Written questions from NIAC on the Northern
Ireland Office Departmental Annual Report 2008
2004 SPENDING REVIEW
PSAS: PSA 3 (RECONVICTION
RATES)
1. The 2004 Public Service Agreement 3 (part
2) seeks to reduce the rate of reconviction by 5% by April 2008
compared to a "predicted rate". Has there been a real
fall in the reconviction rate, or has there been simply been a
lower rate of reconvictions than was forecast?
Answer: Actual reconviction rates cannot be
exactly compared between years due to the varying criminological
characteristics of each year's cohort of offenders. However the
actual reconviction rate was lower than that predicted by the
model.
Progress towards the SR2004 PSA target is measured
on an annual basis with actual two-year reconviction rates compared
to the predicted reconviction rate for each cohort. Statistical
modelling of the criminological characteristics of offenders was
used to compute the predictor models. Predicted reconviction rates
are an estimate of the percentage of offenders who commenced a
community disposal or were discharged from prison in Northern
Ireland during 2005 who are likely to re-offend and can be convicted
within a two year period, having controlled for changes in offender
characteristics. Actual reconviction rates are the percentage
of offenders who are subsequently convicted in court, for any
offence, within two years of their baseline in 2005. The variation
in the differences between the actual and predicted reconviction
rates are influenced by the initiatives and programmes that the
criminal justice system have in place at the time. The methodology
followed reflects that used in the comparable Home Office PSAs.
THE COMPREHENSIVE
SPENDING REVIEW
EFFICIENCY PROGRAMME
2. The efficiency target under the Comprehensive
Spending Review includes manpower reductions in the Police Service
and Prison Service, and replacing "main grade" staff
with less well paid staff. What is the NIO's assessment of the
most likely manpower reductions and financial savings in the Police
Service and Prison Service over the CSR period, and what is the
possible range of reductions and savings dependent on the feasible
best-case and worse-case alternative scenarios for the security
situation?
Answer: The SR2004 Gershon programme focussed
on efficiencies which were a mix of cash and non cash. As part
of the Comprehensive spending review CSR07, HM Treasury introduced
a programme which focuses on a value for money (VFM) programme
which requires Departments to achieve cash releasing savings,
rather than efficiencies.
Over the CSR07 period the Northern Ireland Prison
Service (NIPS) plans to recruit 240 Operational Support Grade
Officers (OSGs) to replace 240 Main Grade Officers who are paid
at higher rates. Although it is early in the first year of the
three year CSR07 period the Prison Service anticipate that the
net savings to be generated from this initiative after allowing
for the costs of training the new OSG staff will exceed the planned
level of £4.326 million (over the three years) as set out
in the Departmental CSR07 submission.
The NIPS VFM targets also contain a target reduction
in manpower numbers in the NIPS of 150 posts at Main Grade Officer
(MGO) level to be delivered at the outset of the period and to
be sustained at the reduced level over the three years. This has
been delivered as part of the Pay and Efficiency Package agreed
with the Trade Unions and endorsed by HM Treasury as part of the
Departmental CSR07 settlement.
Changes to the security situation will not impact
on the numbers of lower paid OSG grades as these staff are dedicated
to non-prisoner engagement posts such as manning the prison gates.
The numbers of prisoners in separated conditions has remained
fairly constant for a period of time. If deterioration in the
security situation led to increases in these numbers, the staffing
levels would need to be kept under review.
The PSNI VFM target includes manpower reductions
as follows:
— Police Officers—The
Patten Report has set the establishment level for full-time PSNI
officers at 7,500 to at least 2010/11. There are no plans to reduce
police officer numbers over the CSR period.
— Full-Time Reserve—In
September 2004 the Chief Constable announced, on the basis of
his assessment of policing needs, that of the 1,487 FTR officers
within PSNI, 807 would be phased out between April 2005 and September
2006—this process is complete. In September 2007 the Chief
Constable decided to further reduce the requirement of Full-Time
Reserve Officers from 680 to 381—a reduction of 299 on a
phased basis over 12 months from 31st March 2008. Although the
contractual arrangements for the 381 officers being retained after
April 2008 are complex, it is anticipated that they will leave
before 31st March 2011 when the severance scheme will end.
The release of the remaining 381 Full-Time Reserve
Officers is conditional on the Chief Constable's assessment of
the security situation. In a worse case scenario up to 381 officers
would be retained. The Chief Constable is expected to review the
requirement for Full-Time Reserve Officers shortly.
— Civilian Staff—The precise
figure of civilian staff will be determined following a workforce
structure review currently being undertaken by PSNI to determine
the optimal number and type of civilian staff required to meet
operational requirements. PSNI has projected that civilian numbers
will decrease by 100 whole time equivalents per annum across the
CSR period, realising £6m annual savings by 2010/11. The
reduction in civilian numbers will be enabled by improvements
in information technology. Civilian staff savings are not predicated
on improvements in the security situation.
3. If Police Service or Prison Service manpower
numbers had to rise again—for example, if the security situation
deteriorated—would the NIO have to find the extra funds
from within its Comprehensive Spending Review settlement, or have
you agreed plans with the Treasury to be able to call on additional
funds?
Answer: The NIO's CSR07 settlement notes that
"In the unlikely event that a protracted large scale public
order dispute involving significant police and army resources
or attacks on commercial property occurred, putting unexpected
pressure on the NIO budget, I would expect the NIO to make every
effort to absorb such costs within existing provision but, if
necessary, the situation could be reviewed in the light of the
circumstances at the time within the framework of our normal spending
rules".
THE NIO'S
NEW PUBLIC
SERVICE AGREEMENTS
AND DEPARTMENTAL
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES
UNDER THE
COMPREHENSIVE SPENDING
REVIEW
4. Your new Safer Communities Public Service
Agreement under the CSR includes "reducing the harm caused
by organised crime", although your Delivery Agreement for
that PSA indicates that the target will not be set until 2010.
Why is it going to take so long to work out what the target to
aim for should be?
Answer: This PSA target is in two parts spanning
two financial years:
— By March 2009 to have created a baseline
and methodology to measure harm caused by organised crime, and
— By March 2010 to set a target for
the reduction of harm caused in 2010-11.
This is an innovative target as there is currently
no methodology available to us to define or measure harm caused
by organised crime.
The first part of the target requires us to
identify and gather together data to allow a baseline to be established
so that the second part of the target to reduce harm may be measured.
This work is underway and involves collecting survey data by means
of questions in the Northern Ireland Crime Survey for the period
2008-09. We are also looking now at how we can marry this data,
which is necessarily based on perceptions of harm, with hard statistical
data from other sources. This work can only be completed in 2009-10
when the NI Crime Survey annual results are available. Only when
this data is available and analysed can we establish a baseline
and determine what the harm target should reasonably be from 2010
and ensure that the appropriate measurement tools are in place
to record activity against the baseline.
5. Your new Safer Communities PSA includes
maintaining public confidence in policing. The Home Office hasn't
included a similar aim in its own PSA 23 ("Make Communities
Safer"). What level of public confidence in the PSNI in the
future might trigger the NIO to consider removing this target?
Answer: The issue of confidence in policing
is still of critical importance in Northern Ireland and we therefore
plan to continue measuring it. Over time we expect that the issue
of public confidence in the policing institutions, which were
the principal subject of the Patten reforms, will be replaced
by the wider issue of public confidence in the performance of
the PSNI in policing the community.
Public confidence is an important measure of
the perceived effectiveness of the service that the PSNI provides.
That perception of effectiveness is also a crucial factor in encouraging
public engagement and support, and therefore has a vital impact
upon actual effectiveness.
The Committee will be aware that the Home Office's
Green Paper on Policing Reform proposes measuring confidence in
policing in England and Wales as their key strategic target for
police forces.
6. The Home Office-led PSA 23 includes an
aim of tackling "serious acquisitive crime"—burglary
and vehicle theft—in areas where this is currently at disproportionately
high levels. In the NIO, this is instead part of a Departmental
Strategic Objective (DSO 3—an "effective criminal justice
system"). Why is this not a similar-level priority for the
NIO?
Answer: While NIO does not mirror exactly the
targets which apply to the Home Office, tackling crime of this
nature remains a priority for us and we are committed to building
on our successful achievement against our earlier PSA targets
on domestic burglary and vehicle theft. This is recognised in
our Delivery Agreement for the Make Communities Safer PSA, where
we state: "although the focus will be on more serious violent
crime, there will be an emphasis on maintaining the successful
reductions in vehicle crime and domestic burglary achieved over
the period 2002-07".
To support this at an operational level, we
will continue to deliver our award-winning projects and initiatives
that have, for example, seen more than 6,000 cars removed from
NI streets that could have been used for criminal purposes and
more than 18,000 homes fitted with additional home security measures.
We are in discussion with PSNI at present about the evaluation
of the success of our crime prevention campaign on the theft of
sat-navs from vehicles and we have asked for information on current
and anticipated trends for theft from vehicles. The outcome of
these discussions will result in further tailored crime prevention
campaigns.
ST ANDREW'S
AGREEMENT
7. Under the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review,
you have two new Public Service Agreements that centre on the
policing and justice activities that might be devolved to the
Executive under the St Andrew's Agreement. When that happens,
will the NIO abandon those PSAs? To what extent will the Executive
be tied to the indicators and targets that you will have put in
place?
Answer: Following the Devolution of Policing
and Justice it will be for the NI Executive to decide the extent
to which the current NIO PSA outcomes and the underpinning indicators
and targets will be embraced within the Programme for Government
or if it would wish to establish its own. A qualification is that
a small number of the PSA indicators will remain within the reserved
category following devolution.
8. Under the Comprehensive Spending Review
the Police Service is expected to contribute nearly two-thirds
(£68 million) of the £108 million NIO efficiency target.
If responsibility for policing and justice matters is passed over
to the Northern Ireland Assembly, will the NIO efficiency target
be reduced, and if so by how much? To what extent will the Executive
be bound to the reforms, manpower reductions and other efficiency
plans already formulated by the NIO?
Answer: We would not expect devolution to affect
delivery of value for money savings.
Budgets and the associated VFM savings are linked
to specific business areas which will transfer to either the DOJ
or Future NIO post devolution. This split should not affect the
ability of either of the new Departments to achieve their VFM
targets and in total the current forecast level of savings should
be achieved.
The position that the Executive takes on these
matters is not something the Northern Ireland Office can comment
on.
NIO EXPENDITURE AND
THE CSR FINANCIAL
SETTLEMENT
9. The Treasury's 2007 Pre-Budget Report and
Comprehensive Spending Review, Cm 7227 (p 263), shows that for
the next three years of the Comprehensive Spending Review period
the Executive's Resource DEL budgets are increasing year-on-year
by around 4% a year, with the Capital DEL budget having higher
relative increases. Your Annual Report (pp 146-8) shows the NIO's
own budgets are mainly falling over that period. Why have the
NIO and Executive been given such different settlements?
Answer: The Executive's budget is set in line
with the Barnett funding formula. The NIO's settlement is negotiated
directly with HMT—we would not expect a correlation between
the two.
In relation to the NIO's budget figures it is
important to note that the 2007-08 year includes a significant
amount of EYF in addition to baseline provision to fund specific
costs such as the public inquiries. The NIO's CSR07 budgets reflect
baseline provision only and EYF will be drawn down to supplement
baselines through the supplementary estimate process.
10. Your recent memorandum that accompanied
the 2008-09 Main Estimates explains that some expenditure lines
are initially lower than last year because you expect to top them
up later on using accumulated "End-Year Flexibility"
under-spends. At the start of 2008-09, how much EYF do you have
available to top up your Estimates? What amount of EYF draw-down
over the CSR period has been assumed in the NIO's CSR settlement?
Answer: At the start of 2008-09 the NIO has
£155m resource EYF available.
The CSR07 settlement permits resource EYF drawdown
of £70 million/£60 million/£4 million across the
CSR07 years (£134 million in total). The Department subsequently
negotiated additional access to resource EYF of £14 million
as a consequence of slippage in the costs associated with the
reduction of the Full-time reserve and further access of up to
£14 million generated by PSNI underspends in 2007-08.
Northern Ireland Office
6 October 2008
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