PAUL GOGGINS AND DR STEPHEN LADYMAN

15 MARCH 2006

  Q300  Chairman: Is traffic enforcement the top priority for the Home Office?

  Paul Goggins: It is a key priority because it is not just an improvement thing in itself; it links with many other aspects of policing. For example, a police officer who is policing a particular neighbourhood in his car, perhaps with an ANPR kit in the vehicle, is able to deal with antisocial behaviour. He is able using the kit to perhaps identify people who are not insured, not licensed, perhaps people who are wanted for drugs crime from some other place in that locality and he is able to offer reassurance to the public, so there is a whole range of other impacts which come from effective roads policing; but of course roads policing has to be seen as an integral part of policing overall.

  Q301  Chairman: We have heard that viewpoint put forward more than once already in this inquiry. The Home Office does not quite seem to give the emphasis to roads policing. We are told, for example, that there is little incentive for chief constables to focus resources on this issue as it is not seen as a Home Office priority. Would you agree with that?

  Paul Goggins: I would not agree with that, no. We set it out clearly in our National Policing Plan and in what was of course the first Community Safety Plan we published towards the end of last year. We have made it clear in the Roads Policing Strategy which we published jointly with the Department for Transport and ACPO. I know you have had evidence from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. If you look at some of the assessments that they have provided, they show an encouraging take-up of this issue within local forces with some quite encouraging results. I am sure you and colleagues on this Committee would like to see better but it is something that is being seen as a priority.

  Q302  Chairman: Do you think that the Roads Policing Strategy does not feature prominently enough in performance indicators in that what is not measured does not get done?

  Paul Goggins: We have the one particular measure that we look at in terms of casualties per distance travelled and it is important that we deliver on that particular one, but of course local forces can adopt their own local priorities too and that is something which is encouraged. There clearly is a balance to be drawn here. Everything is a priority but if everything is a priority then nothing is a priority. Of course, police forces have to balance a whole range of issues about dealing with the terrorist threat and serious organised crime as well as local neighbourhood nuisance. What I tried to say at the start was that effective roads policing can be integrated with those other activities too and therefore is an improvement part of any local strategy.

  Q303  Chairman: Do you think the priorities ought to reflect the public's perception of risk or the actual numbers of deaths? You probably know that we took evidence from ACPO saying that it is a public demand, that they are concerned about the level of protection from the threat of firearms but they do not reflect this in public opinion in terms of the threat of cars.

  Paul Goggins: I would argue that both are important and I think the police are responding to both. Public opinion and public confidence are key factors. The sight of police vehicles in an area as well as police on foot, which is also an important aspect of local policing, can offer reassurance. The way that the police deal with road traffic accidents and incidents is also important and there is some encouraging feedback from people who are at the receiving end, as it were, of those kinds of incidents, but of course we also have to have an evidence base for the way in which this police work is carried forward.

  Q304  Chairman: What is your evidence base? How do you fix your priorities? What evidence base do you use for that?

  Paul Goggins: The key indicator, as you know, is the casualties per distance travelled and that is an important indicator of whether or not we have effective roads policing but there are other aspects too. If we look, for example, last year at the number of vehicles that were found to be unroadworthy, there is a substantial increase in the number of vehicles that were so identified. The number of prohibition orders last year also increased. I think this shows that the police are making effective use of technology and effective use of the extra 14,000 police officers we now have compared with 1997 to bring this kind of enforcement about. Many of the indicators are rightly decided at the local level. At the national level, we look particularly at the casualties per distance travelled.

  Q305  Chairman: You have not adopted the same casualty reduction targets as the Department for Transport, have you?

  Paul Goggins: There are differences, although I would hasten to make the point that you were hinting at yourself at the start, which is that we do work closely together. There are policy issues.

  Q306  Chairman: Closely together but not necessarily on the same things and working in the same direction.

  Paul Goggins: I would like to think we are working in the same direction and clearly the Roads Policing Strategy that we publish jointly demonstrates that.

  Q307  Mrs Ellman: On the Roads Policing Strategy, we have had evidence from both the Police Federation and Transport for London who both question whether the Roads Policing Strategy has made any or sufficient difference to road traffic issues. Are you aware of that?

  Paul Goggins: People will be beginning to form views about the effectiveness of the strategy. It was published of course in January of last year so it has been in place a little over a year now and people will form judgments. At some point Stephen Ladyman and I and our departments will also have to form a judgment about how effective the strategy is because there is no point in having a strategy unless you measure its effectiveness. That is something we will be considering in the near future: how and when to review and measure the effectiveness of the strategy. We believe that it is the right strategy and the five key principles that we have set out there about denying criminals the use of the roads and so on—you will be familiar with the other principles—are important principles. I believe they are focusing attention, not just nationally but locally too. We will need to consider the evidence for how effective they are in due course. I would suggest that after one year it is probably too soon to form any definitive conclusions about how successful it has been so far.

  Q308  Mrs Ellman: Again from the evidence we have had it appears that not all police forces have adopted the strategy. Is that something you are aware of?

  Paul Goggins: The principal evidence we have is from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and they give some encouraging evidence in relation to how seriously local forces are taking it with their baseline assessments. They looked altogether at 27 different frameworks. They found roads policing was the fourth highest in terms of successful outcome. They look at the level of effective leadership at 90% and a range of other factors as well, which would indicate that local forces do take roads policing as seriously as they ought to. I simply suggest that people will be forming conclusions about the strategy. I think it is too soon to form a definitive conclusion but certainly we will be wanting to make our own conclusions in due course.

  Q309  Mrs Ellman: Would you be looking specifically at ensuring that all forces adopt that strategy?

  Paul Goggins: Indeed.

  Q310  Mrs Ellman: Is that something you have been monitoring, because evidence given to us suggests that that is not the case.

  Paul Goggins: Our principal source of monitoring this information is through Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, but we will want to form a rounded view of that in due course. We have not done so as of now but, yes, we would expect local police forces to take this strategy seriously. This is not just a strategy to look nice on the shelves of the Department for Transport and the Home Office. This is meant to inform effective policing in our communities and we would expect them to take it seriously, because it is a comprehensive approach. I mentioned one of the five principles; the others are about reducing casualties which is a key factor for both of us, tackling the terrorist threat, reducing antisocial use of the road and enhancing public confidence. This speaks of effective roads policing in terms of promoting safety but also promoting confidence and reducing the criminal threat, both in terms of antisocial behaviour and organised crime. It very much speaks to the priorities that we both have in our departments and we would expect local forces to take it seriously.

  Q311  Mrs Ellman: The Department for Transport has published figures showing the economic value of preventing road accidents, suggesting there is a good cost benefit ratio there. How would that compare with other types of police enforcement in terms of cost benefit?

  Paul Goggins: Is that a question for me?

  Q312  Mrs Ellman: It started off with an assessment from the Department for Transport, saying that they found economic benefits.

  Paul Goggins: I would have to send a note to the Committee to do a detailed comparison with other areas. I am aware that it is said that it costs £18 billion a year in terms of the economic impact of casualties, both deaths and serious injuries. That figure would need to be set against other areas. I am happy to do that and send a note to the Committee.

  Q313  Chairman: What about Dr Ladyman?

  Dr Ladyman: I entirely share the views that Paul has put forward and we do work very closely together. You started off by asking, "Is there anything else that has this rate of fatalities in our society?" 3,200 people a year dying is clearly a very significant number. Not all those of course die as a result of people committing road offences but nevertheless it is a very significant number. If 10 people died today on the railways, we would have a public inquiry tomorrow but 10 people will die today on the roads and, as you rightly say, society will take an almost schizophrenic attitude to it. It is something that we in the DfT take very seriously and we do work very closely with the Home Office. We have identified this figure of £18 billion as being the cost, roughly speaking, of losses as a result of these accidents. That is why we set very aggressive targets for trying to reduce the number of fatalities and people who are seriously injured. We are on target to meet those targets so we are doing something right.

  Q314  Chairman: You are doing something right but what do you spend on advertising compared with that 18 million figure that you have produced?

  Dr Ladyman: I will have to write to give you the exact figure but I think it is around about the £15 million mark.

  Q315  Chairman: Is there a targeted campaign of that sort that says, "We are doing rather well. We are reducing the figures. We know how much it costs when we have these problems. This is what we could afford to spend on even more energetic campaigns"?

  Dr Ladyman: It is very much a targeted campaign, a THINK[2] campaign. We try to identify the problem groups that we have to reach and we very much target our messages at those groups and use channels that can reach those groups, very successfully. I am very pleased to say that the THINK campaign has won a whole raft of advertising industry Oscars in the last week for its effectiveness.

  Q316 Chairman: You can produce figures that say they make an immediate impact upon this driving group that we are told cheerfully drive through the world thinking that cameras are a nuisance and they do not really work. You can produce results that say your THINK campaign has instantly had an effect, can you?

  Dr Ladyman: Yes, we can. We do that research and we can let you have the impact of the THINK campaign.

  Chairman: I think we would be fascinated to see it.

  Q317  Mrs Ellman: In France, road deaths were cut by 33% in one year through increased traffic enforcement. Why can we not do the same?

  Dr Ladyman: Perhaps we started off from a better position than the French did.

  Q318  Mrs Ellman: Did we?

  Dr Ladyman: I think we do start off from a better position than the French did.

  Q319  Mrs Ellman: How important would you say visible traffic policing is?

  Dr Ladyman: I think visible traffic policing is significant. There is this judgment that we have to form and clearly this is a debate which is starting in society now amongst drivers. We have taken the view that, where technology is able to do more cheaply and more effectively the things that used to be done by police officers, it is better to deploy that technology and use the police officers where their skills and experience can be better targeted. Clearly, we do want visible police presence on the roads and I believe we get that visible police presence but do not think that the only thing we do, as well as having a visible police presence on the road, is technology. We also now have 1,000 highways traffic officers out there on the roads, working very closely with the police, clearing up accidents and things like that.