Policing and Crime Bill (First sitting)

Lyn Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

May I ask two questions at the same time?

[The Chair]

Yes.

[Lyn Brown]

Q Do you believe that under a single employer arrangement the discrepancy between a firefighter’s right to strike and the ban on police officers taking strike action might be a source of friction? Secondly, there is a duty of collaboration in the first part of the Bill. Do you know of a situation where any of your colleagues have refused to collaborate under the current system?

Chief Superintendent Thomas: I will try to be as brief as I can—I will bear in mind the hint on the timescales. In terms of the first question, there are significant cultural differences between the fire service and the police service. You only have to see the learning on collaboration between forces, let alone with other emergency services—Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has commented on it several times. We must not underestimate the power of cultural differences in this. There are dynamics of a heavily unionised service coming to join up with a service that is not unionised, particularly under the single employment model.

In answer to your second question, I am not necessarily sure about the language around refusing to collaborate. I have already articulated one reason for it and there are many other reasons as well, such as, for instance: single funding; annual funding, which does not give any longevity in terms of planning; and misaligned geography in terms of coterminosity. Two forces exist that are not coterminous to the Fire Brigades Union: Avon and Somerset constabulary and Devon and Cornwall police. You have a fire service that crosses over those two force areas. That does present some challenges itself.

[Lyn Brown]

You do not agree with it, then.

Steve White: The police service and, indeed, my members—the 124,000 people who I represent—recognise and value the expertise that the fire service brings, and we work incredibly well together at the scenes of many, many incidents and operations; of that there is absolutely no doubt. Provided that that separation of professional responsibility remains, I do not necessarily think that there is an issue. We have sympathy with some of the issues in relation to the fire service. I am sure that they have similar concerns for issues that we have. I am sure we would continue to work very closely together, so I do not necessarily see it as a massive issue. Of course, when we had the police service escorting green goddesses—I experienced this through disputes years ago—it was because of strike action, but even so, I think the fire service recognised the limits and capabilities of the police service. We just have to be pragmatic, deal with it and be professional in dealing with it.

In relation to collaboration, let us be brutally frank: collaboration between police forces and other agencies is not working as efficiently as it should. It is absolutely true that that is the case. Sometimes it is cultural. Sometimes it is managerial. Sometimes it is about egos. Sometimes it is political. There needs to be a locus to ensure that collaboration within the police service and across other agencies happens as effectively and efficiently as possible. Indeed, there have been many instances where my members have been working within collaborative organisations and have seen the frustrations—why are there three different annual leave policies for three forces that are collaborating on specialist operations? They have to go to three different resource units to take time off. Our members can see that it is not working as well as it should.

I am not saying that people have refused to collaborate; I am just saying that from a cultural perspective, there is still quite a lot that needs to happen. There is an opportunity for a central locus to say, “No. You need to collaborate under this framework and get on with it.”

Ben Priestley: The issue of industrial action is maybe not as important as some might initially think. Forty per cent. of the police workforce can join a trade union. It is a reasonably unionised workforce. Over half the workforce is in a trade union, and there has not been a history or a tradition of industrial action. That, I think, is testimony to the good quality of employment relations and the negotiating machinery that we have. Whichever service we are thinking about, it is the quality of the industrial relations that determines whether there are industrial disputes or not. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango, and very often industrial disputes are an indication of a failure of the system, rather than any in-built problem with the fact that certain workers have a right to strike.

In relation to the broader concept within the Bill of a single employer, once we begin to unpack that, there is an awful lot in it that will have to be dealt with and that will involve police services, and potentially fire and rescue services, in a huge amount of work—for what end? It brings together four or five different negotiating bodies under one or maybe two or more employers. The Bill is unclear whether the police and crime commissioner will be the single employer, whether he or she can delegate to the chief constable and whether the chief constable can then delegate to another individual within his or her force. That part of the Bill hopefully can be examined properly in Committee, and we certainly would like to put evidence up at that stage to help the MPs on the Committee to understand some of the complexities around the single employer model.

In relation to the duty to collaborate, I think the Government supported the establishment of the emergency services collaboration working group, which reported last year. I am sure the Committee will want to have a look at its report, which said that in about 90% or 95% of cases, collaboration was already happening. It is difficult for us to say exactly what the quality of that collaboration was, but most of the respondents to that survey said they were entirely happy with the level of collaboration. The group showed and said in its report that the jury was out on whether collaboration was actually going to save money. The Government make some fairly steep claims in relation to what collaboration will or will not do in respect of saving money and efficiencies. There is no actual evidence at this stage that collaboration will save money. The Committee might want to gain further insight into that as part of its deliberations.

Chief Superintendent Thomas: I will add an observation and a couple of quick points. In my mind, ultimately the question is whether this is good for the public and whether it delivers a service to the public. There are definitely opportunities within this for efficiencies, in terms of coterminosity around estate, procurement and fleet requirements and HR functions, for instance. There are definitely opportunities for efficiencies there. There are already examples of that taking place in parts of the country, in force areas, with fire services.

I refer you to the HMIC report of July 2014 on meeting austerity. To reinforce my point about some of the challenges of this, that report referred particularly to the difficulties around collaboration. In preparation for this Committee hearing, I read Ken Knight’s review. That almost mirrored the language used, with there being exactly the same challenges within the fire service. We are overlaying another area of complexity on top of the challenges that Steve has just articulated, in terms of how we are trying to collaborate among ourselves. Ultimately, the terms “patchy” and “fragmented” are used in both reports. That demonstrates some significant challenges in terms of how we would actually make this happen.

[Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)]

Q Have any benefits of collaboration actually been seen? I heard quite a negative picture, but were there any benefits that the panel could see?

Chief Superintendent Thomas: There have been benefits but, again, I refer back to my previous comment. To give you a slightly historic answer on this, going back to that report, HMIC recognised that collaboration in policing was patchy and fragmented, and in the way that we were approaching it at the moment it would not meet the demands of austerity. That is partly because there is a vacuum in terms of who makes that decision.

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[The Chair]

Before anyone answers that, I shall bring Lyn Brown in on a similar point and we can take the two questions together.

[Lyn Brown]

Q I have heard of decent collaboration between fire services and between fire services and police services. The one thing they all had in common is that they wanted to do it and they found ways to do it, locally, that had benefited them. I think that asking people to collaborate willingly is a better methodology than trying to force a structure upon a police service. Do you agree?

Chief Superintendent Thomas: I agree with that point. My only other observation goes back to what I said earlier; ultimately, this is for the public good. The public can have a different experience in different areas, as in the example you just gave: you can have two chief executives, of the police service and the fire service, coming together in an effective relationship and making collaboration work, yet just down the road, across the county boundary, that has not happened. Is that the type of service we want, in terms of it being that diverse, across England and Wales?

[Jake Berry]

Could you answer my question?

Chief Superintendent Thomas: Do you mind repeating it?

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[Lyn Brown]

Q I will not ask you to answer me now, but if you will write to me, I shall disseminate to all colleagues your view of the clauses in the firearms section of the Bill. Do they go far enough and are they what you wanted to see?

[Mims Davies]

Q I want to touch on the opportunity, through the Bill and through secondary legislation, to change the rank structure. Is that a welcome opportunity?

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[The Chair]

First, I should thank people for taking the time and trouble to appear before the Committee today. We very much appreciate the wisdom that we hope you will be able to bring to our proceedings.

[Lyn Brown]

Q May I ask you what effect you think transferring governance to police and crime commissioners would have on the fire service? Do you fear that PCCs will seek to raise funds via the privatisation of fire services, should governance be transferred? Do you know of any colleagues refusing to collaborate under the current system, which would need a swingeing power to place them under PCCs at the behest of the Home Secretary?

Matt Wrack: We have made our views clear: we do not support the shift in governance of fire to PCCs. There are a whole number of risks in that. We think there is no appetite within the fire and rescue service for it, and there is no public appetite for it. As was touched on in the earlier session, it begins seriously to blur the lines between the role of the fire and rescue service and the role of the police service, and the people who perform those roles. We have grave concerns about that.

On privatisation, the first concern is that this is seen widely among those within the fire and rescue service as a takeover. The police service is clearly far larger in terms of personnel, resources and so on. Fire is a much smaller public service. Nevertheless, fire has a unique reputation among our communities. Among firefighters, this will be seen as a takeover. We are concerned, in terms of the funding squeeze, that the area of the two services that would come under the greatest pressure as a result of such takeovers is fire.

On collaboration, I want to make a number of quick points that arose from the previous session. First, I think there is some confusion about different types of collaboration. Operational collaboration among fire services is built into the very fabric of the fire and rescue service. It happens every single day. For example, on the question about Wales, there will be border areas where Welsh fire stations attend daily predetermined attendances in English fire and rescue service areas. That happens on a much greater scale with major incidents and so on.

There is a huge amount of experience of collaboration over many years between fire and various agencies. We are concerned that one thing that is not being addressed in the discussion here is greater collaboration with local government. Fire is currently a local government service. We are concerned that there are very few councillors here. We do now have two councillors here, but they are from metropolitan authorities. There are no councillors here to give the views of non-metropolitan fire services. A great deal of collaboration is going on in other areas, such as the fire service and the ambulance service, and the fire service and social services, but, again, there is nobody here from ambulance trusts to give evidence to the Bill Committee.

Chief Fire Officer Etheridge: From a Chief Fire Officers Association angle, the most important thing is that we fully welcome the move of fire into the Home Office. We think that that is the right thing to do for national resilience and national security, and we think that it will enhance the way in which the conversations can take place, at a very strategic level, about managing the risk to the UK. It is a very positive move.

On the governance issue regarding PCCs, CFOA’s position has been very clear: where there is a local need and a local business case, and where that will make a positive impact on efficiency, effectiveness and, most importantly, public safety, we feel it is entirely appropriate for there to be a conversation around the governance model that oversees the fire service. However, the most important thing is where that local case is made.

A patchwork of different governance structures sits over the whole UK, but it is a patchwork quilt that knits together well and operates effectively. The fire service is held in very high public esteem and we need to ensure that we can maintain that. To support what Matt from the Fire Brigades Union said, when it comes to operational delivery, we have a seamless approach of that blue light emergency delivery right across the UK. I absolutely believe that the emergency services in the UK are the best in the world.

[The Chair]

Q Does either Councillor Edwards or Councillor Hanratty want to say anything about the governance issue from the point of view of elected members?

Councillor Edwards: Certainly, we have no problem with collaboration. We collaborate all the time and we have been doing so for many years. The most recent example across the country is the national fire control collaborations that we have done after the national failure of the regional controls some time ago. There are many examples. As Matt said, every day the fire service collaborates with the police, the ambulance service and other services at emergency incidents. We have no problem at all with that and we are looking for better ways to collaborate all the time. The problem with a forced takeover of the governance of fire and rescue authorities is that it puts some of that collaboration in jeopardy. If we are going to be engaged in a prolonged discussion with a local PCC about a merger or a takeover—possibly a hostile takeover—it will detract from the collaborative efforts in which we are currently engaged. It will be a distraction.

An absolute concern of mine in the face of a hostile bid for the fire and rescue service is the impact on the neutrality of the fire service. We are not a law and order service. We have access to communities and individual residences where people welcome the fire service and will share a lot of information with us. We work with lots of disadvantaged young people and people who are sometimes on the edge of the criminal justice system and we bring them back into the mainstream. We would start to lose some of our impact in the event of a loss of our neutrality.

My other concern about a takeover is that, in the metropolitan area—I speak on behalf of the six mets—we are all engaged, in one way or another, in some form of devolution pathway. We are going to be in a situation next year, if we are not careful, where one part of government is telling the elected mayor that he should be looking at us and the other part is telling the PCC they should be looking at us. Our favoured route is with the combined authorities and the elected mayor—that is where we naturally fit as part of local government. We have done lots of work with our local councils in delivering a very wide health and wellbeing and prevention agenda. We have a lot in common with the police; we have a lot more in common with our local authorities and the health services. That is the track we are engaged on.

Councillor Hanratty: We have to be very careful what we wish for here. The PCCs were an experiment. We are still in the very early stages of the transition and how the PCC will work and operate. I think the police service has a lot to contend with in today’s society. When you look at the implications of the Bill on the police force, I think they just need to get on with the job. The fire and police services are unique. The fire service is very unique—we are the envy of the world. Why would you want to disrupt, disturb or disband that? We get through more thresholds than any other organisation in the public sector. The work is not just about saving lives; it is about changing lives. We have proved that time and time again. We are a very efficient and effective service and we need to get on with the job.

Regarding collaboration: we have been doing it on a daily basis for a number of years. I know the fire Minister is due to visit Merseyside and we will prove to him exactly the types of collaboration we are undertaking at the moment. It is not just with the police or the ambulance service; it is with the health service, local authorities and any other partner that will engage with us. We are at the forefront of looking at public services and how we can assist in reducing the overall burden on the health agenda. We can impact on that. We are doing a fantastic job. Why would you want to change it?

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[Amanda Milling]

Q I just wonder how a fire authority with individuals who are appointed to it—they are not elected by members of the public—can possibly be as democratically accountable to the public as a police and crime commissioner whose name is on the ballot paper when it comes to the election.

[Lyn Brown]

Q I think we perhaps have forgotten in this room that, in many cases, the general public—the people who we serve—voted against there being mayors and one person who might have this kind of control. The issue around PCCs is that there are going to be elections in May without the public, who voted against the mayoral system, knowing that mayors are going to be responsible for PCCs. Do you think that that might equate to a democratic deficit?

[Craig Whittaker]

Q I have two questions, if I may. First, it was mentioned earlier that there was nobody here representing the ambulance service. However, I know that Phil Loach, as well as leading the West Midlands fire service, also sits as a governor for the West Midlands ambulance service. It was said earlier that a third of collaboration happens between fire and ambulance services; does that mean two thirds does not? I wonder if he could give us a view on that. Secondly, I want to go back to Matt Wrack’s earlier comment that a PCC takeover would be dangerous. Do you all agree?