Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
MR TONY
MCNULTY
MP, MR DAVID
BURGE AND
MR PAUL
REGAN
22 MAY 2007
Q80 Mr Benyon: Minister, you will
be very familiar with the joint ACPO/APA approach to the CSR.
In it, they have some very strong words for centrally controlled
ring-fencing of funds and, in particular, they say, "we seek
relief from the Crime Fighting Fund and Neighbourhood Policing
Fund restrictions"[2],
and they go on to say, "Police authorities and chief officers
want to maintain force resources and front-line policing services,
but where there are pressures, authorities and chief officers
must be able to manage their resources in the most appropriate
fashion to maximise efficiency and effectiveness". Why do
you continue to ring-fence funds for a number of specific purposes,
PCSO funds, neighbourhood policing funds, when there is this pressure
from local police forces to have more autonomy over such funds?
Mr McNulty: We had this discussion
with the APA and ACPO both before and at about the time this came
out actually and I did take to heart the point made about those
two huge chunks of their spend, CFF and the neighbourhood policing
fund, and flexibility. I think it is right, given that they have
only just got to the 16,000 and all the points we made about trying
to bed in neighbourhood policing, that we keep that neighbourhood
police fund ring-fenced for PCSOs, but I have heard, and listened
to, their arguments on the crime fighting fund and we did decide
in December to suspend that to afford them that degree of flexibility
so that they would determine how best to utilise those local resources
rather than, which would have been I do not think terribly useful
for anyone, getting to a stage where, however efficient they were
being, police forces somehow dipped below their CFF target, but
in all other respects were using their resources as efficiently
as possible until we come along and fine them or take money away
from them because they have slipped below their CFF numbers, so
I think affording them flexibility on that was appropriate. Be
assured too that I am looking at as much, and there is not a whole
lot left actually and I know those are two big chunks of expenditure,
but, if there are any other elements that remain ring-fenced without
good reason, we will look at them, but I do not think there is
a whole lot left. Diplomatic security posts is ring-fenced and
I think that is right and proper because that is asking national
and local forces to do a national duty. Counter-terrorism was
taken out of the equation totally. There are some smallish funds,
the BCU fund and our contribution to local area authority funds,
but specific, targeted reasons for being ring-fenced should properly
remain. If there any others that I have not come across yet that
I can unpick and just throw into a flexible local pot, I think
that would be more than appropriate to do, but, for now at least,
not the neighbourhood policing fund, I think that is fair, and
I do want to see the consolidation of those resources being utilised
for PCSOs and neighbourhood policing.
Q81 Mr Benyon: Do you share ACPO's
concerns about the amount of funding that is top-sliced away from,
if you like, front-line policing? For example, they have said
that, in the last five years, a proportion of the total police
funding top-sliced for central services has increased by 75%,
so this suggests that funding increases directed towards front-line
services are small as a proportion of that.
Mr McNulty: I think actually that
is a bit unfair if you are taking just the global policing pot,
some of which was always going to be determined as spent centrally,
and then somehow saying that is a top slice of policing funds.
They are right, over the last four or five years much of that
increase has been the establishment of NPIA, the National Policing
Improvement Agency, and the consolidation of what the Police Information
Technology Organisation and Centrex were doing before, a substantial
portion of it is SOCA and, quite rightly, the centralisation of
elements of national concern in terms of serious and organised
crime, and some of the elements were the early elements of counter-terrorism
spend. I do not think there is anything in terms of that central
pot, if you like, and funding that should not ought to be at the
centre rather than with the forces, so I take it in part, but
not the whole of it.
Q82 Mr Benyon: Are you happy in the
way that organisations like the NPIA operate? Is there not a fear
that they are taking away and that some local priorities, local
projects are going to the bottom of the funding priority file
because this is a central organisation?
Mr McNulty: No, and, firstly,
it is about seven weeks' old and it was clearly in shadow form
before that, but I think the balance between what it does on behalf
of either individual forces or nationally across the forces needs
to be right. I would be concerned if, a year on or so, it was
slowly taking in and putting at the bottom of lists things that
could be, and should be, done locally. "Subsidiarity"
is a horrible word, but that is kind of what would drive me in
terms of what the centre should properly do and keep funds for
and what should be done either at the local force level or increasingly,
because I think the green shoots—if I can use that phrase,
although God knows why I should, given what happened to the last
fellow who did—of protective services, collaborations and
forces working together far, far more, it may well be appropriate
that some of these things are better done at that regional level
without going back to your street enforcers and that debate, so
I am fairly comfortable with the split at the moment. What I do
not want, and I do not think this is happening, is monies to be
kept at the centre to ostensibly do things that, by default otherwise,
are not happening and of course trickle down and the police force
has to do them without getting the due resources to do it. That
is a fear, but I think over the coming years we can get the balance
right between what is appropriately done locally, at a regional
level and at the centre with appropriate revenue or resource at
each level. Interestingly, I think with the development of BCUs
and the pushing down of both responsibility and resources, there
is the vexed question of the relationship between the BCU and
the community it serves and the BCU and the overall constabulary
it sits within.
Q83 Chairman: I am going to say,
Minister, in the nicest way possible that this is largely your
time because I am sure the Committee will stay here, but perhaps
I could ask you to make your answers a little shorter. On the
other hand, if you wish to stay for a long time, we have quite
a lot of questions to get through.
Mr McNulty: Well, I have the great
pleasure of the National Criminal Justice Board's Criminal Justice
System IT Sub-Group to go to, so I will stay here!
Chairman: In which case, I can understand
the length of your answers!
Q84 Mr Benyon: I have a very quick
question about targets. We heard last week a case where somebody
is sponsored by 200 people to do a sponsored walk and runs off
with the money, an inappropriate use of police time where visiting
all those 200 people equals 200 crimes solved and a distorted
target. The Federation criticised the Home Office for being only
focused on targets and quoted a number of these, what they call,
"ludicrous" cases. Are you too target-driven and is
there enough work being done to see that the outcomes are actually
what the public want rather than what the headline-grabbing police
authority might like to try and achieve?
Mr McNulty: I do not think we
are too target-driven, but, if we concentrate too much on targets
that were set four or five years ago and regimes which were set
four or five years ago as still appropriate for today, then I
think we are in trouble. They do need to be flexible and they
do need to respond to improvements in policing, which is why I
do want to look at them all and look at them very, very seriously,
although in part there is no edict or target from the top about
two 12-year-olds who throw cream buns at each other, although
the one they quoted was a 12-year-old throwing a cream bun at
a bus, and giving the impression at least that there is some government
target somewhere that says, "You'd better nick him and there
had better be a detection of some sort". I understand what
they are saying and there are some distortions and perversities
in the system that I want rid of and that is why we are doing
a full review of everything, but I do not accept that it is all
targets, it is all bureaucracy and, in the space of filling out
forms and everything else, they might do a little bit of policing.
That is just not the reality I see on the ground, but you had
better understand, as the Government, that, if targets do not
work and if they are an encumbrance, get rid of them, and I am
very happy to start from that premise.
Q85 Mr Benyon: Do you disagree with
the Federation last week?
Mr McNulty: I disagree with their
notion that those distortions, which there are in the system,
are the norm and crowd out the notion of policing at all. I think
they over-egg the pudding in terms of the inability, in their
terms, of police to do the job, which I do not think is the experience
people get on the ground, but I think there are around the edges
distortions about sanction detections, about the offences-brought-to-justice
target and others that do get in the way and I want rid of them.
Q86 Mr Benyon: Can you provide the
Committee with what the PSA targets are likely to be in the next
CSR?
Mr McNulty: When I am able to,
certainly. I say that because I am not sure, in terms of the internal
government process, when they will be available, but, as and when
they are, surely of course.
Q87 Mr Winnick: Your constituents,
I am sure like mine, are concerned about front-line policing.
They want to see the police presence constantly and there are
complaints that they do not see enough of the police on patrol
or what-have-you. What I want to ask you is simply this: that
the police authorities say in effect that, because of multiple
layers of inspection and constant assessment, it drains police
resources and distracts attention from what I have just mentioned,
front-line policing. Now, recognising there are certain standards
that must be, whether the police authorities accept it and I am
sure they do, do you think there is too much of this constant
drain, taking up police time?
Mr McNulty: I have said a number
of times that I would like to move to a position rather like,
but not exactly, what now prevails in local government and that
is that, on the back of good or excellent performance by a force,
there is light-touch regulation, less inspection, less control
and less targets, and that has got to be the quid pro quo,
I think. As we move to a new Performance Framework next year,
we are just in transition from the previous one, I want that bedded
and rooted in there. I do not want little stand-in armies of people
using up vital police resource just in case some of the 30-odd
organisations, I think it is, pop down and inspect them any time
they choose, so I think there is a role for inspection and performance,
but equally, if there is good performance, that should be rewarded
with a lighter touch and the strategic centre concentrating on
the strategic role of the micro-management, I agree.
Q88 Bob Russell: Minister, the Home
Office has introduced a large number of new initiatives and reforms
into policing, and we have already referred to neighbourhood policing
and ambitious reform programmes, and thank you for not pursuing
the merger of the 43 police forces, that is greatly appreciated,
but workforce modernisation, Airwave, et cetera, is it not the
case that the Home Office, when it comes to policing in particular,
is suffering from "initiative-itis"?
Mr McNulty: No, I do not think
so and I think central to the next three or four years will be,
I think, consolidation around where we are already at rather than
huge, new initiatives much because of the new initiatives that
are now in place. If you were to ask me in what sort of areas,
I think there is a vexed issue around local accountability and
how the BCU and neighbourhood policing are both elements dovetailed
with their local councils as a subset of the overall constabulary
force. I think more and more collaboration between forces around
protective services and others is still unfinished business, and
we have not gone the strategic force route. Happily, I have said
in the first instance that, unless people tell me otherwise, there
should not be an undue concern about government office boundaries,
so you will know that Essex and Kent are doing huge collaborative
work now around the Thames Estuary and good luck to them with
that. Therefore, I think there are still some strands that we
need to take forward, much of it being where we have come from,
so the police reform package has not finished, but I think we
are not set fair, unless the new Home Secretary tells me otherwise,
for a whole round of brand-new initiatives and reforms that are
different and distinctive and do not build on where we have come
from.
Q89 Bob Russell: Well, we hope that
the Essex police and the other police forces remain. Minister,
in the last 10 years there has been an increase in the number
of police officers, there is no question about that, but you will
also be aware that, when it comes to roads policing, the number
of police officers dedicated to roads policing has gone down by,
I think, about 1,500 if I remember a parliamentary answer I had
a few days ago correctly, so there is that issue, that roads policing
has gone down. Also, your colleagues in the Ministry of Defence
have been reducing the number of MoD police officers across the
country which has obviously had an impact on the civilian police.
Would you like to comment on those two areas please.
Mr McNulty: I think it is a slightly
mixed picture in terms of roads policing. Much of it is done more
and more by local forces, but not dedicated road police officers.
There is an issue around protective services where most people
dwelt on counter-terrorism, murder and things, but strategic roads
policing was part of that. Ned Hughes from South Yorkshire was
the ACPO lead and we have discussed it with him. We put, for the
first time, I think, last November, roads policing back into the
National Community Safety Plan as a key issue and it is, in keeping
with other elements of protective services, an area for debate
and discussion across forces. The minor roads issue, where there
were never road traffic police doing it, is more and more being
done by local police, but you are right, there is still a huge
issue around the trunk road network, how our forces collaborate,
an increasing use perhaps of automatic number plate recognition
and those sorts of elements. On the second point, without blaming
the Committee, had we got to, which I was very anxious to do,
your question at the last Home Office questions, I was going to
say that I am very happy for yourself and others who have that
MoDP concern in garrison towns and things like that to come and
see me to talk about it rather than deliberate on it now because
I do not think there is an issue there from our perspective, but,
if it is one that we need to explore in terms of MoD and regular
forces, I am very happy to have that meeting.
Bob Russell: I will move quickly on and
thank the Minister for that offer.
Q90 Chairman: That is what is normally
described as a "result" there, I think!
Mr McNulty: We have not had the
meeting yet!
Q91 Gwyn Prosser: Minister, what
do you consider to be the most important, the political risk of
paring down on all of these initiatives and perhaps not introducing
any new ones or the operational risks of failing to deliver on
programmes and the possible reduction in police officers across
the country?
Mr McNulty: I think, if I can
turn that around slightly, that the strongest thing for me to
do for as long as I am in this particular role is to consolidate
the investment, the resources and all the initiatives there have
been thus far. I think that means there will not be a failure
either in operational terms of the risk you talk about or indeed
a political failure in terms of just inventing a whole bunch of
new initiatives for the sake of it. I sort of skirted over the
point about "initiative-itis", whatever the word is,
but public services do need some periods of consolidation to draw
breath and then move on, so, if you are asking me if I am a consolidator
or a perpetual reformer in the particular part of the public service
I am involved in, I think we are at a stage now where 80% is consolidation
and in the areas I suggested there is still 20% to carry out in
terms of reform, and I would resist, to the limited extent that
I can, those above me who would seek to impose more reform, more
initiatives not quite just for the hell of it, but without good
reason, which I am sure they are not doing anyway.
Q92 Margaret Moran: We have heard
from ACPO that they are concerned about the double-counting of
efficiency savings, that efficiency savings have been used for
continuity budget funding as well as for financing development.
They also feel that their success is a double-edged sword, that
the more successful they are, the more expectations of them are
made in terms of creating greater efficiencies at a time when
public expectations are growing. What would your response be to
that?
Mr McNulty: I have said very clearly
to ACPO and others that over the next couple of years, as and
when greater efficiencies and productivities are made, it is the
role of the police to ensure that they are reinvested back into,
the respective forces, rather than suddenly sliced off from the
top to say, "Well, you don't need that anymore" because
there is still a requirement for the localised dimension, protective
services and others, but to be done from, as I said, a plateauing
level of resource, so it is more about being smarter and more
efficient with a given level of resource rather than it continually
growing and growing. I do take that point too that it is an area
where success begets success and people very, very quickly pocket
the success and demand to move on.
Q93 Margaret Moran: One suggestion
we have had from the PSA, and you touched on it as being one of
the vexed questions, is that greater efficiencies could be introduced
if we had greater devolution of resources to BCUs. It is an issue
dear to my heart and I think I have written to you on several
occasions of my own area, Luton, where, despite high levels of
need with high levels of crime, we are disproportionately under-resourced
compared to our performance family and the surrounding police
authority. I gather there was a Home Office report on this two
years ago, suggesting greater devolution of resource, so can I
tempt you down that route? Would that not be one of the ways in
which we could see more effective policing and effective use of
resources?
Mr McNulty: I think I absolutely
agree with that and I think that is right. In my current position,
I can only exhort rather than enforce, but certainly my constituency
experience is that the London Borough of Harrow, rather like the
32 other BCUs in London, has a significant degree of devolution
of resources and responsibilities, and I think that model is replicated
up and down the country, but not yet in all forces. As we do get
to, which I think is a big issue, local accountability at that
CDRP level at the very localised level, I think it is an issue
which will become even more vexed for more forces. I think actually,
on balance, most forces get it and do see that that is the way
to go for not just neighbourhood policing, but, once it is very
localised around the BCU and they themselves are dealing with
issues around what should stay on a constabulary basis, what should
actually go up to a more regional basis—and the East Midlands
is a very, very good example with huge collaborative progress
between the forces in the East Midlands—what should be at
the centre and what more readily should be not only devolved down
to, but tested, accounted for and everything else at the BCU level,
so most, I think, are going in that direction anyway. What I would
resist is legislation that tells chief constables to do that because
I do not think that would be appropriate.
Q94 Ms Buck: Back in 2004, paperwork
and file preparation were included in the definition of "front-line
policing" and, in a government response to this Committee's
report on police reform, the Government said that they would be
looking at the definition of "front-line policing",
and we think it probably was not the Chairman who was in the role
at the time. That definition was the same in 2005-06 and the same
in 2006-07 and I wondered what the definition of "soon"
might be.
Mr McNulty: I shall have a look
at that and get back to the Committee as soon as I can. I do not
know, to be honest. I have answered a whole range of PQs on assorted
definitions of "patrolling", "front-line policing"
and "paperwork", so I do not know if we have redefined
and not told the Committee, but let me explore that and come back.
Q95 Ms Buck: The more serious point
is: do you accept that there is a concern that tasks, rather like
file preparation and paperwork, would be defined as front-line
policing and do you think there is a strong case for reviewing
that and that actually having that included in the definition
of "front-line policing" is the kind of thing that tends
to bring the public perception of front-line policing into a degree
of question?
Mr McNulty: It is a concern and
my own hesitation is that I think, in the most recent PQs I answered,
paperwork and file preparation most definitely were not, but that
might just be my recollection, so let me look at that and get
back to the Committee as soon as I can to see if there has been
a change or what "soon" means because I do accept the
starting premise.
Q96 Chairman: Our understanding is
certainly in the latest guidance it has not been changed.
Mr McNulty: Okay. I will double-check
and, if it has not, I will find out when it will be.
Q97 Mrs Dean: Looking at another
issue of your predecessor's, your predecessor told us that cutting
police bureaucracy could drive up police officer time spent on
the front line to 73%, yet in the latest figures for 2005-06 it
was 63.5%, so that is an increase of only 1.2%. When do you expect
to hit the 73% target?
Mr McNulty: As soon as we possibly
can, is the short answer. It is not as simple as turning the tap
on and off, is my point. It goes to the greater use of IT, it
goes too to the greater use in some cases of non-warranted staff
doing things that warranted officers should not be doing which
runs into trouble sometimes with the Fed and others, so it is
across the piece, but it is absolutely central to what I am trying
to do with policing, to get rid of inappropriate bureaucracy.
Everyone accepts that there should be, perfectly properly, accountability
trails, audit trails and stuff about what is being done, but I
do not think we have explored entirely the use of digital transference
of data and incident record-keeping, I do not think we have explored
sufficiently the whole issue of custody, where the warranted officer's
role needs to go to and where it needs to stop and move into other
areas. I have seen experiments with custody up and down the country
where yes, the case sergeant is still there, but effectively everyone
else in the custody suite is civilian staff. Even those who object
to it, most would now say that it works and it works quite well
actually rather than keeping people in a position where they are
locked up in the custody suite when they should not be, they should
be out on the streets. Some of the bureaucracy, I think, goes
to, and works for, other agendas. We all know we have any number
of trigger offences now which mean an instant drugs test. Now,
quite where the role of the officer bringing that individual in
should start and stop and when it becomes a process handed over
to non-warranted people who still have the bureaucracy, but at
least the front-line officer does not, these are real issues that
we need to look at, but it is not as simple as "Get rid of
the bureaucracy", but, as and when we can in all areas, I
want to and I want to get way beyond 73%.
Q98 Mrs Dean: Is there some delay
in rolling out the hand-held computers? There have been trials
for a number of years.
Mr McNulty: There have been trials
across a range of forces and some are starting to roll them out,
but it is entirely, without being funny, a matter for each force
rather than an edict on high from me. Happily, Airwave and the
capacity of Airwave has, as far as I know, digital transfer of
data as part of its capacity and IT brief, which I think is a
good platform to start from.
Q99 Chairman: Minister, it was clear
in our earlier session that there is a great deal of concern,
particularly amongst the Federation and the Superintendents' Association,
that it is actually pay that is going to take the burden of closing
any gap in the CSR settlement. The Federation particularly suggested
that they felt that the level of police pay had already drawn
conclusions about, quite severely, constrained levels of police
pay in the future. To what extent do you actually in your assumptions
in your head assume that it is pay that is going to take the burden?
Mr McNulty: Pay, as everyone has
said, forms a critical part of the resource base for policing.
Booth has reported and reported in the context set by the Chancellor
of quite tight times across the public sector. We have said at
this stage in effect that Booth will, not surprisingly, form the
starting premise of our negotiations with them, not in terms of
statutory direction, but just in terms of that is what we asked
Booth to do in the first place, and I think this year's round
of negotiations in terms of pay will be very, very delicate and
very, very interesting. In the context where 80% of the resource
is pay and we are entering tighter times, pay must figure in the
equation.
Chairman: Minister, I am afraid we must
let you go to the Criminal Justice Board IT Sub-Group, but you
have done your very best! Can I thank you very much indeed for
your evidence today.
2 Chief Inspector Jan Berry, Chair of the Police Federation,
subsequently wrote to the Committee noting "The Police Federation
is against the relaxation of the Crime Fighting Fund. The CCF
was introduced to protect and preserve police numbers. In this
instance, some funding inflexibility is vital to preserve flexibility
in policing." Back
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