Examination of Witness (Question Number
1-19)
Witness: Rt
Hon Nick Herbert MP, Minister of State for Policing
and Criminal Justice, Home Office and Ministry of Justice, gave
evidence.
Chair: Good morning,
Minister. My apologies for keeping you waiting, but with the
Government's agenda being so heavy at the moment the Select Committee
was spending some time discussing it. Can I welcome you most
warmly to this session of the Select Committee that is dealing
with policing. I congratulate you on your appointment as the
Minister for the Home Office as well as the Ministry of Justice.
Can I refer everyone present to the Register of Members' Interests
where the interests of Members of this Committee are declared.
There are some specific interests which Members wish to declare
with respect of policing.
Mr Burley: From January
to April 2007 I was seconded to the Minister's then office when
he was the Shadow Minister for Police Reform.
Mark Reckless: I am a
member of the Kent Police Authority for which I am remunerated
approximately £700 per month.
Alun Michael: My older
son is chief executive in the North Wales Police Authority.
Q1 Chair: Minister,
you published yesterday your White Paper, Policing in the 21st
Century, which borrows at least the title from the Select
Committee's last report into policing but also a number of other
aspects of the structural changes which you are proposing. Other
Members of the Committee will discuss with you and probe you on
some of those points. Can I go through the consultation period
and the timetable you have in mind because, of course, this was
published yesterday, the House will rise later today and the Committee
will sit again on 6 September. We are eager to put our views
forward to ministers. What is your present timetable for the
receipt of responses?
Nick Herbert:
The timetable is that the consultation will end on 20 September,
so that leaves a period of weeks between now and then for responses
to be received. That is informed by the fact that we want to
introduce the Bill well before the end of this year in order to
meet the ambition to hold elections for the police and crime commissioners
in 2012. Of course we would like formal consultation responses
back by then, but there are two things to say. Firstly, we have
undergone quite an extensive period of pre-consultation, informal
consultation with stakeholders in the run-up to the publication
of this paper and on quite an open basis with police professionals,
the Association of Police Authorities, and others. Secondly,
we will of course welcome continuing responses and engagement
with these proposals after the end of the formal period and as
the Bill is introduced.
Q2 Chair: You will
recall your speech to the Policy Exchange on 23 June when you
said: "The problem has not been a lack of government money".
Last week, Sir Denis O'Connor published his report which said
that 80% of local police forces were not prepared for the cuts
that are going to occur. How do you respond to that?
Nick Herbert:
The first thing to say is this was a really significant report
because firstly there was the issue about visibility and availability
and the fact that only 11% of total police strength is visible
and available at any one time. That is in spite of the fact that
we have a record number of police officers now. Secondly, that
savings of over a billion pounds a year were achievable, that
is 12% of government spending, without impacting upon the frontline.
That is directly contrary to what some have been claiming, which
is that savings in the police are not possible without damaging
frontline policing services. This is the formal advice of the
Inspectorate of Constabulary in a joint report with the Audit
Commission. I think it is true that we have been through a period
of year-on-year increase in resources for the police and the report
itself observed the fact that as a consequence police forces have
got used to that increase in resources. We are entering a different
period now, a period of retrenchment in relation to resources
and, therefore, there is going to be a driving imperative to deliver
value for money and chief constables are going to have to meet
that imperative. It is a new world.
Q3 Chair: Given
the fact that we now have, give or take a few police officers,
147,000 police officers and you want to turn them into crime fighters
and not form fillers, in your memorable ---
Nick Herbert:
Form writers, to use the correct alliterative phrase.
Q4 Chair: I would
not want to misquote your sound bite. 147,000. There will have
to be a reduction in the number of frontline police officers as
a result of these cuts. I know you have maintained that is not
going to be the case, and we obviously hope you are going to be
Police Minister for some time, but by the time you leave that
office and get promoted, as you no doubt will be, ---
Nick Herbert:
Or otherwise!
Q5 Chair: --- are
you going to be satisfied if the number of frontline police officers
has actually gone down? That is what is going to happen, is it
not?
Nick Herbert:
I think the average duration of a Home Office minister is a year.
Firstly, the Inspectorate says that these savings of over a billion
pounds a year can be made without impacting upon the frontline
and that is very important advice. Secondly, as I said in my
Policy Exchange speech, I do not think that we can any longer
play the numbers game. The test of effective policing is not
merely the numbers of people of all kinds working in the police
force, it is how they are being used and deployed. What the Inspectorate
report says is that in spite of the fact that we have record numbers
of police officers we still have this relatively low visibility
and availability. The previous Home Secretary would not give
a guarantee about police numbers. What we have said is that we
want to ensure that we do everything possible from the point of
view of the Government to enable chief constables to protect the
frontline, to maintain the number of officers that are visible
and available. We know that it is the people's priority to have
police officers on the street.
Q6 Chair: I know
you do not want to play the numbers game but in terms of the budget
that you have before police authorities at the moment do you anticipate
the actual headline figure will go down? Even though they are
used more effectively and efficiently, which is what you want
to do in your White Paper, the actual numbers will decline, will
they not?
Nick Herbert:
We have seen some reductions in police officer strength in some
forces already as a hangover from the previous government, the
figures published a few days ago show that. As I say, I do not
believe that it is profitable to play the numbers game. What
we should be really interested in is how are police forces deploying
their officers, what balance in the workforce are they achieving,
are they getting police officers out onto the frontline and why
is it that in spite of record resources, in spite of record numbers
of police officers, we still have this relatively low visibility
and availability. That does go to the efficiency with which forces
are working, it goes to shift patterns, and so on, and that should
be the focus now.
Q7 Chair: One question
on specialist investigative teams. Sir Hugh Orde, the Chairman
of ACPO, who will be giving evidence to us slightly later this
morning, talked about the demise of specialist investigative teams
in relation to spending cuts. John Yates was quoted at the same
conference that you attended and that I attended, although we
were not in this particular session, as saying there may be cuts
of up to £80 million in the counter-terrorism budget. Are
you conscious that as well as cutting the budget and providing,
as you say, a reduction of some kind there will actually be a
reduction in those very important areas of investigation?
Nick Herbert:
Firstly, in relation to investigative teams we should be looking
at the workforce mix. Some chief officers are doing that now,
looking at the potential role for civilians in that mix, which
may deliver productivity improvements. The test there should
be the quality of the service. In relation to counter-terrorism,
I announced a very small reduction in-year in terms of CT police
funding, I think it was £10 million. The reductions that
I announced overall, both for CT funding and for police grant
in-year, were less than 1.5% of the total amount of government
money that is being made available this year and there will still
be more money made available this year to police forces than there
was the previous year.
Q8 Chair: So is
Mr Yates correct that there is going to be a reduction or is he
wrong?
Nick Herbert:
The problem about you quoting what Mr Yates said is that these
were reports of what he was alleged to have said in a closed meeting
and I was not present at that meeting. We are in a world where
in every area of government spending we are going to have to ensure
value for money, but of course the first priority of the Government
is to protect the public. There is still going to be a very large
commitment of government funding towards counter-terrorism going
forward, including in relation to the police.
Q9 Mr Winnick: Minister,
you talk about the numbers game. Chief Constable Dr Timothy Brain
in an article in Police Review on 16 July - he was the
former ACPO lead for finance - calculated that on a Home Office
cut of 25% that would probably mean there would be 36,000 fewer
police personnel and if it was 40% that would probably mean a
reduction of somewhere in the region of near 60,000. The precise
figure he gave was 58,000. It is very simple to say this is just
a numbers game one way or the other, but if such cuts and reductions
were to occur it is bound to have a very adverse effect on police
services throughout Britain.
Nick Herbert:
Firstly, Dr Brain was just speculating on the amount of funding
that is going to be made available. We do not know because this
is going to be the subject of the Spending Review, we will know
more later this year. These figures, firstly, are speculative.
More than that, I do not accept these figures and the reason
I do not is if you read his article carefully he says explicitly
that the police can find no more savings, that no savings can
be made in policing, and that is the basis of all the calculations
that he does. I do not know who else thinks that the police cannot
make savings but I do know that a few days after he published
his report the Chief Inspector of Constabulary and the Audit Commission
said that savings of over a billion a year were possible without
impacting upon the frontline and that was the equivalent of 12%
of government funding. I think that these wild speculative figures
which are based on an assumption that the police can make no savings
at all are not helpful or sensible in this debate.
Q10 Mr Winnick:
You say wild figures but if, however, these reductions were to
take place as a result of a 25% or 40% cut in Home Office expenditure
you would be quite comfortable because of what you have just said
on savings and the rest?
Nick Herbert:
I know that the Inspectorate says that we can achieve savings
of 12% in relation to government spending without impacting upon
the frontline. I have only been an MP for five years and have
only been a minister for a few months but even in that short period
of time I have learnt not to answer hypothetical questions.
Q11 Dr Huppert:
Can I move us on from what may or may not be wild speculation
on to the topic of evidence and the idea of evidence-based policing.
This is something which sadly has not yet been taken up very
thoroughly by the police but does form part of the Police Executive
Programme at Cambridge University, for example, and there has
been a lot of work by Professor Larry Sherman on this and it has
been supported by the NPIA. The issue is if we are going to be
getting rid of NPIA, which I understand is what is being proposed,
will there be a commitment to evidence-based policing, how will
that be driven and how will the Minister make sure that the police
do take advantage of this and actually learn what they ought to
do better?
Nick Herbert:
Firstly, I do think that it is important to have evidence-based
policing and evidence-based policymaking but I do not accept that
necessarily means the formulation of that evidence has to reside
in a quango. We did feel that it was important to try and reduce
the number of national bodies that lay above policing. That is
one of the reasons why we proposed yesterday that the NPIA should
be phased out and functions should be transferred over potentially
either to the National Crime Agency or back into the Home Office
or to ACPO in an attempt to de-clutter this national landscape.
So far as best practice is concerned, I do think that this needs
to be shared amongst police forces themselves and of course there
is a role for that. What I think we need to avoid is the reams
and reams, and this was referred to in the paper yesterday, of
so-called policy guidance, pages and pages which actually land
on chief officers' desks and desks of officers right down the
ranks which emanates from bodies like the NPIA. We have to question
the amount of this, the need for it, whether it is overly prescriptive.
Go and visit any BCU commander and I am always very struck by
the volumes and volumes of guidance and prescription which is
on their shelves.
Q12 Dr Huppert:
I do not think anybody would disagree with that. You mentioned
ACPO, which is interesting. This Committee has been very critical
of ACPO in the past and I dare say it will continue to be so later
today, or ACPO Ltd as I think I should be referring to it. There
are comments in the paper at 4.55 about ACPO looking for accountability
and transparency. Does that mean, for example, a commitment that
you will ensure that ACPO Ltd will have to be subject to freedom
of information, that there will be some sort of review of the
way that it creates policy because currently it seems to me entirely
unaccountable and entirely untransparent?
Nick Herbert:
There is, and I think ACPO themselves would recognise this and
I am sure you will be questioning Sir Hugh Orde about it, a need
in the new landscape to look again at ACPO's role and to look
at its accountability. I think ACPO should have a very strong,
focused role on professional matters and professional development.
We need to move away from a position where ACPO is itself running
police services. It is important that strategic policy is set
by the directly elected police and crime commissioners and at
the centre by Government through the National Crime Agency when
appropriate. Operational matters are clearly the responsibility
of individual chief constables and collectively ACPO can meet
and agree operational practice and that is a very good thing.
The accountability of that organisation will therefore be important.
It needs to be in two directions: both accountability on national
matters to the centre and on local matters to directly elected
police and crime commissioners. We will have to work through
what that accountability looks like and how it should operate
in practice. ACPO recognise that there is a need for greater
accountability.
Q13 Dr Huppert:
Does this include a commitment to freedom of information?
Nick Herbert:
We have not said that it includes a commitment to freedom of information,
no.
Chair: Can I just clarify
for the record that this Committee has not been critical of ACPO
as an organisation in any of our previous reports. We may have
criticised some of their policies, but not as an organisation
- not yet anyway!
Q14 Mr Burley: Just
moving on to the issue of police bureaucracy, you have stated
very publicly that it is your mission to untie the police's hands
and reduce the bureaucracy that they suffer under at the moment,
but you will also be aware that the previous government made similar
commitments to reducing police bureaucracy. How are you going
to assess your success and what would you do different compared
to the last government's proposals?
Nick Herbert:
The crucial difference ran through the reforms which we set out
yesterday which were a fundamental change in the central direction
of policing which we have seen accrue over recent years, a reversal
of that so we are swapping the bureaucratic accountability which
has grown up as police forces answer to the centre for local democratic
accountability. We have reflected that by scrapping the remaining
single confidence target and by scrapping the Police Pledge.
We will look again at the amount of inspection that there is and
make sure that inspection is streamlined and we do not have backdoor
targetry in the form of inspection. We are deadly serious about
reducing the bureaucratic burden. We have also talked about finally
removing altogether the stop form and the reporting requirement
in relation to that. It is not just a question of scrapping forms
and we have to move the debate on from that idea, it is about
efficient processes. It is about eliminating wherever possible
this central direction and interference. It is also about achieving
a cultural change within the police themselves.
Q15 Mr Burley: You
said it is about more than just scrapping forms, although that
is important. The real question I have is how do you change the
mindset? We know even where forms have been taken away officers
still continue to record details in their pocketbooks and so on
because they think they need to record everything they do to cover
themselves. How do we change that mindset and culture of covering
themselves?
Nick Herbert:
This does touch on what the Chief Inspector talked in the recent
report which is a culture of risk aversion. Of course what we
want is an environment where the police are held to account properly
for their conduct and performance. We have seen an increasingly
risk averse culture grow up. It was perhaps the hangover from
an era when there was concern about policing practice and so on.
We have seen in recent incidents that we cannot ignore the importance
of proper police conduct. There is a risk averse culture. There
is also a weight of prescription which arises from the criminal
justice system as a whole. I am very struck by recent anecdotal
evidence that has come from officers who are serving in Canada,
and you will have seen an article on Sunday by a former inspector,
by a former chief officer, a former President of ACPO talking
recently about his experience of leading a police force in Australia,
and the difference in the amount of central doctrine that there
is and the burden of the criminal justice system. I think it
is something that we should look at and something that the Committee
might be very interested in having a look at is the difference
in practice in different countries and the burden that it places
upon the police.
Chair: We certainly will
look at that. There are a lot of questions to be put to you and
I know there is a statement at 1.15. I wonder whether we could
have slightly briefer questions and answers.
Q16 Steve McCabe:
Good morning, Minister. Can you tell us how you plan to cut police
overtime?
Nick Herbert:
What we have said is that we are going to set up a pay and conditions
review and the issue of overtime needs to be included within that.
It is still a concern. The amount of overtime has reduced from
its peak. It was about 7.8% of pay.
Q17 Chair: How much
is 7.8% in monetary terms?
Nick Herbert:
It has now gone down to 4.9% which I can tell you is 387 million.
Q18 Chair: In police
overtime for the last year?
Nick Herbert:
That is police overtime in 2008-09 and 66 million in relation
to staff. We think the amount of overtime is still too high.
There is a danger that overtime has become institutionalised
in relation to policing. Some chief officers argue that it is
important in terms of their ability to manage their forces but
there is also a big variation between forces. This is an issue
that needs to be looked at. I think police chiefs are well aware
of this and we intend that it is looked at by the pay review.
Q19 Steve McCabe:
So there will be a review but you cannot tell us how you are going
to cut it at the moment?
Nick Herbert:
No.
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