Examination of Witnesses (Questions 297
- 299)
TUESDAY 26 OCTOBER 2004
MS HAZEL
BLEARS MP AND
MR STEPHEN
RIMMER
Q297 Chairman: Minister, thank you
very much indeed for joining us this afternoon and also Mr Rimmer.
I think you have been in front of the Committee in the past so
welcome again. As you know, the Committee has been carrying out
a brief inquiry just to update ourselves on progress on police
reforms, a process launched in 2001-02. This is the last evidence
session in that inquiry so thank you very much for coming. I wonder
if I could start, Minister, with a fairly general question. We
have had three years or so of police reform so far. What would
your assessment be of what has worked and, more importantly, what
has not worked?
Ms Blears: Good afternoon, Chairman,
members of the Committee, I am absolutely delighted to be here.
I think this is the first opportunity that I have had to come
and give an account and discuss our progress on police reform
with the Committee and I am very much looking forward to this
afternoon. I have made myself aware of the previous evidence sessions
that you have had with a range of people and I am delighted that
the Committee has chosen to focus on police reform at this particular
juncture because I think we are at a very important stage. As
you rightly said, we have embarked on a continuing process of
police reform now for the last few years and I think that it is
right to have an assessment of where we are, what has gone well,
and perhaps not what has gone badly but what has not gone as fast
as we would like it to. I would like to draw that distinction
because I think the whole of the reform programme is proceeding
in the right direction but there are certain areas which have
proceeded apace and other areas which still need quite a bit of
a push. So if I could start off by saying I think that the first
stage of the reform programme, led very much by yourself Chairman,
was really about embedding performance within our police services.
I think at that time there was a huge variation in the performance
of different forces in different parts of the country and there
was a need to raise performance generally, but also a pressing
need to raise performance particularly in the high crime areas
where members of the public were more likely to become repeat
victims and were facing really serious problems of crime and disorder.
I think that drive to embed performance is one of the things which
has been the most successful and has given us very firm foundations
from which we can move to the next stage of police reform. In
highlighting that I want to draw attention to the establishment
of a performance management system and a performance framework
for the Police Service, which I do not believe was in existence
previously, and the introduction of the Police Performance Assessment
Framework (PPAF)—and I am sure you are just as familiar
with the acronyms as I have become in the last few months. I think
that is a significant step forward for the service, but underpinning
that framework was the need to have some really good, consistent,
real-time data and information to drive the performance management
framework, and therefore I think the introduction of iQuanta,
which I understand now has something like 2,500 registered users
through the Police Service, where police authorities are able
to draw down data not just at police force level but also at district
level and at Basic Command Unit level, is a hugely important lever
for driving that performance. We have launched recently on that
performance agenda a public-facing website so the public now can
begin to get access to information about how well their service
is performing and again that is a driver for change. The things
that I think have gone particularly well are the performance framework,
the data that underpins it and the drivers there and secondly
for me the embedding of the National Intelligence Model. That
is a huge change for the Police Service and has helped to change
the focus from a reactive, responsive service, simply reacting
to crime after it has occurred, to getting in front of the curve
and starting to be a service which anticipates the problems, which
is intelligence-led, which can target its resources at the hot-spots
which cause the most problems, and which can systematically produce
an intelligence product that can then be used at every level of
the service. I think the task to get the National Intelligence
Model up and running in 43 forces was immense and I would certainly
like to pay credit to the Deputy Chief Constable in Thames Valley
who has been instrumental in driving that forward. All 43 forces
are now compliant with the National Intelligence Model but I think
we have more to do in that field as well. The other thing I would
highlight is the introduction of the police performance monitors
which we have published again in the latest version just recently
in September. That again is information where people can see how
their force is doing, not just in absolute terms but in comparison
to their most similar forces. I think the premise of comparing
as much as we can like-with-like has been very important because
if we had simply had a league table of 43 forces right across
the land then I think, with some justification, the forces could
have claimed that they policed in very different circumstances
and therefore it would be difficult to have that direct comparison.
Moving to the most similar forces model has been very useful indeed
and the pictorial representation in those monitors again enables
people to see at a glance how that performance is playing out
at a local level. There are a number of other things that I would
highlight from the first wave of reform—increased focus
on science and technology, forensics, DNA, and again there is
more to do there. The things that I would say we would perhaps
need to move faster on include workforce modernisation. I think
we have made a start in terms of establishing community support
officers. We have 4,000 of them out there patrolling now and they
are hugely popular, but I am sure we will come to that. Also we
have started to introduce the detention and escort officers. I
think we have more to do on redesigning the systems so that we
can get more civilians doing some of the work that is currently
still done all too often by fully warranted police officers. We
have funded a range of work on modernisation pilots out there
to the tune of about £13 million.
Q298 Chairman: I think we will get
into some of the detail of that.
Ms Blears: I think that workforce
modernisation needs a bigger push. Detection is an area that we
need to focus on and do much better in. I think we need to push
on the front-line policing measures and responsiveness and customer
service culture, and I am sure we will come to that, and clearly
there are issues around the national sharing of intelligence,
which has been highlighted by Bichard, about how we share data
across the service. Those are the areas that I would highlight
that we need to push on.
Q299 Chairman: Thank you very much
indeed. It is good to hear so much positive achievement. Why exactly
are we now about to embark, as we understand it, on a second phase
of police reform? What is the aim this time?
Ms Blears: I think the aim of
the first phase, as I have said, was to try and improve effectiveness
and drive the performance of the Police Service. I think the aim
of our next phase of police reform is not simply about performance
per se and certainly not just about the service; it is
starting to say that the Police Service is but one contributor
in trying to build safer communities and that there are a range
of other partners out there, other influences which we can bring
to bear on preventing crime with early intervention, and also
on helping to make sure that we are effective in capturing and
convicting the right people, but also the issues around re-settlement
and rehabilitation. There are a number of different agencies which
have a significant part to play if we are going to make our communities
generally safer and better places for people to live in. The second
phase of police reform is about having a much wider partnership
approach with local authorities, with the National Offender Management
Service, with social services, and with education through early
intervention. So there is that thrust. The second thing for me,
which is hugely important, is trying to instil a customer service
culture more within our Police Service and that means a real push
on minimum standards, call handling, feedback to complainants,
keeping victims informed, keeping witnesses informed, and a real
sense that the Police Service is there to serve the public and
to involve the public in setting some of the priorities for our
Police Service. All the research we have done shows that people
really do not feel that they have enough influence about what
the priorities should be, particularly at local level, and yet
there is a huge appetite for them to be more involved. So the
second phase is about more of a cultural shift in terms of responsiveness,
partnership working and hopefully more emphasis as well on prevention.
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