Examination of Witnesses (Questions 354
- 359)
TUESDAY 3 JUNE 2008
SIR SIMON
MILTON AND
MS JULIE
SPENCE
Q354 Chairman: Sir Simon and Chief
Constable, thank you very much for coming to give evidence to
the Select Committee today. Sir Simon, I congratulate you on your
appointment as chairman of the LGA. I know that that occurred
some time ago, but this is the first time you have appeared before
the Committee. This Committee is conducting an inquiry into policing
in the 21st century. We felt strongly that the evidence you gave
not just as leader of Westminster City Council but also as chairman
of the LGA would provide us with an insight into current policing
priorities. This is our fifth session. As part of your role as
chairman of the LGA do you believe there is a shortfall in revenue
from the government in respect of policing as a result of migration
issues in Westminster or beyond that?
Sir Simon Milton: The Local Government
Association commissioned some research last year from the Institute
of Community Cohesion to try to get an understanding about the
costs and benefits of migration as far as concerned local public
services. It was discovered that clearly there were both benefits
and costs. As far as concern policing, councils tend to see the
impacts in a number of ways. Where one has migrants becoming victims
of crime, which is generally more likely than those people being
the perpetrators, there are clear issues about picking up the
social costs of that. Where children are involved there are issues
around child protection which are often quite expensive and complicated
in terms of tracking family histories. There are issues to do
with higher costs arising from enforcement on houses in multiple
occupation. Most migrants tend to live in private rented accommodation
rather than council or housing association accommodation and very
often there are issues with overcrowding and health and safety.
All of those are additional costs. The problem that councils face
is that they are not compensated directly for the additional costs
related to increases in short-term population. I can expand on
that if you wish.
Q355 Chairman: Obviously, because
Westminster is at the core of the capital city it has always had
migration issues?
Sir Simon Milton: Yes, it has.
Q356 Chairman: You have been a local
councillor for many years. Is the current situation worse than
it was, say, five or 10 years ago?
Sir Simon Milton: I would say
it is but for a very specific reason. Councils including my own
can generally manage the impacts of migration pretty well provided
they are able to plan. The difference in the past few years is
that nobody expected, certainly not the government and local government,
the scale and suddenness of the increase in the number of people
arriving.
Q357 Chairman: Are we talking specifically
about East Europeans?
Sir Simon Milton: A8s and more
recently A2s. That has been the difference between today and our
historic patterns of inward migration over the years. The research
which the LGA carried out and the government's own commission
chaired by Dara Singh found out that many parts of the country
with no experience of inward migration suddenly had a significant
increase. They found that very difficult to manage because they
had no background in dealing with it. In cities like London and
Leicester there is a long tradition of inward migration and generally
those cities and towns know very well how to cope with it, but
there are nevertheless resource implications.
Q358 Ms Buck: We have a good deal
of history of discussing issues to do with population locally
and, to be fair, some agreement upon it. To elaborate on some
of those things, to what extent is the LGA working on perhaps
a national response? There are issues to do with counting population
and dealing with the consequences of two particular things. One
is mobility, population churn, and the extent to which that in
itself creates additional pressures for policing and a whole range
of other services. There is also hyper-diversity, that is, the
fact that if you have a population in which, say, 90 languages
are spoken in schools that presents a different set of challenges
from a situation where one has the same number of migrants but
perhaps from one or two different backgrounds?
Sir Simon Milton: Those are both
key issues on which the LGA is doing a great deal. We were at
the forefront of arguing over the course of the past two years
that the systems for counting population are simply not fit for
purpose. That has now been accepted by a number of Select Committees
of both the Lords and Commons to which we have given evidence.
The government has also accepted that there are major shortfalls
in how migration is counted both at the borders but also where
people move on to settle and the churn of population which is
very significant. Until we get a better handle on that we will
not solve the problem of resources. Government can provide resources
only on the basis of accurate data. If the data is not there the
costs being borne locally cannot be compensated through additional
revenue.
Q359 Ms Buck: What is the LGA doing
to assist that? That debate has been going on for some time. You
will know that we ran into a wall with the 2001 census. I do not
see any signs that from within the LGA and other agencies we have
anything like a coherent set of indicators.
Sir Simon Milton: We are working
on something and hope to publish the results later this year.
That will set out some ideas about how one can use administrative
data more effectively to supplement the ONS data to give a much
richer picture of the true position in local areas. Councils have
various data bases from council tax registers to child protection
registers. There are NHS and GP registrations and National Insurance
numbers. If all of that information were collated it would provide
a much richer picture. That is the work we are doing and we can
write to the Committee with further details of that if that would
be helpful.
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