Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-101)
SIR DAVID NORMINGTON AND MS HELEN KILPATRICK
23 NOVEMBER 2010
Q1 Chair: Sir David,
thank you very much for coming to give evidence. This is the annual
meeting of the Committee with the Permanent Secretary, and you
brought Helen Kilpatrick with you. Can I start by asking any Members
to declare any further interests, other than the interests that
are in the Members' Register?
Mr Burley: From 2006 to
2007, I worked in the Home Office when Sir David was in charge.
Chair: Excellent. Anyone
else? No? Good.
Sir David, can I start? I'm sure you'll find
this is not a surprising question. You appeared before the Public
Administration Committee very recently, and Mr Walker questioned
you about the use of taxpayers' money to fund a course that you
went on to improve your chairmanship skills. I was looking at
the transcript and I felt that perhaps you didn't have a chance
to explain why the Home Office felt it necessary to pay for you
to go on a chairmanship course when you are one of the most senior
figures in Whitehall.
Sir David Normington:
Yes. Well, in fact, I didn't go on a course. We had somebody employed
for a short period in the Home Office to help me and my senior
management team improve the way we were working in terms of taking
decisions, monitoring performance and implementing what the Home
Secretary wanted. It was a short bit of development for me and
my team. I think that's what senior teams should do. I may have
been a Permanent Secretary for eight years—or now 10, nearly—but
you can always go on improving. So it was nothing more than that.
I think the fuss about it is completely out of proportion to what
it was about.
Q2 Chair: But do
you think it was wise, bearing in mind the pressure on the public
purse and the cuts that are being implemented, that those at the
top of the Home Office—a Department with a budget of £11
billion—should, at this stage in their career, be asked
to learn some skills on management?
Sir David Normington:
It was two years ago—that doesn't change the answer to the
question—and we are responsible for over £10 billion
of money. I think that we need to make sure that we are at the
top of our game in how we spend that and how we monitor how it's
being spent. That was what it was about.
Q3 Chair: Do you
know what the cost was?
Sir David Normington:
I'm afraid I don't. If I'd known you were going to ask me, I would
have found that out. I'm afraid I don't.
Chair: Well, I'm surprised
you thought the Committee wouldn't ask you, in view of the fact
that it was before another Committee. Would you write to us? Could
you let us know by midday tomorrow how much it cost?
Sir David Normington:
Yes, I can.
Chair: Mr Winnick?
Q4 Mr Winnick: Like
the Chair, I am puzzled, Sir David, about this course, because
as the Chair stated, you are one of the most senior civil servants
in the whole country. I would have thought it would be the other
way around—that you would be inviting people, be it in the
public and certainly in the private industry, to learn from all
your experience. I'm not being in any way sarcastic. You haven't
reached the top other than by your abilities, like other people
in your position. For the life of me, I must say, I'm absolutely
puzzled what you could possibly learn at public expense.
Sir David Normington:
Well, the board of the Home Office was at that point—
Mr Winnick: If you could
keep your voice up.
Sir David Normington:
Yes, I will. The board of the Home Office at that point made up
of a number of new people, including a number of people who had
been Chief Executives in their own right, and getting that team
to work really well together—to take decisions quickly,
to make sure we had the right processes in place for taking those
decisions and so on—needed a bit of work and teams can always
improve. This is something that happens across the public and
the private sector. It's quite common, and it immeasurably improved
how my team worked and how they then went out and worked in the
Department, and I think that's a good thing.
Q5 Mr Winnick: Could
I just ask what you gained as a result of what happened on the
course?
Sir David Normington:
It wasn't a course. This person came and observed us—
Mr Winnick: Well, whichever
word you like to use.
Sir David Normington—and
played back to us what they saw.
Mr Winnick: What did you
gain?
Sir David Normington:
What I gained was that we took decisions better; we had a collective
view of what the Home Office needed to do; we had a better process
in place for monitoring our progress; we reviewed how our meetings
had been at the end, and so on. It was just a more efficient way
of operating, and also, when we went out into the Department,
we led the Department better.
Chair: Dr Huppert?
Q6 Dr Huppert: I'm
delighted to hear—subject to cost, of course—that
you're committed to continuous improvement. I'm sure there's nobody
on this Committee who would say there is nothing more for any
of us to learn. On the subject of improvement and learning from
some of this, can I ask about your Department's attitude to learning
from scientific information? For example you have a Chief Scientific
Adviser.
Sir David Normington:
We do.
Dr Huppert: I asked
a parliamentary question before the summer about how often the
Chief Scientific Adviser had met with the various Ministers. It
took a couple of months to get an answer, at which point I was
told that there'd been one meeting with the Home Secretary just
before the answer. How embedded is this culture of taking professional
advice from the scientific and statistical angles?
Sir David Normington:
I think it is embedded. One of our Ministers of State is the Minister
for science and research in the Department. That's Baroness Neville-Jones.
She takes that responsibility very seriously. It may be that the
Chief Scientific Adviser has only met the Home Secretary once,
or maybe more by now, but he would meet with Baroness Neville-Jones
on a fairly regular basis. I think that all through the Home Office
we have embedded both science and research, in its broadest sense.
Q7 Dr Huppert: Is
he on your board? How often would you meet with him?
Sir David Normington:
He reports to me, but he isn't on my board. I meet him regularly.
Chair: Mr Michael?
Q8 Alun Michael:
Like Julian, I think it's important for people at board level
in Government Departments and in Parliament to accept the need
to refresh their skills, even if they are ones they are using
on a regular basis. Would you accept something that is increasingly
being put to leaders in industry, at chief executive level: that
IT and use of the internet is now too important to be delegated
to an IT officer or an information officer? Is that now firmly
on your desk as the Permanent Secretary in the Home Office, and
is it somewhere where you've sought to improve your knowledge
and skills?
Sir David Normington:
Well, it is, because most of our big projects and programmes in
the Home Office have IT as part of them, and it's rarely something
separate. It's usually part of how you are making your major investments.
So I have to at least understand enough about what is being done
on the technical side to be able to judge whether the investment
is worth it. Helen is my board member with responsibility for
IT, although she's not an IT specialist.
Q9 Alun Michael:
Does she make sure that you don't get away with delegating the
responsibility, then?
Sir David Normington:
She does. Go on, you can speak for yourself.
Helen Kilpatrick:
Yes, and you can use your Blackberry and computer. The whole of
the Home Office board has reports regularly on the IT strategy
and the IT investments we're making in order to improve productivity.
Q10 Chair: Can I
turn now to the impact of the CSR? There is criticism about the
lack of consultation with the police. We, the Select Committee,
held a seminar in Cannock Chase yesterday attended by numerous
Chief Constables and chairs of police authorities. There is widespread
concern about the cuts and the effect they're going to have on
front-line policing. How many staff are you going to lose at the
Home Office, centrally, as a result of the CSR?
Sir David Normington:
Centrally, overall, the Home Office and its executive agents are
going to lose 6,500 staff over the four years, starting next April,
and 650, which is just over 21%, will be from the Home Office
core. Remember, the bulk of staff in the Home Office are in the
UK Border Agency.
Chair: Indeed. We'll come
on to the UK Border Agency in a moment.
Sir David Normington:
I should have said that this year we're reducing our number of
jobs by 2,500, maybe 2,600. So you have to add that to the 6,500
next year.
Q11 Chair: But as
far as the police are concerned, what is disturbing is the different
analysis of different Chief Constables as to the effect that the
cuts are going to have on front-line services. This was, of course,
raised at Prime Minister's questions, and it was raised at the
Liaison Committee with the Prime Minister last week. Is there
any clarity that the Home Office can give us as to how many front-line
police officers will be lost as a result of these reductions?
Sir David Normington:
No, because this is something that is going to be done force by
force, and because forces are of very different sizes and in very
different places in terms of their planning for this, I think
there will be a differential effect. Over the 43 forces, there
are huge forces like the Metropolitan Police, and there are very
small forces like Lincolnshire, and they will be having different
impacts.
Q12 Chair: So we
basically have to accept what the Chief Constables say, because
they run things locally, have control over the budget, and will
know how it will affect local people? You don't have, somewhere
in a drawer in the Home Office, figures that can challenge this?
Sir David Normington:
No. It's always been the case that Chief Constables have taken
the final decisions with their police authorities on these matters,
and that will be so. I don't have a blueprint that says, "This
is how many jobs are going to be lost." I was reading some
reports of your seminar yesterday. As I understand it, all of
them start from the position that they want to try to maintain
the front-line service. Any responsible Chief Constable would
want to do that, of course.
Q13 Chair: You're
right: every responsible Chief Constable should do that. What
worries the Committee is how they were allowed to spend the kind
of money they had spent without making the savings before. You've
been the Permanent Secretary now for four years. Where is the
role of the Home Office in all this?
Sir David Normington:
Over the last three years of the spending review, they made efficiency
savings—and most of this is properly audited—of over
£1 billion; I think it was about £1.2 billion. However,
they were allowed to reinvest that money into their services.
They didn't take that money out because, of course, budgets were
increasing. So they have shown that they can—
Q14 Chair: But should
you all have done more? The Prime Minister raised, at questions
last week, the fact that Manchester has 204 people involved in
IT. He was talking about back office staff. Surely somebody should
have pointed this out to Manchester?
Sir David Normington:
Well, except that the Home Office, before the election and since,
does not run the police.
Chair: We understand that.
Sir David Normington:
We do not, therefore, take responsibility for how many people
it is decided locally to employ in an HR function or an IT function.
Q15 Chair: So how
does the taxpayer get value for money when—
Sir David Normington:
Because the police authorities were there in the past to hold
the police to account for this. In the future, of course, the
Government are introducing elected commissioners to increase the
local accountability.
Q16 Chair: Finally
from me: just before the general election, the Home Office produced
a report to the previous Home Secretary anticipating a rise in
crime during any recession period. With the researchers you have
at the Home Office, has any research been done about the levels
of crime as a result of the cuts in the Home Office budget, the
police budget?
Sir David Normington:
If I may just go back to that work, it was done maybe two years
ago—maybe nearly three—and, as a result of that, action
was taken during that recession and crime did not rise in the
recession.
Q17 Chair: But have
you done any similar work?
Sir David Normington:
We have not done any similar work, no, and we're not expecting
crime to rise as a result of these reductions.
Q18 Chair: You're
not expecting crime to rise?
Sir David Normington:
It is the expectation that every force will be seeking to organise
its services to try to maintain its impact on crime. I can't guarantee
that, of course.
Chair: Of course. And,
anyway, you're retiring soon.
Sir David Normington:
Yes, but my words will still be used.
Chair: Mr Clappison and
a number of other colleagues want to come in. James Clappison?
Q19 Mr Clappison:
The Chief Constable of Hertfordshire has told me and other Members
of Parliament that he's doing all he can to work in collaboration
with other forces, particularly Bedfordshire on some issues and
Cambridge on others, and to pool resources and do things more
efficiently. In the decisions that you can take in this field—I
understand that your decision making is limited, as you've told
us—and in the leadership that you can give as well, are
you encouraging forces to work together to achieve efficiencies
of scale and to reduce perhaps some of the administrative costs
that have been allowed to linger in the past?
Sir David Normington:
Yes, it's very much part of the plan that we should encourage,
and in some cases mandate, forces to purchase together, to share
their IT together, and to share their assets, basically. We are
ready, and the Government are ready, where that isn't happening,
to say it must.
Q20 Mr Clappison:
From what you have seen so far, are you able to say whether this
is happening sufficiently?
Sir David Normington:
It is happening, but I think probably it can happen some more.
We're on course, but I don't think it's happened everywhere yet.
Chair: Could I ask colleagues
to concentrate on police cuts? We'll do the others later. Steve
McCabe?
Q21 Steve McCabe:
Sir David, I think your answer on crime isn't good enough. I think
it sounds a bit mealy-mouthed. You are the permanent official,
the senior official, giving Ministers advice on the extent of
the cuts, and you're saying to us, "I don't expect crime
to rise, but I can't guarantee it." Does that mean if it
does rise it's just bad luck and you made a bad guess?
Sir David Normington:
No. I think that there's quite a complex relationship between
police numbers and whether crime rises or falls. One of the key
issues is how you deploy your police numbers and your police staff.
It's not just about absolute numbers. It's about deployment, and
that's what the police would tell you.
Q22 Steve McCabe:
But what research have you done on that?
Sir David Normington:
Well, there's a lot of research, but I'm afraid that it doesn't
tell us the answer to what is the right number. It shows that,
if you deploy your forces properly, particularly in visible policing
and in response areas, you're likely to have a bigger effect on
crime. But it doesn't tell you what the right number is. We do
have evidence, of course, from other countries where police go
on strike that if they all go on strike, crime goes up. You would
expect there to be some relationship between numbers and crime.
Chair: Bridget Phillipson?
Q23 Bridget Phillipson:
Just to carry that on, obviously I appreciate the complexity of
the relationship between police numbers and whether you would
have an increase in crime, but given that we are facing massive
cuts in the police force, combined with predictions that we are
facing a bleaker economic picture, will you be doing any research
into any likely increase in the crime rate in the years ahead?
Sir David Normington:
We will be continuing to count whether crime is going up, and
we will be looking at whether we can get more data about the interaction
between how you deploy police numbers and what the crime levels
are, but all the work that has been done on this, over quite a
number of years, says that all these factors are interrelated,
and it's hard to disentangle them. Clearly, there is some relationship
between a recession and upward pressures on crime, but we've shown
in recent times that it doesn't follow that one follows the other.
Chair: Dr Huppert?
Q24 Dr Huppert: If
I can turn back to procurement and how that could be used to gain
money, I am sure we would all agree that we want to get costs
down and definitely support collaboration between forces. You
talked about mandatory collaboration; you would make sure that
people must do this. I am sure you are aware, as many of us are,
of examples where buying from the catalogue can be more expensive
than just going down to a local shop or making a local deal. How
far do you think mandation would help, and how much would it just
set up a straitjacket for forces?
Sir David Normington:
I'm personally not keen on mandation except as a last resort,
for the very reason you describe. Clearly, it is better for a
group of forces working with the Home Office and the National
Police Improvement Agency, while it continues, voluntarily to
decide that this is the best way of doing things, because there's
always the danger, if you mandate from the centre, that you mandate
the wrong thing. The police want these savings as much as we do
and, therefore, I think we may need to use mandation very little,
because I think we're all on the same page here, working together
to try to produce the best outcomes.
Chair: Lorraine Fullbrook?
Q25 Lorraine Fullbrook:
Thank you, Chairman. Sir David, I would like to ask if you have
received any indications in the Home Office from constabularies
who are making announcements about front-line services and the
cuts that they expect. Have there been any indications in the
Home Office that this is an easy route for constabularies to take,
rather than reviewing their budgets in total, and particularly
their back office staff, as was suggested in the Prime Minister's
question time last week? Is there an indication that they are
taking the easy way out?
Sir David Normington:
No. There is a danger of that but, of course, every Chief Constable
is saying to us that they are going to do their very best to make
sure that they redesign their support—the back office services—as
well as their front-line operation to maintain the service to
the public and to maintain the impact on crime. No one is saying
to us, "We're going to take the easy route." There is
always that danger because there are constraints on the police
about how quickly you can reduce the number of warranted officers
and so on. So that does mean that you have to look in particular
places to make reductions. But everyone, as I understand it, is
starting out with the positive aim of making these reductions
while trying to maintain or improve the service to the public,
and I take heart from that, but it is very difficult; it is not
straightforward. Some forces have been planning for it for quite
some time, some have not, and it's going to be quite tough for
them.
Q26 Lorraine Fullbrook:
I agree with you. I am not sure some of them are taking a positive
view on this.
Sir David Normington:
Well, some may not be, but they're not saying that to us.
Chair: Mark Reckless has a supplementary.
Q27 Mark Reckless:
Sir David, could you explain the rationale for the front-loading
of the reduction in Home Office police grant?
Sir David Normington:
That was the outcome of the discussions with the Treasury, and
that was the profile that we were given. That makes it tougher;
there is no doubt about it.
Q28 Mark Reckless:
Did you agree this profile? You said it was given.
Sir David Normington:
It was a negotiation between the Home Secretary and me and my
colleagues and the Treasury, and this was the outcome we came
to.
Q29 Mark Reckless:
But why, within that negotiation, did we come to an outcome that
had such significant front-loading, particularly in the context
where police authorities are being replaced by elected commissioners?
It is being left to the outgoing bodies—of which I should
declare I am a member—to make those cuts, rather than the
elected commissioner.
Sir David Normington:
We were all working within a wider set of objectives from the
Treasury to reduce the deficit, and some of that deficit has to
be reduced in the early years, not just in the late years. There
was a determination not to back-load all those cuts. Sometimes
it's better to get them over with. However, there are two specific
things I want to say. First, the chiefs have been expecting this,
and something on this scale, for quite some time, so they have
been planning on it. Secondly, we are freezing pay—police
pay—in the first two years, starting next September, when
the present pay deal runs out. That's worth £350 million,
and that does ease the position a bit in the first two years.
Chair: Aidan Burley?
Q30 Mr Burley: Sir
David, you will obviously be involved in drafting the legislation
around police and crime commissioners, which you referred to earlier.
There's a debate for me about the interface between the police
and crime commissioners, who will be elected in 18 months' time,
and the operational responsibility of the police. My question
to you is: in 18 months' time, if you have a police and crime
commissioner who has been elected on a mandate to put more police
on the streets—as, one suspects, a lot of them will be standing
on the platforms to do—and they say to their Chief Constable,
"Right, I want the officers out of these cars. I want them
on the beat. I don't want them patrolling in pairs. I want them
patrolling individually," is that an operational matter for
the police, or is it a democratic mandate that they can instruct
officers to be out of the cars?
Sir David Normington:
That is something that you would expect the elected commissioner
to have a serious view about, because they've been—
Q31 Chair: A serious
view? Can you answer Mr Burley's question? Would he override what
the Chief Constable says? That's what Mr Burley wants to know.
Mr Burley: Just for your
information, Sir Hugh Orde, yesterday in Cannock, was asked exactly
this same question by me, and said that that was an operational
matter for the police, and that would be the police and crime
commissioner interfering in an operational matter.
Sir David Normington:
Well, I don't agree with that.
Chair: Okay. David Winnick?
Q32 Mr Winnick: Can
I first of all ask you this, Sir David? Obviously, hopefully,
you do not decide on policy; elected politicians do that. We know
the role that you play, like your predecessors and successors.
But without giving any confidences away—you are not likely
to do that—you are responsible, presumably, for the negotiations
with the Treasury at civil service level. Would it be a leading
question to ask whether those negotiations were very complex?
Sir David Normington:
Well, they were very tough, because we were dealing particularly
with the police. That is why we've been having that discussion.
You would have expected us to go on talking about the impact on
the police and examining it all through the spending review period,
which is what we did.
Q33 Mr Winnick: Can
I ask you about counter-terrorism? Obviously, there is no one
who is likely to minimise the acute danger of another atrocity
or atrocities. We know that Britain is far from safe, yet counter-terrorism,
as far as the police are concerned, is going to be cut by 10%,
in real terms, by 2014-15. How on earth could that be considered
a wise decision?
Sir David Normington:
That, of course, is a smaller cut than the police are taking generally,
and it was deliberately so because of the concerns about counter-terrorism.
If you look at what has been happening to the special grants for
CT policing since 2006, they have been going up very sharply.
We thought—we agreed this with John Yates and ACPO—that
it was possible to make efficiency savings within that scale of
budget. He was comfortable that 2.5% a year, real terms, which
is about a cash flat amount, was perfectly manageable, and actually
would be an impetus to them just to make sure that they were getting
the maximum efficiency out of the extra resource that we've been
putting in over quite a few years.
Q34 Mr Winnick: Obviously,
this is much more for a politician like your boss to answer, but
what about what some people would say—and it probably will
be said in the House of Commons, in the Chamber—that such
a cut, and it is obviously a cut, could be at the expense of lives?
What would be your response?
Sir David Normington:
I'm absolutely confident that we are providing the money, and
that the 10% reduction does not seriously impact on our ability
to counter terrorism. I am confident that these reductions can
be made without making an impact on lives and so on. We wouldn't—I
wouldn't—have been party to a settlement that cut the CT
budget in a way that was dangerous.
Q35 Chair: How much
do you currently spend on consultants at the Home Office?
Sir David Normington:
Last year, up to last March, £160 million.
Chair: £160 million?
Sir David Normington: Yes.
Q36 Chair: Is it
to one set of consultants, or is it to a group of consultants?
Sir David Normington:
It's to a whole range of consultants. Remember, we have some of
the biggest programmes in Government, and those consultants have
mainly been helping us manage and run those big programmes.
Chair: It would be very
helpful to the Committee if you could send us a list of these
consultants and the amount of money paid and the work that they
have done. Lorraine Fullbrook, on consultants?
Q37 Lorraine Fullbrook:
Yes, thank you, Chairman. Just a quick supplementary. The £160
million—was most of that spent on the ID cards proposals?
Sir David Normington:
No is the answer. I mean, there is a whole range of programmes.
There's the e-Borders programme; there's the intercept modernisation
programme; there's a whole range of programmes, of which ID cards
is one.
Chair: Sir David, if you
could just write to us and give us the list, that would be helpful.
Mr Clappison?
Q38 Mr Clappison:
Could you also just give us some indication of how the list has
changed and the spending has changed over a period of time?
Sir David Normington:
Yes, I can. If I may just say one sentence, this year, we are
halving it.
Chair: Excellent, because
when we had the NPIA before us last year, they spent £70
million on consultants. So adding the £70 million to the
£160 million you have spent, that is about—thank you,
Mr Burley.
Mr Burley: £230 million.
Chair: You worked for the Home Office,
so you can add up. [Interruption.] As a consultant?
Mr Burley: As a consultant.
Q39 Chair: That is
a considerable amount of money, isn't it, when we are talking
about savings for front-line policing?
Sir David Normington:
It is, but most of those programmes were about improving the effectiveness
on the front line, either in the Border Agency or for policing.
It is really important to say that. You probably don't want to
go on about consultants but—
Chair: We do. Do you have
more to tell us?
Sir David Normington:
I want to say that sometimes we can't manage without consultants
because that is the only way we can get the technical expertise
we need to run some of our big programmes.
Chair: Okay. Dr Huppert?
Q40 Dr Huppert: Could
I just come back briefly to the counter-terrorist issues? I am
sure you will be aware that one hot topic recently has been control
orders. How effective do you think they have been, given that
several people on control orders have managed to abscond and get
away? Indeed, one came here to an event in the Palace of Westminster.
Do you think they are an effective tool at all?
Sir David Normington:
I think the last Government and this one are on the record as
saying that they are unsatisfactory, but they're the best thing
we have at the moment to control a small number of people who
are dangerous. However, this is being reviewed at the moment.
The Government are coming towards the end of a review, and they
will decide whether they should continue or not.
Q41 Dr Huppert: You
say it is to control a small number of people, and quite a lot
of that small number of people have managed to get away and hence
not be controlled. What is your opinion on that?
Sir David Normington:
That's why I think that they're not perfect. Some have gone abroad,
which is a mercy, in a way, because they are not here, and there
are eight people on control orders at the moment. They're not
perfect, because unless you lock people up for 24 hours, you will
always have the possibility that they will be able to abscond
and disappear. They're a very blunt instrument.
Chair: Bridget Phillipson?
Q42 Bridget Phillipson:
Thank you, Chairman. With the present Government committed to
cutting costs centrally and expecting local forces to take on
further responsibilities, do you expect to be making any savings
under your cut crime, especially drug and alcohol-related crime,
budget?
Sir David Normington:
There will be reductions in almost every part of the Home Office
budget, including the budgets that we spend specifically on grants
to reduce crime and to tackle drugs. We are still working through
precisely what they will be like. On drugs, we are working with
the Department of Health there because there is a Department of
Health budget that is more protected than ours that is about drug
treatment. Therefore, we are working with them on what the total
investment in drugs will be. The Government's approach, as you
know, is to try to reduce to a minimum the number of separate,
ring-fenced funding streams given out by the Home Office, and
to devolve those to police authorities or, eventually, to the
elected crime commissioners so that we don't give out lots of
money from the Home Office. That's the general trend. Over quite
a short period, I think we'll see most of those budgets disappearing
but being put into general grant.
Q43 Bridget Phillipson:
Again on the issue of research, are you looking to do any research
into whether we can expect to see drug or alcohol-related crime
rising? Again, this is a complex relationship, but it is at times
related to socio-economic factors and, again, we are facing a
continuing, and perhaps worsening, economic situation.
Sir David Normington:
Sorry, I know you want me to say that we are expecting crime to
rise. We are doing everything we can to make sure that it doesn't.
Q44 Bridget Phillipson:
I don't expect you to say crime is going to rise. What I expect
is that the Home Office, when looking at making cuts to front-line
policing, might consider what impact that might have on crime.
I find it incredible that we are facing this level of cuts to
front-line policing without any real assessment having been made
of its effect.
Sir David Normington:
But all the evidence is that it's how you deploy your money and
your people, rather than what the absolute numbers are. It's the
deployment that is the issue, and we have quite a lot of evidence,
through things like our QUEST programme, of how you deploy to
get the maximum efficiency. Of course there are some risks here.
It would be extraordinary—I'm not going to deny there are
some risks. Of course there are some risks, but we and the Chief
Constables are trying to make sure that we can make these reductions
without having an impact on crime.
Chair: Steve McCabe is requesting some
information from you. Mr McCabe?
Q45 Steve McCabe: I
just wondered if you could send us the evidence that you are referring
to.
Sir David Normington:
I can certainly refer you to the research studies that there have
been, yes. I can make those available. Most of those are external.
Q46 Steve McCabe:
We want the evidence that you've based your judgements on.
Sir David Normington:
No, I can't do that, I'm afraid.
Q47 Steve McCabe:
Why not?
Sir David Normington:
That is, in a sense, giving you the advice to Ministers.
Q48 Steve McCabe: You
said you had evidence. What is it?
Chair: I don't think Mr McCabe wants
you to disclose any private conversations you have with Ministers,
but I think what he is keen to know, in view of what you have
just said to Ms Phillipson—that you have based your judgment
on certain evidence—what that evidence is, not what your
advice is.
Sir David Normington:
I can give you the publicly available evidence about the relationship
between numbers and crime.
Q49 Chair: And that
is what you based your advice on?
Sir David Normington:
Yes.
Chair: Right. Mr Winnick has a question.
Q50 Mr Winnick: Sir
David, I am a bit puzzled, because you were doing your job when
the previous Government were in office, and that Government substantially
increased the number of police officers as well as community officers.
Surely they did not do it for the fun of it. There must have been
a reason, and the reason, presumably—the only possible reason—was
to reduce criminality, which was reduced in the last few years.
What would you say to that?
Sir David Normington:
There was a great increase in the numbers and there was a reduction
in crime. All I am saying is—
Q51 Mr Winnick: No
relationship between the two?
Sir David Normington:
I am saying that there is a relationship, but it's not a linear
relationship between the two. It's more complicated than that.
It's what is happening in the economy. It's how you make your
deployments. Therefore, it doesn't follow that if you reverse
this you will increase crime. Indeed, there are plenty of international
comparisons that show that you can reduce numbers and crime can
go down as well.
Mr Winnick: Sir David,
you are doing your best.
Chair: I hope you are
not inviting the Committee to go abroad to find out this information.
We will go instead to Kent and Mr Reckless.
Q52 Mark Reckless:
Recently, we had Lin Homer from the Border Agency tell us she
was going to make 5,000 further staff reductions after, I think,
1,700 this year. Are you confident that those reductions can be
made without any further deterioration in the quality of service
from UKBA?
Sir David Normington:
I just want to preface my remarks by saying that these cuts are
extremely difficult, and no one should pretend otherwise, and
there will be areas where we're under pressure as a result of
them. Our job is to minimise that impact. We've been through with
Lin Homer, as she said, in detail, where we think those cuts can
be made and we believe it is possible to make them and maintain—and
maybe in some areas, improve—the service. I think she talked
through what those were but, briefly, they are: reducing the head
office very sharply; ending the work, which has been very expensive,
on the backlog—the legacy cases; greatly improving our case-working
systems through automation, which allows online applications;
and also just better administration within the UK Border Agency;
and automation at the border. These aren't just hopes or wishes.
They are things that are happening.
Q53 Mark Reckless:
Why haven't they been done before?
Sir David Normington:
They were tried in the past, in 2001, and they didn't work, some
of them. What we have been engaged in, as she explained, was that
in the last five years we have been rebuilding this agency and
steadily trying to put back in place the processes and systems
that weren't there. That gives me confidence that we can now move
forward from here.
Q54 Mark Reckless:
In terms of your core Home Office staffing, could you give the
Committee some indication perhaps of the areas that you are particularly
focusing on for the headcount reduction?
Sir David Normington:
Since the Home Office, at core, is mainly about policy regulation
and support services, all those areas will be taking at least
a third cut in its costs, which will translate into probably about
a quarter reduction in staff—maybe slightly less in some
areas, but there will be differences from place to place. So we
will be trying to develop, for instance, shared services with
other Departments, so that we can offer to the Home Office IT
services and estate services that are provided from a shared service,
not from a devolved service, as would have been the case in the
past.
Q55 Mark Reckless:
You have quite a substantial statistics and analysis section.
Is that something that may be reduced or outsourced?
Sir David Normington:
There's going to be a review of the statistical function, but
overall, all the functions will be taking around the same level
of reductions, all the support functions. So I would expect to
see about a one-third cut in costs in those functions.
Q56 Chair: What you
have just told the Committee is that the proposals to deal with
the budget of the UKBA were tried nine years ago and failed.
Sir David Normington:
No, I was specifically asked why this hadn't been done before.
There was a big attempt to automate the case-working systems in
around 2000 and 2001, which was a failure, and a lot of the problems
with the UK Border Agency's handling of cases stem from that failure.
Q57 Chair: To press
you on Mr Reckless' point, why has it taken you nine years to
do this, since the failure?
Sir David Normington:
There coincided with that failure a huge increase in the number
of people coming into this country through asylum and immigration.
The systems didn't cope. My predecessors threw resource at it
to control it, and once we had taken back control of asylum numbers,
which we have, we then decided we would try again to invest in
the IT.
Chair: Thank you, that's very clear.
James Clappison?
Q58 Mr Clappison:
Which brings me on to the point I want to make. I think it was
about four years ago and three Home Secretaries ago that the then
Home Secretary sat where you are sitting now and declared that
the system was not fit for purpose. I think that was after a period
in which there had been substantial increases in public spending.
So there wasn't, therefore, a linear relationship between increased
public spending and increased efficiency, at least as far as that
part of your work was concerned. Are you satisfied now that you
have learned your lessons from that episode—the Department
has learned its lessons; that it has got on top of the problems;
that it knows what is going on; and that there aren't any backlogs
or other hidden secrets that are creeping up on us and will be
revealed at some point in the future?
Sir David Normington:
Yes, I am confident that we are on top of it. Four and a half
years ago was when he made those comments, and I remember them
because I was sat next to him.
Chair: I couldn't remember
whether you were there or not.
Sir David Normington:
Fortunately, I'd just arrived; otherwise I probably wouldn't be
here telling you this story now. So it's four and a half years
ago, and it was specifically in relation to both the problems
in the UK Border Agency as it was—it was called something
else at that time—and also our problems in producing our
accounts and so on. Those things are put right. We are nearly
at the end of clearing the John Reid backlog of 450,000 cases,
which he declared. We said we would clear it by next year, and
we will.
Q59 Chair: Of course,
Ms Homer has said that she will not take her bonus next year,
unless the backlog is cleared. That, presumably, goes for other
senior figures in the Home Office.
Sir David Normington:
Yes. I'm not sure whether there will be bonuses in the future,
but I have noted what she said.
Chair: Dr Huppert?
Q60 Dr Huppert: Certainly
judging by my case load, UKBA could save a lot of money by getting
things right the first time rather than the fifth, so I hope that
will be looked at. But can I look at the trajectory for the whole
Home Office? It was always one of the great Offices of State,
and then part of it was hived off into the Ministry of Justice.
If I look at the outline of the spending at the moment, most of
it goes to police, which is essentially money that is passed over,
and as for a lot of what is left, the next biggest section is
immigration and, of course, that goes out to an agency, UKBA,
so it is not really core to the Home Office.
Sir David Normington:
It is really core to the Home Office. It is an absolutely core
subject for us.
Q61 Dr Huppert: But
it is interesting that when we interact with it, we are passed
out to UKBA, rather than getting responses from the Home Secretary,
so it is clearly somewhat outside. What is left, and what is the
future trajectory of the Home Office? Is it just going to have
the role of dealing with agencies and telling Members of Parliament
and others that they need to talk to the agencies?
Sir David Normington:
No. There are three big strands in the Home Office. One is crime
and policing, one is the lead across Government on counter-terrorism,
and the third one is immigration and asylum. I hope what we pass
out to the agency is case work. That's why you have an agency—because
it's supposed to be dealing with cases. But actually, responsibility
rests with the Home Secretary and the Home Office for making sure
that the policy, the organisational framework, the resourcing,
and the regulatory and legislative framework is done by the Home
Office. We'll have to see. Somebody else will decide what the
future trajectory is, whether we go up or whether we go down.
Q62 Dr Huppert: So
we should be expecting the policies all to be made by the Home
Office and not by ACPO, not by UKBA, not by any of these bodies?
Sir David Normington:
The UKBA does have a policy function, but that policy function
works as part of the Home Office with the Home Secretary and the
Immigration Minister in developing the policies.
Chair: Aidan Burley?
Q63 Mr Burley: Home
Secretary, you employ Lin Homer?
Sir David Normington:
I do. She reports to me.
Q64 Mr Burley: You
pay her £208,000 a year.
Sir David Normington:
Yes.
Q65 Mr Burley: Which
is £66,000 more than the Prime Minister earns, whether or
not she gets her bonus on top. Do you think she is overpaid?
Sir David Normington:
Perhaps I can answer it like this. She was recruited in 2005 on
that salary and, at that time, that was what we had to pay to
get her. We wouldn't have got her if we had not paid that amount
of money. It was very difficult in 2005 to recruit a chief executive
of the UK Border Agency, or IND as it was, because it is a very
tough job and I'm afraid people don't queue up to do it. She came
from a local authority, as you know. She came from Birmingham—
Chair: It is Mr McCabe's
local authority; that is why he is sniggering.
Sir David Normington—where
she was, no doubt, paid a large amount of money.
Chair: Mr Burley?
Q66 Mr Burley: If
people watch the recording of this Committee on a Friday night
in my constituency, where the average salary in £21,275 a
year, can you explain to them why she needs to be paid £66,000
more than the Prime Minister earns, or is it time that she now
took a third cut in her salary along with the rest of the Departments,
who you've just explained are taking their third in cuts? How
can it be justified, in this new world of massive public spending
reductions and having to live within our means, that she is still
paid over £200,000 a year?
Chair: Could you just
clarify whether she is paid more than you, Sir David?
Sir David Normington:
Yes.
Chair: She is. Go on.
Sir David Normington:
Because, as you well know, Mr Burley, the market works like that,
and sometimes you have to recruit people at that level.
Q67 Mr Burley: Are
you telling me that there is no one else in this entire country,
or indeed the world, that would do this job for less than £208,000
per year? I would. I will make that offer now.
Sir David Normington:
Yes, but—
Chair: Sir David, just
to clarify this point, because this is a serious point that Mr
Burley is making, is this a fixed-term contract, or is it an ongoing
contract?
Sir David Normington:
She's a permanent employee of the Home Office and, therefore,
that is the contract. It gives her permanent employment until
either she decides to go or we decide to ask her to go. At that
point we would be able to decide whether we can recruit someone
at a smaller amount, and I'm quite sure we will try.
Q68 Mr Burley: In
the question from Ms Phillipson, you have just said you have reduced
the grant that you are giving to police forces up and down the
country, who have to use that money to pay their salary costs
and so on. Why don't you now reduce her salary by a third, in
line with all the other public sector reductions you are making,
to send a signal that we are now going beyond the days of public
sector excess?
Sir David Normington:
Because I think she is worth that amount of money. She's done
a great job.
Chair: Thank you, Sir David. Alun Michael?
Q69 Alun Michael:
I wonder if you can relate this to purpose, as well, because there
is a tendency to talk about cuts and efficiencies in isolation.
We have had pressure for efficiency savings over a number of years,
so would it be right to think that there is not a lot more to
be squeezed out, and how do you think you are going to achieve
the 33% decrease in administration costs?
Sir David Normington:
Well, there have been major efforts to improve efficiency over
a number of years, but a lot of that money has been reinvested
and the challenge for us and for the police is to take that money
out. That will be tough, but it will mean doing less, as well
as doing things more efficiently.
Q70 Alun Michael:
So how are you going to do it? We are talking about the administration.
Sir David Normington:
Yes, I understand that. I'll give you one example and this is
a cross-Government one. Across Government, there are 2,000 people
employed, across the whole of the civil service, providing learning
and development to the civil service. The aim is to bring them
all together into one service providing a service for the whole
of the civil service and to reduce the numbers from 2,000 eventually
to 200. That is a very big saving to the civil service that will
be shared out. We will be looking for those kinds of efficiency
gains. They won't all be as dramatic as that.
Q71 Alun Michael:
That's a very dramatic figure. Are you saying that there will
be no loss in what you described in your answer to the earlier
questions as being very important: continuous learning and development
of skills at every level?
Sir David Normington:
Well, I think that it will mean that we will probably do less
learning and development as well.
Q72 Alun Michael: Is
that not going to lead to inefficiencies?
Sir David Normington:
Well, I hope not. We're going to have less money, and we're going
to have fewer people, and therefore we'll need fewer support services
and we're going to do them more efficiently. That's the most dramatic
example. Some of the others will be smaller than that.
Q73 Alun Michael:
I accept the importance of bringing things together rather than
operating in silos. It's always been a passion of mine. But if
you're going to get organisations to work together, that needs
incentives for them to do it effectively and it needs good organisation.
What you've described as a drop from 2,000 to 200 sounds very
extreme. Why wasn't it done before if there are such gains to
be made?
Sir David Normington:
Because in the past, and for a long time, we've been operating
on the basis of a much more decentralised and devolved service,
and we are now beginning to draw those things back into centralised
services.
Q74 Alun Michael:
But isn't a key principle of this Government to be devolving responsibilities
closer to the point of activity?
Sir David Normington:
Yes, but I'm talking about administration here in the civil service,
and I don't think it is the Government's aim within the civil
service to devolve to Government Departments. I think the aim
is to bring it all together and there is quite a tight grip being
put on us by the Cabinet Office at the moment.
Chair: Thank you. Mark Reckless?
Q75 Mark Reckless:
In Policing in the 21st Century, the Home Office
complained that police forces were almost drowning in trolley-loads
of guidance. Doesn't the Home Office have to take some responsibility
for that—for having essentially abdicated its role for setting
national policing policy to ACPO? We saw a great rise in ACPO
guidance as the number of Home Office circulars declined. Isn't
it time that the Home Office and elected Ministers took back that
role of setting national policing policy?
Sir David Normington:
Well, it's an interesting question, really, because—
Chair: It's very important
in respect of the new landscape.
Sir David Normington:
Yes, it is.
Chair: That's why Mr Reckless
asks this.
Sir David Normington:
I don't think it is really appropriate for the Home Office to
be setting professional standards for the police and operations.
Q76 Chair: Sorry,
Mr Reckless is not talking about the standards only; he's talking
about policy.
Sir David Normington:
Professional standards and operational standards. Policy, if you
like. But they're very much about how the police operate. I still
think it is right that the police should be developing that policy
for themselves when it is about the operations of the police.
Q77 Chair: Yes, but
that is not what Mr Reckless has asked you, Sir David. He asks
what the purpose is of the Home Office in view of the fact that
there are other organisations, like ACPO, that seem to make policy.
What Mr Reckless says is: shouldn't this be done by Ministers
through the Home Office?
Sir David Normington:
Well, I'm saying no, it shouldn't. It should be done by the professional
leaders of the service. It depends what you mean by "policy".
A lot of the guidance—the 2,000 pages of guidance that was
produced by ACPO—is about how the police operate in their
day-to-day operations, and I think that has to be professionally
led. I agree with you that it's completely unacceptable that this
has produced all this guidance, but I don't think the answer is
to transfer that function to the Home Office.
Q78 Mark Reckless:
Sir David, we had a tripartite system where we had the Chief Constable,
the police authority and the Home Office, but gradually over the
last 10 or 15 years—without, as far as I can see, any sanction
from Parliament—ACPO has inserted itself into a dominating
role in that system, and it's not democratically accountable.
You have said earlier to Mr Burley that getting more police on
the streets, patrolling singly rather than in pairs, visibility—that
was a proper field for the elected commissioner. Where things
are national rather than local, shouldn't those types of issues
be dealt with by the Home Office, accountable through Ministers
to Parliament, rather than by ACPO, a private limited company?
Sir David Normington:
Yes, there are some things that the Home Office and the Home Secretary
have to take responsibility for, but I still maintain that where
we're talking about the way in which the police operate, those
standards have to be set—to be led, anyway—by the
police. The Home Office can't do that, I don't think.
Chair: Thank you. Steve McCabe?
Q79 Steve McCabe:
Sir David, you said to one of my colleagues earlier that the police
were expecting cuts on this scale. That was directly contradicted
by at least three Chief Constables in Cannock yesterday, who indicated
they weren't expecting this level of cuts or this time scale.
Who is right, you or them?
Sir David Normington:
Well, if that's what they've said, then I stand to be corrected.
Clearly there were differences between the last Government and
this on what level of cuts they were expecting and so on, but—
Q80 Steve McCabe:
But the point was they talked about this size of cuts in
this time scale. You implied that they've had plenty of time to
prepare for this and they were expecting it.
Sir David Normington:
No, I believe they've been preparing for very serious reductions.
I accept that they were not expecting the scale of reductions
in years one and two.
Q81 Steve McCabe:
Tell me: your Department is taking one of the biggest cuts in
the CSR. Is that because there's a lot of excess fat, and do you
feel some personal guilt for being a very profligate Permanent
Secretary?
Sir David Normington:
No, I don't. This is really a matter you have to take up with
Ministers and with the Government.
Q82 Steve McCabe:
But you presided over it, didn't you?
Sir David Normington:
No. The decisions of what services to protect and what level of
cuts to impose on each Department was not a decision taken by
me.
Q83 Steve McCabe:
No, but I'm trying to understand why the Home Office is taking
such a big hit. Presumably, that's because there's a lot you can
afford to cut out?
Sir David Normington:
No, in our administration budgets we're taking almost exactly
the same as anyone else. It was a given that every Department
should take 33% cuts in administration.
Q84 Chair:
Except Education and Health.
Sir David Normington:
No, I think I'm right that they've all taken the same cut in their
administration budgets.
Chair: In administration,
I understand.
Sir David Normington:
I think I'm right in that, am I?
Helen Kilpatrick:
Yes, but they can reinvest it.
Sir David Normington:
But they can reinvest, yes. They can keep the money and we have
to give it up.
Q85 Chair:
Sorry, they can make the cuts, but keep the money?
Sir David Normington:
They have to find those savings, but they are able to reinvest
them.
Chair: Mr McCabe, final question, please?
Q86 Steve McCabe:
Just tell me one last thing. How much money are you spending in
order to wind up ID cards?
Sir David Normington:
I think it will cost us, net this year, just £5 million,
that is, when we have—
Steve McCabe: Just £5 million.
Sir David Normington:
Just £5 million. When we have ended the contracts and
made the savings this year, this year's costs will be plus £5 million.
Over the four years of the spending review, it will be a saving
of £86 million.
Chair: Okay, Mr Michael
has one supplementary and Dr Huppert has one.
Q87 Alun Michael:
It's really on the issue of finances, particularly in relation
to the police funding figures. We had a very useful note, which
is based on Home Office figures, that showed the distribution
over a number of years of central Government finance and police
precept and the balance between those; so that was both in real
terms and showing the percentage terms. I was concerned about
one footnote that says, "Equivalent figures for capital funding
are not available". It seems to me quite an important comparator.
Particularly, it's a matter of interest in my police force area,
where a different approach to capital funding is taken by the
Welsh Assembly Government. Could you provide us with that information?
Sir David Normington:
Yes.
Chair: Would you do that?
Would you write to us with that information?
Sir David Normington:
We can certainly provide you with what we have on capital, yes.
It's a different system.
Chair: Excellent. Dr Huppert?
Q88 Dr Huppert:
Thank you, Chairman. Mr McCabe asked about identity cards. He
comes from one perspective; I come from another. Can you remind
us how much has been spent so far creating the identity card system?
Sir David Normington:
As long as I'm not completely held to this, I think it's about
£250 million.
Q89 Dr Huppert:
So a lot more than the £5 million?
Sir David Normington:
Yes, I was answering the question about the closure costs this
year.
Dr Huppert: Yes, indeed.
Chair: Yes, Ms Phillipson, if it's a
brief, quick—
Q90 Bridget Phillipson:
Are you able to share with the Committee whether, at any point,
you discussed with Ministers reimbursing ID cardholders for the
costs they had incurred when buying the cards?
Sir David Normington:
Well, that clearly was a discussion and the outcome of it was
in the legislation; the Government decided not to reimburse. But
that has been defeated in the House of Lords, as I understand
it.
Q91 Chair: Sir David,
I have a question about e-Borders. We produced a report last year
indicating our concern about the way in which the e-Borders system
was being operated. You terminated the contract in July for Raytheon.
Sir David Normington:
Yes.
Chair: Why is Raytheon
still delivering the service, if you've terminated its contract?
Sir David Normington:
Because it's very important that the investment we made is used
and that we're using the assets that we've invested in, and Raytheon
continues to provide that service until we move it on to someone
else. You can't just cut off a contract, because Raytheon has
been providing those services.
Q92 Chair: Well,
absolutely. That's the concern, I think, of this Committee. You
terminated the contract because Raytheon defaulted, in your view.
You have not found somebody else to deliver this service, and
it is six months since you terminated. Isn't that a cause for
concern? Why is it taking so long to find a successor organisation?
Sir David Normington:
I don't think it is, because I think it is an opportunity to revisit
the shape and scale of the project to make sure that when we re-let
it, we re-let it on the right basis. So we are going to go ahead
with e-Borders, but I think it's important that we don't rush
into a new contract. It's a very complex and very large contract.
We must not just switch it to someone else. There will have to
be a full tender exercise.
Q93 Chair: No, we
understand it is complex. That's why we were concerned, when this
Committee published our report on e-Borders, the Home Office didn't
seem to take much notice of what we were saying. We warned that
this would happen. But the point I'm making is: if you're so dissatisfied
with this firm, why is the firm still delivering the service?
Sir David Normington:
Because otherwise, the service that we already have will stop.
Q94 Chair: But is
there a timetable to this, because you don't seem to have found
another supplier?
Sir David Normington:
Well, I'm not an expert on precisely what the timing is in terms
of the transfer from Raytheon to another, but for the moment—until
we re-let this contract, which will take some time—Raytheon
is providing the service.
Q95 Chair: Well,
I think this might well end up before the Public Accounts Committee,
so I will write to you about these particular questions.
Sir David Normington:
It may do.
Q96 Chair: I think
we would like to see either a timetable or some kind of information,
because we were very firm on this in the report.
Sir David Normington:
I promise you, we did take this seriously. This has been a very
complex contract.
Q97 Chair: Well,
you didn't act on the report that the Select Committee produced.
Sir David Normington:
We did do some things with Raytheon as a result, but it's really
important that I don't say too much about this. We're in litigation
with Raytheon.
Chair: Right, we will
write to you then, without prejudice. Nicola Blackwood?
Q98 Nicola Blackwood:
Sir David, the Committee hears a terrible rumour that you're planning
to retire soon. Could you give us an indication of what challenges
you think your successor might face? I don't know if you were
going to write a Liam Byrneesque note to him or her. What
might it be?
Sir David Normington:
I don't think I will write a Liam Byrne note. Clearly, we've been
talking about the biggest challenge all through this hearing.
The biggest challenge is how to make a 23% cut in the Home Office's
budget and maintain the impact of what we do and the service to
the public, and that will be very tough. I would think that my
successor will be focused on that most of the time. There are
certain to be places where this produces serious pressures and
having the systems in place to know where it's happening before
it becomes a serious problem will be the task. We were talking
about backlogs emerging; we're all over this issue of backlogs
and where they occur. And clearly, when you have less resource,
you need to be even more all over that issue; otherwise, we'll
get back into the same problems we had with the UK Border Agency
and its predecessor when I started.
Q99 Chair: You haven't
confirmed Ms Blackwood's rumour. Is it true? Are you retiring?
Sir David Normington:
Well, I announced this in September.
Chair: So it's not a rumour
then?
Sir David Normington:
It's not a rumour.
Q100 Chair: And when
will you be leaving the Home Office?
Sir David Normington:
Well, formally, on 31 December, but at Christmas, really.
Q101 Chair: So this
is your last appearance before us?
Sir David Normington:
It is.
Chair: Sir David, thank
you very much for coming to give evidence. We have given you a
lot of homework.
Sir David Normington:
You have given me quite a lot, yes.
Chair: And we will send
you a list of all the questions we feel that it would be helpful
to this Committee if you could answer.
Sir David Normington:
Okay.
Chair: Thank you very
much.
Sir David Normington:
Thank you.
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