Government Response
Introduction
On behalf of myself and the Home Secretary I am writing
to thank all the members of the Home Affairs Committee for their
work in considering a wide range of views and producing the Committee's
report Policing: Police and Crime Commissioners.
I am aware of the significant efforts that the Committee
took to analyse both the current system of policing governance
and the proposals for reform set out in the consultation paper
Policing in the 21st Century. I had the pleasure
of attending the Committee's evidence session held in Cannock
Chase, at which I observed firsthand the considered way in which
Committee members approached the issues which are both complex
and in serious need of change.
The Home Affairs Committee heard overwhelming evidence
that reform is needed, however I do recognise that opinion differs
among colleagues on the way forward. Indeed, the Home Office received
an enormous number of views and suggestions in response to the
consultation paper, from a wide range of individuals and organisations.
We are confident that the introduction of Police and Crime Commissioners
is critical in giving the public a much needed say over the policing
of their own communities, and to make forces properly accountable
to the communities they serve. We also see Police and Crime Commissioners
as essential to securing resources that are properly targeted
to where they are really needed. We are careful, therefore, to
listen to constructive views in putting these important reforms
together.
Crucially, we are clear that while the reforms contained
in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill will make
policing more responsive to the views of the public, the cornerstone
that is the operational independence of the police will be protected.
I am therefore able to welcome the views of the Home Affairs Committee
with interest, and what follows is this and I enclose my department's
official response to the eleven recommendations made by the Committee
in their report.
As you are aware, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility
Bill was introduced to the House of Commons on the same day as
the Home Affairs Committee report was published, and Committee
stage has begun, during which these proposals will be debated
further.
I hope that Home Affairs Committee members will continue
to respond to the proposals in the Bill with similar constructive
and useful recommendations, and I look forward to hearing your
views and suggestions during the parliamentary process.
Recommendations
1. We recommend that Police and Crime Commissioners
(Police and Crime Commissioners) are directed to take the workload
and the diversity of the community they are representing into
account when making support team arrangements. (Paragraph 14)
We agree that it is important Police and Crime Commissioners
take the size and diversity of their communities into account;
it will be down to them to demonstrate to the public that they
can properly represent all their views. It would be very difficult
to impose such a requirement in any meaningful way from the centre,
and as such it must be left to Police and Crime Commissioners
and the electorate.
2. We recommend that consideration be given to
the importance of retaining experienced members of staff in the
team supporting the Police and Crime Commissioners following the
election of a new person to the post. (Paragraph 17)
We agree that the Police and Crime Commissioner should
be able to benefit from the skills and experience currently in
police authority secretariats. The Government is committed to
ensuring that TUPE principles are applied to police authority
staff following elections of Police and Crime Commissioners, and
those staff engaged in police authority functions should transfer
to the employment of the Police and Crime Commissioner, subject
to the transfer schemes developed by each police authority and
approved by the Home Secretary. However, it will be for the Police
and Crime Commissioner to decide the size and shape of their team
going forward.
3. We endorse the desire to reduce unnecessary
bureaucracy in the police service, but we emphasise that local
record keeping that enables people to see what is happening in
their neighbourhoods, and ideally on their streets, will be crucial
if local priority setting is to be successful. This information
must be made available to the public on the internet. (Paragraph
19)
We agree it is of vital importance that the public
have access to the information they need to hold their Police
and Crime Commissioner properly to account. The Police Reform
and Social Responsibility Bill ensures that the Secretary of State
can continue to collect and publish, or have published, information
relating to the policing of an area directly from a Chief Constable.
This may include statistical or other information relating to
policing, crime and disorder and will support the ongoing delivery
of street level crime data so that the public have access to street
level crime data and maps from January 2011. Police forces will
provide information on a variety of crime types at a much more
local level than is currently available including burglary, robbery,
vehicle crime, violence and ASB. They will also provide key local
policing information such as details of neighbourhood policing
teams and community engagement events. We will build on this over
time—not only providing the public with more meaningful
and comparable information on crime and policing in their area—but
also empowering them to better understand, and contribute to,
the work of criminal justice agencies and other local services.
4. We recommend that there should be no restrictions
on who can stand for the post of Police and Crime Commissioner
beyond the criteria that normally apply to standing for public
office. However, we consider that there should be a cooling off
period of four years—one term for a Police and Crime Commissioner—if
a former senior officer of the rank of Assistant Chief Constable
or above decides to stand as a Police and Crime Commissioner in
the same area in which he or she has served. This is because otherwise
a former senior officer could be in the position of scrutinising
the effects of decisions he or she had made while still in office.
(Paragraph 26)
The public must decide who their Police and Crime
Commissioner should be, and we should not seek to take people
out of the democratic process without good reason. However the
post of Police and Crime Commissioner is one that holds singular
responsibility for the delivery of policing and crime reduction
within a force area. We are interested in essential safeguards
that will ensure that the Police and Crime Commissioner's conduct
and character are not compromised and that neither public safety,
nor the Police and Crime Commissioner's statutory obligations
are put at risk. With this in mind further consideration will
be given to this issue as part of the debate at committee stage
in both houses.
As set out in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility
Bill, the Police and Crime Commissioner will be responsible to
the public for the governance of policing in their force area,
and therefore it is essential the public can have confidence in
the character and conduct of their elected Police and Crime Commissioner.
Furthermore, we acknowledge the professional experience that ex-police
officers could bring to the post of Police and Crime Commissioner.
However there still needs to be an open and healthy debate about
how we can best harness the experience, dedication and motivation
of such officers.
5. We recommend that Police and Crime Commissioners
be responsible for the budget, staff, estate and other assets
in their force area, and that they have the same power to appoint
and dismiss senior officers that is currently held by Police Authorities.
(Paragraph 38)
We agree it is important for Police and Crime Commissioners
to be responsible for the budget, estate and other assets within
their force area, so that there is a direct path of accountability
to the public for how their money is spent. However we feel it
is important for Chief Constables to have control of their own
staff, and as such the Chief Constable will be employer of police
staff, and will be responsible for the senior officer appointments
within their force. Police and Crime Commissioners will appoint,
and where necessary dismiss, the Chief Constable—and we
are clear that the Police and Crime Commissioner's relationship
must be with the Chief Officer, rather than all senior officers
or all police staff, to ensure clear lines of accountability.
6. We recommend that the concept of operational
independence should continue to apply in respect of the important
work of the police in detection and law enforcement, including
arrest, but that the concept of operational responsibility be
developed and clarified in a memorandum of understanding between
the Home Secretary, Chief Constables, and Police and Crime Commissioners.
It is important that arrangements are made for parliamentary scrutiny
of the terms of any such memorandum and subsequently its impact
on police work. The police and not politicians must, as now, be
solely responsible for individual decisions with respect to arrest
and investigation. (Paragraph 45)
We agree that the Police and Crime Commissioner and
Chief Constable roles must be clearly defined—but we are
clear that our legislation achieves this, starting with the core
responsibility that the Police and Crime Commissioner must secure
the maintenance of an effective and efficient force in their area
and that the force is under the direction and control of the Chief
Constable. Like ACPO, we do not believe that a statutory definition
of operational independence is needed, or that it would help in
practice. We agree with ACPO's submission to our recent consultation
that the roles and responsibilities set out in the Police Act
1996 should be retained. We are working with our partners to develop
a Memorandum of Understanding which will support the working relationships
between Police and Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables.
7. Bearing in mind the findings of our sister
committee, the Justice Committee, that most of the services that
affect reoffending are outside the ambit of the police and outside
the scope of the criminal justice system generally, we consider
that it will be important for each Police and Crime Commissioner
to understand, support and indeed, drive the crime reduction work
of local partnerships and to ensure that they have the appropriate
analytic capacity and are held to account for their effectiveness
in reducing crime in their area. (Paragraph 49)
We agree that the Police and Crime Commissioner must
have constructive relationships with wider Community Safety partners
in order to cut crime. The Police Reform and Social Responsibility
Bill provides for Police and Crime Commissioners to bring together
representatives of every Community Safety Partnership in their
area to discuss issues, and also requires Police and Crime Commissioners
and other criminal justice and community safety agencies to co-operate.
Police and Crime Commissioners will be empowered to make Community
Safety grants to aid in cutting crime and reducing antisocial
behaviour.
As stated in Policing in the 21st Century
the Government continues to see a potential future role for Police
and Crime Commissioners in respect to the wider criminal justice
system in order to deliver an efficient, effective service for
victims, witnesses and the wider community. There is much to be
done to improve what is a complex structure and we consider that
Police and Crime Commissioners will play a valuable role in these
developments.
8. Our witnesses agreed that there are some aspects
of policing in relation to which the Home Secretary would need
to retain powers of intervention. Mr Hogan-Howe, the former Chief
Constable of Merseyside, outlines three distinct areas. Firstly
he said that the Home Secretary should have the power to intervene
if there were 'failing or dishonest leadership'. Secondly he said
that there was a need for an overview in relation to 'counter-terrorism
and serious organised crime'. Thirdly, he referred to the need
for a view from the centre on procurement and capital investment
in order to achieve value for money. We agree that the Home Secretary
should have the power to intervene in those circumstances. (Paragraph
51)
While there may be some issues that the Home Secretary
will want to retain powers of intervention on, that will really
be only as a matter of 'last resort'. It is for Police and Crime
Commissioners, to take responsibility for holding forces to account,
and the Police and Crime Commissioner is also accountable to the
public. We are confident that the Police Reform and Social Responsibility
Bill includes sufficiently robust provisions covering all the
eventualities raised by the Committee. In the event of 'failing
or dishonest leadership', it is more appropriate that in the first
instance the Police and Crime Panel (PCP) and then the Independent
Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), an independent professional
body, should undertake the relevant enquiries and investigations,
and under some circumstances the PCP will have the authority to
suspend a Police and Crime Commissioner.
In respect of providing an 'overview in relation
to counter-terrorism', the new Strategic Policing Requirement
will focus on national level threats, providing clear decision-making
guidance to Police and Crime Commissioners to ensure that the
right capabilities are in the right places to protect the public
from serious harm. Finally, we agree with the Committee that a
view from the centre is needed in respect of procurement, and
the Bill includes provisions covering priority areas at a national
level for securing value for money.
9. The Police and Crime Commissioner should spearhead
long overdue collaborative procurement reforms. We expect that
Police and Crime Commissioners will want to join together to form
a representative body. Such a body should be used by Commissioners
to facilitate collaboration between forces. (Paragraph 54)
The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
introduces provisions to enable a more strategic co-ordination
on priority areas at the national level. The Government said in
Policing in the 21st Century that its approach
to police value for money will involve ending the practice of
procuring things in 43 different ways when it makes no sense to
do so either operationally or financially. The Government has
consulted separately on proposed regulations to drive the aggregations
of police procurement of certain equipment and services and is
considering the responses to that consultation. Collaboration
has to be first and foremost the responsibility of Police and
Crime Commissioners and their Chief Constables and we will place
upon Police and Crime Commissioners a stronger duty to collaborate
than police authorities are currently under. We are also responding
to the call from the service to move from two kinds of agreement
to one, encouraging greater consistency in collaboration partnerships
and removing practical obstacles, for example making accountability
arrangements more workable and allowing other organisations to
be a party to collaboration agreements. It will be down to Police
and Crime Commissioners to decide what representative body they
should have, if any.
10. We see merit in the suggestion that there
be a set of national priorities to which Police and Crime Commissioners
should have regard when setting local goals. (Paragraph 56)
We agree that there will be a need to co-ordinate
national response to certain issues. The Police Reform and Social
Responsibility Bill will enable the Home Secretary to set out
a 'Strategic Policing Requirement' setting out the expected response
of the police service to national threats. It is not for the central
government to tell locally elected Police and Crime Commissioners
how to respond to local issues.
11. We see merit in using Police and Crime Panels
as a means of providing advice to Police and Crime Commissioners
before final decisions are made, as opposed to setting them up
as a separate scrutiny body with a separate support staff, examining
decisions after they are made, which we do not believe would be
a good use of public money. We recommend that Police and Crime
Panels be comprised primarily of elected representatives from
county, unitary and district councils in the force area—in
particular portfolio holders with appropriate responsibilities,
and having regard to the political balance—and of a significantly
smaller number of independent members. Ultimately, the Police
and Crime Commissioner, as the elected representative, must be
able to make what decisions he or she sees fit, but decisions
made against the advice of Police and Crime Panels must be recorded
as such and these records must be available to the public. (Paragraph
65)
In line with the Home Affairs Committee's recommendations,
Police and Crime Panels (PCP's) will be made up from locally elected
representatives from each local authority (including district
councils for the first time) in the area and will be supplemented
by two independent members that will help bring particular skills
to the table. We want the relationship between the Police and
Crime Commissioner and the PCP to be a constructive and transparent
one, and therefore the Bill provides for the PCP to be consulted
on a number of key decisions before they are made final and for
dissenting views to be made public. The PCP will have a constructive
role in key decisions such as the Police and Crime Plan, a power
of veto over the precept level and the appointment of Chief Constables.
We agree that PCPs will need support in order to carry out their
functions and there are provisions in the Bill providing funding
for that. Further details are set out in the Impact Assessment
that accompanies the Bill.
| 
