Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-75)
RT HON
JACQUI SMITH
MP AND SIR
DAVID NORMINGTON
KCB
24 JULY 2007
Q60 Mr Brown: I have three questions
on crime and policing but in a way the first one does slightly
touch on prisons, because it is what your thoughts are after a
month or so in the job about the division that took place just
before you assumed your duties between the Home Office and the
Justice Department and whether that has been a smooth transition.
In a way what we have just been talking about highlights potential
problems because we have been talking about prisoners for the
last ten minutes and you of course no longer have any responsibility
for prisons, as I understand it.
Jacqui Smith: The decision that
was made to focus the Home Office on the key area of counter-terrorism,
the very intellectual property work on crime and policing which
we have begun to make progress on with the crime strategy and
the challenge of immigration and identity was right for ensuring
that the machinery of government with respect to the Home Office
was focused on those key areas of concern, not just for government
but for the British people as well. It is certainly my impression
in the month I have been in the department that it was right to
make that particular decision. On the issue of the criminal justice
system, of course it has never been the case in this country that
all elements of the criminal justice system have been under one
particular department. The shift of responsibility of prisoners
to the Ministry of Justice, yes, does mean that there needs to
be a different relationship but for example, just this morning
I attended the National Criminal Justice Board which is a very
important co-ordination body that brings together not only myself
and Jack Straw as the Secretary of State for Justice and the Attorney
General but also representatives across the criminal justice system
to make sure that that co-ordination is in place. The fact that
we will be responsible for and will negotiate a joint public service
agreement on the criminal justice system identifies the way in
which we are aware of the need to maintain that co-ordination
and have put in place already both the structures and the performance
management to ensure that we continue to be successful across
that whole range of criminal justice from trying to prevent crime
in the first place, through arrest, through conviction, through
tackling reoffending. David might want to say something about
that transition.
Sir David Normington: It is working
remarkably smoothly at the moment. That is partly because we have
in place the systems we put in place before the split took place
and we also have a lot of the same people in place. We have to
go on working to make sure that the systems continue long after
the people have moved. So far, we share a criminal justice system
responsibility for it and we have been working really well together.
I cannot point to any problems at all between the two departments.
For a very big machinery of government change it has at this point
gone very well.
Q61 Mr Brown: You are happy that
the Home Secretary as one of his last acts pushed through this
division which was signed off by the Prime Minister as one of
his last acts before he cleared off. You two have both inherited
this arrangement that may be perfect. I am not wishing to imply
otherwise, but you are happy with the arrangements as you found
them?
Jacqui Smith: One person's last
act is another person's benefit of experience. However, this was
discussed at Cabinet as well, a discussion in which in my previous
incarnation I was able to take part in. It was something that
was agreed across government and my preliminary experience of
it is that it has achieved the objective that we set out for it
which was a clearer focus on those things which it is necessary
to focus on within the Home Office and continued progress with
respect to that whole area of criminal justice.
Sir David Normington: My job is
to make it work, not to regret what happened before but just to
get on with it. That is what we are doing.
Q62 Mr Brown: The second bit is about
crime reduction which I know is an issue you have raised in a
statement to the House as a whole. I will just read from the background
briefing we have been given because it gives us all a sense of
the pressures you face. It says, "The Home Office Departmental
Annual Report (DAR) 2007 shows that performance against Spending
Round 2004 PSA target [`Reduce crime by 15%'] has declined since
the previous year from `on course' to `slippage'." The target
is to reduce crime by 15% but it now looks like the reduction
will be 12%. Do you recognise in those figures that the Home Office
is failing to meet the targets that have been set for it in terms
of performance and that, as a result, more people will be the
victims of crime than would have been the case had you managed
to reach your targets?
Jacqui Smith: Firstly, I recognise
that amongst all of our PSA targets there is only one target in
which there is any slippage and you have rightly identified it
as PSA target one, the target to require a fall in the crime rate
by 15% between 2002/3 and 2007/8. We have not reached the end
date for the reporting of this. Nevertheless, with the current
deliver of 9% reduction, that is not fast enough progress and
that is why some of the things that I was talking about last week
were about how we can ensure working across partners that there
is a real focus on continuing that reduction in crime. Some of
the action has already taken place. In January for example in
the Home Office we identified that there were 44 crime and disorder
reduction partnership areas which were performing less well than
others. We focused our attention on those working with them trying
to up their game in terms of cutting crime. Some of the lead indicators,
the management information we have received about police reported
crime, not just in those areas but overall in the last few months,
suggests that that progress to reduce crime has speeded up again
since we started taking action. That is not reported in the most
recent set of statistics and is not something where I certainly
want to take my foot off the accelerator, but this is not an area
where we have not already recognised the issue and taken action.
We have and early indications are that that seems to be having
an impact on speeding up crime reduction.
Q63 Mr Brown: The report by this
Committee last week concluded, perhaps rather counter-intuitively,
that increased spending on police does not appear to have had
a particularly significant impact on crime levels. I know from
speaking to police in my constituency—I was surprised when
they first said this to me—that they spend only quite a
small proportion of their time trying to reduce crime and they
spend a lot of time on perfectly noble things like traffic accidents
or whatever it might be. Do you see the extra money being spent
on the police as absolutely core to reducing crime? If so, why
is it not having the results that one might expect in terms of
that extra spending? Is that because the money is not being spent
efficiently either because the police structures are inadequate
or because community support officers are reassuring people but
they are not actually reducing crime? A large amount of extra
public money is being spent on policing and it may have all kinds
of beneficial consequences, but it does not quite appear to be
having the impact that I would assume it would have if I were
in your position in terms of crime levels. Do you think you are
getting value for money from policing?
Jacqui Smith: Alongside seeing
a 39% real terms increase in spending on our police since 1997,
we have also seen a third reduction in crime levels. I know that
the report made the argument that significant levels of that fall
were seen before the point at which the largest part of that increase
kicked in. That partly identifies the argument that we as a government
have made previously that tackling crime is not solely about increased
police numbers; it is also about for example bringing down rates
of unemployment, tackling poverty, taking tough action to enforce
standards of behaviour. All of those things have contributed to
crime falling. If you look at the statistics between 2002/3 and
2006/7, when recorded crime did fall by over 9% with a 30% fall
in burglary, that was the point at which our additional investment
in policing clearly was having an impact on reducing the levels
of crime. The fact that we have 14,000 more police officers and
16,000 more police community support officers I think is an important
contribution although not the total contribution to why we have
been successful in reducing crime. One of the arguments that was
potentially being made by your report is that we need to continue
thinking about how we use both police resources and partners in
order to continue driving down crime. That is why we are focused
on making sure that by next April there will be neighbourhood
policing teams in every area, why we are focused on making sure
that police community support officers are being used. Incidentally,
I do not necessarily see a divergence between somebody being highly
visible, out talking to local people, working in their neighbourhoods
and tackling crime. It seems to me that if you want people, one,
to feel confident that crime is coming down and, two, be more
likely to report it, to work with the police and other partners
to tackle crime, you need that sort of approach. That is one of
the reasons why we have obviously focused attention on that. Because
we know as well that there is more to do in terms of the way in
which we use the police, we are taking forward that neighbourhood
policing work and it is why we have asked Sir Ronnie Flanagan
to review in particular how we can implement that neighbourhood
policing activity and how we can ensure local accountability so
that people can not only be confident that crime is continuing
to fall but they will have an input into how that happens at local
levels as well.
Q64 Gwyn Prosser: In 2005 the chief
inspector of constabulary described the 43 force police structure
as being not fit for purpose, a phrase which has been used a number
of times in the Home Office. Since then there has been a fault
ridden and failed attempt to restructure. What do you intend to
do to close the so-called capability gap? Do you agree with ACPO's
view that there should be a full and fundamental review of policing?
Jacqui Smith: With respect to
the final point, the terms of reference we have given to Sir Ronnie
Flanagan in terms of the review of policing are right. A focus
on how we reduce bureaucracy, how we focus on embedded neighbourhood
policing, how we ensure greater local accountability and how we
ensure that that is carried out efficiently is the right area
of focus for that review. In terms of the issue that led to the
original merging proposals, that was as you rightly identified
about how we can particularly deal with those services and that
element of activity which cannot in some cases be solely done
on the basis of a single force, what have been called the protective
services. I now accept the argument that merging of forces is
not the only or even possibly even the most appropriate way of
ensuring that that happens. That is why for example last week
we announced a considerable investment in demonstrator projects
across 30 forces. That precisely will drive forward some of the
work that police forces argued they would be willing to do in
bringing together provisions around how they deal with serious
crime and a whole range of other areas. We now take the approach
of supporting what police forces have told us they would be able
to do in terms of co-ordination and working more closely together.
Incidentally, I do think that is very important. I want to see
evidence of progress being made in taking that alternative approach.
That is why we have been willing to invest money in seeing that
happen. It is something we discussed just last week at the National
Police Board in terms of the work ACPO is doing and how we can
support it. My view is that that is now the most appropriate way
in which we can take forward reform, rather than revisiting the
issue of mergers.
Q65 Margaret Moran: One of the points
of evidence that we had in our report was that perhaps greater
delegation to BCUs might be a great advantage in terms of efficiency,
effectiveness and value for money, certainly an argument that
I have made in respect of my own area of Luton. Do you have a
view on that?
Jacqui Smith: In many cases if
we are to realise the benefits of neighbourhood policing, delegation
both of responsibility and also information collected at the level
of a BCU and compared at the level of a BCU is the most effective
way in terms of engaging partners, making feel confident, taking
the sort of action that is going to bring crime down at a local
level, tackling things like antisocial behaviour and improving
confidence that we could go forward. It is not the whole answer
but that delegation, that local accountability at that level may
well be a very important way in which we can go forward.
Q66 Margaret Moran: The Serious Organised
Crime Agency unhappily has had a very poor press since its inception
and there are arguments that it has focused too much on capacity
building rather than achieving results and that it simply is not
demonstrating good value for money for the period in which it
has been in existence. Can you honestly say that you are content
with SOCA's success in its first year of operation?
Jacqui Smith: The way we are reported
in the press does not always fulfil the truth of the success or
otherwise of organisations. I think there has been evidence of
some quite important progress in the first year. Of course in
the first year of any new organisation effort will need to be
made, quite rightly, to build capacity, to bring together as has
been the case in SOCA the different organisations that have come
together to create it; but if you look for example at their annual
report for the first year of operation, it does point to quite
a number of significant successes: being involved in work leading
to more than 1,700 arrests made in the UK and around the world,
the seizure of 74 tonnes of class A drugs, specialist support
to police forces in averting at least 35 threats to life, quite
an important contribution to some of those specific skills and
capacities that we were talking about with respect to the previous
question, and recovering more than 150 illicit firearms and large
amounts of ammunition. There is evidence of success. There has
been work to build capacity. SOCA have taken the right approach
to saying that the effort needs to be intelligence led, perhaps
more intelligence led than its predecessor organisations have
been, and it needs to be driven by the aim of reducing harm. It
will be on those bases, quite rightly I think, that the future
progress that SOCA makes will be judged.
Q67 Margaret Moran: That is all in
the context of a half a billion pound budget, putting it in context.
One of the criticisms has been that SOCA is not sufficiently accountable.
Surely the public have a right to demand more visible results
from a budget of that size?
Jacqui Smith: On the accountability
of course, under the Act that created SOCA, it is required to
produce and publish an annual plan and an annual report which
has to be laid before Parliament. It is that report that I was
referring to. It is accountable of course as a Home Office sponsored,
non-departmental body to me and through me to Parliament. Also,
I know that the Committee is intending to go and visit the agency
in October. I know as well that both the chair and the chief executive
of SOCA would be happy to appear before the Committee and to respond
to your challenge to be accountable and to deliver results.
Chairman: We may well take up that invitation.
Q68 Gwyn Prosser: Your latest annual
report sets out an action plan to tackle guns and gangs and knives
and also to have a review of these matters. Can you tell us what
progress you have made with this work?
Jacqui Smith: In terms of all
of that area of work, it was one of the reasons why last Thursday,
in launching the crime strategy, I talked about the need to be
able to emphasise a national level as well as the local activity,
a focus on crimes that related particularly to serious violence.
The action plan that was previously laid out focused of course
on three areas: how we can support the police more effectively
to be able to counter particularly the impact of guns and gangs.
There is evidence that we can take from some of the success for
example in London through Operation Trident and in other parts
of the country, but I think it is important we share where those
challenges still remain. There is work on ensuring that the right
legal powers are in place for the police and courts and with respect
to guns we have seen a strengthening of the legal provisions,
not least with ensuring a minimum sentence for gun ownership and,
with respect to knives, increasing the maximum period of time
for possession of a knife from two years to four years, relatively
recently commenced but nevertheless important for the message
it sends. In both of those cases we are seeing overall sentences
increasing. Then there is the other important area of prevention.
I gave some examples last week with respect to knives where government
funding has helped to support particularly voluntary sector organisations,
in that case the Damilola Taylor Trust, in taking forward their
work to get half of all 11 to 16 year olds to pledge not to carry
a knife. There is other work that we have done through what is
called our connected fund with a total now I think coming up to
1.75 million of support for community and other organisations,
working at that prevention end of deglamourising what is happening
with respect to gangs, focusing on making sure that young people
move away from the sorts of pressures that might make them want
to use either guns or knives. There has been progress made in
all three of those elements and we will of course as well be responding
to your Committee report on young people in the criminal justice
system and the recommendations that were made within that on areas
of work here. As I said last week, one of the follow-up pieces
of work to the over-arching crime strategy is more work on violent
crime in particular. We will be taking that work forward into
the autumn in order to look in even more detail at what more we
need to do to counter some of these areas, which I know are absolutely
at the heart of concerns that people have about what is happening
in their communities and particularly that people have about the
sort of pressures that members of their family, particularly young
members of their family, might be under.
Chairman: Especially with what has happened
in the last 12 months. The killing of so many young people has
been pretty gruesome.
Q69 Gwyn Prosser: We look forward
to receiving the response to our report on young, black people
and the criminal justice system but do you want to share with
us any early feelings?
Jacqui Smith: My early feelings
are those that I have identified in terms of the progress that
we have been making on some of the work that we have set in train.
I know that the group in particular was concerned about the disproportionate
representation obviously of young, black people in the criminal
justice system; and there made recommendations around how we tackle
social exclusion, how we make sure that the criminal justice system
continues to focus on action where it is necessary and neither
being disproportionate nor having the appearance of being disproportionate
in the way in which it acts. Those are all the sorts of areas
that we are considering in our response. Perhaps the detail will
need to wait until we do respond in detail to those recommendations.
Q70 Bob Russell: You are probably
aware that two or three months back the Committee had a single
session inquiry into knife crime. Bearing in mind that the chances
of being knifed, injured or killed are four times greater than
suffering the same fate by being shot with a gun, why is the government
still treating knife crime less seriously than gun crime?
Jacqui Smith: I do not believe
that the government is. I do not know if you were there last Thursday
but if you look back over the statement that I made to Parliament
with respect to the crime strategy I particularly identified as
one of those areas of priority that I would want to take forward
more action on knife crime for some of the reasons that you identify.
Bob Russell: I am delighted to hear that
but the fact is that the criminal justice system in this country
treats knife crime less seriously than gun crime. I hope in a
year's time when you come back to this Committee you will be able
to prove to me that the government is now treating knife crime
as seriously as gun crime.
Q71 Gwyn Prosser: I want to ask a
question about neighbourhood policing. I am a great advocate of
it. Kent has done a great job of it, especially Dover. Can you
tell us whether you are on track to meet your target of spreading
out neighbourhood policing across all communities by next April?
How many have we got in place so far?
Jacqui Smith: Yes, we are on target.
In October, the HMIC will provide an assessment, through the publication
of the results of its Thematic Inspection, of each of the forces'
progress in introducing and embedding neighbourhood policing.
It will identify that the work that we are doing alongside ACPO
and others is delivering on that commitment to having a neighbourhood
policing team in every area. It is being led as well now by the
National Police Improvement Agency and throughout the country
we are seeing evidence in our communities of the difference that
neighbourhood policing is making. That will be demonstrated when
we get to next April through the sort of monitoring that we will
have been able to do between now and then.
Q72 Mr Clappison: What our reports
have shown in the past is that the police can be very effective
in reducing crime when they bring persistent offenders to justice,
because they can be responsible for a huge proportion of crime.
One of the reservations I have about the Home Office is that in
future we are going to have two separate government departments
dealing with those persistent offenders, one of them bringing
them to justice and, from that point forward, another department
dealing with them through the justice system to ensure their punishment
and rehabilitation. Will you still have a role to play in ensuring
that for example persistent offenders, who do so much offending,
will receive proper rehabilitation within the prison or the youth
justice system?
Jacqui Smith: Yes, I will still
have a role to play precisely because, as I suggested earlier,
the responsibility for the criminal justice system, driven in
government through the Office of Criminal Justice Reform, is a
tripartite responsibility of myself, Jack Straw and Patricia Scotland
as the Attorney General. As I think I have set down, issues about
reoffending and how we ensure the success of the criminal justice
system are part of the shared PSA target that we will be responsible
for.
Q73 Mr Clappison: The Committee has
had a strong interest in rehabilitation in the past.
Sir David Normington: The priority
in the persistent offenders programme, which is the main way in
which we target help, remains a joint programme between the two
departments and the agencies, led by the Home Office.
Q74 Gwyn Prosser: Our recent report
on police funding looked at police community support officers.
We found in some areas of the country they were being used for
office work and for administrative duties which is against the
whole reason for having them in our view. They should be on the
front line. They should be visible and working with communities.
I am sure you agree with that philosophy but what are you going
to do about it?
Jacqui Smith: Firstly, I know
that some have made the charge that a lot of PCSOs are not on
the high streets or not in a high visibility role. I do not believe
that is the case. In terms of the investment that we put into
ensuring that there are 16,000 police community support officers
now, chief officers have every incentive to use those to help
to deliver the high visibility policing and to support the neighbourhood
policing that I was just talking about. The guidance from ACPO
on how PCSOs should be deployed gives chief constables limited
discretion and pretty limited discretion about how people are
used behind the scenes, if you like. I think that the experience
of how PCSOs are being used is almost always in that high visibility
role. There is an issue for example about occasionally PCSOs are
used to staff front counters. If that is high visibility and helps
to reassure the public, that seems to me to be acceptable as part
of the role of a PCSO. Obviously, if all PCSOs in an area are
being used to do that, I would think that that did not fit with
the objective that we had set for them; nor would it have fitted
with the sort of guidance that was issued about how they were
used. In order to make sure that we can back up what I have said,
which is that my experience and what I have seen so far is that
PCSOs are being used in a more visible way, the neighbourhood
policing team in the National Police Improvement Agency have commissioned
research to see exactly how each of the 43 forces and the British
Transport Police are using their PCSOs so that we can be confident
that they are fulfilling those requirements, to be highly visible
and out there reassuring members of the public and engaging them
in the job of tackling crime.
Q75 Chairman: The last point is a
sort of complaint which I am sure you will look into as quickly
as possible. The last annual report of this Committee praised
the Home Office, you will be pleased to know, for supplying us
on a regular basis with an annual update of how accepted recommendations
of this Committee would be implemented. Unfortunately, the last
update was only received six months late and was a somewhat diminished
version of what had previously been received. It dealt only with
the more recent reports. Perhaps that and generally relations
between your department and this Committee could be looked at
and might be improved just a little, because we have otherwise
had an excellent relationship and I am sure it is the wish of
you to us on the Committee that that should be the situation at
all times.
Jacqui Smith: As I said at the
beginning, it is of course my intention that we should continue
to have a good relationship engaging on the sorts of issues that
we have talked about today. I will be happy to receive your feedback
on the note that I sent you about the approach that we are taking
to PSAs. I know that we will come back and talk to you about all
the issues around counter-terror legislation that we touched on
earlier and I will certainly look at how we can, obviously within
the constraints of what we have to do as a department, provide
good feedback to you on the progress that we are making on recommendations
in your reports.
Chairman: There are one or two questions
which we will write to you about but can I thank you very much
indeed, Home Secretary and Sir David, for being here today and
answering the questions in the way you have done? We much appreciate it.
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