41. Supplementary memorandum
submitted by Nottinghamshire Police Authority
We are pleased to respond to the Home Affairs
Select Committee's invitation to comment on the White Paper.
The Committee will appreciate that this response
is a preliminary one.
Not only do we wish as an Authority to take
time to reflect fully on the contents of the White Paper. But
also, in the spirit of a White Paper which stresses partnership
and community engagement, we will wish to consult fully on the
proposals with our CDRP partners, and with the Nottinghamshire
community as a whole. We are hosting a seminar with our CDRP partners
in early December to explore issues raised in the White Paper.
Given this, and given the tight time scale for
comments, we intend to concentrate in this response on the proposals
in Chapter 5: "Ensuring effectiveness", and, in particular,
the proposals that bear most closely on the future role of the
Police Authority.
1. PERFORMANCE
MANAGEMENT
In our previous submission to the Select Committee
we stressed the changes the Nottinghamshire Force and the Authority
had introduced to scrutinise and challenge Force performance.
We referred to a Performance Scrutiny Board that the Authority
had established to scrutinise performance on a monthly basis.
We also explained how the Police Authority,
HMIC, PSU and the Force had worked together to achieve significant
improvements in performance and how we intended to seek to ensure
that this improvement was sustained into the future.
At the conclusion of our recent HMIC inspection
our HMI commended the Scrutiny process the Authority has established.
We welcome the statutory minimum information
that it is proposed that the Police Authority be obliged to provide
to the public (paragraph 3.51). We wonder however if this could
usefully be required to include a statement of the arrangements
that the Police Authority in question has itself put in place
to monitor and challenge Force performance on a regular basis.
There may also be a case for providing that
this regular challenge process be normally conducted in public
rather than in private so as to enhance the accountability and
the transparency of the process.
Following the recent inspection HMI also suggested
that the Authority's Scrutiny Board process could usefully be
extended into Level 2 serious crime. This would recognise the
links between force performance in volume and serious crime. The
Nottinghamshire Force is currently engaged with the PSU on a project
looking at how the Force handles major and serious crime.
We do however recognise the cross boundary nature
of this crime and, in that context we welcome the proposed explicit
duty on police authority to cooperate with neighbouring authorities.
(Para 5.61)
In relation to performance of the Force whilst
we welcome the formalising of performance appraisal of the Chief
Constable (4.22) we oppose the proposal to remove the Authority's
right to appoint other ACPO officers.
The calibre of the ACPO team as a whole is a
crucial contributor to performance. Their appointment by the Authority
is a key aspect of public accountability. The proposed extension
of Police Authority's role to the short-listing of other members
of the command team (4.33) seems rather inconsistent with this
proposal.
The Authority's main concerns in this are related
to the diversity of applicants, the limited available pool and
the availability of training and we would welcome proposals that
address these issues directly.
2. PLANNING AND
TARGET SETTING
We welcome the Government's attempt, via the
National Policing Plan as well as in the White Paper, to clarify
the relationship between the priorities set out in the National
Plan and local priorities as identified in active community engagement.
An overly prescriptive National Plan clearly
has the potential to restrict the extent to which local priorities
can find their way into the planning process. We are pleased to
note that the new National Plan confirms that it is open to Authorities/Forces
to add to the Home Secretary's priorities as well as to determine
the weight to be given to these. (Para 1.2)
One of the urgent challenges for the Force and
ourselves is to establish a process which provides not only effective
engagement with all sections of the public but also provides an
audit trail demonstrating the extent to which consultation responses
have actually influenced the planning process/operational activity.
This is something the Force and ourselves are
working on currently and we recognise that it is essential if
community engagement at Force level is to be a meaningful process.
We welcome also the proposed explicit new duty
on police authorities to take into account local policing priorities
identified at CDRP level when developing Force plans and strategies.
(Paragraph 5.11)
The Nottinghamshire Force and ourselves have
already taken a step in this direction by involving CDRP partners
in the setting of the strategic assessment priorities, and we
intend to further develop this process in the future.
We have also sought to involve CDRP partners
in our target setting processes and the seminar in early December
will fulfil a dual role, not only looking at the White Paper/Review
of CDRP's but also looking at a joint approach to target setting.
This process seems to be very much in line with the National Policing
Plan's "bottom up" approach to target setting (paragraphs
2.17-2.18 and 4.5 of the National Plan).
We similarly welcome the proposal that police
authorities have overall responsibility for the implementation
of a strategy to engage with the community at all levels (3.59
and 5.110).
We think it is important that specific responsibilities
for consultation are clearly set out and supported by appropriate
guidelines and guidance. We would like to see further details
as to how this is to work in practice. There must be a clear recognition
on the part of all agencies that consultation must be relevant
and meaningful and that those consulted should be representative
of all communities. There must be a clear concept of the out put
and of the use to which consultation results will be put before
any particular consultation exercise is undertaken.
Nottinghamshire Force has set up a body at ACPO
level, on which the Authority is represented, to monitor how the
results of consultation influence both the planning process and
operational practice.
We will want, as part of the CDRP review, to
look at how this oversight of consultation role will interact
with performance accountability within the CDRP. There may be
a case for the Police Authority to be given a strategic role within
CDRP's in respect of performance as well as consultation.
In respect of the proposals to allow the Police
Authority to request intervention by HMIC we would support this;
provided the circumstances were clearly set out. We would not
support this power being extended more widely.
3. COMPOSITION
OF POLICE
AUTHORITIES
We oppose the proposal to abolish the magistrates'
category of police authority membership. (Paragraph 5.105) As
we have indicated in earlier consultation processes we believe
that our magistrate members bring a valuable perspective to our
work by virtue of their knowledge and experience of the criminal
justice system as a whole.
The proposal that there will be a presumption
that a magistrate will be appointed within the independent member
selection process (Para 5.105) seems fraught with difficulties
and fits oddly with the stated intention to rely on a competency
based framework. (Para 5.106)
In extremis this could result in the highest
scoring magistrate being appointed regardless of their placing
vis a vis other independent member candidates or, conversely,
all the independent members appointed being magistrates!
The appointment of independent members should
promote diversity but equally should not be based on any quota
system.
We recognise that there may be case for strengthening
the connections between local authority community safety functions
and those of the police authority. This could be achieved by expanding
the current membership or indeed via the CDRP structure.
The proposal to have shared district council
representation on the police authority presents obvious practical
difficulties. In Nottinghamshire's case it would appear that there
would be one police authority member shared between every two
district councils. It is not clear what would happen in the event
of a dispute. There would also be issues relating to political
balance.
Similarly we are uncertain as to how the Chair
of the Authority could both be elected by the Members of the Authority
and also, at the same time, be subject to a competency-based selection
process over seen by an accredited assessor. (Paragraph 5.107)
It is very difficult to see how any conflict between the will
of the Authority and the view of that assessor could be resolved.
4. DIVERSITY
We strongly support the proposal that Police
Authorities should be subject to a new duty to promote diversity
within the police force and the authority.
Along with other Police Authorities we have
taken the first step along this road by adopting a Diversity Statement
encompassing all areas of potential discrimination.
5. RESOURCING
OF POLICE
AUTHORITIES/FORCES
Previous Home Office policy papers have drawn
attention to the small staff that most police authorities have
and the limited resources that are available to then to carry
out their duties.
It is notable that whilst the White Paper proposes
a net expansion to the powers and duties of police authorities
there does not appear to be any proposal at this stage for additional
funding to be made available to meet these.
We wonder whether there is greater scope for
standardisation of structures and processes within police authorities
themselves given that there seems to be currently very little
in the way of common structures as between the various authorities.
With regard to the wider question of Police
Funding we would take issue with the statement at 5.71 of the
White Paper that "an undoubted strength of the current system
is that funding of police authorities is distributed according
to relative need." This is not in any event an accurate statement
given the "floors and ceilings" provision.
We have sought to persuade the Home Office over
the last 18 months that there should be a link made between levels
of crime and resource allocation so that areas with high levels
of volume and/or serious crime receive some recognition of their
additional challenges via the funding process.
Having said that we do recognise and appreciate
that engagement with the PSU has itself brought additional short-term
resources with it.
We hope that the Committee finds these brief
comments of assistance and would be happy to respond to any further
enquiries from the Committee.
29 November 2004
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