Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
20-39)
Witness: Rt Hon
Nick Herbert MP, Minister of State for Policing and Criminal
Justice, Home Office and Ministry of Justice, gave evidence.
Q20 Steve McCabe:
Are there tasks that the police carry out that you think should
be done by other agencies or perhaps not done by the state at
all? Can you tell us if that is the case and what you have in
mind there?
Nick Herbert:
Firstly, as we tried to argue yesterday, I do think it is important
that we have an understanding that the police cannot fight crime
alone, they need to fight crime with the support of the public
and with other agencies, particularly local agencies, so effective
Community Safety Partnerships are very important. In relation
to what the police are doing themselves, I do think that there
is a greater potential, for instance, for civilian roles in fulfilling
tasks that sworn officers need not do as a way of increasing productivity
and releasing sworn officer time for other duties. I do not think
we should have a principled objection to that, the test should
be how effective is the particular unit concerned and is it delivering
what the chief officers and the public want.
Q21 Steve McCabe:
Do you have something concrete in mind, Minister, that we can
fix on? I just want to know what you want to get rid of in concrete
terms.
Nick Herbert:
I think go and have a look at the way in which some forces, for
instance Surrey, have used a greater number of civilian officers
in relation to investigation tasks that police officers were doing.
I recently visited Greater Manchester Police and met a whole
number of staff who were involved in detective work who were in
fact civilians, not police officers, working alongside police
officers very effectively. That is an element of what has in
the past been called workforce modernisation that is a sensible
use of resources and increasing productivity.
Q22 Mr Burley: Would
you agree that one of those roles which Mr McCabe asked about
could be the use of sworn officers to monitor drugs in cells because
at the moment sworn officers are there to check there is no self-harm
but actually that role could arguably be better performed by a
nurse or someone who is qualified to look for signs of self-harm?
Nick Herbert:
We have seen a number of forces contract out custody and their
custody suites successfully and, again, that was one of the things
the Inspectorate identified could happen to a greater extent.
Q23 Lorraine Fullbrook:
Minister, I would like to drill down a bit more about the workforce
and particularly the workforce mix. In May the Police Federation
published a report in which they raised concerns about the proportion
of police forces being made up of non-warranted officers having
increased from 30% to 40% and they argued that this had an impact
on the resilience of the force. They also argued that it changed
the nature of policing in the UK. I just wondered if you shared
the Police Federation's concern about the workforce mix and how
that would impact on the resilience of policing in the UK.
Nick Herbert:
I have read the Police Federation's report and I have discussed
these issues with them. I can understand why they should be expressing
concern but I do not believe there is any evidence that the increase
in the numbers of civilian staff in some forces doing jobs that
sworn officers did before has had a detrimental impact either
on the quality of that work - I think where chief officers have
introduced it they would argue that it has improved outcomes and
improved productivity - or on resilience. We are talking about
relatively marginal changes. I believe that this should be for
chief officers to judge. We do need to move away from an era
where ministers are prescribing the right workforce mix to an
era where we are saying, "Here are the outcomes which are
wanted" and the job of chief officers is to deliver. Of
course, in 2012, assuming the safe passage of the legislation
that we are going to introduce, police and crime commissioners
will then be responsible for holding local police forces to account.
They may take a view on this and in that case it will certainly
not be for Government to prescribe.
Q24 Bridget Phillipson:
Minister, how will you make sure that the new directly elected
individuals devote sufficient resources to perhaps the less visible
but equally important aspects of crime prevention and crime fighting,
such as serious and organised crime, and they will not simply
chase headlines and focus on the more popular and equally important
areas to the detriment of other areas of policing?
Nick Herbert:
Firstly, if you look at what has happened in recent years, as
the Inspectorate report suggests, the concern is there has been
insufficient attention to visibility and availability in spite
of the development of Neighbourhood Policing Teams and so on.
Of course, as the Commissioner rightly reminded us a couple of
weeks ago in his Police Foundation lecture, there is still concern
about the ability of the police to fight serious and organised
crime. That was why we said yesterday that it is important that
the directly elected police and crime commissioners are under
strong duties to collaborate, to ensure a focus on serious and
organised crime, to work with the new National Crime Agency when
that is introduced to ensure that the focus the commissioners
are giving is not just on the local volume of policing, although
of course that is a huge concern for local people, but also on
the crimes which cross force borders.
Q25 Bridget Phillipson:
Yesterday the Home Secretary was unable to say what this would
cost and also where that money would come from. I am quite concerned
that at a time when we are seeing cuts in police budgets that
will affect frontline policing we are going to face these unspecified
levels of expenditure on elections for these commissioners.
Nick Herbert:
What the Home Secretary said, as you know, was that we would set
out the costs and business plan at the time we publish the Bill.
The whole purpose of many of the changes we have made at the
national level is to achieve savings. That is one reason for
phasing out the National Policing Improvement Agency, for instance.
The whole focus of our reform proposals is to get resource to
where we need it, which is at the frontline. The cost to which
you refer will be for elections which will be held once every
four years. When we have consulted about the electoral system
and we therefore know more we will be able to set out what the
costs of that will be. Overall, I believe that we will be moving
to an environment where we will be achieving considerable savings
through reductions in bureaucracy and so on and many of those
savings will be realised in the form of ensuring that we can protect
frontline policing.
Q26 Steve McCabe:
If I say it is going to cost about a million per election, is
that value for money?
Nick Herbert:
I do not know what that million figure relates to.
Q27 Steve McCabe:
Would I be wide of the mark or am I about right?
Nick Herbert:
I do not recognise that figure at all or know what area you are
referring to.
Q28 Mr Burley: That
last debate for me goes to the heart of the issue of what the
mission of the police actually is. The Home Secretary stated
very clearly yesterday that the mission of the police is "…to
cut crime. No more, no less", yet you have got Julie Spence,
the Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire, saying that cutting crime
is a third of what the police do. Who is right?
Nick Herbert:
You will not be surprised to know that I think the Home Secretary
is right.
Q29 Mr Burley: Why?
Nick Herbert:
I find it surprising that this premise can be challenged at all.
Sir Robert Peel's first principle of policing was that the basic
mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.
I think that remains true today. Of course the police have to
do other things as well. We accept that rescuing people and so
on is part of what the police have to do. I think the public
would be surprised if they heard that a chief constable was only
spending a third of her time on cutting crime. I would contend
if there is any chief constable who thinks that it is not their
primary job to cut crime they are in the wrong job.
Q30 Mary MacLeod:
I would like to just follow up on cutting crime and specifically
the targets. You have said that we are going to try and move
away from targets and focus on outcomes and results and absolutely
holding people to account for the results that they deliver in
the Police Service. Can you just talk a bit more about what you
plan to do on targets? Are you just going to say to the police
forces that you want them to cut crime or are you going to give
them some indication of where you want them to head, in which
direction?
Nick Herbert:
So far as nationally is concerned that was the whole point of
what the Home Secretary said at the ACPO APA conference, that
she scrapped the single confidence target, she scrapped the Policing
Pledge, which were just targets in disguise, and reasserted Peel's
first principle and said, "Your job is to cut crime",
for which I think it is perfectly fair to read cut crime and antisocial
behaviour. Cutting crime in our book includes preventing crime.
We will move with the election of police and crime commissioners
to an environment where it is those commissioners who are setting
the budget for police forces, who are setting the strategic plan.
It will be for them to decide for their forces what the objectives
should be and they will no doubt want to draw those up in consultation
with their own chief constable and that plan will be scrutinised
by the police and crime panels as we set out yesterday. There
will be plenty of opportunity for public consultation and scrutiny
about these objectives.
Q31 Mary MacLeod:
I understand the concept about stronger accountability and passing
that to them, but at the same time what happens if you find that
a force is not performing or they are not doing the level of work
in terms of cutting crime that you would like them to do? Do
you then step in?
Nick Herbert:
I think we have got to move away from this idea that the Home
Secretary is running 43 police forces. This is part of the problem
with what has happened over the last few years where it is believed
that the job of the Home Secretary is to step in to micro manage,
to performance manage. That is a form of bureaucratic accountability
that has given so much to this burden of paperwork and regulation
that has been imposed upon policing. That is the point of substituting
for local democratic accountability and so on. There will still
be an inspection regime. I think it should be a streamlined inspection
regime but HMIC will still continue to have a role. The Independent
Police Complaints Commission will have a role in areas of wrongdoing
and so on. The Home Secretary will retain broadly existing powers
of intervention in extremis or for when there are national policing
issues for which a national response is needed so that we can
ensure that. Day-to-day it will be the job of the locally elected
commissioners to hold forces to account for performance. That
is a fundamental change and it is an important cultural change
to understand. The Home Secretary, as she has said, does not
want to run policing. It is not her job to run policing. Our
job is to provide the resources, to provide the overall direction
which is to say that the job of policing is to cut crime and then
for locally elected police and crime commissioners to set the
plan and hold the police to account for delivery of that plan
and themselves to be held to account by the public.
Q32 Alun Michael:
I welcome the fact that you have restated Sir Robert Peel's mission
statement and that you have put such a strong focus on cutting
crime and disorder. There is a lot of truth in the statement
that "what don't get measured don't get done". In moving
away from nationally set targets is there not a natural corollary
that there have to be very clear local targets and indicators
of delivery? I have in mind the sort of forensic analysis by
medical professions in Cardiff working with the police on why
violence occurred, where and how, which has led to a 40% cut in
the number of victims needing treatment at A&E. Not police
figures or crime figures but a very, very clear reduction in the
number of victims. Will you be putting an emphasis on the local
responsibility for clarifying what it is that needs to be done
and where cuts need to take place, not of the finances but cuts
in the actual offences?
Nick Herbert:
We do not intend to be prescriptive about this. It will be for
the locally elected police and crime commissioners to set the
policing plan. In doing so I hope that they will be mindful of
the danger that we have identified at the national level that
just as in the same way there is the danger that is often discussed
of teaching to test there is the danger of policing to test as
well and of box ticking and of a response to targetry which does
not leave room for local discretion.
Q33 Alun Michael:
I accept that entirely, but is there not a need for a methodology
that makes certain at that local level, whether it is an elected
commission or a police authority or individual commanders, they
are actually measuring their effectiveness on what affects the
community, in other words the impact on victims?
Nick Herbert:
We will still have an Inspectorate whose job will be strengthened,
that was what we said in the proposals yesterday, whose job will
be to shine a light on police performance. When you move into
an environment where you are focusing much on the delivery ---
Q34 Alun Michael:
What will be the measures of performance, that is what I am getting
at?
Nick Herbert:
We are going to discuss with the Inspectorate what the measures
should be. It will be important to have an Inspectorate that
is revealing what police forces are doing. Of course there are
the ultimate measures, which are the levels of crime in each area,
and we need to look again at how crime figures are published and
ensure that there is public confidence in them and not a political
debate about those, we need to try and get a cross-party buy-in.
There will still be a really important role for objective independent
assessment of how well forces are doing and how they are delivering.
Q35 Alun Michael:
Would you go along with the idea that we need to develop better
ideas on more forensic measurement of (a) the effectiveness of
police and (b) the reduction of crime and disorder which is what
you have set as the targets?
Nick Herbert:
I think it goes to one of the first questions I was asked which
was about evidence-based policing and best practice and an understanding
in the profession about what works.
Q36 Mark Reckless:
Minister, you said that it was for the public primarily to hold
the elected commissioners to account. With the police and crime
panels could you perhaps explain to the Committee how you will
ensure that they do not seek to reconstitute police authorities
or overly hobble the commissioners or add to the costs of the
policy?
Nick Herbert:
We have got to be wary of cutting too much across the democratic
mandate which police and crime commissioners will have. They
will be in receipt of a very large number of votes to secure their
election, they will have a mandate. On the other hand, as the
coalition government agreement recognised, there is an important
need for checks and balances. Furthermore, there is an important
role for elected councillors to be involved with policing and
for independent members who are currently on police authorities.
That is why we have arrived at the suggestion of the police and
crime panels to hold the commissioner to account, to be able to
review what the commissioner is doing, not to have powers of veto
but to exercise powers of scrutiny. That will be important.
That will be one of the ways in which local government will be
bound into what policing is doing and securing effective partnership.
It will also be a way of having involvement for independent members
and ensuring perhaps diversity of representation which we know
is important as well if you look at areas like London and so on.
There is an important role for these checks and balances, but
I agree with the premise of your question which is that we have
got to be careful not to calibrate it so that it cuts too much
across the mandate that the elected individual has. That is the
debate we will be having.
Q37 Mark Reckless:
You mention in the paper that you may look to have enabling legislation
to allow the Community Safety Partnerships to operate at force-wide
level. Will you also look to ensure that the elected commissioner
plays a key role in that? Could you give us some indication of
the other areas where you think in due course elected commissioners
may be able to expand their role?
Nick Herbert:
Firstly, it is significant that we have decided to call these
individuals "police and crime commissioners". Their
whole purpose is to have a remit which is not just about holding
the police to account but which is a responsibility for ensuring
safer communities and the effective operation of Community Safety
Partnerships is a very big part of that. The partnership which
these commissioners will have with local authorities is going
to be very important as reflected in Community Safety Partnerships.
We also want to look at their relationship with Local Criminal
Justice Boards and potential areas of overlap. We need to be
making sure that these groupings are action oriented and are not
bureaucratic and there is not unnecessary overlap between them.
We said explicitly in the document yesterday that we do see a
potential future role for police and crime commissioners in the
delivering of criminal justice policy and that will depend on
further reforms to the criminal justice system.
Q38 Steve McCabe:
Minister, I wonder if I could clarify something you said to Mr
Reckless. You said that the police commissioners will be in receipt
of very large numbers of votes. How are you going to ensure that?
Do you have some kind of threshold in mind or something like
that?
Nick Herbert:
No, I am just observing the fact that because we have decided
to hold these elections at the force level there are large populations
even in the smallest forces and in the bigger forces very significant
populations, because we are talking about 41 forces. What that
means is the commissioners, when elected, will have a very considerable
mandate. They will have many millions of people voting for them.
Q39 Steve McCabe:
Assuming there is a considerable turnout.
Nick Herbert:
Of course we can only speculate about that but I believe there
will be because crime is an issue that is high up among the concerns
of the public. I think that there will be real interest in these
positions and I believe an enthusiasm for them because people
are concerned about policing in their local area, concerned about
crime and antisocial behaviour and want to see effective action
to deal with it.
Dr Huppert: I was planning
to ask about the combination of roles between the Ministry of
Justice and the Home Office. Is that what you were expecting,
Chairman?
Chair: You can ask whatever
you like, Dr Huppert!
Dr Huppert: It is a very
interesting proposal to recombine the Ministry of Justice and
the Home Office and it does put you in a very interesting role
in terms of legal changes and how they affect policing. We are
expecting a statement shortly, Minister, about the European Investigation
Order which you have presumably been involved in determining with
both your hats on. Do you have concerns that Britain is being
asked at very short notice to opt into something like this which
allows foreign police to come and investigate without any grounds
for non-recognition or non-execution under Article 10, to cover
things like double jeopardy, disproportionality if something is
not a crime.
Chair: I think the Minister
gets the point.
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