Examination of Witnesses (Questions 119-139)
CHIEF INSPECTOR
JAN BERRY
AND CHIEF
SUPERINTENDENT DEREK
BARNETT
8 MARCH 2006
Q119 Chairman: Good afternoon, thank
you for being patient. Could I explain to you that being the "tail-end
Charlie" in this inquiry is not to be taken as any indication
of how important you are! Can I ask you to introduce yourselves
for the record.
Chief Inspector Berry: My name
is Jan Berry and I am the Chairman of the Police Federation.
Chief Superintendent Barnett:
Good afternoon. I am Derek Barnett, the Chief Superintendent from
Cheshire Constabulary and representing the Police Superintendents'
Association of England and Wales.
Q120 Chairman: Could I just explain
I am not responsible for choosing the witnesses, should any accusations
of fix be made at any point! Can I ask you both what evidence
you have that traffic policing is in decline?
Chief Inspector Berry: I think
that some of our colleagues on roads policing find they have less
support today than they ever had previously. Although some levels
of training are right, some levels of training are not, and I
think that is an element of support they feel they need. More
than anything else, we have had a National Policing Plan now for
several years and the National Policing Plan failed to have any
mention of any roads policing requirements in the first couple
of years. Our feedback to Government on every single occasion
is that this is an integral part of policing and must be included.
It is now included but there is no measurement attached to it.
What gets counted gets done in policing and whilst I am not the
first person to support performance measures (because I think
policing goes beyond that sometimes and some of the difficult
things to count do not get valued particularly well) you do need
to have a measurement if roads policing is going to be taken seriously.
Q121 Chairman: That is very interesting
because the thing that you may have heard earlier on is since
there is not an agreed definition of what constitutes a roads
police officer, is it possible to do an accurate assessment? I
do not know whether you were here when you heard the Chief Constable's
evidence where he said that road traffic policing may frequently
be a secondary function and therefore it is difficult to assume—he
did not put it in quite these terms but what he meant was it is
difficult to assume who is doing what. If that is the case, then
how do we assess how many people we have got doing road traffic
policing?
Chief Superintendent Barnett:
I did hear what the Chief Constable said and I think there is
evidence of a decline in roads policing. My Association some time
ago was sensing that there was a decline but we could not find
any definitive evidence to prove that so we set about a benchmarking
exercise with colleagues across England and Wales, seeking to
establish whether there had been a decline. Certainly the evidence
from research from the PACs shows that there has but within the
Police Service there was no definition of what constituted a roads
policing officer nor was there an accurate estimate of the numbers.
We set out to try and define that. I spoke to my colleagues in
43 forces and put that to them. It is quite a clear definition
and some may argue with it but it was simply did the officers
have a prime role to deal with and be engaged in roads policing,
and that seems quite straightforward to me, as did have they received
proper training and do they use proper specialist equipment. It
was based on that definition that we conducted our survey.
Q122 Chairman: I think that seems
to be commonsense but have you made representations beyond me
for a clearer definition?
Chief Superintendent Barnett:
We are part of the ACPO Roads Policing Operations Forum and I
presented the details of my exercise to that forum, which is chaired
by another chief constable, so that is now in the domain of the
Police Service.
Q123 Chairman: Has anyone got any
response from ministers because it is really fundamental, is it
not? It is no use us saying to the Government we are very concerned
about the quality of roads policing if a) it cannot be defined
accurately and b) they are able to say the Police Service because
they have got 43 different definitions has not really told us
what it means by roads policing. Has there been a very clear attempt
not just by the superintendents but by everyone to say very clearly
to government ministers we need a definition that everybody agrees
on?
Chief Superintendent Barnett:
I am certainly not aware of that.
Q124 Chairman: Do you agree that
the falling road casualty rate must mean traffic policing is more
effective than it was five or 10 years ago because that is the
other argument put to us?
Chief Superintendent Barnett:
It is an argument and it is an argument that is difficult to support
either one way or the other. What we do know from our colleagues
across the 43 forces in England and Wales (and the research supports
that) is that effective roads policing not only provides road
casualty reduction but it also provides reassurance and it does
tackle criminality because the roads policing officers (or traffic
officers as they were called in the past) were clearly people
who were engaged in catching criminals as much as they were engaged
in road safety as well.
Q125 Chairman: Well, why it is important
that it is a specialised role? What training and skills would
you require as being basic to this role?
Chief Superintendent Barnett:
I think there has been a concentration on the numbers and I think
to a certain extent that is right and there must be a baseline
at some stage we must establish, but in terms of roads policing,
I think there are two elements of that. There is the specialist
roads policing and that is what I am particularly interested in.
Those are the people who have the specialist training who are
able to investigate and be able to use tactical pursuit options,
specialist enforcement and to use specialist equipment. At a lower
level, a community level, it does not need specialist training
to be engaged in enforcing seat belt legislation, for example,
or anti-social parking. So I think there are two levels of this.
Q126 Chairman: Have you done any
benchmarking for 2006?
Chief Superintendent Barnett:
We have started that process. We intend to carry it out this year.
The results will not be available until probably September. One
caveat on that is the survey was a voluntary survey of my members
and the return rate was about 70% which is 31 police forces, so
it is only a partial picture.
Q127 Chairman: Yes we were a bit
concerned that not all forces measured performance and you have
only got, as far as I can see, 27 out of 31 forces with performance
management processes. It is a majority but it is not a very good
level, is it really?
Chief Superintendent Barnett:
I think you have just got to be careful that you are not reading
too much into that in as much as that was a questionnaire to a
single point of contact.
Q128 Chairman: I understand that
but supposing we were to say such strategies ought to be a requirement
under the National Community Safety Plan, because you really found
out that 26 forces have a casualty reduction strategy, 27 have
a roads policing strategy, 28 forces adopted ACPO's roads policing
strategy and it still leaves quite a number, does it not, where
they have not been able to say to you this is what we do?
Chief Superintendent Barnett:
It does. What it does is it begs further research and certainly
my Association is not in a position to go into that detail; we
are a small organisation.
Q129 Chairman: So it might be one
of the things that ought to be suggested to government as a government
responsibility?
Chief Inspector Berry: I think
it is certainly part of the HMIC inspection regime.
Q130 Chairman: What you have also
said at one point is there is a concern that under half of police
forces believe that traffic policing is "mainstreamed into
Basic Command Unit level policing". That does sounds rather
like some police forces I know. What does that mean in English?
Chief Superintendent Barnett:
Mr Hughes, the Chief Constable, mentioned the National Intelligence
Model. That splits policing into three levels: a national strategic
level; level two is over force boundaries; and level one is local
policing. What we found from the survey (and certainly from my
experience) is that when police forces deal with roads policing
at a force-wide level they are pretty good at integrating it into
their day-to-day processes of applying intelligence principles.
The worrying aspect of our survey was that when you came down
to local level, BCU level, there was less evidence of that. I
think less than 50% of BCUs claim to be doing that.
Q131 Chairman: Is there evidence
within the Police of which forces are neglecting roads policing?
It may not be right to ask you.
Chief Superintendent Barnett:
Our survey revealed some gaps but it is difficult in a process
such as this to name them in relation to baseline assessment from
HMI.
Q132 Chairman: Is there a connection
between comparative casualty rates?
Chief Superintendent Barnett:
We did not do that work so we are not able to say definitely.
Chairman: Mr Efford?
Q133 Clive Efford: Are we making
the most of technology to reduce speed?
Chief Inspector Berry: Certainly
with regard to speed cameras I think that they have provided an
additional resource but whilst they can be an additional resource
I do not think they replace human beings and I think you need
to have both. Whether it be a mobile camera or whether it be a
static camera, the camera technology is great, but I think you
need to have a human resource because the cameras cannot give
advice, they cannot detect other offences which may be drink-drive,
which is clearly aligned to casualty reduction and to road safety,
and they cannot detect whether any criminality has taken place.
I think that is why you need to have a blended approach in respect
of using technology but also ensuring that you have got that very
visible police presence on the streets as well that can enforce
the road traffic laws.
Q134 Clive Efford: Do you think that
balance is right at the moment or would you like to see more cameras?
Chief Inspector Berry: I do not
want to see technology stop. It is a huge advantage but we are
tending to replace human beings with technology and I think that
is a retrograde step.
Q135 Clive Efford: So do you think
the Government have taken on board your concerns in relation to
this mix of using personnel to enforce road traffic laws and technology?
Chief Inspector Berry: I think
we have to continue to put that message across. I do not think
that they have heard it particularly well and I do not think it
is just the Government, I think it is chief officers as well.
If you have got a piece of technology which on the face of it
could do the same piece of work as a human being then you could
deploy that human being doing something else. I think that is
particularly short-sighted.
Q136 Clive Efford: Does your Federation
have a view on what the most appropriate use is? Do you have a
set of criteria for, say, the deployment of speed cameras?
Chief Inspector Berry: No, I think
that we want to make sure that speed cameras are not being deployed
as a revenue collector but as a safety requirement, and a lot
of work has taken place over the last two years in making sure
and auditing that that is happening. When revenue is coming in
there is a tremendous enticement there for people to maybe put
them into areas where they know they are going to get a certain
level of income, I think some of the poor practice that has taken
place when cameras first came in has been redirected and with
the adoption of the National Intelligence Model there is far more
thought given to where both static cameras are being placed (some
of those are being removed) and the use of mobile cameras as well.
Q137 Clive Efford: So has there been
an extensive removal of cameras then that were inappropriately
placed previously?
Chief Inspector Berry: I do not
think we would say extensive, but I think it is important to say
that not every static camera that was there two years ago is still
there today. This is something that you have to continue reviewing
to make sure there is a need for the cameras to be there.
Q138 Mrs Ellman: Two government departments
are involved in policing accident reduction: the Home Office and
the Department for Transport. How do you think that should be
addressed? Should it be one department or should changes be made?
Chief Superintendent Barnett:
I think it is quite clear that the Police Service is very much
directed by the Home Office and we are a service that tends towards
the Home Office. Road safety and casualty reduction is certainly
the Department for Transport. I think it does cause a difficulty
for the Police Service in that we are seeking to achieve clearly
what are Home Office targets and those are primarily in relation
to crime, disorder and other related offences. Casualty reduction
does not feature as strongly in our psyche because it is not a
Home Office-led area of business.
Q139 Mrs Ellman: Is it your perception
that the public are concerned about accidents, even if your targets
are not?
Chief Superintendent Barnett:
I was here when you had the previous evidence and there was a
suggestion that traffic policing casualty reduction was not of
prime importance to local communities. Certainly my experience
when I have been a BCU commander is that my postbag and my public
meetings featured very, very strongly casualty reduction, speeding
offences and anti-social use of vehicles.
Chief Inspector Berry: I think
that is right. Sometimes there is a mind-set around somehow an
accident is not as serious as a crime. For the Police Federation
they are both serious. If your child is killed on the road by
a person who has been drinking too much or by a person who is
disqualified from driving, that is a crime, and it should be treated
the same and yet somehow there is a mind-set in society that it
is not, but if it is your child, if that person comes from your
family or your community, that is a crime, and I really think
it is important from an education point of view that we get that
message across.
Chief Superintendent Barnett:
May I give an example in as much as if you look at the Home Office
list of offences that count as a detection, which has been very
much the focus of HMIC activity, obstruction of electricity for
example counts as an offence as does fraudulent use of a tax disc
but disqualified driving and drink and drug driving does not count
as a sanctioned detection, and I think that is an anomaly that
should be put right.
Chairman: Absolutely.
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