Examination of witnesses
(Questions 460 - 479)
WEDNESDAY 9 DECEMBER
MR JOHN
STEVENS, MR
PAUL MANNING
and MR RICHARD
BRUNSTROM
Mr Olner
460. You cannot afford films for them now,
can you?
(Mr Brunstrom) The number of cameras and the usage
of cameras has grown substantially very satisfactorily. The problem
is not in the front end of this, of actually detecting the offences,
we are getting better and better at doing this, there is not a
technological problem here; the problem comes in the back office
work, processing it and actually getting the result. The front
end side of this costs us pennies. Putting the film in the camera
is an inconsequential cost. The cost is in processing the results,
finding out who the offender was and pursuing it to conviction
or fixed penalty. Our cost is in the order of £20 when a
fully automated system is in use. There are still areas where
fully automated systems are not in use and in that case the cost
is greater. We feel that should be added to the costs of the fixed
penalty, which is currently £40, making a total penalty to
the offender of £60. That is still approximately half the
penalty that is applied to an offender with costs in a Magistrates'
Court, so there is still a very attractive financial proposition
to the offender which is what the legislation intended, but we
are not allowed to recover our costs——
Chairman: I think
we have got that point.
Mr Donohoe
461. Do you think that there is a case for
all of the issuing of tickets to be done by a separate force and
for there to be an actual specialist police force involved in
all of this?
(Mr Manning) I think what you are showing there
is an interesting problem we have between the decriminalised and
the criminalised systems. Certainly where it is a criminal offence
then it is probably appropriate that the police force are the
responsible body. Whether it needs to be a criminal offence is
the point at issue and I would not be standing saying that it
should be a criminal offence. Obviously if it is appropriate for
it to be decriminalised then that would be an appropriate route
because that does move us into another issue which is the reason
why with decriminalised offences they are making a full cost recovery
and that is the issue which is denied the police service. If we
could have that full cost recovery then we would also be able
to carry out this task to the appropriate level. With regard to
the decriminalisation issue, I think there is a very real factor
here and it is the requirement or not for the police or somebody
to intervene in moving traffic. If there is a requirement for
someone to stand in the road and say Stop, I passionately believe
that should be vested in a sworn police constable. In those cases
that should remain a criminal offence, the police being properly
accountable and the actions of a constable being held to account
also. But where enforcement can be properly undertaken by the
decriminalised automatic system then I think that is a matter
which could quite properly be decriminalised and be operated through
some other agency.
462. Do you not think that there is a fairly
strong case for there being set up a specialist police force to
deal with this across the whole of the UK?
(Mr Manning) From an ACPO perspective, talking
across the country, no, I do not. I think what one has to recognise
is the mix of resources that a Chief Constable has to his/her
command requires a range of responses. What we actually draw heavily
on is some very specialist police experience which actually comes
to bear on the road network and vice versa. The road network is
not just populated by people who break "traffic" laws,
it is populated by the whole community which are involved in a
whole range of criminality. So to try and separate out and actually
have a specific roads police unit I think would be counter-productive.
There will need to be a whole range of interactions. That said,
police forces need to work in a coordinated way and that certainly
is the case in the West Midlands where we have co-ordinated working
between the forces in the West Midlands which actually does allow
for the passage of information, the intelligence, across the strategic
network to ensure a co-ordinated approach.
Mr Donohoe: We do
have an actual traffic police force that operates for railways.
Surely there could be one for the roads.
Chairman
463. I think Mr Manning has answered the
point.
(Mr Manning) I would like to take issue with whether
it should be there at all!
Chairman: We are not
going to get into the usual arguments between the transport police
and the police.
Mr Stevenson
464. Instead of talking about the police
having the ability to recoup their costs through an administration
charge, would it not be far better, as we have heard from previous
witnesses, to go down the path, where appropriate, of decriminalisation
and transferring the responsibilities to local authorities instead
of having this further bureaucratic layer of recouping administration
costs imposed on the system?
(Mr Stevens) In terms of the London approach I
think that is absolutely right. I think that the formation of
the GLA and the Mayor will be an immense step forward. If I may
just touch very briefly on what you are saying about a separate
traffic police. No, I do not think that is the answer. I think
what is needed is for the traffic wardens as they stand at the
moment to be given more power to deal with standing offences.
As Mr Manning says, there is a crossover between traffic offences
and criminal offence and we want to be very careful not to separate
them and to blur those issues.
Chairman
465. You are not suggesting the warden can
deal with criminal offences, are you?
(Mr Stevens) No, he is restricted in what he
does. It is very much the view of the Metropolitan Police and
ACPO that the traffic warden should be given far more power to
deal with some of the offences he/she deals with.
Mr Stevenson
466. Deputy Commissioner, it is not just
a matter of recouping the costs and whatever, the Home Secretary
is saying very clearly to you you should concentrate on the serious
issues. You have seen all the reports. Whilst I personally would
agree entirely with the proposition that you have to be extremely
careful where you draw the line between decriminalised and criminalised,
for the life of me I would like to be convinced that you need
a special police force or anything like that for these sort of
things. If it can apply in GLA then why cannot it apply in other
large cities or urban conurbations?
(Mr Manning) There is often a confusion between
the need for regulation with regard to traffic management, much
of what you were hearing about from the previous speakers, and
the enforcement of the criminal law. Certainly where traffic management
issues can be properly enforced through automatic systems then
I have got no problem with that being decriminalised and handed
over. Where there is a need for the enforcement of the criminal
law through the fixed penalty system and that involvement in the
moving of traffic, I would still want on the back of that particular
fixed penalty the administrative charge for the road safety reasons,
to ensure that we do carry out those tasks and do undertake that
intervention and ensure that the law is complied with.
467. That depends on where the line is between
criminal and de-criminal activities. You have said, Mr Manning,
that you are "passionately" opposed to the power to
stop being taken out of the police's hands. In the Metropolitan
Police's submission is an example of co-operation between the
police and the other agencies, i.e. Operation Mermaid. Most of
us have seen the check points on the main road. Why in heaven's
name does it take a police officer standing in the road with his
hand up like that to stop a vehicle? Why cannot that be transferred
to a properly authorised civilian local authority person? Why
does it have to be a police officer? You say there is much concern
or alarm amongst the public. Have you got evidence to justify
that?
(Mr Manning) It does not have to be a constable,
it could be someone who is working under police management and
I think that is the issue.
468. So it could be a duly appointed civilian
person?
(Mr Manning) Working under police management.
The example we give is the traffic warden service, not the parking
attendants that you heard of with regard to decriminalised parking,
who work on the red routes currently. We have badged and re-identified
them recently as being a very integral part of the Metropolitan
Police. I believe if they were given the power to stop—they
are part of our infrastructure, they are part of our management,
they work under our control and direction, they are part of our
communication systems—that could be properly managed and
lead to a conclusion.
469. Are you suggesting that the ability
of a properly designated civilian person not under the management
of the police to stop heavy goods vehicles and check them would
be an infringement of civil liberties?
(Mr Manning) No, I am not saying that. I think
there would be very distinct real criminal risks with that. I
think the opportunities for that person to intervene when perhaps
the driver is not aware whether it is a police officer, whether
it is a civilian, whether it is someone acting in a bogus capacity,
raises issues. Operation Mermaid is a very good example of the
sorts of things you find when you are put into operation. Mermaid
has recovered guided missiles which were illegally being carried
and that is the sort of thing where you may think you are going
to be checking for an environmental reason and you find yourself
running not just at criminality but into terrorism. I think there
is a very real need to retain this particular power under police
management, but I take the point that we should be making best
use of our resources and it does not necessarily need to be vested
in a highly paid very well-trained constable. We think the traffic
warden service is an ideal vehicle for being able to discharge
that responsibility within police management.
Mr Brake
470. Mr Stevens, the checks that are carried
out by Westminster Council on pollution, are those done under
police management?
(Mr Stevens) No, they are not, sir, they do them
separately. Can I just reinforce what Mr Manning said? There are
a large number of vehicles that do not stop when asked by the
police and then you are into a tremendously difficult situation
of how that vehicle is stopped, when and where and the only people
who can do it, and sometimes we have difficulty in doing it, is
the police force.
(Mr Brunstrom) Can I come back to Mr Stevenson's
point about seriousness of the offences and decriminalisation?
There is very clearly scope for significant decriminalisation
of some traffic related offences which are currently subject to
the criminal law, that is self-evident. However, I believe we
must make a significant distinction between those offences where
road safety is imperiled and those which deal only with road management.
There are about 3,000 people a year killed on the roads in this
country, four times as many as are subject to homicide. When you
are committing offences that imperil road safety your driving
licence is at stake and quite properly so. It is a significant
sanction. When one's driving licence is at stake, one's right
to use the roads, that should properly be the province of the
public police service. It is a road safety issue and it is one
we should be paying a significant amount of attention to and we
can and will do better. Lives are at stake here. They are not
at stake when one is looking at parking offences on double yellow
lines.
Dr Whitehead
471. Guided missiles can be very bad for
the environment as well on occasions. What does ACPO think about
the debate that is presently being raised about lowering speed
limits throughout the UK, possibly a 55 mph upper speed limit
and 20 mph in residential areas? The purpose of that, among other
things, would be to radically reduce CO2 emissions.
Do you think that is a feasible proposition in terms of your experience
in policing these methods?
(Mr Manning) Certainly enforcement is a very real
issue when considering the application of a speed limit. We do
have concerns at the lower end of the scale where inappropriate
speed limits should be set but where they are not going to be
regularly accepted and attitudinally recognised by the people
who are subject to them as being appropriate and therefore they
would wish to breach them and probably would breach them. If the
only way of enforcing that was by the presence of the police then
that would not be high on our list of priorities and one would
have difficulty in doing it. So the passing of responsibility
over to local boroughs to make decisions about speed limits we
do have concerns about if they are not accompanied by road calming
measures which actually make them self-enforcing. So that is quite
appropriate and quite proper. Where they are not self-enforcing
but rely on police enforcement there are some real concerns. I
think the same applies also with the upper end of the limit. If
we bring the limit down to a level which is not universally recognised
by the motorist as being appropriate then unless we have a great
attitudinal campaign to be able to convince them that it is safe——and
let us be honest, from a road safety point of view speed does
kill, speed is one of the biggest killers of all people involved
in road collisions and we get significant reductions in casualties
by reducing the speed limit by ten mph, it does bring about substantial
savings in life. There has to be a realisation of what is acceptable
to the motoring public in the sense of it not being seen to be
explicitly dangerous. So to come down from 70 on dual carriageway
motorways to something in the region of 55 would place a very
real burden on the police service with regard to enforcement of
what probably is not going to be accepted by the greater majority
of the motoring public as a reasonable upper limit.
472. What I think you are saying is that
in terms of enforceability and the ability of the police to make
a system work, a reduction in urban speed limits where certainly
there does appear to be some residential opposition to rat running
motorists and so on in your view would be more possible to support
in terms of enforcement and would be more acceptable to the public?
(Mr Manning) And where one looks at lots of cluster
sites with regard to injuries one can see the danger of those
types of runs, but can I just stress that there does need to be
engineering and road planning.
Chairman
473. Emergency services are now able to
isolate specific accident sites using their software where they
pick up considerable numbers of casualties. Is that evidence fed
through to you? Do you use it?
(Mr Manning) Perhaps that is for Mr Brunstrom
as Cleveland is perhaps at the leading edge.
474. Mr Manning, you are a born politician,
carefully diverting questions left and right.
(Mr Brunstrom) The answer to your question is
a simple yes. The police service needs to be targeting its resources
across the whole range of our endeavours and reducing road casualties
is no different to anything else. We are very very good now at
getting into mapping, targeting, working in partnership with other
agencies and it goes far beyond the ambulance service, we look
at all the other partner agencies in this. It is not quite as
easy as it sounds to identify accident locations and only about
15 per cent of casualties are caused at identifiable geographic
locations because, as Mr Manning says, the vast majority are caused
by other reasons, largely speed and inattention. We can identify
the 15 per cent or so and we can target our resources to deliver
effective engineering and enforcement action, engineering coming
largely from local authorities. We are getting very good at that.
Again the technology does exist and we are using it very well
and there is clear scope for significant improvements in the future.
Christine Butler
475. Which kinds of roads attract the most
personal injuries?
(Mr Manning) The lower speed limit higher congestion
types of roads.
476. So we are not talking about motorway
driving and dual carriageway driving, there is a good argument
for reducing the speed limit on urban roads and yet the police
are often very loath, especially when they are advising local
authority committees, to take any such measures. I am putting
forward the point that with increasing advances in technology
and the possibility of using that outside the police remit there
is a good chance of reducing injuries and death in the urban areas.
So why are you not more supportive of the fact that we can now
use enhanced technology?
(Mr Manning) We do support the increased use of
technology, you are quite right. Vehicle control systems and mobilisation
and those sorts of things which are technically possible now to
control vehicle speed in some locations are something we would
support. The road safety aim of saving lives and reducing vehicle
speed are interlinked. What the public have to accept is that
it is about attitude. It is about convincing the public that what
you are doing is right. If you do not there will be gross disregard
for the law.
477. But technology can sort that out.
(Mr Manning) Technology can help, but until technology
is there it falls on the police to sort it out.
Chairman
478. I want to ask you something simpler.
How serious is the omission in the White Paper proposals regarding
traffic management, because the police seem to be very interested
in safety but not so much interested in traffic management?
(Mr Manning) It is our primary role. The overarching
aims and objectives for the police service only identify one aspect
of road policing which is the contribution to the reduction of
casualties and so clearly this is a responsibility for other people.
We are not funded, therefore, to play that full role, but, as
Richard has said, we do work very much in partnership with all
the agencies and we would want to continue with that. We have
some valuable information to impart to them.
Mr Bennett
479. You have been talking a great deal
about the success of technology in identifying vehicles that are
breaking the law, but there is almost an underclass of ten or
15 per cent where because it is difficult to trace the ownership
of the vehicle they get away with it. What are you doing about
that?
(Mr Brunstrom) We get about 80 per cent of offenders
simply just by writing to them and asking for them to pay the
fine. We collect about another 11 per cent through police inquiries
and we are left with about nine per cent who are difficult to
track down. The question is how many resources we want to put
in to catching the other 9 per cent. A 91 capture rate one could
argue is a very successful solution, it is a very good outcome
and it compares very well with other aspects of police work. However,
the nine per cent hides recidivist serial offenders, some of the
most dangerous people, the people who are hiding from the law.
We do have a problem. The DVLA do not see sorting their system
out to enable us to identify the drivers, which requires a small
change in the law under section 172 of the Road Traffic Act, as
a priority to them. It effectively costs them a lot of money to
make a small fix to a problem which they do not own, i.e. tracing
the nine per cent. This is the difficulty about who actually is
the keeper of a motor vehicle. There is a European Directive pending
which will provide a European definition of this. I speak as a
committed European on this.
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