Examination of Witnesses (Questions 360
- 379)
TUESDAY 26 OCTOBER 2004
MS HAZEL
BLEARS MP AND
MR STEPHEN
RIMMER
Q360 David Winnick: Will disciplinary
action be taken against those police officers who come out with
the same sort of remarks if there are such police officers, which
you accept however few they areand let us hope they are
fewbut if they came out with the same sort of remarks as
shown on the programme The Secret Policeman would they
be disciplined?
Ms Blears: Absolutely. The Association
of Chief Police Officers has made that crystal clear; that there
is no place for people with those attitudes in the service. They
will be disciplined. Also, ACPO has taken the step of saying membership
of the British National Party is inconsistent with being a police
officer, in terms of carrying out their duties. We have introduced
a really rigorous recruitment test that in 2003-04 has found 1,208
recruits who failed on the diversity element of that recruitment
process; and despite the fact that they might have passed on every
other element and are excellent, if they fail the diversity threshold
they are out. There is no place for them in the police service,
and we have excluded them.
Q361 David Winnick: Are those people
applying to join the police force actually asked, "are you
a member of BNP?"
Ms Blears: There are proposals
now to introduce that into the application form. It is very recently
that the chief officers have taken this decision to say it is
inconsistent with being a police officer, and there are now proposals
to put that in the application form so that people will be asked
about that. In the course that they undergo, they are tested on
their attitude to diversity in seven different situations, so
it is a pretty rigorous test of their attitudes.
David Winnick: On a policy of excluding
fascism and racism from the police force in our country.
Q362 Mr Clappison: I support you
entirely on excluding the British National Party, but can you
tell us a little more about what the diversity test means?
Ms Blears: We try and have a range
of situations for recruits to be placed in so that we are able
to test their attitudes. My understanding is that it is not just
about race; it is about attitudes to older people, people with
disabilities, and attitude to gender. We want to make sure that
we get recruits in the service who respect everybody with whom
they are dealing, irrespective of where they come from and their
gender, their disability and their sexual orientation, so that
we have a good police force.
Q363 Mr Clappison: Are they expected
to demonstrate certain attitudes as part of that testing?
Ms Blears: There is a test about
how they deal with people and the nature of the encounters they
would have with people. I have not personally sat through the
assessment centre, so I am loath to give you the detail about
the actual role-play. Much of it is role-play, which explores
how you respond to particular situations.
Q364 Chairman: Can you provide an
outline of that? That would be useful.
Ms Blears: Yes.[1]
Q365 Mr Green: What question do they
ask about BNP membership? Do they ask, "are you now a member?"
or "have you ever been a member?"
Ms Blears: I have not seen the
question, but my understanding is that it will be: "Are you
a member, or have you ever been a member of the British National
Party?" because they are saying membership is incompatible
with being a police officer.
Mr Rimmer: To be clear, although
this was ACPO policy, the Government has now put forward to the
Police Advisory Board, which makes amendments to employment regulations,
a specific proposition which the Board has accepted, to have a
regulation barring anyone with membership not only of BNP but
of similar organisations; so there is a fairly broad test in terms
of inappropriate and racist organisations. That is being put into
regulations because it could clearly be challenged in the courts.
This is not now just ACPO policy, it is something we are proposing
to put on a legal basis. It is BNP and similar organisations.
Q366 David Winnick: We do not want
Hitler lovers in the police service. The aim of the Home Office,
Minister, is to have black and ethnic minority people within the
servicea 7% target up to 2009. However, the Metropolitan
Police Service considers that that target is totally unrealistic.
What about more positive action in order to achieve the target?
Ms Blears: First, let me make
it clear that we have made significant progress in recent years,
not just in terms of police officers but also police staff and
support officers.
Q367 David Winnick: When you say
"significant progress", as I understand it the figure
overall is 2.5%.
Ms Blears: 3.3%, but in the last
year we have doubled the number of recruits from minority ethnic
communities. I entirely accept that the numbers are far too low,
but they were, dare I say it, even lower until fairly recently.
We are making some progress.
Q368 David Winnick: I am sorry to
interrupt! Your fluency is excellent, Minister, but we have to
pauseand that is praise not criticism. Is the target set
by the Home Secretary going to be reached by 2009?
Ms Blears: All I wanted to just
make clear was that for the majority of forces, they will meet
their targets. The Met has a specific problem because it is such
a large force, and the distance for it to travel is so much greater.
I am conscious of that. If they were going to be on trajectory
to meet their target, they would have got 4% this yearI
hate to say these words, on trajectory to meet target. They narrowly
missed that and were at 3.3% this year.[2]
I am increasingly conscious that I do not want to set them completely
impossible targets, because if targets are going to be useful,
they should be realistic but stretching. I think we should have
another look at the targets we have; but that does not mean for
one moment that I think we should not really keep the pressure
on here, because it is an overwhelming imperative that our police
service should be representative of the community that we serve.
The Met does some good work, but I do not want to have a target
that is so unrealistic that it undermines their commitment to
wanting to press on. That is a fairly complex position to be in.
Also, I do not want to just have a target that is not going to
be met and everything is a failure, because we are making significant
progress. If you look at the numbers of support officers in London,
half of them are from ethnic minority communities. That is not
a panacea, but quite a lot of them will transfer into a regular
service, so it is another route through. The second issue I have
asked them to look at is how we go and recruit for what is called
genuine occupational qualifications under the race relations legislation.
If people need a particular language in order to talk to their
community, we can press on with that, but at the moment I am not
convinced of the desirability of moving towards a change in the
law that would provide for quotas, for positive discrimination.
I do not think the National Black Police Association are convinced
of that either. Certainly
Q369 David Winnick: They are, Minister,
because as I understand itand you will obviously correct
me if the organisation has changed its mindthe information
I have is that the National Black Police Force Association has
proposed alternative action. Are you rejecting that outright?
Ms Blears: No, there is a difference
between affirmative action and positive discrimination. We have
been trying in the service to positively go out and encourage
people to apply. For example, in Birmingham they have a double-decker
bus that goes out to some of the communities where people from
a whole range of different ethnic backgrounds are living, and
a real recruitment drive. The Met has had a couple of big recruitment
fairs, particularly led by people from a range of communities
who are Met police officers, going out and encouraging people
that they live and work with to come into the service. All of
that positive action is going on, and it is bearing fruit because
we are getting more and more people coming through. There is then
another big step, moving from positive action into positive discrimination,
which would require a change in the national law and would then
take us into the realm of quotas of people being awarded positions
on that basis. That is hugely controversial. The National Black
Police Association said we should have a debate, but they are
not convinced that quotas are the right route to go for, because
they clearly want people who come into the service to be respected
on their merit in terms of the contribution they make.
Q370 David Winnick: However much
one talks about the difference between positive action and affirmative
actionand there are differencesat the end of it
all there does seem to be a difference between the views of the
Police Federation and the National Black Police Association as
to how far action can be taken, either by targets as now, or more
firmer action, whichever words one wants to use. If, at the end
of the day, it is clear that the targets are not going to be met,
either in the Met or outside, particularly in places like London
and Manchester, where there is a sizeable black communityand
in some boroughs in London it is no longer a minoritywould
the Government consider the possibility of taking action along
the lines that have been sometimes advocatedbe it positive
action or affirmative actiona change in the law in effect?
Ms Blears: At this stage we want
to explore whether or not we have really used the existing legislation
to its best effect. Have we taken every single step we can within
the limits of the legislation? I am not satisfied that we have
done everything we can. That is why I have asked them to explore
things like language. Are there attributes people have so that
we can draw them through the service? What can we do to support
people who are already in so they do not leave more quicklybecause
quite a number from ethnic minority backgrounds leave after their
first couple of years' service? What is going wrong there? We
should have proper exit interviews with them. They should have
mentoring, buddying, and support through the service. There is
more than we can do before we get into the realmswhich
has huge difficultyabout positive discrimination, rather
than that extra action to recruit people and support them through
the service. At the moment I am not convinced we have to be in
a position of changing the law.
Q371 Mrs Dean: Minister, what assessments
have been made of the career break system for police officers?
Ms Blears: At the moment there
are 776 people on career breaks. It has been a policy approved
and taken through the various machinery that we have for this
kind of thing. I understand it is only one person of chief superintendent
or above who is on a career break; so the vast majority of police
officers are police constables. They can have a career break for
up to five years. They are not paid during that career break,
but their rank and their pay point is preserved for them for when
they come back to the service. As far as I know, the system is
working pretty well. It provides people with the ability to go
and get other experience. Quite a lot of the career breaks are
in the Met in London, clearly because of the size of their force
and the opportunities open to them. The vast majority of the 776
are police constables.
Q372 Mrs Dean: What systems are in
place to keep officers up to date with the new developments whilst
on those breaks?
Ms Blears: Clearly this is a matter
for the chief constables, because they are responsible for managing
them. They can get refresher training and keep up to date with
some of the science and technology that is coming along so that
they can make a contribution when they come back into the force.
It is a matter for the chief constables to manage the career break
in an appropriate way. They are responsible to make sure they
are available to give evidenceas I understand that might
have been a cause of concern to the Committeeand making
sure that their absence does not have a damaging effect on the
operation of the force in general. You make a very important point,
Mrs Dean, about refresher training and making sure people keep
up to date. We invest a lot of money in training our police officers,
and we want to make sure that that investment is not wasted.
Q373 Mrs Dean: Has it been successful
in keeping people in the police force?
Ms Blears: I do not have details
of a specific evaluation of the 776 career breaks that we have
had so far. If I can find out any further information, I will
gladly send that to you.[3]
Q374 Bob Russell: Why has the Government
announced the recruitment of a further 20,000 community support
officers before completion of a proper evaluation of the effectiveness
of the first 4,000?
Ms Blears: Let me say that there
has been a number of evaluations of the introduction of community
support officers. In fact, we have had 27 local evaluations of
their impact in the forces where they were initially recruited.
That has shown us overwhelmingly that they are popular with the
public, and also that they are having a significant impact on
reassurance and the job they were initially designed to do, which
was being out there and a visible uniformed presence patrolling
the streets. Interestingly, with the introduction of the national
reassurance policing pilots we have had in the last year or so,
we have begun to get some more evidence of the impact of police
community support officers. The reassurance pilots are in 16 areas
up and down the country. It is a new way of policing and very
much about neighbourhoods, communities, engaging local people,
the panelsgetting local people to set their priorities.
I visited a whole range of those pilots, and many of them are
neighbourhood teams of police officers and PCSOs. It is interesting
that in Leeds city centre, when they introduced the PCSOs, robbery
came down by 47%, so that physical reassurance on the street was
important. Vehicle crime came down by 31%. I am not saying that
all of that is attributed to the PCSOs, but it happened when they
were deployed on the streets of Leeds as part of that reassurance.
Similarly, we have a number of reassurance pilots in the Met district.
I visited Enfield and I have been out to Bexley, and something
like 60% of residents felt safer in the areas where community
support officers had been introduced. In addition to the local
evaluations, we now have a national evaluation underway. We will
have an interim report by December of this year and a full report
by next summer. It is a very extensive evaluation, looking at
surveys before and after, and looking at the impact. It is a big
cohort. I just think that the introduction of community support
officers has been hugely welcomed out there, on the ground and
in the streets. They are doing an excellent job, and very, very
often they are doing it together with their police officer colleagues.
It is this combination that is so valuable to us.
Q375 Bob Russell: Do you regard therefore
police community support officers as being an integral part of
the uniformed police family?
Ms Blears: Yes, I do. When community
support officers came inand you, Mr Chairman, were hugely
instrumental in taking thatI could say brave and courageous
step, but brave and courageous in political terms has certain
connotations!
Q376 David Winnick: That will bring
him back into government.
Ms Blears: At that time it was
quite a departure from a traditional way of looking at policing
in this country. I have said, and the Home Secretary has said
that they are here to stay. They are doing a good job. We want
to make sure they have powers commensurate with the job we are
asking them to do, which is primarily to tackle low-level anti-social
behaviour, and provide a visible presence. I see them very much
as part of the extended police family, together with some of the
wardens operating in our communities, and the civilians who are
releasing our officers to do their jobs on the front line. This
is about getting a proper range of skill mix in the service so
that the officers who are fully warranted and who have the whole
set of powers are able to be released to do some of the things
that only they can do.
Q377 Bob Russell: Why then do you
think the Police Federation have not embraced them into their
membership, to the extent that I understand some community support
officers are seeking membership of trade unionsthe Transport
& General Workers' Unionand so on?
Ms Blears: At the moment the community
support officers are classed as police staff and they are therefore
eligible to join the trade unions, and many of them are in Unison.
That is a really good thing, that they are being represented.
We think that working with the trade unions and the Police Federation
is a very important part of how we run our business, so I am delighted
that they are represented by a whole range of trade unions, including
the T&G. In terms of the Federation's approach to CSOs, when
we introduce any big change in any organisation, inevitably there
is some concern and sometimes resistance. People want to know
what they will be doing"will they be diluting my role;
will they be trespassing on the things that I do?" This is
about managing change, reassuring the police officers that rather
than undermining them, they are there to help them. As I say,
my experience is that PCs and sergeants in many cases wonder now
how they managed without them because they have really been absorbed
into the team. The Fed are now doing their focus groups, looking
at CSOs, and Mrs Berry in her evidence said that she thought the
CSOs were doing a useful job in terms of the patrolling that they
were out there to do. It takes time for people to feel comfortable
with something that is a radically different stepbut I
am sure we will get there.
Q378 Bob Russell: Minister, what
is your response to Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabularies
recent report of a future strategy for the civilianisation? How
much scope is there for a unified system of pay and conditions
within the police service?
Ms Blears: What we want to try
and do with our police reform process is to get a more unified
service as far as we can. At the moment we have a very, very strict
demarcation between police officers and other people, and that
does not just apply to their pay and conditions; it has also in
the past applied to access to training and qualifications. The
very fact that they were called civilians painted a picture for
us that there were uniformed staff and civilians. They then went
from being civilians to being support staff, so again they were
seen as not quite second rate but in a subservient role. Now they
are police staff, and I am delighted about that because I want
to see the police staff having access to senior leadership roles
and proper career pathways, personal development, training and
qualifications, and being valued as a really important part of
our system. Valuing one part of the system does not mean you devalue
the other part of the system, and that is what we all have to
learn; that valuing the CSO is not devaluing the police officer
in the same police staff. We are all trying to do the same thing,
which is to fight crime and make our communities safer places
for people to live.
Q379 Mr Singh: Minister, science
and technology is going to be hugely important in the fight against
crime. What are the Government's priorities for science and technology
in terms of policing?
Ms Blears: We have our first ever
science and technology strategy now, so it is good for government
to start with a strategy, is it not? The challenge is to make
something happen from it. There are three priorities for us. In
fact I have a copy here. There are three big issues for us. The
first one is being aware of the nature of the threats that face
us, both in terms of criminology but also terrorism, and making
sure we are fit to respond to that; and secondly making sure that
we use intelligence in a proper way. It reaffirms what I was saying
before about turning the service into a service that anticipates
problemshorizon scanningsees what the next thing
is that is coming. A huge driver behind street crime was the introduction
of mobile phones. Something like half of all our robberies involve
a phone, and something like a third of them were phone only. We
have to think of the next thing the criminal wants to acquire.
Is it the laptop or the DVD or portable player? We constantly
need to be thinking ahead, so it is a matter of using that intelligence.
The third thing we have to do is make sure that we share information
in a better way, and I think that is now an overwhelming priority
for the service, whether in terms of Bichard or at a local level.
Those are our things, but the practicalities are making use of
our DNA database in a better way. We now have 2.5 million entries
on the database, including my own. Again, where we make matches
with crime scenes, then our detection rates go up dramatically.
We have to make sure we make use of the livescan fingerprint units.
We have 198 of those in forces up and down the country, where
you can get immediate results from fingerprint scans, and a video
ID. ANPR, automatic number-plate recognition was piloted in a
number of forces, and we are about to roll that out nation-wide,
using the netted off parts of some of our speeding fines and traffic
measures in there. If you look at ANPR, the arrest rate is something
like 10 times what it would be for an officer not using ANPR.
This is smart, intelligent policing. You can see I am excited
by it, because it means the police are using the tools at their
disposal to make a significant extra impact. We are on the road
now with science and technology and have to press on with this.
For DNA we are one of the best in the world. Sometimes we follow
America for lots of things, but actually we have a better DNA
database than anything they have got out there. They come to look
at ours, which I think is great.
1 See Ev 200-201 Back
2
Note by witness: The police service strength target of
4% for minority ethnic police officers was narrowly missed at
3.3%. Minority ethnic police officer strength in the MPS stands
at 6.6% Back
3
See Ev 201 Back
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