Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
MR TONY
MCNULTY
MP, MR DAVID
BURGE AND
MR PAUL
REGAN
22 MAY 2007
Q60 Ms Buck: So would you say that
there is an inevitability of there being staff reductions behind
that?
Mr McNulty: No, I do not think
so in the sense that I think what is happening in terms of efficiencies
and productivities will mean the picture is better than the broad
figures that they lay out. It is very early days, but what is
happening in terms of protective services' collaborations both
in terms of back-office functions and operational functions may
accrue savings that can be ploughed back in to obviate those sorts
of cuts, so I think there is a whole range of things going on
in a whole series of areas that can get us to absolutely not a
rosy picture which shows the same sort of growth as there has
been in the last six or eight years, but at least means we are
into a period of consolidation over the next years rather than
a decline because I do accept the basic premise that, if there
is a decline, then there is not a whole lot that can happen without
bodies being involved in the end, whether staff, PCSOs or police,
given, as you say, the 80%-plus figure.
Q61 Chairman: Minister, as you know,
we are going to produce a short report after this inquiry. Could
I invite you to share with us, before we do that, the assumptions
that are currently in your head.
Mr McNulty: Well, you could invite
me certainly and they form part of what we are going to put in,
or have put in, for our CSR Round, so I suspect, and I am not
trying to tease the Committee, it would probably be more appropriate
if I did not, Chair.
Q62 Chairman: In which case, Minister,
can I ask you, because of the Committee's responsibilities obviously
for scrutinising public finance in this area, when the CSR is
published, will the assumptions that you have made about the police
use of resources be made explicit? I think we can all understand
that at the moment all sorts of negotiations and discussions are
taking place and you cannot necessarily share the assumptions
there, but it is important, is it not, that, when the CSR is published,
it is very clear to the Police Service and to the Association
of Police Authorities what assumptions you have made which may
be different from the ones that have been put to us in their evidence?
Mr McNulty: I think that is a
fair point and, if that can happen in the practical sense, then
it should. I suspect though more likely is that the assumptions
will be published as and when we in the Home Office determine
how to divvy up the CSR, but to the extent that they can be when
the CSR is published, I think that is a perfectly fair point.
Q63 Mr Streeter: Minister, just one
more question on this shortfall or possible shortfall. Whatever
the extent of it, one of the reactions and some of the evidence
we have had this morning is that the authorities will be using
reserves to try and meet that gap, and obviously one of the issues
there is that that cannot go on for ever and that has a finite
life attached to it. I think really the point I wanted to put
to you, and you sort of half-touched on it yourself, is that we
have all seen instances in the past of short-term gain, if you
like, for the Exchequer, but long-term pain for, in this case,
the police forces and law-abiding citizens. Are you satisfied
that the sort of three years you anticipate will not create those
long-term problems just to save a bit of cash at the centre?
Mr McNulty: I am fairly satisfied,
without pre-empting what the final view will be on the CSR, although
you will know that the Home Office's has largely been preset,
but, within that, I am very, very serious about having the debate
about police finance both internally in terms of priorities within
the Home Office and Mrs Dean's point about the balance between
local and national and the capping regime because I think you
are perfectly right that, if you do look at detailed graphs over
the last 10 years, yes, there has been sustainable growth from
a local or national source, but sometimes it has been slightly
erratic and I think all that our communities would ask of us is
for some degree of sustainability and predictability into the
future, so I think that is a fair point.
Q64 Mrs Cryer: Minister, the various
police organisations that came in before you were saying that
there is the danger of them having to go into their reserves because
of lack of funding in the next year. However, I understand the
Government has said that the police are unlikely to receive above-inflation
funding increases, but we are told that over the period 1995 to
2006, 11 years, it can be seen that the increase in general inflation,
using CPI, has been 19%, whereas the inflation pressures on the
Police Service have been 44%. Therefore, funding increases based
on CPI, do you think they will be insufficient?
Mr McNulty: No, I do not and I
do accept the point about the history, but, because a whole range
of things are happening, we really do need to look at the funding
gap and any monies that flow from that in the wider context, whereas
10 years or so ago the whole relative position in terms of IT
in the police was all over the place, and I would suspect, if
we had the time and space to do a review of IT expenditure in
the police over the last 20 years, you would find quite a lot
of cul-de-sacs and quite a lot of things that might have been
quick fixes for a particular force at a particular time, but in
terms of the national picture were not terribly helpful. Airwave
has been funded from the centre and I think actually has transformed
police and the contact between police and is a prelude to even
more transformation in terms of the ability to download data on
to PDAs and all that sort of thing, so we are in the advent of
even better things in terms of IT. Those are outside of a rather
straightforward analysis of CPI versus pressures over the last
10 years. One of the huge growths there has been in terms of police
activity has sadly been on the counter-terrorism side. We have
hugely improved the funding and the investment base for that,
quite properly, from the centre rather than imposed it on forces,
so I think what I am trying to say is that many of the prevailing
pressures that were there and counted in at the start of that
process over that 10 to 12-year period have now been, quite rightly,
I would say, taken into the centre and funded more properly from
the centre, thus taking, I think, some relief off the forces in
terms of their day-to-day business, so I think some which is CPI-related
will be appropriate. It will be tight, do not get me wrong, but
I think far less tight in a regime where there has been significant
funding over the last six or eight years or so than it would have
been had we been having this discussion at the start of that period
rather than now. It is quite proper, although temporary and I
do take that point, for authorities to use reserves to get over
a temporary blip so long as it is only a temporary blip because
that very soon becomes, as you quite rightly imply, an utterly
unsustainable way of providing policing into the future, so I
do take that point, but I think, so long as we work together on
all the other issues from bureaucracy through IT through targets
and all those elements to make for as productive and as efficient
a realm as possible in policing, then CPI or something like that
should be workable.
Q65 Mr Winnick: I have been looking
at your memorandum, Minister, about police funding allocations,
which is interesting, but it does not seem to mention the change
in the machinery of government, and the question I want to ask
you now is: since in fact the Home Office will no longer be dealing
with prisons and probation, will you be in a position, the Home
Office that is, to devote more of the budget to the police?
Mr McNulty: It does not mention
the machinery of government changes simply because it was dated
29 January and we did not make the announcement until after that
date.
Q66 Mr Winnick: Well, you could have
sent us a more recent one, but not to worry!
Mr McNulty: Well, had I been asked,
I would have done of course.
Q67 Mr Winnick: You should not need
to be asked, but I am not going to dwell on that!
Mr McNulty: The points made about
resources and the resource split between the Ministry of Justice
and the police have been done on a fair and equitable basis, so
it does not leave a huge pot of gold in the Home Office to redirect
towards policing. Much of the resources that were in the Home
Office that went to NOMS and the criminal justice elements that
went out to the Ministry of Justice went with them.
Q68 Mr Winnick: So we cannot work
on the assumption that the change which has been so well publicised
will lead to a situation where more will be spent on police?
Mr McNulty: No, I am not sure
why that assumption would be in anybody's head, save for the points
I made earlier about the increasing spend on counter-terrorism
and the increasing capacity build-up on counter-terrorism across
government, but rooted in the Home Office, and it was to afford
the new Home Office that space with that additional element in
terms of the span of the activities the Home Office was engaged
in and that was part of the prelude to the split. It was never
about finding more resources within the Home Office for either
borders of immigration, policing, criminal and crime reduction
and all the elements that remain in the Home Office.
Q69 Mr Winnick: This will not be
the first Government or the first Home Secretary to be faced with
a good deal of criticism from the police over what is considered
to be inadequate funding; indeed, I suppose it is part of a pattern.
How far are you concerned, given your ministerial responsibilities
for the police, over the level of dissatisfaction which was clearly
expressed at the police conference by the Police Federation?
Mr McNulty: Well, that was my
first Federation conference and it was a very interesting experience.
Q70 Mr Winnick: I am sure it was!
Mr McNulty: But the broader point
about there being dissatisfaction across the whole policing world
with the level of resource afforded policing by the Government,
I do not accept. I am sure that the people who were here before
me were very articulate in their concerns about the next three
years, but even Dr Brain's paper talks about the huge increases
there have been in resources over the last number of years and
accepts as a starting point that we have had significant investment
and it is for us to work together to ensure that the tighter times
do not mean the sort of lack of sustainability in terms of how
we resource our communities. That is a very genuine fear that
I accept and it is my job, along with others, to make sure that
does not happen. The one thing I would say, and hooked on your
question, that I think is a matter of regret is that in any number
of very recent Federation forums that I have been to, including
last week in Blackpool and including a national meeting of their
constables and secondaries in Norwich, there is still real disquiet
amongst the Federation that I think has missed the boat somehow
about PCSOs, their role and how they fit into the overall family,
and I think that is a matter of regret.
Q71 Mr Winnick: I asked the previous
witnesses, so I ask you, is the whole matter now settled completely
about the Comprehensive Spending Review or is there any room for
manoeuvre for negotiations?
Mr McNulty: I think it is at least
in part, if I am called to continue this task with the new Home
Secretary, to at least try and nudge and see if there is space
and room for a little further negotiation.
Mr Winnick: Interesting. Thank you very
much.
Q72 Gwyn Prosser: Minister, you say,
and I think it is generally acknowledged, that you have provided
a substantial and sustained increase in funding of the police
in recent years, but would you say that the police performance
in bringing down crime and raising confidence is reflected adequately
by that increase in resource?
Mr McNulty: I think it has overall
across the broad 10 years, and I think that is reflected in the
British Crime Survey, it is reflected in the Performance Framework
and many of the other indicators, but a lot more can, and should,
be done. As I said earlier, at least in part it is my role to
ensure that the Performance Framework, the targets, the bureaucracy
are such that they do what they are supposed to do, but do not
encumber and get in the way. Equally, it is my job, with colleagues,
to get to a stage where we do take stock of the use of PNDs, fixed
penalty notices, et cetera, and how they fit, how the offences-brought-to-justice
target fits and how much of what we are doing in terms of targets
of performance actually measure what they purport to measure,
but overall, on any indicator of both performance efficiency by
forces and the BCUs of recorded crimes, I think things are going
broadly in the right direction. It can go a lot, lot further and
there is the hoary old chestnut of the relationship between those
figures and people's perceptions of crime and how safe they are
in their communities. Neighbourhood policing is addressing that,
I think, and some of the figures are very, very encouraging, but
there is much, much more to go. Sadly, society never stands still,
so almost the policing today will be different from the policing
at the start of that 10-year period, so the police are always
having to reinvent, innovate and keep up with that dynamic rather
than simply stand still, so I think it is a moving picture as
well.
Q73 Gwyn Prosser: In these interesting
and changing times, do you want to venture to tell us some areas
where the police have failed to meet that performance with the
increased resource?
Mr McNulty: I am not sure it is
about success or failure. I think it is more about building on
successes already achieved. I think in part, if you look inside
some of the actual data, there have been significant decreases
partly for technical reasons, which I think everyone is happy
to acknowledge, on things like car crime and burglary. I think
there have been, whatever people's position on ASBOs and the respect
agenda, huge advances on that low-level, high-volume area, but
not, I think, at the expense of more low-volume, but high-risk
crimes. I think the perennial is that there could always be significant
advances on detection rates and I think they are going in the
right direction, but could always be much, much better, so I do
not think I would look at it in the context of success or failure,
but just where there has been perhaps less success than one would
have anticipated. There are huge areas too that we need to understand
more and do more on, business crime, e-crime and all those sorts
of areas that the police are only starting to grapple with, but
part of it is also about, which I think has increased and improved
over the last number of years, how the police work better with
others on one level through crime and reduction disorder partnerships
and all that sort of thing at the local level, but equally with
car manufacturers, with mobile phone manufacturers, potentially
with i-Pod and MP3 manufacturers to almost do away with the source
of the crime. Can we get to a stage, through digital access, where
i-Pods are utterly redundant if you do not have the key password,
whatever, to get into them? I am no Luddite, but I am no sort
of IT nerd either. Mobile phones, there have been huge advances
in making the handsets virtually redundant and that helps, so
it is about how you work and draw others in. It is not just about
policing and what the police do separate from everyone else in
society, retailers of alcohol and all those sorts of things, so
there is a whole array of things going on, all of which could
be done better, but I would look at, which I do not think is perverse,
varying levels of success rather than, "That was a success,
that was a failure, that was terrible" in those terms.
Q74 Bob Russell: Minister, you have
touched on neighbourhood policing and, if I understood you correctly,
you expressed concerns that in some quarters perhaps police community
support officers are not regarded as part of the wider police
family. Did I understand that correctly?
Mr McNulty: My concern, which
I cheekily or otherwise sought to hook on to Mr Winnick's question,
was that in officialdom, I think, rather than rank-and-file policemen
and women, they are still fighting the battle over the actual
existence of PCSOs and whether they have a supplementary or complementary
role to play. As I go up and down the country, I go out with neighbourhood
teams and look at, and discuss, neighbourhood policing plans.
I am not getting that from the policemen and women on the ground,
but there is this sort of still official resistance to them which
I think is a shame.
Q75 Bob Russell: Well, I welcome
that informed clarification because one of the questions I put
to the Police Federation was broadly on those lines. There is
an element of confusion here and I wonder if you or your colleagues
could clarify this: that the evidence we have had from both the
police and from the Home Office says that the new figure for the
PCSO Programme 2007-08 is £315 million, but the police are
saying this is a reduction of £70 million, whereas the Home
Office are saying that this is an increase of 41% over 2006-07,
so there is agreement on the figure, but is it an increase or
is it a decrease?
Mr McNulty: It is an increase
on the £221 million figure which was available for the neighbourhood
policing fund last year. It is, I will tell you quite freely,
a decrease of £70 million on the 24,000 target which was
originally set out in our manifesto that was reviewed at the end
of last December and became 16,000. Either way, it is a year-on-year
41% increase on the amount available last year. They, quite fairly,
put the other £70 million in as part of the 24,000.
Q76 Bob Russell: So it is different
interpretations of the same figure which is £315 million.
Mr McNulty: Well, the Government,
for all its spin, managed to start from the premise of there being
no PCSOs, promised 24,000, delivered 16,000 and said, "We'll
stop there", so it was all seen as a cut.
Q77 Bob Russell: That being the case,
have you met your target for neighbourhood policing to reach every
community in England and Wales by 30 April 2007, which I make
as being three weeks and one day ago?
Mr McNulty: Perhaps I am confusing
you further. The target for 31 March 2007 was 16,000 PCSOs employed.
The other half of the target of 24,000 by 1 April 2008 was neighbourhood
policing teams in every community, so we are a year off the a-presence-in-every-community
element of it. Happily, ACPO have said quite recently that they
have met the 16,000 target for 1 April 2007, which I absolutely
applaud them for, and now it is about consolidating those and
working out how those teams are rolled out to support and complement
the police in terms of neighbourhood policing.
Q78 Bob Russell: Looking ahead then
to April 2008 and picking up on your word "consolidating",
is there a danger that the PCSO target will have to reduce further
due to under-funding in the CSR years?
Mr McNulty: Well, I hope not and
it is my job to make sure that that funding stream for PCSOs is
consolidated in terms of the divvy-up of the CSR spend within
the Home Office, and actually I think there is such a political
will to achieving and sustaining those neighbourhood policing
targets that that will be successful, but I cannot prejudge it,
so I think the answer is no. Happily, in some circumstances, despite
the readjustment, shall we say, of the 24,000 target to 16,000,
this year many authorities, having worked on the premise that
they were getting a portion of 24,000, have, under their own steam
and with their own resources, sought to still roll out at the
24,000 increment—sorry, I hate the term "roll out"—implement
at the 24,000 level. That is part of the reason why forces like
Norfolk, which sought to impose a precept of 7% rather than 5%,
come to me and say, "Look, the 2% is for the additional PCSOs
that we wanted as part of our portion of 24,000", and I think
that is entirely appropriate. I think both the target of the neighbourhood
policing in all communities by April 2008 and the consolidation
of the 16,000 I am quite confident about.
Q79 Chairman: I do not think I was
the only member of the Committee to be surprised to be told by
the Police Federation that some police forces are using PCSOs
in desk jobs, administrative jobs and telephone work with members
of the public rather than being primarily committed to reassurance
activities and PCSO activities on the street. Does that surprise
you, Minister, and are you concerned that some forces may not
be using PCSOs in the way they were originally envisaged?
Mr McNulty: I think I have heard
the Fed say the same to me and I am not over-concerned, but on
the basis of complete ignorance, so what I mean is that now we
have got to 16,000 and want to consolidate that, I do want to
ensure that a piece of work is done to see exactly what they are
being used for. I think I would eschew the notion that they are
either out on the streets as part of neighbourhood teams or they
are not doing the job properly, and I think there needs to be
a bit of scope for them to be employed beyond that, but, if it
is the case that they are being used systematically across the
43 forces simply to plug gaps, which is the Fed's fear, policing
on the cheap and used instead of warranted officers on the cheap,
I think that would be a matter of concern. Therefore, having got
to 16,000, I think it is now useful to do an exercise to see whether
they are doing exactly what broadly everyone around the Committee
would think they are doing.
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