Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-50)
CHIEF CONSTABLE
DR TIM
BRAIN, CHIEF
INSPECTOR JAN
BERRY, CHIEF
SUPERINTENDENT IAN
JOHNSTON, MR
BOB JONES
AND MR
BILL WILKINSON
22 MAY 2007
Q40 Ms Buck: Can I ask you a little
bit about the issue of efficiency savings, and I know there has
been an expressed concern that a limit has been reached on what
you can achieve in terms of that future efficiency saving. I wonder
if you can tell us why you believe that is the case because clearly
efficiency savings apply across the public sector and for many
years people have said they have reached their limits and actually
they have not, but very specifically as well the Audit Commission
have indicated that, whilst performance is satisfactory across
the board and fairly consistent, there are no police forces which
are actually achieving a strong performance rating, and I wonder
if you can tell us why you think that is.
Mr Jones: Perhaps if I can start
the ball rolling, Sustainable Policing actually
does indicate that we will continue to make further efficiencies,
but clearly we are not convinced we can make them at the total
scale that we have had in the past, and obviously the figure that
we are quoting in terms of efficiencies of £1.76 billion,
we are not sure that we can achieve that rate continually into
the future because many of the low-hanging fruits have been picked
and many of the efficiencies, the easy ones, have been taken up
during that particular period. Therefore, we are not convinced
that the rate of maintenance of those efficiency growths will
be achievable in the future, but that is built into the figures,
so the figures, in terms of the gap, anticipate targets continuing
to be met in respect of the Government's efficiency proposals.
The problem we will also have with efficiencies is the change
in the nature of efficiencies. Previously, effectively it was
a mixture between cashable efficiencies and efficiencies in terms
of improvement of service and now it looks like one of the prospects
of the CSR Round is that we will move to just the total higher
amount of cashable efficiencies which is much more difficult to
achieve than improvements in the efficiency of the Service.
Dr Brain: It is always easy to
say that there are more efficiencies to be gained and that the
fault lies in practices and procedures and in bureaucracy. Of
course, if you keep saying that long enough, it acquires its own
weight and also of course it is much easier to agree with that
than it is to agree that the Police Service is rather good at
delivering efficiencies and it does need resources to be sustained
and possibly increased over the next few years. The reality of
it is, as Mr Jones has said, that the Police Service has been
quite good at delivering efficiencies and, if we look at some
of the Audit Commission's figures, the majority of forces received
good ratings or one or two were fair, that is true, and one was
poor, but most forces received good ratings. All the services
have contributed to delivering efficiencies over the last few
years. What we do have to look at is what is happening in the
current financial year and, whilst I said a moment ago that resources
have never been higher and we have not started seeing a significant
decrease, we are seeing the use of financial reserves this year
and we are seeing forces deliberately holding vacancies principally
in the police staff line, about 3,100 vacancies currently out
of a workforce of just over 70,000. What that means is that already
authorities and forces are making cash savings which gives them
less room for manoeuvre in the next three to four years, and again,
to re-emphasise what Mr Jones has said, all of the spending projections
assume 3% efficiency savings year on year, and these are built
into the calculations.
Q41 Ms Buck: I certainly accept the
fact, and I think you should be congratulated, that the performance
generally is a satisfactory one and really across the board, but
no authority received a strong rating. Now, why is that because
really, if everybody was working at the top of their game, you
would expect a mixed performance and you would certainly expect
some authorities to be performing strongly. It concerns me that
none is because it implies that nobody is out there actually being
particularly innovative and we are, with respect, at a stage where
communications and information technology are revolutionising
and it is not, therefore, as I think you are implying, Dr Brain,
a critique of police practice to say that we would expect a capacity
to constantly reinvent the way you work.
Dr Brain: I think we are going
to disagree about the interpretations of the Audit Commission
figures. The return was principally on the way forces and authorities
manage their financial accounts. My recollection of the police-use-of-resources
figures is that many forces received a good rating, "excellent"
being a very high standard indeed and—
Q42 Chairman: I think it was adequate,
that 98% of forces were performing adequately.
Dr Brain: My recollection is three,
and certainly my force received a three and three is good.
Ms Buck: It is 98% performing adequately
at three.
Q43 Chairman: Adequately or well,
sorry, but none received level four.
Dr Brain: Yes, indeed, but that
is a very high standard indeed and it must be seriously questioned
whether the additional practices that would have to be introduced
to deliver an excellent rating would actually represent value
for money in terms of the public purse, and we have to, I think,
look at the interpretation of those figures quite carefully. To
imply that no forces are performing strongly is going a stage
too far. This is the police use of resources and that has to be
measured also against what forces are achieving in terms of increased
visibility, lower levels of crime and more offences brought to
justice.
Q44 Margaret Moran: Mr Johnston,
we are told that your Association has argued that greater efficiency
can only be achieved through better delegation to BCUs, targets
better bedded in at the local level and through local partnerships,
and that that measure and "greater local accountability will
drive down crime". Now, that is something dear to my own
heart, but could you perhaps give us some specific examples of
how you feel that could be delivered, how you could drive down
crime and be more cost-effective in that way?
Chief Superintendent Johnston:
You will have seen from our submission that we refer to a Home
Office document that was published two years ago now related to
a guide to better delegation. It is sad to say that our Association
believed that that document had not been acted upon in large areas
of the Police Service and in fact our members, BCU commanders
in particular, have seen less devolved budgets and not more. We
believe, 70% of our members believe, according to a recent survey,
that centrally imposed targets actually have a negative effect
on the quality of local policing that they are able to deliver,
and I emphasise the words, and the top-down approach that we have
had now for several years in terms of delivering local policing
quite simply, in the view of our members, is not working. We believe
that the greater devolved budgets, particularly around police
pay because we have got certain parts of the budget devolved,
will result in greater innovation, a better workforce mix and
allow our members to deliver locally the policing that the public
want.
Q45 Margaret Moran: You are not really
giving me any specific examples, but perhaps you can come back
to that.
Chief Superintendent Johnston:
Well, if you want some examples, where we have delegation working
in certain parts of the country, it means that our members can
actually decide the workforce mix they want to address crime and
disorder problems and the like, they are empowered to commit funds
to crime and disorder partnerships which means that they can address
matters that are brought to them by the local community and not
imposed on them, and we believe that it will empower BCU commanders
and it will give them greater freedom to work in consultation
with local people to address local issues.
Q46 Margaret Moran: How would you
see that working in practice? For example, do we need a formula
to devolve resources down to BCU level? I will quote the specific
example in my own constituency within the Bedfordshire Police
Authority which, I hasten to say, the Chief Constable always says
is under-funded, yet the highest level of crime and, comparative
to our performance family, the lowest level of resources are within
my constituency of Luton. Surely, we need some sort of formula
that reflects the level of crime and need as against resources,
whereas at the moment the argument is that it should reflect the
level of council tax contribution.
Chief Superintendent Johnston:
We recognise that there are some dangers in full delegation to
BCUs and, perhaps with more time, we could go through some of
those, but it is proved already with some BCUs that have full
delegation in certain forces in the country that there is greater
and better morale within the division, there is better performance
in the division and BCU commanders are allowed to be innovative
about the way they deliver local policing, and I keep emphasising
that it has been decided by the BCU commanders in consultation
with the CDRP and the public about local issues that need addressing
as well as centrally imposed targets.
Q47 Gwyn Prosser: Jan Berry, the
Police Federation has been critical of the way the Home Office
concentrate on targets and we have seen some recent examples which
you have brought into the public arena, the ridiculous and trivial
issue of the man from Cheshire who was cautioned for being in
possession of an egg with intent to throw it, and there are two
issues here. First of all, is it not an issue of common sense
at grassroots level, at PC level, at your members' level to not
pursue such arrantly trivial cases or is it a matter of a lack
of leadership?
Chief Inspector Berry: I think
probably a combination of both of those things. It certainly is
about common sense and I think some of my colleagues do not feel
they are able to use their common sense at the moment because
of the drive to make the figures look good on paper. What gets
counted gets done and there is no relevance at the moment for
the quality of what is getting counted, and one theft is the same
as one serious assault on paper. When you look at the overall
offences-brought-to-justice figures, there is no qualitative assessment
within that which has any relevance, therefore, really what gets
counted gets done. Targets are important and I do not think I
can sit here and say that we should not have targets, and clearly
police officers need to demonstrate that they are providing value
for money, but I think we have to be very clear about what will
demonstrate that and that the performance culture has to have
qualitative assessment as well as quantitative assessment, so
slash targets, but do not scrap them, I suppose, is the thing.
Many of my colleagues feel they are failing the public and some
of it is down to poor supervision and some of it is down to leadership
because people become so focused on the numbers and not what we
are seeking to do. Now, I hear lots of people talk about outcomes
and not about inputs, but we need to be very clear about what
those outcomes need to be and that those are outcomes that are
going to mean something to the safety, the security and the reassurance
of the public. I do not think my members believe it is at the
moment.
Q48 Gwyn Prosser: Can you give us
some suggestions? You believe in targets, we all believe in targets
for all the obvious reasons, but can you give us some suggestions,
your opinion, of the way that target-setting can be drafted to
focus on outcomes and rigorous performance, but at the same time
not cause this apparent distortion?
Chief Inspector Berry: It has
got to have a quality assessment in there, that is imperative,
and I take the point that Ian Johnston has just made, that what
is a problem in one town in this country may not be a problem
in another and, if you have got a centrally imposed target where
there has been a tendency for the Home Office to micro-manage
the Police Service, if you have a centrally set target, every
BCU in the country will be expected to deliver on that target
percentage-wise. That may not be an issue, but you have got to
make the figures look as if it is an issue in your force and that
is why you have to look at what the issues are in your particular
town or your particular city and put your targets that relate
to that rather than a centrally imposed target from the Home Office.
Q49 Gwyn Prosser: Dr Brain, do you
have an opinion?
Dr Brain: Yes, I think it is very
dangerous to second-guess the circumstances of offences in local
areas which we do not know the details about, and there has been
quite a lot of that that has been going on in the last fortnight
and I am not in a position to comment on the detail of the circumstances
in which local officers felt they needed to use their powers in
a particular way. I think it is important to note that, in particular,
the offences-brought-to-justice target do lack a lot of subtlety
and there is a huge ratcheting-up effect which is going on all
of the time. If you do well and you hit your targets one year,
you can be guaranteed that they will be ratcheted up by a certain
percentage next year without any particular regard to the kind
of circumstances Jan Berry has been talking about, so they do
lack subtlety and they do need radical revision and overhaul,
but what I would say is we have to look at what Parliament has
required forces to do in this context. At the end of the 1990s,
there was a significant piece of legislation passed, the Prevention
of Harassment Act, that criminalised many of the acts we are hearing
talked about at the moment. That does put officers in an invidious
position: do they ignore what has been manifestly occurring as
a criminal offence or do they exercise their powers and process
things in a very intensive, bureaucratic way through the criminal
justice system? Even if it does not go to a full trial hearing,
you have to take into account that there is going to be a process,
so I think it is time to look at those offences-brought-to-justice
targets in a fairly root-and-branch way.
Q50 Chairman: Dr Brain, in fairness.
because you missed the earlier question, I want to put to you
a question I put right at the beginning to your colleagues, and
it was about offences brought to justice. There has been an increase
and it is almost entirely made up of fixed penalty notices, cautions
for cannabis and cautions for trivial offences. As a senior police
officer who has enjoyed this huge increase in resources, can you
explain to the Committee why it has not led to more criminals
actually being brought to justice in the courts which most of
us suspect is what the public mean by "brought to justice"?
Dr Brain: You do have to ask the
Crown Prosecution Service that question as well because we are
only part of an extended chain of process, but it is not true
to say that is the case in all forces, and I will plug Gloucestershire
at this point because Gloucestershire has seen an increase in
offences taken into consideration which is a particularly efficient
way of clearing up crime that involves prolific criminals. There
are other initiatives that are in place. The Prolific and Priority
Offenders Scheme is a very good way of targeting prolific offenders
and reducing the amount of crime that they are committing, and
I think we are now seeing reductions, genuine reductions, in the
kind of property-related crime that has plagued our society for
20 to 25 years, particularly around burglary and car crime, because
of those kinds of initiatives. There is undoubtedly an increase
in the number of offences that relate to violent crime and anti-social
behaviour because the legislation has pushed us that way, so I
think people are exercising the other methods of disposal quite
judiciously, in a very precise sense of the use of that word,
and the penalty notices disorder was introduced for the very reason
to reduce bureaucracy and we are making maximum use of them.
Mr Jones: But should we be concerned
that we are not actually taking more criminals to court for all
sorts of offences that most worry the public and where a caution
or another less bureaucratic disposal is clearly not adequate?
Dr Brain: I think we must be cautious
about drawing straight-line conclusions on this matter. The reality
of it is that, if you take more, for example, young people through
the courts because they have behaved in extreme forms of anti-social
behaviour, you run the risk of criminalising them at an early
age. It is important to use the full range of disposals that are
open to officers and the CPS.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
Can I thank you all, lady and gentlemen, for your evidence this
morning and, as I say, we will be producing, we hope, a brief
report based on what you have told us this morning and the written
evidence that you have recently supplied, so thank you very much
indeed.
|
