Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-139)
CHIEF CONSTABLE
IAN JOHNSTON
CBE QM BSC (HONS),
MR LEN
PORTER, MR
COLIN FOXALL
AND MS
CHRISTINE KNIGHTS
19 APRIL 2006
Q120 Chairman: Mr Porter, what are
your views on this?
Mr Porter: I think the last time
I appeared at one of these Committees you were concerned about
the cost of standards, so I certainly could not propose standards
in this area. I think the rail industry—
Q121 Chairman: I am rarely accused
by anyone of being concerned about costs but I am happy to hear
it.
Mr Porter: I think the rail industry
has grown more knowledgeable about risk. The way that we police
this ought to be according to risk.
Q122 Chairman: That does rather lean
towards flexibility.
Mr Porter: I would agree with
that.
Q123 Chairman: Chief Constable, I
am going to come back to you because I am not now clear what it
is that is being proposed. Are we saying that we should have a
very straightforward set of minimum standards but over and above
those minimum standards there should be some flexibility for individual
stations to put in bits that they like?
Chief Constable Johnston: I would
go for a gold, silver, bronze approach which would be mandatory
through the franchising arrangements which would be set at different
thresholds, so small stations with low footfall, low crime levels,
meet one standard, those with more crime, more people would meet
another standard and the bigger ones where there is most crime
would be required to meet the higher standard. I would want some
system which had flexibility and some system which targeted—which
the gold, silver, bronze thing would do—the places at which
it was most needed because at the moment requirements within franchises
are often specified in terms of "You must have X number of
secure stations" and they quite intelligently go for the
ones that cost least.
Q124 Mrs Ellman: There seems to be
a discrepancy here between where need is greatest as identified
by high crime and where people feel there is a need because they
are uneasy. Who should decide which of those areas has higher
priority in terms of action needed?
Mr Foxall: I think the answer
to that is that is why we think we should have a strategy which
tries to address precisely that sort of question. At the bigger
stations it is fairly plain that you can make decisions about
what you need to do and maybe Network Rail can help do that without
too much difficulty. When we get further down—I hesitate
to say "down the line"—to the smaller stations
it then becomes very difficult to say what is necessary and what
I would like to see happen there is to encourage the local community
to become involved in making decisions about local stations and
how they should be protected.
Mr Porter: I do not think it is
a question of who should decide, it is a question of what the
data and information tells you as to where the priority risk is
and then it is absolutely clear without anybody taking a view
as to where work should be done.
Q125 Chairman: To be devil's advocate
for a moment, Mr Porter, are you not really saying that is if,
for example, the information gathered by CCTV is on digital, if
there is someone monitoring it, if there is some means of filtering
that information? Are there not a lot of ifs in that statement?
Mr Porter: I do not think it is
anything to do with CCTV.
Q126 Chairman: No, but it is the
quality of the information. Where do you gather the information
from if it is a small station with no staff and it has not got
CCTV that anybody can decipher? I am sorry to be boring about
this but you have got to know what the information is before you
sort it out, have you not? It is no use looking at the Chief Constable,
I know his views but I want your views.
Mr Porter: We have information
in the various databases that would describe where the incidents
are taking place, that was why I was looking at the Chief Constable
because he has the database.
Q127 Chairman: So you could draw
us a nice coloured map of the whole of the railway system of the
United Kingdom suitably graded as to the level of crime in each
individual area?
Mr Porter: Can we?
Chief Constable Johnston: We certainly
can. There is crime data for each station.
Q128 Chairman: What do you do with
what information, Chief Constable? You tell the train operating
companies and what do they do with it, if the answer is not a
lemon?
Chief Constable Johnston: Some
respond responsibly and effectively on occasions and others are
unable to do so.
Q129 Chairman: Are unable or unwilling
or do not intend to cough up the cash?
Chief Constable Johnston: I think
resources are a key issue.
Chairman: I suspect they might be.
Q130 Mrs Ellman: Would you say the
Secure Stations Scheme is successful?
Chief Constable Johnston: I would
say they are part of the successful formula. There are other things
to improving the lives of passengers on stations than just the
Secure Stations Scheme but it is a big step in the right direction
and I am very supportive of it.
Mr Porter: I would agree with
that.
Mr Foxall: From our point of view
we see it being much more applicable to the larger stations and
difficult to apply to the smaller stations. Commenting on the
earlier discussion, we have talked about identifying needs but
that ignores one very important thing and that is passengers'
perception. If passengers are fearful of going into stations it
does not matter whether there has or has not been a problem on
that station, it is a question of whether they perceive it to
be an environment where there might be a problem. Somehow we have
to take that into account, which is why I think we need a wider
discussion about this. It is not just a statistical bean counting
exercise, it is an exercise about what the passengers think and
what will make them secure in travelling.
Q131 Mrs Ellman: Why do you think
there are only 323 secure stations registered under the scheme
from over 2,500 stations?
Mr Porter: Cost.
Q132 Mrs Ellman: Cost of?
Chief Constable Johnston: I think
the scheme could be made easier and more flexible, which is why
I would quite like a gold, silver, bronze approach. That is part
of it. I think they see it as more difficult to achieve than it
would be. There is an issue of cost in this as well. One of the
things the scheme does is survey passengers so you do pick up
on passengers' feelings and fear of crime through the present
Secure Stations Scheme.
Q133 Mr Leech: I am interested to
know whether there is any difference between the levels of fear
of crime in stations where they have the Secure Stations Scheme
in place and whether people are aware that those stations do have
that scheme.
Ms Knights: One of our concerns
is that passengers are not particularly aware, nor is it particularly
publicised, whether a station has accreditation under the Secure
Stations Scheme or not. Clearly there is a balance to be struck
as to whether to reassure people or to engender more fear, but
there has been research on the Secure Car Parks Scheme and when
people found out about that it seemed to reassure them. Surely
there is work to be done on looking at reassuring people through
further publicity on the Secure Stations Scheme.
Q134 Mr Wilshire: Somebody said,
and this concerns me, if this is what people "perceive"
to be a safe environment. Can any of you see any danger in trying
to reassure people beyond the point that you can actually deliver
and, therefore, make them less aware of their surroundings and
less responsible for their own safety?
Chief Constable Johnston: I think
you can do things to make people feel safer by the way the environment
is constructed. Places that are dark and dirty do not give people
a sense of reassurance and comfort and you can do something about
that regardless of the actual crime levels that are there. Paradoxically,
places where there are no people around are quite frightening
for some people and having people around, whoever those people
are, in a way helps people to feel safer. The issue of fear of
crime is very much a separate issue from crime itself. The people
who are worried about crime are by and large the elderly and people
who are victims are the young. The people who are worried about
it are women, men are much more often victims of crime. People
are worried about crime at night, most of the crime is during
the day. People on the railways are worried about crime most on
trains but mostly crime occurs on the platforms, on the stations.
There are two challenges to be addressed around crime and fear
of crime and they require different strategies.
Q135 Mrs Ellman: Should accreditation
only be given to stations which are deemed to be at risk?
Chief Constable Johnston: I think
that would be a very sensible use of resources. You are into an
issue about how do you define to what extent they are at risk
but that is exactly the point I am saying, at the moment sometimes
secure stations are places which have accreditation and that investment
could have been more usefully spent somewhere else.
Mr Foxall: I think that is problematic,
Chairman. I do not like disagreeing with the Chief Constable but
I think that is problematic because I still think the perceptions
people have influence travel. I accept there is a boundary that
you cannot go beyond. You cannot go to ridiculous lengths to make
people feel absolutely comfortable because if they innately fear,
they innately fear, but I am worried about saying you do it simply
on a risk assessment basis or on the basis of experience.
Chief Constable Johnston: My point
around risk was I was including fear of crime as one of the elements
within the risk assessment.
Mr Foxall: Then we are in agreement.
Q136 Mr Scott: We have heard about
the CCTV on station platforms. In a number of areas the town centres
are already monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For economy
reasons, as the staff are already there monitoring them, would
you recommend it as a way forward for all stations to be linked
to town centres?
Chief Constable Johnston: I think
there is a challenge nationally across all organisations about
the integration of CCTV systems for police forces, for local authorities,
for football grounds. There is a whole series of work to be done
here. The Home Office, God bless them, have commissioned some
work and are due to report at the end of this year which will
be about achieving a working towards common standards to enable
exactly that process to take place. Whilst that is going on there
is lots of work that can be done. Lewisham, for example, has got
cameras from the station into their borough control room and there
are other places around London that I know of where that currently
happens. There is scope for a lot more of that work which would
be very good operationally in terms of tying up events because
often the people who are misbehaving on the stations turn out
to be the people who misbehave in the towns, so there are some
operational links there, and there is some resource saving in
terms of who is sitting in front of these cameras watching them.
Mr Porter: I think that we should
see rail personal security as part of a community safety initiative,
which is the point you are making. Just backing up the Chief Constable's
point, if we do a very good job on the railway, and I think that
is happening, all that is going to do is push people out into
the car park first and then into the community centre or into
the shopping centre or whatever and there is no point spending
the money to move them from A to B, we need to take a rather more
holistic view.
Q137 Mr Scott: I wonder if I could
ask Mr Foxall and Ms Knights if you agree that this would help
with the feel or the perception that people fear, which we heard
is wrong?
Mr Foxall: I think it would be
good. In fact, I agree with the last point that Mr Porter has
just made. If you make the station tremendously secure and if
the four streets outside the station are terribly insecure you
have created another sort of problem unless you are always going
to guarantee someone comes to the station in a car or whatever.
It does need to proceed in that context. We must not ignore the
fact that crime on the railways is part of society's crime. We
cannot isolate it. Yes, clearly it is a specialist area and we
have to treat it in a particular way but it is part of society's
crime and that is why I believe the local community has to get
involved too in looking at the issues that are raised in the stations.
You cannot shut the station in a box.
Ms Knights: This goes back to
Mr Foxall's point at the beginning that it is about a partnership
to try to resolve these issues where different bodies, local authorities,
BTP, RSSB and the train companies and Network Rail, all need to
work together, but there does need to be one controlling body
or one controlling mind having an overview to make sure there
is a catalyst for action in each area.
Chief Constable Johnston: I would
very much want to see stations positioned much more in the heart
of local communities because that is a way into resources, you
can get town centre wardens engaged and interested in stations,
local shopkeepers, develop Neighbourhood Watch capability. If
we were able to develop more ownership of the railway stations
within local communities we could bring in resources, bring in
community support and get lots of help alongside the CCTV.
Mr Porter: I fully agree with
that because if—
Chairman: Mr Porter, forgive me. If you
agree I am going to move on.
Q138 Mr Martlew: Listening to yourselves
and the previous witnesses, is station security a success story,
is it getting better, or do I believe what I read in the papers?
Chief Constable Johnston: I think
it is a mixed bag. In some places there have been big improvements
and some places are pretty grim and people are quite right to
be anxious about spending time there. I do think there are lots
of good initiatives going on so the situation overall is getting
better. As a police force we have had better support in the last
year or so to enable us to make a contribution to it. Developments
in CCTV are very positive although I do share Robin Gisby's comments
about more investment needed in the monitoring and use end of
the business to get the full investment returns out of it. The
front end is not quite done but enough has gone into it, it is
more in the back end and how we utilise the materials like CCTV
and the like. I think the picture is improving. Crime was down
last year, it was down the year before on the railways by small
percentages but it is a step in the right direction. I do think
overall that we are going in the right direction but not fast
enough.
Q139 Mr Martlew: Chief Constable,
earlier you indicated that you needed legislation and then you
appeared to contradict yourself to the extent that you said you
could put it in through the franchise. Politicians know the idea
that you are going to get legislation quickly is very unlikely.
What would you say?
Chief Constable Johnston: I was
clumsy with my language there. I regard the franchise as a regulatory
requirement when I was talking about a legal basis for it. There
needs to be a regulatory requirement which is mandatory and not
an opt-in and opt-out basis.
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