Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
RT HON
HARRIET HARMAN,
MP AND LORD
HUNT OF
KINGS HEATH,
OBE
8 MAY 2007
Q20 Chairman: I am making a statistical
point. The average will be affected by what you have just described—one
very long-running case, or two very long-running cases, for example,
whereas the median is—
Ms Harman: Oh, the median. You
said the median?
Q21 Chairman:— going to tell
you where most of the cases are.
Ms Harman: I think we have done
that, actually. Did you say median?
Q22 Chairman: I did say median.
Ms Harman: I think we have done
that, because what I have done here is "duration of inquest
concluded or adjourned", and, if you look the biggest bulge,
the median is three to six months. I would say this: we do focus,
inevitably, on the problems. We focus on the problems where there
are very long delays or where something has gone wrong, and I
do want to have the chance to say that for the most part there
are not long delays for inquests. When we did a survey of bereaved
relatives who had had recent experience of inquests and asked
them: "What was the experience like for you?" we were
quite struck by the fact that the satisfaction level was almost
as high as you would find for the NHS and higher than that for
the police. Because we focus so much on the problems we were,
perhaps, surprised to find that. Perhaps we should not have been
surprised to find that, but it is worth reminding us, as we struggle
to sort out the problems, that an awful lot of very good work
is going on in the systems.
Q23 Chairman: We found and reported
accordingly ourselves.
Ms Harman: Indeed.
Dr Whitehead: There are two parts
to this, are there not? The first issue is the question of whether
there are, indeed, great variations in resources between coroners'
offices, if you take all the different factors of subsidies and
various other things into account. The second issue then is, given
that variation in resources, whether within those resources they
are making a substantial difference to the way in which cases
are conducted and how speedily they are concluded and with what
level of satisfaction. If you do come up with the conclusion that,
indeed, there are substantial variations in resources, and you
have mentioned already it is extremely difficult to influence
those variations from a departmental point of view, do you have
plans in hand, or can you suggest plans, that might move towards
equalising those resources out?
Q24 Chairman: There is a division
in the Lords, so we will excuse Lord Hunt for as long as it takes.
Ms Harman: For example, if one
can imagine neighbouring similar authorities, and one authority—police
authority or local authority or jointly—is ensuring that
people in their area where an inquest is necessary get a much
better service than the people next door, then the question is
to make that transparent so that people know that actually their
authority is not providing such a good service. The very basic,
bottom line here is to make that information available so that
people can judge and see how their authority is doing compared
to others. We do not have that basic building block information
at the moment, and I think we should have—and we will do.
Q25 Dr Whitehead: That is then enabling
people to judge, but that does not remove the idea that there
may well be a postcode lottery, as it were, in the conduct of
both resourcing and cases.
Ms Harman: The first thing is
to discover whether or not there is a postcode lottery of resources.
I am not in a position yet to say whether that is the case, but
I am saying that we are gathering the information. It might be
that we come back to the Committee and say that across the whole
country, on average, the same amount is being spent on inquests,
and that the variation in service delivery is because of something
that is going on in the way it is being done. So I am reluctant
to jump the gun, in answering your question, because we do not
actually know yet the extent to which there is a variation before
we work out what we do about a variation that we do not know yet
exists. We do not know whether or not the variation in the kind
of service delivery is as it might appear to be, and, if so, whether
it is related to resources. So I am reluctant, as I say, to get
into answering how we would sort out the resource question before
we have got the basic information about the variation in resources.
Q26 Dr Whitehead: Yet the new Chief
Coroner will, among other things, ensure national standards in
the coronial system. Is that not putting the cart before the horse,
therefore?
Ms Harman: No, because I think
we need to be sure that it is clear what bereaved relatives can
expect. What can they expect by way of being given information?
What can they expect by being able to challenge a decision that
has been made by the coroner? I think it is right that those national
standards should apply, that there should be a complaints and
appeals system to back them up, there should be an inspection
system and that the Chief Coroner leads the coroners' service
in the way that the Lord Chief Justice leads the judiciary.
Q27 Dr Whitehead: If, as a result
of your inquiries, you do indeed find this variation may have
an effect on national standards, would it be your intention to
provide different ways in which the Chief Coroner might be able
to better ensure that national standards can be provided for?
Ms Harman: We would have to look
at that and see what we could do about it, yes. We would have
to look at it, of course, but we would have to establish whether
or not the standards were the consequence of the different resources.
It might be, and the question is to what extent, or whether or
not it is just different practice in different areas. Without
an inspection system, without standards which are accepted and
laid out clearly, performance and the way they do things varies
because there is no expectation they should do it according to
a certain, particular standard. They do the best in their own
area.
Q28 Chairman: Would it not be a rather
amazing coincidence if resource levels were broadly similar round
the country, given the completely different systems by which they
are provided, so that in some areas the police are paying for
coroners' officers, in other places local authorities are paying
for them and in other areas the police are simply providing serving
police officers to act as coroners' officers? There is such a
disparity it would be an amazing coincidence if it led to similarity
of service.
Ms Harman: There are certainly
some areas that feel that they have got a good relationship with
their policy authority and local authority and feel that they
are well supported, and there are some areas that do not. Against
that background, it would be surprising if it was completely equal,
but we would then have to make the second point, which is how
much is the performance being affected by the resources and how
much is it being affected by other factors? I am not saying that
that might not be the issue, but we have got to do some basic
groundwork first from a position of asking people to help us by
providing us with the information—when they are not busy
doing inquests.
Q29 Bob Neill: Going back to coroners'
officers, Minister, I think you said that 90%, one way or another,
come from the police but, as the Chairman said, sometimes that
is through direct provision or funding. How is one going to maintain
national standards if whoever is responsible for those national
standards, once they have established all the baselines, has got
to deal with, if you like, three different situations in relation
to the coroners' officers—local authority employees, police
employees or serving police officers seconded? Surely, is there
not an argument for standardising that?
Ms Harman: What is important for
the bereaved relatives and for the coroners to do their work in
the public interest is that there should be better training, that
there should be clarity about what the service provided should
be, so that if there is some criticism it is because, actually,
something was laid down and then they did not do it rather than
something that people thought after the event they should have
done. I do not think that you necessarily, in order to have common
standards, need to have commonality of employer.
Q30 Bob Neill: How, for example,
is the Chief Coroner going to effectively organise the training
of coroners' officers on a national basis and to a national standard,
if he is dealing with this patchwork situation?
Ms Harman: Because they are all
coroners' officers.
Q31 Bob Neill: Is the Government,
therefore, intending that there will be some national template
that each of the different types of local authority coroners'
officers must meet in the training?
Ms Harman: There certainly will
be a national training programme, yes, but people can be on that
irrespective of their employment status—in terms of who
their employer is—because they are a coroner's officer,
and that is their work. It is quite a statist argument you are
advancing, Mr Neill. Proceed.
Q32 Bob Neill: What I am interested
in, you see, is what the coroners' officers themselves say. They
say, in effect, that you have ducked an issue here, Minister,
because they feel that there is a problem of attrition of experienced
coroners' officers because there is not a reasonably clear career
structure, and that this would have been an opportunity in the
Bill to put that into place—to make it easier to do.
Ms Harman: I think the Bill will
give a focus on the important work of coroners. The Chief Coroner
will give leadership, the inspection system will give confidence,
the training programme will make a difference and the appointment
system will be regularised, and I think that will make a big difference.
I do think the fact that there has been an expectation each year
that there will be a Bill, and there has not been, has created
a sense of uncertainty amongst those who are doing the very important
work that there is in the coronial system. We can only be grateful
for the fact that, despite that, and that sense of uncertainty,
the work has gone on in such a dedicated fashion. I hope that
with the work we are doing prior to the Bill, but also in the
Bill when it comes, that uncertainty will be addressed. We can
always move on after the Bill and do further things, but what
I am keen to do is do what we can before the Bill comes in, especially
with the Rule 43 points, the lessons learned issues and the shadow
Chief Coroner, and then get on with the Bill, but I do not think
we should make the best the enemy of the good here.
Q33 Bob Neill: What troubles me about
that is that ACPO themselves have said it is not uncertainty that
is an issue here; what they have said to us last year in evidence
was to say they have only kept the support structure going of
coroners' officers because there has been the prospect, if you
like, of some holistic reform of the situation. What you are now
saying, Minister, is that there will not be.
Ms Harman: The Association of
Chief Police Officers are aware of what we are proposing in the
Bill.
Q34 Bob Neill: They may be aware
of it but it does not sound as if they are very supportive of
it, from what they have told us.
Ms Harman: They are aware of the
fact that we are not planning to change, in the Bill, their responsibilities,
and they will be continuing with those responsibilities.
Q35 Bob Neill: Does it not trouble
you that that appears to dash the hopes that they say are the
thing that has kept the system on the road?
Ms Harman: I think the coroners'
system is very important indeed, and the fact that it is not the
criminal justice system does not mean it is not important or that
it is not important for local people in local areas and it does
not need good investigation and good support services. I would
say to those people who are involved at local level in coroners'
issues that it is very important for there to be a remaining involvement
of the local partners, whether it is the local authority, the
police or the local health services, to ensure that local people
have a good coroner's service, and that they should maintain that
local involvement.
Q36 Bob Neill: Do you think, if necessary,
that there should, at least, have been some equivalence in terms
of conditions of work, in terms of service, and so on, regardless
of who the employing organisation is?
Ms Harman: One of the things that
I would have to look into further is the extent to which there
is variation anyway about that.
Q37 Bob Neill: Final thing: if, at
the end of looking at these things, it does come to a question
of resources, we have got the situation whereby ACPO and the LGA
are saying: "We do not have any resources to put into it".
Having served on a police authority I rather suspect that with
the budgetary pressures they have they always run the risk, do
they not, that the coroners' officers will be rather towards the
bottom of the pile when it comes down to hard decisions? How do
we protect the situation against that?
Ms Harman: It is a situation for
any service which is locally provided. The importance is for it
to be recognised and for it to be valued. I guess you can say
that about any area of work which is going on at the local level,
and one of the things that I think it is important for us all
to do is to recognise the importance of the work that is done.
Q38 Bob Neill: There seems to have
been a move away from localisation of provision in relation to
the magistrates' court service, but we appear to be not going
in that same direction in relation to the coroners' service. For
the public that may seem an odd distinction to make. Why is that
closer alignment that is being done, let us say, in the criminal
justice system not appropriate for the coroners' system when,
for many people, there is quite a close link?
Ms Harman: I am not sure I see
the point you are making. We place a great emphasis on local involvement
in the justice system and I do not think that we are moving away—
Q39 Bob Neill: Exactly the points
I was making about terms and conditions, and so on; making sure
that there is sufficient career structure to make sure that there
is a resilience in still keeping coroners' officers there, regardless
of where they may be, and so on, because that is one of the concerns
that was made quite forcefully to us: that there is difficulty
in retention and so on.
Ms Harman: I do not think there
is any analogy there.
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