Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
432-439)
MR MIKE
CRAIK
14 MAY 2009
Q432 Chairman: Good afternoon. I wonder
if I could ask you to give your name and the position you hold,
please?
Mr Craik: I am Mike Craik; I am
the Chief Constable of Northumbria Police and I am the Association
of Chief Police Officers spokesperson on alcohol and licensing
issues.
Q433 Chairman: Once again, thank
you for coming along and helping us, and sorry about the delay.
Have the more liberal licensing laws that were introduced in 2003
resulted in a continental cafe culture, as predicted by some at
that particular time?
Mr Craik: No, on my reading of
it, it was intended to help in that direction. I do not think
it has achieved that, and that would be an unrealistic expectation.
Q434 Chairman: We have been told
that the Government regulations make it difficult for local authorities
to reject applications now. Do you agree, in your role, that that
is the case either in Northumberland or elsewhere?
Mr Craik: Yes, and, of course,
this comes from conversations with partners and that sort of thing.
We are not the licensing authority, but I think there is an anxiety,
that they feel constrained by the legal power of the big organisations.
In industry they can turn up with lots of very expensive barristers
and challenge decisions, and I think there is nervousness around
that, being robust in the face of what is a particularly powerful
industry around that. My view is I would like to see, certainly
some of my colleagues would like to see, more licensing authorities
at least trying to be more in tune to what local people say.
Q435 Chairman: We visited New Zealand
just a few weeks ago, just before Easter, and we had several conversations
there. The Law Commission is looking at changing the licensing
law, but one of the organisations, which was an academic organisation
that we talked to, said that their big shove was actually to empower
the community; whether that would be a planning authority, or
whatever, I do not know, but to empower the community to say,
no, and the wider voice of the community had to be consulted before
further licences were issued. What is your view about that?
Mr Craik: My personal, professional
view (and I hesitate because I have not consulted all 43 of the
chiefs around this): I would be supportive of that. I would like
to see the local community having a more powerful voice in how
licences were granted and to what extent they were granted in
communities, because you will not get the perception of a cafe
culture if people feel they have no say in how it is coming about
and things just happen without their contribution towards it.
We have done a lot of work with my local authorities in Tyne and
Wear and the issue of the public perception of how on how things
work is vital. Even when we have reduced crime and reduced disorder,
they do not make the connection that it is us that is doing it
unless we do a lot of work to enable them to see that it is the
partnership that is providing that service that actually works
for us. I think it is absolutely vital that you listen to what
the public want, show them what it is you intend to do about it
and how you can influence that and how you cannot, because they
will accept the fact you cannot sometimes, and then go back to
them with the outcomes of that, successful or otherwise, and if
they are unsuccessful you say, "What else would you like
us to try and do to solve this problem for you?"
Q436 Chairman: Would it be easy for
you, through ACPO, to get the views of other police forces, as
it were, reasonably quickly on the issues that you have just talked
about there, to get the wider views, as it were?
Mr Craik: If you want that specific
view on whether we support that broader public involvement.
Q437 Chairman: Yes, what would be
your position?
Mr Craik: My intuition is that
they would probably be supportive of that, but if I emailed them
all and asked for a response, agreeing or not agreeing to that,
then that could be done in fairly short order. If I phrase it
in a way that, in the absence of a response, which often happens,
I will take it that you are agreeing by your silence to what I
am suggesting, then we can produce that for you fairly quickly.
Chairman: I would appreciate it if you
could let us have that.
Q438 Dr Naysmith: Following on along
the same lines as some of the questions that have already been
asked, in my experience—I suppose it is really anecdotal
in a way—there are parts of the country where people seem
to have more say in what happens in their local community when
licences are being granted than others. I was going to ask a similar
question to the Chairman. Would it be possible for you to find
out through your organisation, whether all these chief constables
(43, was it, you said) could tell you, whether it was the case
that local people did get a proper say in what happened?
Mr Craik: I would hesitate to
ask them to give me a categorical assurance that they understand
at every neighbourhood level how people feel about a single issue.
I think we would have to get in the surveys to do that. We do
do that, but that is on a quarterly basis and it is expensive.
Q439 Dr Naysmith: This information
is not readily available.
Mr Craik: It is not readily to
hand. It would require a lot of work, and I suspect I would get
a very varied picture and answers along the lines of what I have
just given you: "How do you expect me to find that out with
any degree of certainty when you are asking me what the public
think?"
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