Police Funding

Richard Burden Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for allowing us the opportunity to discuss this very important issue. As I did not have the chance to say this yesterday, I hope you had a very happy wedding anniversary.

On 20 October, the Chancellor announced the outcome of the 2010 spending review. The budget of the Home Office will fall by 25% in real terms from 2010-11, and within that the resource budget will fall by 23%, or £2.2 billion. Administration costs are due to fall by 33% and the capital budget by 49%. Taken as a whole, the Home Office has received a settlement with cuts more than twice the average of all Departments, which is 11%. Even ignoring the protected Departments of International Development and Health, the average cut for all other Departments is 17%, or 5% a year.

The comprehensive spending review document states that the Home Office settlement includes support for major policing reforms; a reduction in police resource funding by 14% in real terms by 2014-15; £1.8 billion of capital investment over the spending review period; spending for the delivery of a new national crime agency; and overall resource savings of about 23%. In real terms, central Government funding for the police is due to fall by 20% by 2014-15. As the House will know, part of the police’s funding comes from the police precept, and if the police authorities decide to increase the precept at the rate forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the overall level of police funding will decline by 14% by 2014-15. There is therefore widespread concern about the level of funding for the police and the Home Office over the next five years, and about the way in which it will be achieved.

What has been described as front-loading—the cuts happening in the first few years—has already caused concern. I understand that the Association of Police Authorities recently wrote to the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, whom I see on the Government Front Bench, to express that concern. It stated that

“a sensible, realistic approach is necessary to realise the savings objectives and avoid long-term damage to policing capability”

and that its members were

“deeply concerned that front-loading cuts will strip out the required financial flexibility police forces need to transform their working practices in order to make savings.”

The CSR document, about which I am sure we will hear more from the Minister, expresses the hope that the savings will be achieved through reducing bureaucracy, modernising pay and conditions for staff, introducing directly elected police and crime commissioners, abolishing the National Policing Improvement Agency and cutting counter-terrorism by about 10% in real terms. After the CSR was published, KPMG was reported as estimating that 18,000 police officers could be lost over a four-year period. The Police Federation was reported as estimating that the number would be 20,000. At Home Office questions on Monday, the Minister said:

“By cutting costs and scrapping bureaucracy, we will save both money and man hours, so I am confident that the spending review should not lead to any reduction in police officers visible and available on the streets.”—[Official Report, 6 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 14.]

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend might like to know that this morning a number of my hon. Friends and I met the Minister to discuss the impact of the cuts on the West Midlands police force, which is 80% dependent on central Government funding. My right hon. Friend talks about the impact of the cuts on police numbers, but where police authorities are wholly or mainly dependent on central Government funding rather than the precept, the impact on local communities and police visibility will be that much worse.

[Keith Vaz]

The Home Affairs Committee has already heard from Chief Constable Sims of West Midlands police. It organised a seminar in Cannock Chase, which is not a million miles from my hon. Friend’s constituency, where those concerns were raised. The problem is that individual police forces are currently unable to tell us precisely what effect the cuts will have locally. We will have to wait for the publication of the settlement, which we anticipate in early December. When the Minister speaks, I am sure he will tell us precisely when the provisional police settlements will be announced and placed before the House. He is smiling, so perhaps he will announce the figures today and we can question him on them. I am sure that we will hear soon. Until we do, we will not know precisely what is happening.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Herbert]

I repeat that the Opposition proposed cuts of exactly the same magnitude. Indeed, the shadow Chancellor—when he was shadow Home Secretary—told the House on 8 September that as Home Secretary he had set out savings of £1.3 billion over the next four years, or about 12% of the Home Office budget. He also said that the HMIC report confirmed that, with a lot of effort, it would be possible to save 12% without affecting front-line services—[Interruption.] Those are not my words: they are the words of the shadow Chancellor.

As I pointed out on Monday, the shadow Home Secretary told the Home Affairs Committee seminar in Cannock on 22 November that this is a tighter environment for police spending and would be under any Government. Let us nail once and for all the idea that the Opposition would not have cut police spending. They would, and they have admitted it. The order of cuts that they would have made in police spending is exactly the same as we are asking the police to make now—

[Richard Burden]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Herbert]

No, I am going to make some progress if the hon. Gentleman—whom I met this morning—will forgive me.

The hon. Member for Gedling referred to the letter that the Association of Police Authorities sent me asking for a re-profiling of the cuts. I note that it did not ask us to revisit the overall level of the cuts. I am afraid that it is not possible to revisit the spending review. The settlement, which did not presume that the deepest cut would be in the first year—[Interruption.] It will not be in the first year. The settlement fully takes into account the savings that we expect to be made as a consequence of the pay freeze that we expect the police to undertake, which the Opposition have unfortunately discounted in all their considerations.

One of the signatories to the letter is Ann Barnes, the independent chairman of Kent police authority, who is also, I believe, a vice-chairman of the Association of Police Authorities. She is no fan of the Government’s proposals to introduce directly elected police and crime commissioners. Nor, by the way, is she one of the hon. Gentleman’s friends who oppose the policy while secretly planning to run for office. Ann Barnes issued a news release about that letter in which she said—and it is important that hon. Members hear this—

“I do not think police capability in Kent will be compromised. Neighbourhood policing is the bedrock of policing in Kent and despite the reductions, we are confident that people will see little difference in the level of policing delivered locally.”

She was very much reflecting the views that have been put sensibly by my hon. Friends—who have been discussing these issues with their chief officers—that, across the country, chief constables are making every effort to protect front-line policing and that some are guaranteeing that they will protect neighbourhood policing. There is an enormous discrepancy between what chief officers are saying about the impact of these spending reductions on service delivery and the Opposition’s claims that there will be some catastrophic collapse in policing.

[Richard Burden]

rose—

[Nick Herbert]

I will make a bit of progress because I am short of time, and then I will give way.

We are confident that these savings can be made because, in part, of the evidence of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, backed up the Audit Commission. HMIC has said that it is possible for forces to make savings of more than £1 billion a year—12% of the annual budget—through things such as improving productivity, cutting costs, sharing services and addressing savings in the back and middle offices of police forces. In addition, further savings can be realised through areas such as better procurement, although some of those savings were included in the HMIC report.

It is significant that the hon. Member for Gedling and the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) never refer to those issues. They never talk about the savings that could be made by forces, and they are simply unwilling to engage in the necessary debate about how to increase and improve deployment, given the fiscal constraints that confront us.

[Nick Herbert]

I would have thought that the right hon. Gentleman understood this. The HMIC report was not referring to grant; it was referring to the savings that can be made by police forces. I strongly advise him to read the report again. It is important to understand the savings that could be made by police forces. Hon. Members could then work together sensibly and constructively, as urged by the Chairman of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East, to support forces in delivering savings.

Police forces and authorities spend about £2.8 billion every year on equipment, goods and services. Ending the practice of procuring things in 43 different ways could drive down the costs of goods, services and equipment by £200 million annually by the end of the spending review period. Furthermore, there is the issue of IT. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman knows how many different IT systems there are across our 43 forces. There are 2,000 different systems and 5,000 staff involved with them. The information systems improvement strategy programme on savings in IT could save another £180 million annually by transforming how police information systems are developed, procured and implemented. We are convinced that further savings could be made.

It is important for hon. Members to reflect on the fact that half of all spend by police forces is on the middle and back office. The people in those offices are not involved directly in crime fighting activity—although they do important things, such as providing direct support for the front line or keeping the organisation running. Not only is half of all spend made in those areas, but a quarter of all police officers—I am talking about sworn officers—are employed there. HMIC believes that significant savings can be made in the middle and back office by better management while, at the same time, protecting the front line.

[Richard Burden]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that the chief constable in the West Midlands force is looking at all those kinds of savings and more. However, he will also know that that will not do the job in West Midlands. Why not? That is because of the disproportionate reliance in West Midlands on the central Government grant, which we have urged the Minister to address time and time again. I am pleased that he is listening to us on that. However, I would like an assurance from the Minister today not only that he will listen, but that when he comes back to the House, he will do something about the problem.

[Nick Herbert]

I cannot pre-announce the grant determination. I met the hon. Gentleman this morning, and I will of course pay attention to the particular circumstances of West Midlands police if they are receiving less funding from local government. However, I would also like to draw his attention to what the chief constable of West Midlands has said:

“I remain absolutely confident that we will continue to protect and serve people in the West Midlands in the way they expect.”

That is a familiar message, because it is also the one being sent out by chief constables up and down the country, who are rising to the challenge of delivering services.

While the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood is here, I wonder whether he will take this opportunity to apologise for what he said on Monday, when he described the figure of 11% of force strength being visible and available to the public as a “smear” and a “corrupt and erroneous statistic”. That was a reference to the report by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary. I find it difficult to believe how the right hon. Gentleman could describe something in such a report as a “corrupt and erroneous statistic” or say that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary was seeking to “smear” police forces.

There is an issue about the visibility and availability of police officers, and we have to address it. The report said that

“general availability, in which we include neighbourhood policing and response, is relatively low. Several factors have combined to produce this ‘thin blue line’ of which shift patterns, risk management, bureaucracy and specialisation are the most significant”—

bureaucracy being one of the factors that needs to be addressed. The real question for this House is why, at a time when we had achieved record resourcing for policing, a record number of police officers and a record size of the police work force, we had visibility and availability at only about 11% of force strength. I agree with the inspectorate of constabulary that that figure is too low. We need to have a sensible debate about how we can address shift patterns, bureaucracy and the drift of officers into specialist units, so that we can protect that visibility and availability, which all my hon. Friends—indeed, all Members of the House—want to improve.