How does the direct election of an individual covering a very large geographical area or population make the police more accountable—day in, day out and week in, week out—to its constituent neighbourhoods?

There is also an unanswered prior question: to what problem is a police and crime commissioner a solution, and why is it assumed that a single election and a single person will reconnect people and police? I am afraid that I find the proposal deeply unconvincing. Is the proposal designed to reduce crime? Well, it might be, but actually the answer is “Hardly” because crime has been dropping with the current governance structures. Is it designed to improve governance? Well, in my view it will not, for two reasons. First, having directly elected police and crime commissioners will concentrate power rather than disperse it. Secondly, the proposal would build in implicit strains between democratically elected councillors—and perhaps elected mayors—and the commissioners as well as between the commissioners and chief constables. Is that what we want?

What exactly is wrong with the current system? My police authority area has a police authority made up of nine democratically elected councillors, who are answerable to the community at large and to their own electorates, plus eight independent members, including a magistrate, who bring a wealth of different experience to that police authority. The structure is not perfect, but it is certainly more accountable than what is likely to be proposed.

Three major concerns have been raised by the Northumbria Police Authority, whose views will be shared by many other authorities. First, key constitutional changes are proposed that have not been subject to assessment or consideration in the same manner as the constitutional changes made by the Police Act 1964, which were informed by a Royal Commission. Secondly, proposals are being made for a system that has not been tried and tested in the United Kingdom through the operation of a time-limited pilot scheme. Thirdly, the consultative paper makes no reference to a corporate legal entity or statutory body that the commissioner will work within and which will hold the budget, act as employer, and own the real property necessary for the chief constable to deliver an effective policing service. The paper also fails to identity the fundamental requirement of the chief executive and/or monitoring officer role, which is a key role that was introduced as part of the 1994 Act to ensure propriety in the use of powers.

One possible way forward that could meet the wishes of the Government would be to have an independent police board, with the chair taking the title of police and crime commissioner and a board of assistant police and crime commissioners made up, as now, of local councillors and independent members. The board would work together to set the strategic direction for policing within local priorities and budgets and to hold the police to account for performance in all the geographical areas within its police area. To be clear, a purely advisory role for such a board would be unsatisfactory, because that would simply deny it the real teeth needed to maintain its independence.

The extent to which all these proposals are relevant to neighbourhood policing also needs to be considered. The truth is that they matter little. What matters to local people is how effective policing is in their neighbourhoods. People need structures to enable them to communicate directly with police officers and to get solutions speedily for their neighbourhoods. Police authorities and councils already have structures in place to achieve that, which are led by the councillors elected in their neighbourhoods.

The Home Secretary said that commissioners will ensure that police forces will meet local rather than Whitehall targets. That is good, but it begs the question of what is meant by “local”. Many police authorities cover large geographical areas, but what people want is access to police officers at their neighbourhood level to discuss policing issues. That is where accountability must be realised. Neighbourhoods talking to their own police officers—that is how the police can build safer neighbourhoods and build public confidence in them. By comparison, police and crime commissioners could be a diversion. They will spend their time juggling competing demands from the different parts of their police areas. They will court displeasure when they fail to deliver and when they are felt to favour one area rather than another.

The basic flaw in the Government’s proposal is that the commissioner will set priorities for the police force but it is not clear how the commissioner will know what those priorities should be. Will the commissioners have powers, formal or subtle, to interfere in the day-to-day running of the police? Sir Hugh Orde, head of the Association of Chief Police Officers, in responding to the Queen’s Speech, said:

“One of the great strengths of the British style of policing is the balance between … robust accountability at local level and operational independence. The police service is more effective through the freedom to make professional judgments about how we keep people safe, free from political interests”.

I agree with him. For me, this is a fundamental issue when considering how security and policing are best delivered across the country.

As things stand, a police and crime commissioner would appoint the chief constable, set the budget of the force and set the strategic police plan for the area. There would be advisers in the form of councillors and independent members, but they would have no formal powers. I cannot believe that this is wise, for where are the checks and balances that should be a central requirement of our governance of policing? I sincerely hope that the Government will think long and hard about trying to introduce such an untried system of governance.

Many questions arise. Is it wise for community safety partnerships—which, in most cases, have done a very good job in preventing and reducing crime—to be accountable not to their local area but to the commissioner of a much bigger area? Are we in danger of politicising the police in a way that could fuel accusations of partiality? How does the localism agenda fit with having one commissioner per force area? What are the accountability arrangements among the councils, elected mayors and elected commissioners? What budgets will commissioners hold and how will that money be raised? Overall, how will national and local policing be enhanced?

The Home Secretary said that the consultation paper Policing in the 21st Century is the most radical reform of policing for 50 years. That may well be true, but it does not make all of it wise. The Home Secretary went on to say that the police have become too bureaucratic and too much accountable to Whitehall rather than to the people whom they serve. That is also true, but cutting bureaucracy does not require police commissioners; it only requires the Home Secretary to act. Dismantling Whitehall targets is also simple to deliver and does not require police commissioners either. To make police more accountable to the people whom they serve is most simply delivered by neighbourhood governance structures and an independent police board with real powers, as I have suggested.

The Government are proposing many things in policing that can be welcomed. However, the proposal for police commissioners is, in my view, ill thought-out and should be reconsidered.