Memorandum by the Association of Chief
Police Officers (ACPO) (DRA 55)
1. The Association of Chief Police Officers
(ACPO)[86]
represents the chief police officers and staff of the 44 forces
of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As such, members of the
39 English forces have been involved in consideration of the creation
of Regional Assemblies and the concomitant local government reorganisation
proposals.
2. Whilst there are no specific proposals
in regional assemblies to change the governance of police forces,
there are consequences for policing in two respects. The first
of these is in structural terms, consequent upon local government
reorganisation. For example, the proposed rationalisation of Lancashire
and Cumbria (were the North West proposals to continue) would
reduce the existing area of Cumbria to a point where its police
force might not be viable. The proposals for Northumberland, whilst
not materially altering police boundaries, contained a legal error
on the effect of the changes on the police authority. Such matters
would need to be considered more carefully.
3. Secondly, there is a dichotomy between
the approaches of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and
that of the Home Office, the Government department with the greatest
influence on the police service, to matters of community safety,
expressed in various phrases which will be illustrated.
4. The operational delivery of policing
is at six levels: (1) the individual officer on the "beat";
(2) the sector, usually policed by a team under an inspector;
(3) the basic command unit, often coterminous with a local authority
area and commanded by a (chief) superintendent; (4) police forces,
each commanded by a chief constable or commissioner (London);
(5) regions, which may not match Government regions, for the purposes
of collating intelligence against, and directly combating, serious
crime, terrorism and other potential dangers; and (6) the national
scene, for similar purposes to 5 and for policy and practice guidance
from a variety of sources.
5. In terms of social inclusion, neighbourhood
renewal, effective devolved decision making and effective programmes
to raise the quality of life for all in urban areas and other
communities (all quoted from ODPM objectives), the police approach
to the delivery of service is through partnership, significantly
with local and regional public authorities, and by problem-oriented
and intelligence-led methods.
6. The Home Office impacts most directly
on the work of the English forces through legislation, the National
Policing Plan, Home Office PSA targets and a wide range of Best
value performance indicators. Since the Crime and Disorder Act,
1998, the principal local partnership for police is with Crime
and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs), based on unitary
authorities and county districts, although with some significant
work at county council level.
7. The Home Office Strategic Plan 2004-08,
"Confident Communities in a Secure Britain", specifically
sets out the following proposals, that by 2008: "More offenders
are caught, punished and stop offending and victims are better
supported; Fewer people's lives are ruined by drugs and alcohol;
Citizens, communities and the voluntary sector are more fully
engaged in tackling social problems, and there is more equality
of opportunities and respect for people of all races and religions."
(There is also an objective on migration.)
8. Within that plan there are two paragraphs
(in 130 pages) mentioning joint work with the ODPM on the new
Safer and Stronger Communities Fund to address "liveability"
issues.
9. In September 2003 the Home Secretary
forwarded to all chief officers of police and chairs of police
authorities the letter of 12 September from the Deputy Prime Minister
to the chairs of Local Strategic Partnerships, using the strapline
"cleaner, safer, greener" to define the concept of liveability.
Curiously, the Home Secretary's letter sets out areas of concern
to be addressed, which scarcely overlap with the wording of the
original letter from the Deputy Prime Minister.
10. The ODPM addresses "liveability"
issues primarily through local authorities in their capacity as
hosts of, or participants in, Local Strategic Partnerships. In
a few cases, the work of LSPs has been collated with that of CDRPs,
or otherwise matched. For example, the Northumberland Strategic
Partnership has six key themes, of which one is "Being confident
and secure", explicitly including police and district authority
crime and disorder planning as "Major Strategies and Plans".
11. The ODPM Policy Statement on elected regional
assemblies describes an assembly's role in "contributing
to the achievement of sustainable development" (paragraph
19), but fails to bring an explicit mention of crime and disorder
into its thinking, for example in the otherwise wide-ranging paragraph
25. Paragraph 76 is headed "Crime Reduction" , the only
paragraph to address this topic (in 98 paragraphs) and states
that "Assemblies' general purposes would enable them to take
action to promote the health, safety and security of the community
and to enhance the ability of all individuals to participate in
society. This could include working with and supporting crime
and disorder reduction partnerships and drug action teams."
However, the paragraph ends by transferring the onus for action
elsewhere: "The Government intends that elected regional
assemblies would be consulted and engaged as appropriate when
these partnerships carry out their responsibilities to conduct
audits and formulate strategies at local level to reduce crime
and disorder and to tackle the misuse of drugs."
12. Clause 43 of the Draft Regional Assemblies
Bill provides a rather diluted expression of this interest in
crime and disorder matters as part of the definition of social
development.
13. There is, therefore, a difficulty in recognising
and harmonising the terminology by which police forces, and local
and regional government, should collate their efforts for the
safety of communities and the public in general. This is true
from the strategic level illustrated right down to the simple
traffic incident, at which three emergency services may arrive,
each working to a separate Government department and with separate
policy lines right up to Cabinet level.
14. The essential issue here, and one which
is deeply linked to the proposal for regional assemblies, is,
in the words of a speech by the Prime Minister on 23 June 2004,
"We are proposing to put an entirely different dynamic in
place to drive our public services: one where the service will
be driven not by the government or by the managers but by the
user—the patient, the parent, the pupil and the law abiding
citizen." In order to do this, the nature and terminology
of separate Whitehall departments should not obscure the common
desire of the police service, ACPO, local councils, regional bodies
and many other agencies to provide a single language of sustainable
regeneration, community safety and liveability to improve the
lot of citizens. All of these issues are perhaps most relevant
in the three Northern regions covered by the Northern Way strategy,
and an example of a practical way forward can be found in the
North East Regional Crime and Community Safety Forum, whose terms
of reference are attached. The enabling power of the Government
departments to agree joint terms and perhaps even a joint, inter-departmental
circular to provide a common vocabulary and common objectives
would be a great asset and a milestone on the way to an effective
regional capacity.
— It speaks for its members when appropriate.
This includes the Service's relationship with the Home Office
or to other bodies on issues where there is a common
service interest. It does not seek to comment or discuss issues
relating to single forces.
— It acts as professional advisor
on policing matters to the Home Secretary.
— It formulates guidance for the service,
eg to interpret new legislation.
— It co-ordinates the Service's response
when it needs to act as a single entity, in times of national
emergency or when there is a major or catastrophic incident.
Past examples of operations have included the fire officers' dispute
and the RAF Fairford protests during the war in Iraq,
both in 2003.
ACPO has consistently been an enthusiastic
proponent of the reform process. After the original discussions
with the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw at the Lancaster
House meeting in September 2000 we summarised our approach to
the police reform programme thus:
"ACPO has always been willing
to explore with enthusiasm ways in which the Service can be made
more effective. We have naturally concentrated on how
better to engage criminality through a more professional career
development regime; how to approach public disquiet
and insecurity; how to foster intelligence and information technology
and how to free up talent and resources and generally
create flexibility."
Since then we have been at the forefront
of developing many of the initiatives that arose from the 2002
white Paper. The scope and extent of work contained
within the police reform processes is enormous and there are numerous
projects with a multitude of timescales, many of them
very long term.
86 ACPO is the professional association of the chief
officers of the police forces of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
It performs a number of roles: Back
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