17 PARTNERSHIP WORKING
226. Several witnesses have told us that agencies
are failing to work together to tackle the needs of the Gypsy
and Traveller community:
"We know for a fact that the Police Reform
Act 2003 gave certain powers to the police; they do not use them.
I believe section 17 of the Crime and Disorder Act suggests that
the police and local authorities should combine in such a way
as to make sure there is no crime or disorder in a community.
The fact is in my local authority they do not join up, there is
no joinedup thinking and as a consequence villages suffer."[320]
West Sussex County Council prepared a strategy on
Gypsies and Travellers based on the views of interested parties,
the strategy noted that:
"Respondents are critical of the perceived
lack of liaison between the authorities concerned (including the
police) and their unwillingness to support parish councils and
individual landowners, farmers and small businesses in dealing
with enforcement problems on private land."[321]
The Association of Chief Police Officers is also
critical of the lack of inter-agency co-operation, especially
in relation to unauthorised camping. They told us:
"In terms of managing unauthorised camping
what the document [ODPM Guidance on Managing Unauthorised Camping]
does not do is address the issue of police and local authorities
and indeed other agencies working in silos based on local authority
areas. An example might be [that] a group of Travellers moves
on to a brown-field site on the outskirts of a particular town.
They are tolerated for almost two weeks, despite rising community
tensions because of mess and complaints of anti-social behaviour
by Travellers, before moving off under threat of use of Section
61 (the powers under Section 62 are rarely used because Travellers
invariably move on just before it is invoked). They leave a site
which costs £3000 to clear up because of waste, a stripped
down car and industrial debris from the wire-stripping process
being carried out by the Travellers. The collective response from
the police, local authority and the community in general is to
breathe a sigh of relief. The local authority clears the site
and it is "target hardened" to make it more difficult
for Travellers to get on to in future. The same Travellers move
into another local authority area and the process begins all over
again. No information is shared about the environmental damage,
no reparation is sought from the Travellers for the cost of the
clear-up and no intelligence is gathered and passed on about the
anti-social behaviour of individuals among this group of people."
Equally those Travellers leading positive and law abiding lives
within that community will be regarded by some as being guilty
of similar behaviour."[322]
227. But Pat Weale, Gypsy Services Manager for Worcestershire
County Council, argues that some local authorities have forged
good working relationships with other agencies such as the police:
"In Worcestershire we have had a policy
towards Travellers since 1994 which includes the police and the
district councils but we do act as the main point of contact for
all Traveller issues as we run the nine sites and deal with most
unauthorised encampments. Many private landowners also access
us for information on how to respond to Travellers who move on
to their land without permission. We are already sitting there
waiting for the calls."[323]
Terry Holland, Gypsy Services Manager of Buckinghamshire
County Council agrees:
"In my own case that does exist in that
there is a joint working arrangement between ourselves, the districts
and the police but that does not apply necessarily nationally.
Every authority has its own working arrangements."[324]
228. Rick Bristow, Chairman of Cottenham Residents
Association told us that there is a lack of co-operation between
different tiers of the same authority:
"For the past 18 months I have written to
both and the county automatically passes it down to district.
If there is any element of something which is quasi criminal the
district will automatically involve the police, so with antisocial
behaviour, for example, it is a police issue, there is no question
about that, but the district council will take absolutely no action
whatsoever."[325]
One reason for this may be that within each council,
the department responsible for Gypsy and Traveller issues varies.
Private sites are usually monitored by planning departments, who
frequently have little contact with council Gypsy and Traveller
liaison officers or the site managers of local authority facilities.
This can mean that a private site planning application is submitted,
reviewed and turned down without the input of the authorities
own liaison officer. Local authority sites are often managed by
the Environmental Health rather than Housing department. Even
where an authority has a department which deals with housing,
environmental, public heath, safety and social services functions,
it will more often be the case that the actual functions are managed
completely separately, with Gypsy and Traveller caravans sites
being managed by environmental health officers rather than housing
officers. Alistair McWhirter, Chief Constable of Suffolk and representative
of the Association of Chief Police Officers told us that this
situation is not helpful:
"The difficulty is that all the responsibility
for this in the past has fallen between different departments
in local authorities - very often the legal department or the
environmental health department - but nobody had it written into
their job description. Very often if there were Gypsy and Traveller
liaison officers appointed by the local authority they did not
have a clear line of command back to people in the centre or access
to funds to be able to deal with things. Gypsies and Travellers
are one of those things which nobody wants to talk about or deal
with until there is suddenly a large group of them moving into
the area. Suddenly it moves to the top of the list and as soon
as they move off it moves back to the bottom of the list again.
People need to have plans in place to be able to deal with that.
This new guidance is helpful in encouraging that to happen. Its
difficulty will be that there will still be places in the country
who rarely have Travellers moving in who will not make plans and
who will suddenly be faced with a situation where a large group
move in, set up camp and they do not have the plans nor the liaisons
that need to be in place with the local authority, the police
and other agencies in order to make a smooth response to a large
group moving onto a common or moving onto a playing field."[326]
229. Hurstpierpoint and Sayers Common Parish Council
observed "that there should be more co-operation between
all tiers of councils in the event of problems, e.g. to prevent
Travellers evicted from a district or parish owned site relocating
to a county site and vice-versa".[327]
John Treble, Vice-President and Vice-Chair of Somerset Association
of Local Councils told us that in his experience, liaison between
district and county councils does not come easily:
"Unfortunately I have lived so long, I have
seen all this so many times that I am confused as to whether I
am repeating what I heard yesterday or ten years ago, but the
notion that there is good liaison automatically between district
and county council is not within my experience."[328]
Although some local authorities have made efforts,
West Sussex County Council operates an email network to keep Gypsy
and Traveller Liaison Officers posted of planned enforcement action.
[329]
230. Some witnesses have suggested that Gypsies and
Travellers do not pay the charges that members of the settled
community pay, they argue that agencies need to ensure Gypsies
and Travellers are forced to pay taxes and other charges:
"Many of the Travellers do not pay their
dues to society such as council tax, income tax, VAT on business
activities and even items like television licences. This is a
situation that needs to be rectified and might discourage some
who simply take up the lifestyle to save money on running their
business activities. […] A more unified approach is required
by all authorities including the Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise,
Benefits Agency and other similar authorities to ensure that Travellers
are paying the taxes and other dues that are paid by the settled
community." [330]
Other witnesses have suggested that Gypsies and Travellers
claim benefits that they are not entitled to. However in his report
'Room to Roam', Dr Colm Power highlights a 'nomadic claims working
group' which was set up by the then Department for Social Security
to develop a regional/national computerised record of benefit
claimants including physical appearance to prevent benefit fraud
by individuals such as Gypsies and Travellers.[331]
231. ACPO are concerned that current police powers
and Government policies focus on moving the "problem"
on. They told us:
"ACPO believes that radical action is needed
to break the cycle of environmental damage and anti-social behaviour
carried out by a minority of Travellers. Unless something is done
like this we will merely continue the same old cycle of moving
people on."[332]
In April 2003 ACPO wrote to Tony McNulty MP, then
an ODPM Minister and Bob Ainsworth, a Home Office Minister, suggesting
the need for a cross-cutting information system "about those
who are involved in unauthorised camping and who cause damage
to the environment, disrupt the lives of communities through anti-social
behaviour or who carry on businesses where no VAT or Income Tax
is paid and where often shoddy work is perpetrated upon unsuspecting
customers."[333]
The aim of the suggested system is to share information between
police, local authorities, the Environment Agency, Customs and
Excise, Inland Revenue and Trading Standards officers:
"I think it would be similar to the New
Age Traveller monitoring system of the 1980's and 1990's because
that was really the model that was adopted then for dealing with
unauthorised camping by New Age Travellers at a time when they
were going round in very large groups and causing major disruption
to the life of individual communities. I would see this working
in a similar way but slightly differently. First of all I think
there needs to be a national database which is maintained and
which can share information with local authorities, with the police,
with the Environment Agency and with trading standards and, if
it were thought appropriate, also with the Inland Revenue and
Customs and Excise. This has to do with two aspects, one is environmental
damage caused by people who camp in an unauthorised way and then
move on and leave that damage and cause disruption to the life
of the community. The second aspect is to do with issues around
the avoidance of duty, the avoidance of VAT and industrial processes
which are carried out by some Travellers, particularly in the
West Midlands area where there is a lot of wire stripping and
burning going on on these individual sites. There is a huge amount
of turnover in terms of money, little of which seems to attract
any form of tax or information and I do think there is a taxation
opportunity which has been missed here and I feel - although I
have no evidence to support this - that both Customs and Excise
and Trading Standards are not as involved as they should be with
Gypsies and Travellers."[334]
232. Gypsies and Travellers are concerned that such
a system would become a database of all Gypsies and Travellers.
ACPO recognises their concerns:
"ACPO has shared this proposal with some
Travellers' groups who are very concerned that such a database
would become an index of gypsy Travellers. We appreciate these
concerns and feel that if this idea is to be taken further, work
would need to be done to ensure that only offenders were entered
upon it. Obviously any database would need to be compliant with
both Data Protection and Freedom of Information legislation which
should offer appropriate protection and opportunity for redress."[335]
It has been suggested that privately some Gypsies
and Travellers believe such a system is required in order to tackle
the minority of Gypsies and Travellers who give the wider community
such a bad name.[336]
Chief Constable Alistair McWhirter argues that this is the intention
of such a system:
"The last thing I would want would be for
it to be an index of Gypsies and Travellers. That would be wholly
wrong and I do not think it should even be an index of those who
camp in an unauthorised way - although that is unlawful - because
I think that in itself would be one step too far in terms of a
draconian approach. What I think it should do is to identify and
deal quite properly with the minority of people who give Gypsies
and Travellers a bad name and who do use their ability to move
round the country to avoid their responsibilities to the local
communities. […] I think that the ability to identify individuals
who are causing problems, the ability to follow them and serve
them with notices or serve them with bills in relation to it and/or
indeed to take civil action against them in order to recover debt,
would discourage people. What I want to do is to modify their
behaviour, not to stop them carrying out their way of life."[337]
He suggested that the information system would be
used to set conditions for those Gypsies and Travellers who were
known to cause damage or to misbehave:
"We still have significant numbers every
night camping in an unauthorised way and it is about somebody
arriving in an area and it being found that when they were on
their last site or last site but one, they caused £10,000
worth of damage. I think that as a local authority and as a police
force you have a right then to say, "If you come and camp
in this area then these are the strict rules that we are going
to apply to you or you are not going to be allowed to stop in
this area or on this particular site". I know that has the
potential for difficulties; I know that it has also the potential
for breaching people's human rights and that one would have to
manage this in a very effective way which complied with both the
Data Protection Act and also allow Travellers to access the data
that was being held on them because they are the data subjects
after all. This is not criminal intelligence in its broadest way
but I feel it would encourage people who are abusing the system
and living above the law at the present time to actually take
their responsibilities and comply with the law."[338]
233. ACPO told us that local authorities appear to
support the scheme, but ACPO has received little feedback from
ODPM or the Home Office.[339]
In oral evidence there seemed to be some confusion as to whether
ODPM officials had met with ACPO representatives to discuss their
proposals. Eventually the Minister told us that although ODPM
officials had met with ACPO representatives, ODPM would not be
responding to them because it was felt to be an issue for the
Home Office:
"I would not want for one moment to deny
the receipt of this correspondence. However, my understanding
is that this was felt in ODPM to be primarily a matter for the
Home Office as indeed, if the Committee reflects about it, would
agree. It was actually passed over the Home Office and I am not,
alas, in a position to speak for the Home Office. […]. I
think our expectation would be that the Home Office would communicate
directly with ACPO on this matter. […]. It is a silo issue.
Yes, I suppose it is a silo issue but at least we passed it over
the Home Office. […]. Officials in OPDM did indeed meet with
ACPO as part of the overall review process. […]. I would
expect the response to come from the Home Office."[340]
234. We
asked the Home Office to comment. In a supplementary note they
explained that they "had been carefully considering the need
for such a database"[341]
but told us that no database should exclusively target members
of an ethnic group. However they added that a new national intelligence
IT system for the police in England and Wales, 'IMPACT'[342]
will enable improved data sharing, intelligence analysis and record
keeping between forces, reducing the need for a separate database.
The Home Office aim to provide a rolling release of new systems
and capabilities over the next two to two and a half years. In
the short term the Home Office stress that "the Criminal
Records Bureau will have an index of police records so that it
can tell which forces hold information on a particular person
for vetting purposes."[343]
235. The Government needs to ensure all agencies,
including Trading Standards, Inland Revenue/Customs and Excise,
and the Environment Agency tackle any criminality within the Gypsy
and Traveller community, especially relating to waste crimes,
tax - including VAT - and benefit fraud. The proposed police national
intelligence system. 'IMPACT' will be a useful tool in tracking
and dealing with anti-social behaviour in the Gypsy and Traveller
community. However, this system will not be available for at least
another two years. In the meantime agencies and local authorities
must work hard to develop communication channels between all relevant
departments and officers working on mainstream policies which
are relevant to the travelling community. Email networks, and
electronic good practice forums may provide a useful framework.
320 Q 181 [Rick Bristow, Chairman, Cottenham Residents
Association] Back
321
West Sussex County Council, A Strategy on Gypsies and Travellers
in West Sussex, January 2003, pg 12 Back
322
HC 63-III, Ev 42 [Association of Chief Police Officers] Back
323
Q 220 [Pat Weale, Gypsy Services Manager for Worcestershire County
Council] Back
324
Q 220 [Terry Holland, Gypsy Services Manager of Buckinghamshire
County Council] Back
325
Q 186 [Rick Bristow, Chairman, Cottenham Residents Association] Back
326
Q 282 [Alistair McWhirter, Chief Constable of Suffolk and representative
of the Association of Chief Police Officers] Back
327
West Sussex County Council, A Strategy on Gypsies and Travellers
in West Sussex, January 2003, pg 13 Back
328
Q 304 [Mr John Treble CBE, Vice-President and Vice-Chair, Somerset
Association of Local Councils, National Association of Local Councils] Back
329
West Sussex County Council, A Strategy on Gypsies and Travellers
in West Sussex, January 2003, pg 16 Back
330
Totton and Eling Town Council, Views and Responses in respect
of Travellers, 14th July 2004, pg 1-2 Back
331
Dr Colm Power, Room to Roam, England's Irish Travellers, June
2004, pg 7 Back
332
HC 63-III, Ev 42 [Association of Chief Police Officers] Back
333
HC 63-III, Ev 42 [Association of Chief Police Officers] Back
334
Q 276 [Alistair McWhirter, Chief Constable of Suffolk and representative
of the Association of Chief Police Officers] Back
335
HC 63-III, Ev 42 [Association of Chief Police Officers] Back
336
HC 63-III, Ev 42 [Association of Chief Police Officers] Back
337
Q 279-80 Back
338
Q 277 Back
339
HC 63-III, Ev 42 [Association of Chief Police Officers] Back
340
Q 358-364 Back
341
HC 63-III, Ev 117, [Home Office] Back
342
The name stands for Intelligence Management, Prioritisation, Analysis,
Co-ordination and Tasking (GTS 53). Back
343
HC 63-III, Ev 117, [Home Office] Back
|
