Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-151)
27 OCTOBER 2004
Chief Constable Barbara Wilding, and Mr Paul Wade
Q140 Mr Caton: If we asked your partners
what do they feel they are not getting from the police in the
partnership at the moment, what answer do you think we would get?
Chief Constable Wilding: One Chief
Executive told me very bluntly that he wanted police officers
or police staff to sit in the CCTV suite. That is what he thought
he wanted. That is not a role for my staff frankly. I think it
is those expectations which are unreal in the main because in
my first two weeks of being in the post I went round and saw every
Chief Executive. I wanted to see what their view of partnership
was and I also wanted them to know that I would have high expectations
of their involvement in partnership as well. I did ask the question
as you may ask: what could I do to make it work better? That was
the only one that came forward to me. Whether it is because they
did not know me very well then and did not quite know how I would
react, whether I would take it seriously. It is interesting that
I have seen them in normal business now and I do not get that
feeling that they feel that we are being tardy in any respect
because, of course, a lot of my BCU commanders use their BCU fund
to pump crime, various activities in the partnership.
Q141 Mr Caton: Are there any changes
in structure or procedures in the partnerships that could improve
working relationships?
Chief Constable Wilding: If I
could replicate what they have in Rhondda Cynon Taff, which is
a purpose-built building where they have a member of every partner
there in the building, and this is where we start to have the
intelligence staff as well, the joint intelligence staff for every
partner. That is where we are starting that there. They are there
in the building. They have meetings regularly in the building.
They identify the same issues. It is wonderful, but it has not
been evaluated yet. I only opened it a few months ago, but I look
forward to the evaluation because there will be so many positives
that will come out of it and the intelligence sharing will only
be better. They have replicated it in a number of my partnerships
but been very much constrained around accommodation in the main.
It is not that people do not want to get on board and be there
and second staff. It is just that they do not have the accommodation.
I went into one office at Rhondda Cynon Taff and they had the
licensing officer, the fire officer as well and someone from the
environment agency as well all working in the same office. It
just works very, very well. Across the road were children services
as well, across the corridor, not across the road, but you have
the Chief Executive there who really understands the value of
partnership working. He was the Chief Executive I was hoping to
bring before you today to show that this is what a good partnership
looks like and what we are all striving to work for. He is unfortunately
going off to Hull, he is leaving us and going off to Hull but
his model will live on. I would like to replicate that across
my Force area because I believe it is best practice.
Q142 Mr Caton: I was very impressed in
Swansea recently where the prison is one of the partners in the
partnership and they had actually got prisoners to write a booklet
telling people how to avoid suffering from the crimes that they
had committed. It is very readable and quite an effective method.
You have at least three prisons in your patch anyway. Are the
prison always partners?
Chief Constable Wilding: We have
spread the partnership as widely as possible. We even have the
Chief Executive of Dara from down in Barry who is also on the
partnership as well who talks about the fact he has thousands
in his workforce, between 2,000 and 3,000 in the workforce and
needs the educational people to get on to really make sure he
has a workforce to recruit from for the future as well, and what
they can do with young people who are going slightly off the rails,
how they can help the community as well. The partnership can be
as wide as you want. The only problem with the partnerships that
David has very neatly reminded me of is the fact that they have
a 3-year strategy and their funding is only for 12 months. That
is really difficult, very difficult and makes things therefore
short term. How can you embark on long term solution fixing when
the funding is only for 12 months? May I say it goes beyond that
because we are as policing as Paul would go wax lyrically about
the difficulties we have with not knowing even now how much money
we are going to have for next year.
Q143 Dr Francis: When you come to evaluate
these community safety partnership do you publish them as examples
of good practice because it seems to me that there are several
examples of good practice. Whilst we have been hearing quite a
lot about Swansea could I say that in recent meetings that I
have had in the Afan Valley the communities there, particularly
Glyncorrwg have been very complimentary about community policing.
We should remember that I think it was Glyncorrwg that had the
very first ASBO and it took a lot of courage for those communities
to do that. Given those kinds of examples of excellent partnerships,
would it be a good idea to be publishing this work and celebrating
it?
Chief Constable Wilding: Just
before I hand on to David. Crime Concern have come in and done
evaluations of a number of our partnerships to be able to see
where we are, and they are doing the one in Merthyr Tydfil at
the moment as well, so we do evaluate but I will hand over to
David.
Assistant Chief Constable Francis:
It is such an important point that we do need to spread the best
practice. If I were to say that the partnerships are on a journey
and as they mature so we are learning so much from them, but they
are at different stages of maturity. One of the things the overarching
leadership group would want to do and is capable of doing is saying:
let us do some benchmarking against each other, no threats there.
There is a self assessment tool published by the Home Office I
think we could improve on, and use that as the method of sharing
our best practice. It is happening, but it has been happening
without the structure that we think should be there. A good example
would be dealing with anti-social behaviour in the different partnerships
was progressing well. By bringing the framework in we have been
able to try and spread that good practice across South Wales.
That is what really should be done with the partnerships as well.
Q144 Dr Francis: Would you say that what
I mentioned about the Afan Valley is the case. Are their communities
quite far down that journey?
Chief Constable Wilding: I visited
the Valley actually and David and I were with the local authority
on Monday, and of course the Mayor comes from there as well, so
I was able to hear firsthand how he feels about it. Certainly
from our perspective it is good practice, it is working well,
and it is very effective.
Assistant Chief Constable Francis:
Can I say that the South Wales anti-social behaviour framework
is based on what we call the Rees boys started in Neath Port Talbot,
Tim Rees and Steve Rees, started that and from that embryo became
the framework.
Q145 Hywel Williams: What is the difference
between being a Chief Constable in England and a Chief Constable
in Wales, and I am thinking in particular of the impact on the
National Assembly and the Welsh Assembly Government, how does
that impact on policing and the Force itself?
Chief Constable Wilding: Like
my English colleagues, I am of course am the head of my profession
and direction comes from the Home Office in the main. However,
the Welsh Assembly have particularly looked at the reassurance
and regeneration aspects and that ties into one part of our work
very clearly. We have an open access to the minister. Indeed,
I have seen the first minister on many occasions and discussed
local issues. The first minister has been out to look at areas
with us and discuss things with us. It is that firsthand experience
and they are able, in some ways, to contribute to funding for
us in particular areas. Indeed, as you are probably aware, they
contributed towards funding the 30 extra police officers working
within the educational side of Tarian on drugs. They were able
to access some pockets of funding from them, very much working
in the reassurance area. They extended the dependency abuse scheme
to alcohol as well, which is very welcome, so they are certainly
funding part of Tarian. They are also going to fund the extra
support for health for the treatment for drugs, which is very
welcome. I just would like it to roll out a bit quicker than perhaps
it is. I would say to you: we have the benefit of a region where
we are able to discuss at a local, regional level real issues,
policing issues, and that perhaps over my colleagues in England
the governance, to a degree, of Wales is helped to be formed by
our professional experience and judgment because we are able to
give it. It is a fact, of course, in the Home Office the policies
and plans are done by civil servants and the contact is through
the ACPO hierarchy, whereas we 4 Chief Constables regularly meet
with the social justice minister and we are listened to and there
is a lot of interaction between us. I believe that our professional
judgment is valued and I would like to see that replicated in
England.
Q146 Hywel Williams: I was really impressed
reading the report about the commitment that you have made to
Communities First and I think 72 police officers working very
interestingly. Just to go back to the relationship with the
National Assembly. You have mentioned that you speak with the
minister and with the first minister. What is the focus of that
relationship? Are they the people with the hands on the levers
of power? Do you feel that actually works? What is the focus of
your relationship? Is it at that level?
Chief Constable Wilding: I meet
with a number of ministers including transport and economy as
well because policing is very central to the economy of Wales.
If we do not provide, as I said before, that security and stability
then nobody is going to come and invest in there, so economic
growth only comes when you have security and stability. The focus
is around policies and us being able to influence and being asked
for our views and being able to influence our policies. We an
all-Wales emergency services group where we meet with all the
other emergency services including the military as well as chief
officers. We have a group that also has the chairs of the Police
Authorities and the Chief Constables meet and the Programme Board
for the collaboration as well. We inform the minister of what
we are doing. It is very much focus about what makes the social
environment and the regeneration of Wales better and where the
policing fits into that.
Q147 Hywel Williams: In paragraph 3.3
you discuss concerns about the impact on short term and centralised
funding, which is to deal with the Force's local and long term
problem solving requirements; this is something we discussed with
the Chief in Dyfed-Powys as well. How do you think that this should
be addressed?
Chief Constable Wilding: I will
hand over to Paul here who is our expert in these areas.
Paul Wade: Any short term funding
makes it very difficult for us to decide how we should tackle
a problem over the long term. What we find is we have to issue
many fixed term contracts which can only extend for the life of
the funding that is available us to. It means our strategies can
only be as long as the funding is available. With all the changes
going on in employment law fixed term contracts are becoming as
difficult and possibly cost expensive at the end as a full-time
employment is, so obviously, offering advice to the Chief and
the Police Authority. What we cannot do is put ourselves in a
position where we have incurred expenditure without knowing where
the funding stream is coming from. I would like to see some more
commitment to longer term funding than 12 months. three years
is difficult to manage, but it is far easier to manipulate three
year funding than it is 12 month funding. 12 month is very, very
difficult.
Q148 Hywel Williams: I am sure it is
no comfort but this committee sometime ago looked at social exclusion
and community projects. They all said the same basically: you
cannot work on a 12 month basis. You did, in fact, refer to that
in an answer to Mr Caton. The implications of dealing with that
particular issue are short-termism, difficulty in planning?
Paul Wade: By the time the people
we have employed from that stream of funding have really become
contributors to our plan the funding runs out and then we have
to make decisions: do we dog ear funding from elsewhere to keep
that resource which has an impact somewhere else in the Force
or do we have to end that particular initiative and accept it
will decrease our service in a certain area.
Chief Constable Wilding: The PCSOs
will be a very good example of that. It is a very complex issue
now about the first, second and third tranche. The people we brought
in on the second and third tranche, the funding reduces, I think
if you explain, Paul, because it is so complex.
Paul Wade: With the current phase
there are 4 phases of PCSOs. In phase 1, the Force was not successful
with its bid. In phase 2 and 3 we were successful, but in phase
2 we funded some of our 63 from our own resource, some from the
BCU fund, which unfortunately has now been withdrawn as an available
source of funding to us, 50% from the Home Office funding, the
partnership the Chief mentioned earlier working in RCT, they also
funded 50% of five. We have also had agreement with the City and
County of Cardiff that they will fund some as well. What we are
now finding is because these streams of funding are altering constantly
it has become extremely difficult for us to maintain the level
of service in those areas. Without expanding too much, phases
one, two and three have now been extended to 31 March 2008. Phase
4, the one we are not aware of what our bid will be successful
for, it is 100% funded during 2005-06 and then becomes 75% funded
during 2006-07, so again we have to be careful because our resources
have been directed by certain objectives and the funding may not
always be targeted at the areas we would most like to tackle,
but we have to do it to obtain this additional funding from central
or regional government.
Chief Constable Wilding: We have
to manage, juggle this all the time which is what we were doing
last week in two days of planning. I have made the commitment
and I did when I first came in: that first tranche of PCSOs, the
63 that we have now, we will build into base budgets somehow;
we are looking at ways of doing that. I will not go below that.
I will build that into base, but any expansion on that I have
to look for other resources which, again, is my role to look for
other resources to be able to support that because they are so
valuable to the community.
Q149 Julie Morgan: I have some questions
about the structure now. Is the current structure of the oversight
and the accountability of police services effective? Do you feel
it enables Forces to deliver local and national priorities?
Chief Constable Wilding: The oversight:
it is multi-tiered really. At one time, the number of inspections
going on in a Force and was subject to ran into hundreds, never
mind if not thousands. You can imagine the number of recommendations
that come out of that and your opportunity to complete on those
recommendations in a year frankly becomes a bit farcical. At the
moment as a service we are subject to obviously the Police Authority
because we have to be an efficient and effective service. That
is our first port of call. Secondly, we then have Her Majesty's
Inspector Constabulary who look at how we deliver things. Then
we have the Police Standards Unit which looks at what we deliver
and our performance. We have all the audit areas of our performance
being looked at. Auditing clearly is necessary when you are dealing
with the sort of money that we are dealing with and public expectation,
et cetera, et cetera. It is very important, if it could be graded
in a slightly better way that we were not constantly putting resources
into supplying data for a whole myriad of people. I have the statistics
here of how much it costs us to supply data to a whole range of
people. The overall cost is £328,000 in just the people we
employ to receive the data and marshal it. That does not cover
the opportunity costs of those who actually then gather the data
first before it goes to the receivers. It is an awful lot of the
public's money that is being gathered to fulfil this complete
plethora of different ways that people want the same data gathered.
If you had one structure that managed everybody's concerns we
would probably be able to release more of the public's money to
put into operational policing.
Q150 Julie Morgan: What about the other
part of the structure? Would you believe in directly elected police
boards, for example, that is something that has been put forward
as a possibility?
Chief Constable Wilding: Yes,
I do understand. It has been my experience that depending on—and
I work with a number of police authorities as
you will understand as a chief
officer—depending on the make up of the
Police Authority then it either has all the business acumen, the
public acumen, the people acumen, et cetera, or in some cases
it needs to be supplemented with independent people then, et cetera,
but providing the independent elected people have all the right
skills and resources to be able to do their job I do not see any
problem with it, frankly. I do not see any problem at all.
Q151 Julie Morgan: In evidence to this
Committee last week the Chief Constable of Dyfed-Powys police
suggested the Gwent Force be abolished and as a logical alternative
would be the amalgamation of Gwent and South Wales. Do you have
any comments on this? You have heard this before?
Chairman: You must have heard it before.
Chief Constable Wilding: Yes.
The logic for this— may I answer the most exciting question.
The logic for this seems to come from the fact that the fire brigade
went down from eight to three, that we should be coterminous,
that two of my BCUs are with the fire brigade that covers Dyfed-Powys
and the other fire brigade covers Gwent and the other five areas
of mine. I do not see why we have to be coterminous with the fire
brigade: is it good for policing. That is what I would say. What
is good for policing may not necessarily be good for the other
emergency services. The ambulance is one. I would never suggest
there ought to be one police service for Wales because of the
northern dimension and its influences from the north-west. I would
never say that. If I were to look at a structure for Wales I would
be saying it is the local structure we must get right. I think
that each of the three Forces has probably got that right. It
is the next level, the level 2 that we are working on collaborating
on at the moment which, as I have said, Dyfed-Powys do not get
the exposure to certain crimes to keep their staff levels and
their competency levels right. We are looking at that. Then when
you have that right, the governance becomes a different issue.
This is exactly what I said to the Police Authorities of Wales
two weeks ago when I did a presentation on collaboration. For
me, it is about the local part. It is irrelevant where the governance
comes from in a way. If you have the local contact talking to
local people, got the channels in, we are delivering good local
service, we have a good structure then for specialist areas, you
have a good structure, the capability and capacity to deliver
across the three, then the governance becomes a different issue.
I think that is where the debate ought to be in some time, when
we have these other parts in place.
Chairman: Thank you. You will be delighted
to know there are no further questions so you do not have to come
back after the division.
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