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Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale): Will the Home Secretary tell the House the source of the information published this week by Dr. Marian Fitzgerald, who carried out several studies for the Home Office? The information on statistics that she leaked was certainly gathered in advance of the publication of the Macpherson report. However, was the source of that information the Government's own unpublished report on stop and search practices in the Metropolitan police? If so, does the Home Secretary not think that that was an appalling leak of the Government's information?
Mr. Straw: Dr. Fitzgerald has left the employment of the Home Office. As far as I am aware, she was herself the source of the reports. My only information is what I heard on the radio; I gleaned from that that Dr. Fitzgerald had compared published data from the British crime survey and the 43 police forces. She suggested that a possible conclusion to be drawn was that, especially in
the provincial forces, there was a considerable difference between the number of people who reported to the survey that they had been stopped and searched by the police and the number of records held by police forces. If we can give the House any further information, I shall ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to do so in her winding-up speech. I am not aware of any unpublished report on stop and search, but I shall ask my hon. Friend to look into that.
My policy is to place Home Office publication of statistical series on a basis that is independent of Ministers. We now set dates for publication and notice is given. As for research findings, the Research, Development and Statistics Directorate is pretty independent of Ministers. It always has been and, in many ways, that is quite right. Once the research has undergone peer review and has been properly evaluated, it is published. That is as it should be--after all, the information is not advice to Ministers but material that is paid for by the public purse, and so should be in the public domain. In one sense, the greater distance there is between Ministers and professional researchers, the better: once research is in the public domain, while Ministers may or may not agree with the conclusions they can nevertheless use it as a contribution to the debate.
To return to the issue of partnership working, reducing crime is not a task only for the police. Our Crime and Disorder Act 1998 provides a framework for effective local partnership, led by the police and local authorities and engaging a range of other partners, including police community consultative groups and the community as a whole, to audit crime and to devise and implement local crime reduction strategies. Across London, the Met has worked hard, effectively and closely with its partners within those crime and disorder arrangements. I have witnessed that work and I have been struck by the huge change in attitude that has occurred, especially on the part of London boroughs over the past 10 to 15 years. Now, regardless of political persuasion, they work with a will and co-operatively with the Metropolitan police service to make their communities safer.
The Met and its crime and disorder partners are taking part in the first phases of the Government's £250 million crime reduction programme. Seven London projects have been selected in the first round of the burglary reduction initiative, in Brent, Haringey, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth and Southwark. These are aimed at reducing burglary in those parts of the capital with a burglary rate at least twice the national average. They tackle one of the most common crimes and one that causes a great deal of distress and public fear. Funded by more than £400,000 from the crime reduction programme, the projects will employ tried and tested interventions along with new methods.
The targeted policing initiative is also providing nearly £1.5 million toward two other projects involving the Met and four London local authorities. Those aim to improve the way in which the police tackle crime and will be applied to a range of problems, including the use and proliferation of crack cocaine, youth disorder, vehicle crime and criminal damage.
What the Met is doing is developing intelligence-led policing. Alongside well-established systems of gathering criminal intelligence, it is gaining advice and information from people and communities who, increasingly, have confidence in the police and want to support them.
The Met and other criminal justice agencies must also work effectively. Progress in that respect includes the creation of youth offender teams where the Met, social services and probation, health and education services co-operate in a joined-up response to youth crime. We know that more than 70 per cent. of young people dealt with in the right way on a first offence do not re-offend. The youth offender teams, which are being piloted in some London areas and elsewhere, will come into force across the country from April next year.
The teams can now jointly identify and tackle those who might otherwise slide into crime. As we know, the young are particularly at risk from drugs, and in April last year the Met introduced a directorate to co-ordinate the fight against drugs. As part of its three-year drug plan, the Met is committed to introducing an arrest referral scheme in every London borough by April next year. As I announced on Wednesday at the Association of Chief Police Officers conference in Manchester, over the next three years we shall make available nationally up to £20 million of central funds toward the cost of running the referral schemes.
To undertake their great and varied range of duties, the Metropolitan police have to have the right financial resources; it is the Government's job to provide most of those resources, and we have delivered. This year, the Commissioner has at his disposal revenue expenditure of £1.8 billion, which is about a quarter of all expenditure on policing in England and Wales. That sum represents an increase of some 3 per cent. on last year, and so is in line with the national average.
The great bulk of that expenditure--about 80 per cent.--is devoted to employing officers and other staff. From the early 1990s, the Metropolitan police service lost officer numbers at an average rate of about 300 a year--nearly 2,000 altogether in the period from 1992 to 1998. We have now stabilised the position, with a loss from the Met of only 21 officers in 1998-99. The Commissioner's aim this year is to maintain police numbers at around 26,400; he has the funds to do so, although he does of course need an adequate flow of well-qualified recruits to meet the target.
Effective policing is not merely about numbers of officers. Reports from the inspectorate of constabulary and from the Audit Commission have confirmed that
A telling success is the Commissioner's action on attendance management. During the past financial year, the Commissioner was able to secure a reduction in sickness absence in the Met of more than one quarter, which is equivalent to more than 500 additional police officers available for duty each day. In addition, every time the number of officers who present as sick but who are not sick is reduced, it releases management time to front-line operational duties.
That is an example of the overall purpose of our requirement on all forces, including the Met, to improve efficiency. We have set a 2 per cent. efficiency target this year, and the savings are to be invested in front-line policing. The Commissioner has gone further, with an
efficiency plan that aims for 3.5 per cent. efficiency gains. During the year, it will be the Met's task to demonstrate that those gains are delivered, and my task, with the assistance of the inspectorate and the Metropolitan police committee, to review and monitor what is happening.
The Met's aim in respect of personnel is to secure a quality work force, delivering a quality service. Let me give some examples: the Met has introduced a new foundation course for detectives; it has piloted the national senior investigation developmental programme, which focuses on the management of serious crime; and it is developing a new interactive computer-simulated training package, which is a world leader in the field.The service has also instituted a comprehensive anti-corruption and dishonesty strategy, with ethical testing. The public need to have confidence in the integrity of the police service, and members of the service themselves need to be confident in each other's integrity.
The Met is developing a range of measures to achieve the targets that I have set for the recruitment, retention and progression of minority ethnic community members. Those are, rightly, challenging targets. To meet them, the Met seeks the active support of others in London, and I hope that it will receive that.
A history of the Met in the 19th century explains that
Sir Robert Peel, all those years ago, showed the most extraordinary foresight. He established boundaries for the Metropolitan police service that, even then, went as far as the small agricultural village where my forebears lived and my relations still live--Loughton in Essex, which at that time was not connected by anything but a track to London. Sir Robert established boundaries so wide that they still extend further than that of Greater London and the area covered by the Greater London assembly. He put other arrangements in place that have unquestionably stood the test of time. As the House knows, we have tried within the scheme of the Greater London Authority Bill to retain many of the arrangements that Sir Robert and his successors established.
"success in solving crime does not depend solely on the number of police officers available".
Effective policing and crime reduction is not just about how many police officers there are, but about what the police do with their time and with the technology and other assets and skills available to them.
"in 1829 Peel raised a new kind of standing army virtually overnight, and in a capital city where the largest organ of local authority hitherto had been the parish vestry".
That history also explains that
"in 1829 there were three partners: the Home Secretary; the Receiver, who took on what became elsewhere the local authority role; and the commissioner".
Therefore, 170 years ago, the Home Secretary intended to establish a tripartite relationship for policing London. No one can say that it is premature to introduce such an arrangement for 2000, modified to take account of the creation of the office of mayor and of the Greater London assembly.
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