UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE
To be published as HC 511-i

House of Commons

Oral evidence

TAKEN BEFORE THE

Home Affairs Committee

Policing: Police and Crime Commissioners

tuesday 12 October 2010

KIT MALTHOUSE, RICK MUIR and BERNARD HOGAN-HOWE

Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 59

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Home Affairs Committee

on Tuesday, 12 October 2010

Members present

Keith Vaz (Chair)

Nicola Blackwood

Mr Aidan Burley

Lorraine Fullbrook

Dr Julian Huppert

Alun Michael

Bridget Phillipson

Mark Reckless

Mr David Winnick

________________

Examination of Witness

Witness: Kit Malthouse, Deputy Mayor of London with responsibility for policing and Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, gave evidence.

Q1 Chair: Councillor Malthouse, good morning. Thank you for appearing before the select committee and congratulations on your appointment as the Deputy Mayor. I think you have not been since your appointment.

Kit Malthouse: It has been some time. It was May 2008, but nevertheless thank you, Chair.

Chair: We have missed you since then. This is an inquiry into the Government’s proposals for elected Police Commissioners. We have a number of witnesses and we thought we would begin with you and your experience in London. London is, of course, not going to have an elected Police Commissioner. They are going to apply outside the metropolis. Do you think the fact that it is not happening to London is going to cause any difficulties for the way in which policing is operated in the capital?

Kit Malthouse: No. In fact, I think it presents some advantages, in that obviously the current situation where the electorate in London clearly look to the Mayor for strategic direction around policing, but also lots of other related organisations where crime and safety are an issue, like the transport network, allows much more integrated working, and there are fewer silos. It also presents the opportunity to do other things. For instance, we would be very keen-and indeed have made progress-on getting involved on the criminal justice side of the crime industry. Looking at reoffending rates, particularly around youth crime, has been key to us over the last two years. Having the police as part of the Greater London Authority family under the Mayor is actually an advantage, not a disadvantage.

Q2 Chair: You will now have oversight by the Greater London Authority rather than your Police Authority. Again, you do not think this will create any difficulties?

Kit Malthouse: No. Similarly, we have pressed for that to happen because at the moment the Metropolitan Police Authority is a conflicted organisation. It is both executive and scrutiny. So we often find ourselves in the situation of scrutinising the conduct of a contract critically that we ourselves signed five years ago and were part of the devising of the contract. The separation of the executive function and the scrutiny function is critical from my point of view. Moving it to the London Assembly, which is a professional scrutiny organisation, will enhance accountability rather than detract from it.

Q3 Chair: May I ask you a couple of topical issues that have come up relating to your portfolio? One is the use of Tasers and the recent unfortunate incidents that have occurred north of the capital. The Committee has an inquiry into firearms and we will be looking at the issue of Tasers. The Met have taken a particular view on Tasers. What is the current thinking about the use of Tasers in the Met area?

Kit Malthouse: We obviously do have Tasers at the Met and their use is a matter for the Commissioner. The Police Authority has a Taser review group that monitors performance use and development in terms of policy. The arrangement that we have come to with the Commissioner is that the current use of Tasers will not be expanded. At the moment they are only used by specialist firearms teams. They are only carried in armed response vehicles. They are treated as if they are a firearm, so every deployment is reported in the same way as a firearm would be and they are only used by specialist firearm officers. At the moment, there is no desire, either from the Police Authority or from the Metropolitan Police Service, to expand their use in London.

Q4 Chair: There is no question of any of the Tasers coming from the company that supplied the Tasers to Nottinghamshire Police that were used in the Northumbria incident?

Kit Malthouse: In terms of the Tasers themselves, then obviously the Tasers that we currently have would have been sourced from that company. In terms of the particular type of Taser, the shoulder-mounted Taser that was used in controversial circumstances in Northumberland, I have asked that very question myself and have been assured not. No, there are no such weapons in the Met.

Q5 Chair: Finally, on recent events, in the Mark Saunders case- obviously, you followed it-the verdict has been given, but there were a number of comments made by the coroner about the way in which the police operated on that day. In one particular comment-and I think he has written to the Home Secretary about this-he talks about, "A slavish adherence to paperwork and guidelines risks prevented a commonsense approach". I do not want you to comment on the detail of the case, but as a result of that case, are you reviewing the way in which this kind of policy operates: the shoot-to-kill policy?

Kit Malthouse: Yes. Obviously, the operation of firearms within the Met, and indeed all police forces, is subject to almost constant review and certainly after every incident the police service reviews what has happened during the incident and hopes to learn from it. Certainly, from very high-profile and controversial incidents where things might have gone wrong, like Stockwell and so on, then the Police Authority have been involved, in terms of reviewing the outcomes of any inquiry, or indeed making its own inquiries into those incidents, and then asking the Met to put in place the measures required.

The problem is the Met, in these situations, are often torn because there will be circumstances where commonsense approaches are pursued in fast moving situations where things go wrong, and the Met are often criticised for that too. Then the manuals and all the rest of it, the processes, are produced in response to something like that. In this situation, the implication seems to be that the processes and the manuals adopted have somehow hindered or caused a problem, and we will have to look at that over the coming months and learn from it.

Q6 Chair: Were you concerned about what the coroner said?

Kit Malthouse: Yes. We are concerned every time a firearm is used in the capital. Fortunately, it is relatively rare compared with other capital cities. Every single use of a firearm is referred to and investigated by the IPCC, so there are very, very robust processes around examining what has happened.

We do have a member of the Police Authority, who is from an armed forces background, who has been conducting an informal review of CO19 and some of their exercises and command processes. He has definitely been talking to the command structure at CO19 about how things might be improved. Following the receipt of a report from the coroner, we will have to look in more detail about what the Police Authority does to make sure that the changes take place.

Chair: Thank you. Mr Reckless.

Q7 Mark Reckless: As a member of the Kent Police Authority, I oversaw some work related to the shooting of Mr Tucker. There is a case in the Court of Appeal, co-joined between Saunders and Tucker, on the issue of post-incident conferring where some of these issues about ACPO guidance came out and we had concerns. Isn’t the issue here that you say we have a commissioner who has operational independence and discretion to run this, and you say it can be a commonsense way of doing that, but the reality-as we have seen with the coroner’s criticism-is there are six manuals of firearms guidance from ACPO and everybody is jumping through hoops to try and comply with that, rather than exercise their own discretion?

Kit Malthouse: Yes. I think it is generally the case in policing that matters have swung too far towards process and away from officers using their own training and judgement in fast moving circumstances. It is a standing joke in the Metropolitan Police Service to talk about our standard operating procedures. We have manuals and manuals of them. Often they refer to each other without ever finding where the source of it is.

To be fair to the police, although that bureaucracy has been internally generated, it has often been in response to political and other reaction to incidents. You will hear generally in policing that the best thing that has happened to policing for a long time was the political response to the tragic shootings in Cumbria, where there was no call for a public inquiry. The political response, particularly from the Prime Minister, was that this is a horrible incident, it is a terrible tragedy, but before we suddenly start throwing legislation and rules and regulations at this, let’s just treat it as a one-off incident rather than get tied up in a public inquiry. I think that is beneficial. A lot of the bureaucracy is in response, either from the public or politically, to things that have gone wrong in the past.

Chair: Thank you. Nicola Blackwood.

Q8 Nicola Blackwood: There has been a lot of speculation in the press that , as we go down the elected Police Commissioner s’ route , it will open the door to extremist candidates perhaps being elected by a relatively small proportion of the population. A lot of that has been press-fuelled. Sir Hugh Orde and the Minister both say they think that this risk has been overstated. Do you think that we should be putting in place some kind of restriction on candidates who can put their names forward for that kind of position?

Kit Malthouse: No. When the franchise was extended to people who did not own any land, the arguments against it were that they would vote irresponsibly. Similarly, when they extended the franchise to women, the argument against that was that they would vote emotionally and could not be trusted to choose the right people. Every time the franchise has been extended the argument against it has been, "You can’t trust the voters." We have managed pretty well, I think, for the last thousand years, generally. There have been one or two mistakes but that is the price of democracy. So, no, I don’t think you can put restrictions.

The only area that slightly was in my mind in terms of restrictions was former police officers, whether a police officer who has just recently exited a force could then come back as the elected police chief of that force, effectively leaping over their superior in their command structure. In the end, democracy is the best system, or the least worst system. There are some downsides to it, but having thought it through, I don’t think you can fairly put any restrictions on, no.

Q9 Nicola Blackwood: Looking at it from the other angle, do you think that there should be positive eligibility requirements, such as qualifications that a candidate should have of experience in the field or some kind of area like that?

Kit Malthouse: No. I don’t think that either. The reason is because there are many other areas of public administration which shoulder significant risks where elected people get involved and do not require any qualifications. To be a leader of a council or a cabinet member for children’s services, you are in charge of some of the most acute risks in public life there around child protection and no experience is required for that. Similarly, you do not have to have been a soldier to be Secretary of State for Defence, or indeed have any experience of policing to be Home Secretary or having been a spy and deal with the security services. I think once you start to pre-qualify people for democratic office then there is a difficulty generally across the democratic firmament.

Chair: Aidan Burley.

Q10 Mr Burley: Somebody said that you do not need any qualifications to be an MP or a parent and those are the two most important jobs in life, so I am quite pleased about that.

My question is on the election of the Police and Crime Commissioners, because they are going to be high profile roles; they are going to be fairly sought after posts. I would be interested in your views on whether, because of that, you think it is inevitable we will have party candidates because you need a party machine behind you for the election, or whether you think it is more likely there will be independent candidates-former police officers, former chairs of current police authorities-that will be standing on an independent ticket, or is it more likely going to be Conservative or Labour candidates?

Kit Malthouse: Certainly, it was the case that, when the previous Government brought in mayors for cities, there was a greater preponderance of independent candidates than party candidates. Indeed, what was I suppose the nadir, but turned out to be a triumph, was H’Angus the Monkey in Hartlepool who got re-elected, I think, twice, which says something about us party politicians. I suspect there will be quite a lot of independent people who stand. Whether people in a party have an advantage, either because they have an electoral machine or because people can shorthand what they stand for-that is the great advantage of a party; it is fairly clear what you are going to get if you vote for that person-I don’t know. That remains to be seen, but I hope and believe there will be more independent candidates. The only difficulty I can foresee with that is obviously one of the critical things for a Police and Crime Commissioner in a particular area, is working with the other political structures in that area. If you are Police and Crime Commissioner for Gloucestershire, it will be key that you work alongside the county council and so forging those political friendships, links, the human level relationship, is going to be pretty key. Whether that is more or less difficult for an independent or not, I don’t know.

Chair: Good. David Winnick has a supplementary.

Q11 Mr Winnick: I am glad you believe women should have the vote. I hope 100 years ago you would have expressed the same view. What I find a little bit puzzling is that London will not have this Police Commissioner. London is made an exception, but in the West Midlands, as elsewhere in the United Kingdom, we will have Police Commissioners-responsibility and power in the hands of one, albeit elected, person. Why should London be different?

Kit Malthouse: Obviously, we have not seen the Bill yet and I do not know what may be proposed for other large metropolitan areas but I could see-for instance, if Manchester had an elected mayor of Manchester-that bringing the police in, as part of that structure, would be helpful and useful and would make sense. I am just trying to think. There are no urban areas that have a mayor at the moment that are co-terminus with a Police Authority area. I think it is practically they are unable to do it. For instance, in West Midlands, the city of Birmingham does not have a mayor, I think, and West Midlands obviously covers more than Birmingham. So where it is not co-terminus it is difficult. In London, fortunately, we are co-terminus and so we are able to do it.

Chair: Bridget Phillipson.

Q12 Bridget Phillipson: Thank you, Chair. The public appear to be largely unaware of the role of police authorities and their work. Why do you think that is?

Kit Malthouse: I think there are a number of reasons. First of all, the truth is police authorities are quite weak. They don’t have the powers that make them relevant, in terms of compelling or directing the police to do things. Secondly also, police authorities have largely been neglected by democratic politicians. So you will find police authorities are dominated by independent members. The vast majority of chairs of police authorities are independent members of the police authorities, because the county councillors or others have other things to do and it is quite a big and absorbing job. My experience is those independent members are reluctant to get out in public on the front foot and get involved in the fray of public debate. They have chosen not to be county councillors, or otherwise, so they don’t want to be on the front foot and will prefer for things to be done, not in private, but certainly not debated in the media and in the public realm, and I think that has contributed to it as well. But I do think the balance of power between the two-between the authority and the service in their area-has been that the service is in the forefront. So you will often get the chief constable appearing in the media, and all the rest of it, but the independent chair will be reluctant to do so. I think that is probably the main reason.

Chair: Alun Michael.

Q13 Alun Michael: Can we look at the question of one individual having that responsibility? I am intrigued by your comparison with the Mayoral responsibilities, because there are three elements, aren’t there? There is the accountability for policing; there is the accountability for administration-you referred earlier to contracts and things like that-and there is the issue of scrutiny. You suggested that in the case of London, because there is the Mayor and he has that authority, there is in effect no need for a separate commissioner but in other areas there is. The Mayor’s responsibility in relation to other things, like transport for instance, are very clearly for the whole organisation, as distinct from scrutiny and holding to account. So, both looking at London and at the rest of the country, what do you think the impact will be of having one individual with that responsibility, and what do you think that responsibility is?

Kit Malthouse: Just in terms of what you said about London, the truth is the London Assembly provides the scrutiny function for the other parts of the Mayor’s empire, if you like. So there is a transport committee of the London Assembly that scrutinises Transport for London on a monthly basis. There is no policing committee. The only time policing gets scrutinised by the assembly is once a year they call the Commissioner and the chair of the Police Authority and then through the budget process, through the budget committee.

Q14 Alun Michael: I understand that, but going back to the individual and what he or she is for?

Kit Malthouse: To me that individual is there to act as an interlocutor between the public and the police. To put the question a different way is: what problem is this person solving? To me the problem has been over the last few years a growing divide between the police and the public, which is not yet at dangerous levels but may well come to be so if something isn’t done. You see that divide in all sorts of ways. Police officers, certainly Metropolitan Police officers, will often live in police ghettos. There will be villages in Surrey and Hertfordshire that are disproportionately filled with police officers because they like to live together. Often police officers, and I have to say PCSOs, don’t like to travel in uniform because they don’t want to be identified. We have had some awful incidents in London. In summer 2008 we had two police officers, in the High Street in Croydon in the middle of the afternoon, who tried to apprehend two girls for dropping litter and with one thing and another ended up in the middle of a baying mob who effectively beat them up. Nobody came to their aid; quite the reverse in fact.

The issue is that I think at the moment the public feel as if they have less and less investment in the police service. I often say that one of the Mayor’s missions is that when people walk past a police officer they don’t think, "Oh, there’s a police officer," they think, "There’s my police officer." I think that sense of investment, that sense of ownership over the police has somehow deteriorated and them putting a cross in the box, making a positive vote for somebody that they want to be their interlocutor to the police, I think will help with that relationship. The police will always talk about policing by consent, and at the moment there is nowhere locally where you can express that consent.

Q15 Alun Michael: London is a big place. How does having that one individual having that responsibility, if you are in the West Midlands, improve police accountability?

Kit Malthouse: I think, on both sides. First of all, it allows there to be a kind of funnel for public concern. For instance, when I was appointed to this job in May 2008, and given the job title Deputy Mayor for Policing, the postbag at City Hall on community safety went from 20 or 30 letters a week up to 200 or 300, and it didn’t stop coming. The letters just came and came. By the Christmas, we were something like 4,500 letters behind. We had a problem coping with it. That indicated to me there was a thirst for some sense of responsibility and accountability in the political firmament for the police.

On the policing side, it provides a much clearer and simpler point of reference to deal with in terms of priorities. At the moment, there are myriad groups, boards, working parties, councillors, leaders all over the place pulling the police in all sorts of different directions and the message becomes very confused. So it would give the police clarity of purpose through one person who can enunciate the priorities of the public in a legitimate democratic way. It works in lots of other areas of our democratic life and hopefully it will work in policing, too.

Chair: Thank you. Julian Huppert.

Q16 Dr Huppert: Can I ask about how it does work when you do have a strong elected individual? There is presumably a serious risk of clashes between a strong commissioner or your role and a strong chief constable and so far, as you say, police authorities have been generally very weak, with, I know, some exceptions. How have you avoided that turning into a constant state of conflict? How have you avoided the clashes?

Kit Malthouse: Like all those relationships, it depends upon mature discussion between adults who come with differing skills and differing powerbases. Even when I was a local councillor, it became apparent to me that the operation of the local council was a negotiation between the councillors and the paid service. The councillors brought the democratic majority and the paid service brought the execution ability, and there was a negotiation every year that focused on the budget about what got done. The same is true in policing as it is in every other part of public life; it is a mature and sensible negotiation. There will be times where there are differences of opinion and what you hope is that you can iron those out.

Q17 Dr Huppert: Let’s say we have an individual who manages to get elected on a platform of saying the police are doing a bad job and is very critical of the chief constable, which I suspect is something that could happen in various places. What would your concerns be about that? I know, for example, in the local government field there have been a number of instances where leaders and chief executives have been unable to get on and have been paralysing the councils involved. What steps could be taken to avoid that, given that nobody could get rid of the elected commissioner or move them to a different job, as presumably could happen to you if relationships broke down?

Kit Malthouse: In the end, the regulator is the electorate. I don’t think there’s anything you can put in place to stop those human-level relationships breaking down. At the very worst end, you get into a situation of assured mutual destruction, which says that when you get elected you can probably remove the existing chief constable once. What did Oscar Wilde say: twice is careless and three is, whatever it is. You can only do that so many times. There are politicians through the years who have paid the price for being too reckless with civil servants. So you have to take care, but, as I say, democracy is not neat and tidy always. It is often messy.

Q18 Dr Huppert: So you accept the idea that the Commissioner should have the power to get rid of one chief constable?

Kit Malthouse: Yes. I think there are two things. The Commissioner should have the power to hire and fire the chief constable but, at the same time, the chief constable then has to be given the power to succeed. So a Police and Crime Commissioner who hires a chief constable and then micro-manages the organisation is putting that chief constable in a very difficult position. I think you have to give them then the power to succeed and that means allowing them to recruit the team to succeed; allowing them to discipline and manage that team properly; giving them the space to do the job in the same way that you would in a local authority. I have to say, one of the developments in local authorities, which I think is quite disturbing, is where we’ve seen one or two where the leader of the authority is dispensing with the chief executive and becoming chief executive themselves. I think if that happened in policing, which fortunately it is not going to under the legislation, it would be very dangerous.

Chair: Lorraine Fullbrook.

Q19 Lorraine Fullbrook: Thank you, Chairman. Deputy Mayor, I would like to explore a bit more about the role and the power of the Crime and Police Commissioners. Given that they will have five key roles-namely, their mission will be to fight crime and antisocial behaviour-currently we have police authorities that have something like 17 to 19 members on average, and the consultation paper put forward by the Government for the Crime and Police Commissioners’ role has stated that the Commissioner will need to appoint a team to support them in their important functions, but they won’t prescribe exactly what that will be, because it will be left to the Commissioner. In your experience, given that one person will be putting forward a team, what would that team look like?

Kit Malthouse: It depends on the organisation. Obviously, in policing, we go from vast to tiny. We are the biggest; we are a third of UK policing. Gloucestershire, I think, has 400 police officers, not even one of our boroughs. So it depends on the size of the organisation, but broadly it would be analogous to a kind of ministerial team. If you are running the Metropolitan Police, which is £3.6 billion, it is not dissimilar to a small Department of State in terms of size, and that is run by a Secretary of State with a private office and a policy team and special advisors the same. But if you are running a police service with 400 police officers then it is necessarily small. So Gloucestershire Police Authority, I think, is six or eight members of staff, something like that; it is pretty tiny. But I think you can compare it to a kind of ministerial team.

Q20 Lorraine Fullbrook: I think the consultation paper has said that the only requirement that the Government would have for a team would be the financial arrangements for that team.

Kit Malthouse: There are some other functions that need a home. So, for instance, we have to run an independent custody visitors scheme by statute, and in London that is several hundred people, who are volunteers across London, who will go in randomly to custody suites and check that things are going on. We have CCTV in every custody suite now, but nevertheless we have to maintain that scheme, and there is certain administration of that that is required. Similarly, we have to, by law, attend all CDRPs across London, and so we have a body of individuals who will do that. In London, there will be functions that we have that are staffed, but in terms of the management group, if you like, I think the ministerial team analogy is probably the best one.

Q21 Chair: A final question from me, Deputy Mayor. In yesterday’s Guardian, on the front page there was a suggestion that the Commissioner had written to the Home Secretary to get the Metropolitan Police exempted from judicial review. Are you aware of that letter?

Kit Malthouse: I am aware of the letter, yes.

Q22 Chair: Does it have your approval?

Kit Malthouse: No, I didn’t approve it. It is a matter for the Commissioner to send that letter. To put the letter in context, it was part of the general response to the consultation, and we have all been asked by the Home Secretary to suggest things to go on her agenda for saving cost. The truth is there is a huge amount of cost attached to some of the functions that we have to perform. One of the things that has been mentioned is freedom of information. I have to say, freedom of information absorbs a huge amount of time and effort, and in my view, 90% of freedom of information requests are fishing expeditions rather than specifics. So, looking at that, given that times have changed financially, I think it is sensible for us to look at them.

Q23 Chair: But this is a different issue, isn’t it? It is basically to stop people who wish to take legal action against the police force where they think they have been badly treated. Do you think that is an appropriate thing to do? You obviously didn’t approve the letter but as a politician do you agree with that?

Kit Malthouse: I don’t agree or disagree. I have to say I haven’t actually given the issue much thought. Whether the Commissioner should have written it or not; I think it is perfectly legitimate for him to do so, yes.

Q24 Chair: Of course, but do you agree with the proposition that people should be able to sue the Metropolitan Police if they do wrong?

Kit Malthouse: Yes, I do.

Q25 Chair: Therefore, you do not agree with a view that would stop them doing so?

Kit Malthouse: I don’t think that the Metropolitan Police Service should be in any different position from any other public organisation, in terms of their legal liability or otherwise. Whether the whole of the public sector should be looked at, from a legal liability point of view, and whether it is subject to vexatious or frivolous lawsuits is a question that I think is legitimate to look at, yes.

Chair: Deputy Mayor, as usual, thank you very much for coming. You have been most helpful. Thank you.

Examination of Witness

Witness: Rick Muir, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Public Policy Research, gave evidence.

Q26 Chair: Could I call to the dais Rick Muir from the IPPR? Mr Muir, thank you very much for giving evidence. You sat through the last session, so you are aware of what we are inquiring into. Is it likely that the people standing for office as an elected Police Commissioner are going to be people who are party political?

Rick Muir: I think there will be. I think that is likely, yes. I think political parties, as I understand it, would be entitled to stand candidates. I think they should be encouraged to stand candidates-I think that would be a very good idea-so I’m pretty clear that they will. The question is then whether they will be successful. One of my objections to the notion of the independent commissioners is my concern that, on a very low turnout, you may get extremist candidates being elected.

Q27 Chair: We will come on to that in a second, but just on the election and the likelihood of who are going to be the candidates, as the Deputy Mayor said just now, a lot of independents had stood in the elections for mayor. Is your anticipation that it is more likely to be the traditional political parties putting up candidates, rather than someone who is standing as an independent, or indeed former chief constables putting themselves forward?

Rick Muir: I have heard former chief constables tell me they would be interested in standing, so I think that that could happen, yes. In fact, I think that would be a very welcome development because they are people who know a great deal about policing. So I think the parties will stand, but I do think there will be a lot of independents standing. The nature of this kind of position, when you get a single individual post, as with a mayor, those kinds of posts do tend to attract independent figures. We have seen the evidence of that with the introduction of directly elected mayors.

Chair: David Winnick.

Q28 Mr Winnick: Mr Muir, you are a Labour Councillor in Hackney. That is nothing to be ashamed about, least of all being a Labour Councillor. Your view from the left, is somewhat different-is it not?-from others who have expressed opposition, particularly those senior Labour Councillors who have on previous occasions written and expressed quite a lot of disquiet. Why do you think that we should not be too worried about extremists? You do mention in your paper, annex B, about the danger of extremists, but you are not particularly of the view that this should stop the process of electing Police Commissioners?

Rick Muir: I think that we need to strengthen police accountability. I agree with what the Deputy Mayor said, that we did see-in the 1980s and 1990s in particular-a gap emerge between the police and the public. There are lots of reasons for that, but I think there is an accountability gap. Police authorities are too weak. They are not visible enough. The public don’t really know that they exist. As the Deputy Mayor said, for some reason, significant local councillors very often don’t get on to the Police Authority or don’t want to be on the Police Authority, perhaps because they have other things to do. For whatever reason, there are questions about the strength of police authorities. They do vary. I think some of them are quite strong. Some of them do see their role as being there to hold the chief constable to account. There are others where I think there is a culture that they are just there to back up the chief constable. So, for a lot of different reasons, there is an accountability gap.

I think the question is then what you do about it. I think that the proposal from the previous Government of having a directly elected Police Authority-there are a number of different models. One model was that put forward by the previous Government that I think would be better, which is to have a wholly elected Police Authority. There are two reasons why I think that is better. One is that you would have individual representatives representing a small area within that Police Authority. I think one of the problems of the Commissioner model is that the Commissioner is rather a remote figure because some forces are very large. The other problem is the problem of too much power being in the hands of one person. So, if you have a wholly elected Police Authority there is less chance that one person holds all the power.

Q29 Mr Winnick: It is the argument against Police Commissioners.

Rick Muir: It is the argument against Police Commissioners. I think we need more accountability, but I think the Commissioner model is the wrong way to do it.

Q30 Mr Winnick: Isn’t there a possibility-it is not a possibility-almost certainly, if this arrangement came to pass, the political parties are bound to put up candidates. It would be most unusual if they did not. If one political party does the other will; one assumes so. Is there not a scenario-it may not be a great danger; we would see how it works-that in between general elections there is a tendency for the electorate, as in European elections, to vote differently because they don’t consider that so much is at stake? Wouldn’t there be a possibility that various people not connected with political parties-there is no reason why that is a setback-but with particular strong views, will find themselves elected and some of the views may not be very desirable?

Rick Muir: Yes. I would be concerned. If you had the election of single issue candidates, for example, I think there is a risk of that. People have joked about no speed camera, so some candidates getting elected to a Police Commissioner post. I would be concerned about that, simply because we want people getting elected to run police authorities who are capable of taking a holistic view. So yes, I would be concerned about that. There is a risk of that. As I say, that is the reason why I think the single commissioner model is the wrong model.

Chair: Thank you. Aidan Burley, please.

Q31 Mr Burley: Mr Muir, could you give the Committee an idea of your thinking around the uncertainty that currently exists in relation to this definition of operational independence and the way that principle is applied by the courts?

Rick Muir: Yes. I think, as with a lot in our constitution, this constitutional principle has evolved over time. The 1962 Royal Commission talked about the impartiality of the police, the importance of the police being completely independent of the executive in the application of the law in individual cases. We then saw the principle evolve with the Denning judgment in 1968, which was controversial because it seemed to go beyond simply that the police should be impartial and should apply the law in particular cases, and seemed to cover a whole range of other things as well, around the management of resources and so on. That is where it gets rather vague, because there are three levels of decision-making: one is the law, so Parliament passes the law; the front line is the application of the law by a constable or by the chief constable; and then in the middle there is a whole series of things around strategy and budget setting for the local force, which I think are areas where there must be public accountability. The danger with the Denning judgment was it just said, "Well, the chief constables just had all of that and it sat with them". In practice it didn’t quite work like that but there was tension and there was a lack of clarity.

That is why I think the most interesting innovation was the Patten Commission in Northern Ireland that set all of that out very clearly. It said the police apply the law in an individual case. They initiate criminal investigations. They make arrests and so on. The Policing Board in Northern Ireland sets the three to five-year strategic priorities for the force and approves the budget, and I think that is a very helpful clarification of the different roles. The problem that we got into previously was there was a time-particularly I think around the 1990s-where chief constables were making decisions about the nature of policing going on in their forces. We had this retreat away from community policing, which we are all familiar with, and we have now moved back to community policing with neighbourhood policing. But you had a position where chief constables were making decisions to close police stations and to take officers off the beat, decisions in which the public were not involved in any way at all and Members of Parliament were not involved in. It seems to me that that is the sort of thing that elected representatives should be deciding. So medium to long-term strategy and budget setting should be for the accountable local bodies, and I think if we clarify that that will be a lot clearer.

Q32 Mr Burley: No one wants to go back to the days of Churchill barking orders in the street in an actual kind of police operation, but one of the criticisms that is frequently laid against this proposal is that it will politicise the police. Would you accept that, in effect, all policing is, in a sense, political? The decision to investigate one type of crime rather than another with limited resources, as every police force has, is a political decision. The decision, as we saw in the 1980s, to take officers off the beat, because the chances of them randomly finding a burglary in progress were the same as winning the lottery, and to put them in cars and in stations, that is a political decision. In a sense, all policing is political so that is an irrelevant argument.

Rick Muir: You are right; it is political. The question is about the balance between the independence of the police from the Executive in order to apply the law in individual cases and to do the operational management of the force, and so on, and the role of the elected representatives. The 1962 Commission and the subsequent legislation established this tripartite arrangement, which was one solution to the problem. That emerged because there were cases of corruption with local authorities having too much control of the police and interfering in operational policing.

We then created this slightly strange arrangement, the tripartite arrangement, to try to keep the politics out and it was a kind of a balance. My view is that it went too far the other way. It took the police too far out of the realm of local accountability and we need to shift that balance back. The question is then how we do that without politicisation. I don’t think anyone in this country wants to go down the American route.

Q33 Mr Burley: You stated earlier that you were in favour of a wholly elected authority rather than just an individual, and I think that is probably just where we would differ. You said that you worried about extremist candidates standing. I put it to you that we do not have a single BNP MP in this country but we do have BNP councillors. Isn’t the risk of having the BNP, and other undesirable fringe parties, greater if we are electing a committee, as we do with councillors, rather than a single individual, which is more akin to an MP where we do not have any BNP MPs?

Rick Muir: It is difficult to know, I think is the answer. It depends on the turnout; that’s the crucial thing. I think if people turn out-as we saw in the general election where the BNP were wiped out in Barking and Dagenham-then most British people are sensible, moderate people and don’t want to vote for extremists. So the question is will there be significant interest in these elections in order to generate that kind of turnout? And I think that’s my concern. You may want to time them to sit alongside other elections, for example, which might raise the turnout, but that’s the crucial problem, and I think the danger is if people don’t know what these figures are, who these figures are-the fact that they are electing a rather remote figure for a police force, if you live in the Thames Valley-then that I think raises the risk of a low turnout.

Chair: Thank you. Mark Reckless.

Q34 Mark Reckless: In this area, we have this one case from Lord Denning in 1968, which Sir Hugh Orde referred to as "a fine case", that the police should answer to the law and the law alone. But is it not the case, both in the 1962 Royal Commission with the Patten Report, and also for us when we had the Minister before this Committee, that when this is being considered by politicians a distinction is being drawn between the individual cases, where clearly the police should have independence in terms of arrest and investigation in those individual cases, and the broader spectrum of setting priorities, determining where budgets are spent and setting policy in general, which is properly the field of elected politicians?

Rick Muir: I absolutely agree with that. That is where it needs to come in. That is where the confusion has arisen. I think there has been a tendency of chief constables to take Denning to mean that they are in charge of strategy, and of course the police authorities approve the budget and the policing plan, and so on. A lot of them are presented with something that the chief constable has developed and written and are asked to approve it. I think politicians should be much more active in that role. This is important to the public; whether you have neighbourhood policing or you have police patrolling in cars is, as you said, a political issue. It is of huge importance to the public and, therefore, those kinds of strategic decisions should be made by elected representatives. I absolutely agree with that.

Q35 Mark Reckless: We had a very helpful note, prepared by the legal advisors in the Scrutiny Unit for the Committee, that I think broadly takes that line on the development of the law. I just wondered if you had any thoughts on how to clarify that position so that the chief constables, at least, understand. There has been some suggestion that perhaps a protocol could be discussed or that it is sufficient for the Minister to have set out his views to this Committee, or perhaps as the legislation passes. Do you have any advice on that?

Rick Muir: I think some kind of memorandum of understanding would be important. I don’t know whether you need to go as far as writing it into the Bill, but I think that some kind of understanding between the police and the Home Office-written understanding-is important, so everyone knows where they stand. That is what we have in Northern Ireland and it works pretty well, so I see no reason why that couldn’t function in England and Wales as well.

Chair: Thank you, Mr Reckless. Nicola Blackwood.

Q36 Nicola Blackwood: You have mentioned the Patten Inquiry. As I understand it, that inquiry identified part of the problem in this area with the phrase "operational independence", as though it implied, in some way, that a chief constable would not be subject to any kind of scrutiny for operational decisions and suggested that, instead, we should be shifting to the concept of operational responsibilities, where of course a chief constable would have the responsibility to make decisions about operational matters, and so on, but after that operation, would then be held to account for the way in which he had done that, which I think is what we all understand the way the system should work. Do you think that there is any value then for shifting this concept to operational responsibility and enshrining that in some way in legislation?

Rick Muir: I think that is very sensible. Patten was, I think, the first person in a long time to look at this and I think he got it right, that clearly in a democratic society, no public official is independent of the will of the public at some level. Police and chief constables have to be accountable, even for their decisions in individual cases, so when they are applying law in an individual case they have to be accountable after the fact. So they should be called in to justify decisions that they have made in those individual cases, where that is appropriate. So, yes, I think it would be helpful to move to that, because I think the notion of independence has just confused the matter. It is a question of balance between the impartiality of the police and the accountability that we need to the public.

Q37 Nicola Blackwood: So do you think that that should be written down?

Rick Muir: To be written down in some kind of memorandum of understanding between the police and the Home Secretary prior to this happening. I know Hugh Orde told me he disagrees with this, because he said to me that the difference between what is written down and what happens can often be very different. Often it will be about the personalities, there will be cultures that develop in individual organisations, and so on. But I think that we need a starting point and we need something that when these new commissioners come in, who may not be very familiar with all of this, they understand what their job and what the job of the chief constable is, and that is very clearly codified, if you like. So yes, I think that is essential, and will be one way of safeguarding against politicisation.

Nicola Blackwood: Thank you.

Chair: Mr Reckless has another quick question.

Q38 Mark Reckless: Yes. On that point, we have heard from Kit Malthouse previously that police authorities haven’t tended to take a sort of confrontational approach or want to have public disputes, but in the note that has been prepared for us, we understand that the editors of the main text, John Beggs QC and Hugh Davies, have taken the view that Lord Denning’s judgment, the doctrine, was an exorbitant one and its legal foundations are very slight. Then they discuss that they recommend the Police Authority should take these matters to judicial review. Their position is there is considerable scope, even within the law as is, for police authorities to have much greater scope in terms of general policy, but it is just that that has not happened. Is that also your understanding of the legal position?

Rick Muir: I think that’s right, and I think non-confrontational is the way this has developed. I think that has to change. I think one of the problems with the way police authorities operate is, because they are not very visible, what happens-they are public bodies; people can look at the minutes if they want-but I think there is no real sense in many police authorities, and I know there are differences between different bodies, but that our job here is to hold the chief constable to account, if you like, to hold his or her feet to the fire to make sure that they deliver. I think in some police authorities there has been this development of a sort of, "We’re there to back up the chief constable". One chief constable kept describing it as, "His Police Authority" as if he owned it, and I think that is wrong. The police authorities are there to represent the public and that has to be clarified. I know people from police authorities will be outraged about what I have just said, but I think that a lot of the people that I interviewed for my research-

Chair: We are getting Mr Reckless excited, which is always very dangerous.

Rick Muir: Yes. But many of the people that I talk to for my research back that up, people who work with police authorities, who work within police authorities, chief constables and so on.

Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Muir. Thank you so much for giving evidence to us this morning. If there is any other information you think is helpful, please don’t hesitate to write in to the Committee. That will help us with our deliberations. Thank you.

Examination of Witness

Witness: Bernard Hogan-Howe, former Chief Constable of Merseyside, gave evidence.

Q39 Chair: Could I call to the dais Bernard Hogan-Howe, from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary? Mr Hogan-Howe, thank you very much for giving evidence. I will not give you the introduction again, because you have been sitting in through the proceedings. You are very distinguished, having been an Assistant Commissioner in the Met and a chief constable and involved in policing for all your life. You are now in the Inspectorate.

Looking at your experience and the work that you have done, is it not right that it should be the public who are best placed to decide on local policing priorities rather than chief constables?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: I think so generally, and I think that there has to be a balance struck. Because I think whatever public service there is, whether it be education, health or policing, then there are times when sometimes people aren’t fully aware of all the threats and all the risks, and if a professional has an opportunity to influence that a bit, I think it is quite wise. But I think the way that policing priorities have developed, over probably the last 20 or 30 years, there has been a balance on this tripartite structure between what central Government suggests and sometimes imposes, sometimes what a local Police Authority-which has been informed by debate with local authority as well-has suggested, and finally, what the police have also put into that mix. Because often there are things that are either covert, or if not secret are not always discussed openly, which I think it is wise to consider when you are trying to evolve a strategy that is going to be effective locally.

Q40 Chair: What are your own views on this proposal? Do you support the proposal for elected Commissioners?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: I think that there have been various models and I think the starting point for me is: what is the problem that it is intended to remedy? So I think there is no doubt that police authorities have been effective at times. They do hold police chiefs to account. It is a public event; members of the public can go, and quite often that can be an uncomfortable process. I have been there and there are times when the police get it wrong and to be asked questions publicly is a challenging event. You have to provide an answer and it is either a cogent answer or it is not persuasive. So I think that process has had value. The second thing that has had value is that the police authorities have set precepts. What that means is that the negotiation goes on with the local authorities. That helps to justify the spending that people locally put in and also there has been a strategic priority setting as well. So I think that has been a benefit. The area where I think there is an acknowledgement that there have been difficulties is partly about representation. A 17-member authority doesn’t represent every locality within that area. I used to be in Merseyside-1.5 million people. The authority made its best attempt to geographically represent every part of Merseyside, but it didn’t have a representative for every person.

Q41 Chair: We will come to that. But, if I may say so, I thought that was a bit of a politician’s answer. Are you in favour of these proposals or against them?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: I was trying to avoid answering that question, only on the grounds that it seems to me that is a political judgement.

Q42 Chair: But you must have a view in terms of your experience. You must have seen them operate in other parts of the world. You have been around, haven’t you?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: I hope that nobody records the answer to that, but I think all I would say is that I think there have been some difficulties with the police authorities as they exist. This is what I’m just trying to, I think, say a little about, which is that sometimes they don’t represent everyone.

Q43 Chair: Are you more in favour of sorting them out rather than having an elected commissioner?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: No, I think what we have to do is to explore all the models and I think the speaker before-the witness before-went through the various options that have been looked at. Each of the parties have agreed, I think, that there’s a democratic deficit, that in fact people do not have enough opportunity to influence the priorities of the police and that has led to some pretty wide gaps growing over time. If you have looked at the report of Sir Denis O’Connor over the last few weeks about antisocial behaviour, that was given as one example where the police seem to have taken their eye off the ball. So I think people are agreed there needed to be more accountability. The option of electing a chair of an authority had some merit. The option of electing all the authority, that your previous speaker preferred, clearly had some merit as well, and there are some benefits obviously in electing a single individual. There are some risks, but I have not seen one of the models that has no risk, and the risk of standing still is quite significant, I think.

Q44 Chair: So don’t stand still, but take one of the options, but you cannot tell us which you prefer?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: Well, I think whichever option is decided, I think it ought to fill the democratic deficit. It ought to encourage the police to meet the public’s priorities, and it ought to be a connection between local taxation. I think there ought to be a very clear link, and then the one thing I think, if we do go along with the Government’s preferred option-the Police Crime Commissioner role-is that one of the things we do have to keep a real eye on is the fact that much crime extends beyond the boundaries of the constituency who elect that person. So if we look at serious and organised crime, counter-terrorism, it may be there are no votes in keeping that commissioner targeted around those priorities, but it is an essential fact that local policing has to contribute to counter-terrorism, serious and organised crime and other issues that cross the boundaries. These are the areas I think where the debate probably has to centre.

Chair: Thank you. Bridget Phillipson.

Q45 Bridget Phillipson: The public care very deeply about seeing police on the beat, and that’s certainly something I hear a lot, and I am sure I am not the only one. But at the same time, the concern I have around elected Commissioners is that there will be the natural temptation to headline grab around those issues, which may then be at the detriment of other vital policing work that is not as visible but, without it, our communities will be less safe. I am thinking of issues around serious and organised crime, the child protection work that police do and fraud. What are your views on that?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: There is certainly a risk, but that risk exists now with the police authorities. There isn’t that public debate about what investment goes into serious and organised crime, what investment goes into murder teams. That debate doesn’t happen. So at least what the elected Commissioner gives the opportunity of is to have that public debate once every four or five years, and that can be an open process, so those arguments are brought out. At the moment, the public don’t have that opportunity to influence that debate at all. So there is a risk, but I think this might be one of the things that the Government would look at, in terms of setting up the legislation, is how you ensure that those things that are below the line-the invisible part of policing-remain a priority. So I think it is quite possible to manage that, but if it is a problem for the future for elected Commissioners, I would suggest it has been a problem in the past, where that debate hasn’t happened either.

Q46 Bridget Phillipson: I think the issue is also that this is a time at which the police are facing significant cuts and I know that, for example, public protection units are likely to be at risk. So I think we have the dual issue of both budget cuts, which will put pressure on the more specialised areas of police work, but also that going hand in hand with elected Commissioners, whose focus, in order to win elections, will perhaps be to focus on the visible areas of policing. So I think you have those two issues coming simultaneously.

Bernard Hogan-Howe: I agree entirely. I think if you looked at public protection units or you look at, for example, within that, abuse of children, then quite often if you take your eye off that ball, it takes two, three, four years before that terrible event happens, and we have seen some terrible cases, even within the last couple of years, where that has happened. So I think you have to have a professional responsibility around that type of thing, but I would have thought that a public debate enhances that process rather than diminishes it, and I think commissioners should be held to account for how they spend their money in that particular area. But I think to say that an elected Commissioner is less likely to do that than the Police Authority is unfair, because the police authorities had that opportunity and presumably have that opportunity to make that decision as well, that strategic decision about investment. The police authorities presently have-and the point was made earlier-the opportunity to set a budget. It is one of the biggest strategic opportunities you have to set the direction of an organisation. The challenge to them might be: have they taken it?

Chair: Thank you. Lorraine Fullbrook.

Q47 Lorraine Fullbrook: Thank you, Chairman. Chief Constable, the Home Office consultation paper emphasises the need to increase the public’s trust in the police. It also comments about crime data being published at street level so that local people can see exactly what is happening on the streets, and talking about real figures being published, what the public think matters locally and not what the force considers to be important. In most constituencies, that will be antisocial behaviour that most people see on their streets, which is crime. Any way you cut it, antisocial behaviour is crime and it has a devastating impact on the quality of people’s lives. On the BBC north-west news several weeks ago there was a report about your own force, Merseyside, disbanding two or three dedicated antisocial behaviour units and deploying police elsewhere. What do you think that would do to the public’s trust in the police, and to what extent do you think that the new Crime and Police Commissioners will increase the public’s trust?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: Could you just be clear about the question? Is it about the Merseyside decision?

Lorraine Fullbrook: Well, there are two parts really.

Bernard Hogan-Howe: The first one-the Merseyside decision to disband the antisocial behaviour unit-was that around that question?

Lorraine Fullbrook: Yes.

Bernard Hogan-Howe: Right. I’m going to try not to express any views about my successor. These are difficult jobs and with the recession-well, it has hit everybody, and the budgets are about to be announced-some very difficult decisions are going to have to be made. The only thing I would say about what we did with Merseyside-the present chief constable was part of the process with whom we agreed the idea, which is to have this particular unit-is that we went for the repeat victimisation idea. That is the idea, but the approach was that officers who were on the ground were expected to deal with antisocial behaviour. But what you see is that probably a fifth of the victims account for about two-thirds of the antisocial behaviour because the repeat offenders keep going back to the same people and the same places.

So what we did was we just formed a squad. Squads are normally reserved for serious organised crime, for specialist things: murders and all the rest of it, and we just thought if it was important enough then we would dedicate our resources to go to the 10 hot spots and then knock the 10 hot spots off and then we would work out way down the list, and it was a powerful tool and it worked. We had two thirds police and one third fire service, and the idea was that the police would enforce the law and when we received an order in that area the fire brigade would provide diversion and hopefully, therefore, it would not just be seen as a zero tolerance approach; which it wasn’t, but we had to establish the law in some areas that were quite difficult. So that was the idea.

Those things can still be done if the police service concentrate smartly their resources where they can have most affect, which is usually repeat locations where the offenders and the victims meet. These people are the same people who keep coming back night after night. They don’t live 20 miles away; they live in the same area. So there are ways the police can be smarter. So I think what I’m trying to say is, first of all, for us at the time we could invest in that with over 100 officers and that was a good thing. When times are tight you have to try and find smarter ways of doing it. I think what Merseyside are doing now is to say we expect all our officers to have a smarter approach to repeat victimisation. You can’t always have squads. It is not always possible to maintain that sort of investment. Now, the second part of your question, if you could just remind me, please?

Q48 Lorraine Fullbrook: It was about the new Crime and Police Commissioners. To what extent do you think they will increase the public’s confidence?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: I think they have an opportunity to do it because I think one of the things that everyone seems to acknowledge is that, in fact, the police authorities don’t have that same visibility that people would hope. So therefore, the public debate becomes centred on the chief constable; they come on the individual officer’s failure. But I think there is a genuine opportunity to both influence public opinion and to receive their feedback, and sometimes criticism, and do something about it, and if that focuses on the individual that is a great opportunity.

Sometimes it’s unfair but they know what they are letting themselves in for. I think it’s an easier option than probably having an elected authority, a fully elected authority, which defuses some of that accountability. So although I realise the risk with Crime Commissioners, I think there is an opportunity to increase trust for two reasons; first of all, a public debate about what the priority should be and, of course, then the Commissioner has to deliver. Presumably, if they do not, nor their chief constable or commissioner does, then they have a problem.

Lorraine Fullbrook: Thank you.

Chair: Thank you. Alun Michael?

Q49 Alun Michael: Whether you are dealing with the decisions of a chief constable, a Police Authority, elected Police Commissioner or any other structures, surely one of the big issues is how you get transparency in the system so that people can see what the trends are, what the actual crime is and whether the police locally are succeeding in what Robert Peel described as their primary responsibility, to reduce offending and re-offending. How do we make sure that, whether it is a Police Authority system or a commissioner system, we don’t have things that are driven by opinion, sentiments and general debate, rather than a clinical examination of the facts and that have not really succeeded in managing to provide, with the sophisticated systems that are available now, that sort of transparency already?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: For two reasons: one is that people don’t seem to believe crime statistics. It’s ever so hard. I have stood in front of public meetings-whether it be Liverpool or the rest of Merseyside-and given them the information, and the first response is, "Well, I’m sorry but that does not work in my street". The only discussion you can then have, even if we are inaccurately recording this information, we are doing it as badly every year or as well every year.

Q50 Alun Michael: So how do you advise an elected Police Commissioner to handle that issue?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: I think it is two things: first, give people access to the raw data, as many of them as we can. The internet gives you a good opportunity to do that. Make it local to them, so if you can put it into their street I think it’s a really good thing. There is a balance. There is a sensitivity there. If you’re talking about a serious sexual offence and you identify the location and, by default, you identify the victim, you have to be careful. If you are trying to sell a house in an area that people may perceive is blighted by crime or antisocial behaviour and the value of that house goes down, there can be a consequence.

So all that can be managed, but I think it’s wise that people go into this knowingly. But generally, share information, and I think from that information you empower people to hold people to account for what is happening locally. What it enables them to do is put it in context; somebody having a really bad time, obviously they would be upset and they’d be concerned and frightened at times, but if they see they are unusual that would be important. If they see they are part of a pattern that can be important. But it is important that they understand what it means for them in their locality, and 500 burglaries in their force area doesn’t mean a lot unless it has hit you, your neighbour, your wife, your parent. So I think to make it as individual as possible, as local as possible and, of course, finally, the thing is to make it current.

Q51 Alun Michael: Irrespective of the structures then.

Bernard Hogan-Howe: Of what, sorry?

Alun Michael: That is advice offered irrespective of the structures.

Bernard Hogan-Howe: I would say so. I think if you can get information out there you also empower local groups to do things with it. If you have a local football team that realise you have an antisocial behaviour problem in an area, put the two together and you have a powerful partnership. Often you find people in the same small area who do not even know there’s a problem or that they could do something to remedy it. The only final point I was going to make was that the information is contemporary. Information published at the end of the year is important for a strategic view about whether burglary went up or down, but you want to know today, from yesterday, what happened on your street yesterday and then you might be able to do something about it.

Chair: Thank you. Thank you, Mr Michael. Mark Reckless.

Q52 Mark Reckless: Regarding operational independence, do you agree with the distinction, which some other witnesses have drawn, between operations at the level of the individual investigation, where it is essential that the police operate entirely independently, and a more general policy in the setting of the budget and priorities within that, if there is more justification for involvement by elected politicians?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: I think so. I think that the first thing that everyone seems to agree with is that the police should have operational independence, in the sense of not starting or stopping an investigation into an individual because of a political interference and not policing something or not policing something because of a political view. I think those are the things that seem to be agreed. The benefits I have always found in the past, with working with Police Authorities and perhaps, in the future, with Commissioners, is that in setting strategic directions and big strategic decisions it’s wise to have a group of people around you who you have persuaded. So a board of a company, if they are going to invest and they had a budget of £100 million and they are going to invest £10 million, they would expect to be consulted on that investment. Now, that might be about IT; it might be about buildings; it might be just where you put your people.

It seems to me that, with that level of strategic decision-making, it’s important-whether it be an elected Commissioner or a Police Authority-to have their agreement. So that is where I think, for me, there should not be a great debate. What I can see is you have to be careful where you draw the line. If it gets into micro-management-and I think the Deputy Mayor mentioned this-we could take ourselves back to the 1970s and 1980s where police chief constables had to get agreement to spend £50 or £200 and I think that’s antagonistic to good management. Not running off to do their own thing, which I think is what politicians can be concerned about, but I think if you put too many restrictions on the individuals about how they deploy their budget you end up with a very inert body of people, when you want a creative body of people who are going to take that money and get some good value for money. Perhaps they could get better at that, I wouldn’t argue about that. I think, provided you don’t get down too much into the weeds and try to micro-manage, then the discussion about where you invest your people and your money-and 80% of policing is people.

Chair: Thank you, Mr Reckless. Nicola Blackwood.

Q53 Nicola Blackwood: The majority of our discussion today has been about the interaction between a Police Authority or an elected official and the chief constable; but of course, the third pillar of this model is central Government and the Home Secretary. The consultation paper noted that there has been an increasing tendency for the Home Secretary to intervene in local policing, an attempt to address this accountability deficit and the statement that the idea of the elected official is to try and bring that decision-making closer to local people. But the Home Secretary will, no doubt, have to retain some responsibilities. What sort of areas do you think the Home Secretary should retain powers?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: I think probably three areas, I would say. The first is if there was failing leadership or dishonest leadership, you would hope that locally people would resolve that. But it seems to me that you have to retain some opportunity to intervene if you see something absolutely awful. How we define "awful", I think you have to decide. Secondly, we talked about counter-terrorism and serious organised crime: I think there is a state interest and, therefore, a public interest in the nation having an overview of that running across 43 forces, and I don’t think it is okay for one of the 43 just to say, "We’re not playing that game". You have criminals who do not respect the 1974 local government boundary. So someone has to take an overview of that and I think that’s pretty important.

I said three, but I think probably those are the main two that I would pause on as the ones that you would certainly want to have a central view upon. I think it is going to be a real challenge for any Home Secretary or any Home Office to say, "We are not going to get involved in knife crime in London; to not get involved in what is happening in Liverpool if there is a firearms discharge". We had a terrible incident where an eight-year-old boy was murdered in Liverpool. For the Government not to keep out of that is going to be very difficult as there is a huge public interest in it. So I think these are going to be the challenges of the future.

Sorry, the final one-now I have remembered-is the fact that if you are going to have central control, then keep it to a central direction or keep it to a very few issues. For example, if you said, "Look, value for money means that we ought to have a shared service centre for personnel and finance; if we ought to have one air wing for Britain in terms of all the helicopters we have", if you can only do that by central control and procurement then probably why hasn’t that happened? If you think that, with 43 forces and 38 aircraft, each costing £5 million, could there be a better way? Sir Philip Green has just reported on how he sees procurement being handled in public service generally. There are things like that where the police service would be no different and the centre should have a view on, particularly around capital investment.

Chair: Thank you. Aidan Burley has the final question.

Q54 Mr Burley: Just picking up on the issue of police statistics, do you think it is time to have an independent body in this country for police and crime statistics? I think I am right in saying that under the previous Government, for example, they reduced the re-offending period from two years to one year and, funnily enough, re-offending rates went down. Do you think it is time to end this sort of political interference, which is undermining the public confidence in crime statistics?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: I think it is difficult because the trouble is if you don’t recognise the fact that society moves on and keep looking at new crime types; if you look at e-crime, as one example, 10 years ago people did not know what e-crime was and now it’s getting to be a more and more intrusive part of peoples’ lives. So I think you have to recognise that in the way you record crime. You have to try, so far as it is possible, not to make it a political football, but I’m not sure if it is that easy. We haven’t seen much evidence of it over the last 20 years; the way that crime and crime types go up and down is a real challenge. So I think the best that we probably could do is to have some independent arbiter who says, "These are the crime types."

Q55 Mr Burley: Notwithstanding that, obviously, there are new types of crime that come on the market, if you like, there are also crimes that are going to stay there in perpetuity. Do you think we need some period of consistency in the way you measure those, so that there isn’t that change in definition?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: I would say, yes, but it is hard to deliver. If you look at the number of murders; the number of murders over the last 20 years has gone down an awful lot, although you would struggle sometimes to believe that, but it has. There was a period in London where the number of young people murdered by knives went up and suddenly people were very interested, quite properly, in that type of recording of crime. They would record knife crime in a different way; so, therefore, we had a period of looking to see whether knife crime was an issue right around the country.

So I think there is no doubt that any Government, any politician or any police ought to be flexible to respond to that type of crime. But in a broad answer to your question, "Should they remain consistent for as long as possible?"-yes, but I don’t think they even have to think that. In fact, when a new challenge comes along somebody will ask, "How many of those have we got?" And I’m afraid that that is as variable as human behaviour.

Q56 Mr Burley: Can I just ask you, finally, do you agree with the Home Secretary’s statement that the police’s job is to cut crime, no more no less, and, if so, how do you explain to the public comments such as those by the chief constable of Cambridge, Julie Spence, who says that only a third of her resource time is spent on cutting crime?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: I said I was not going to try to be controversial, but the only thing I can say is that I do agree that the police’s main mission is to cut crime and antisocial behaviour. Do they do a lot of other things? Yes, and this is where I think Julie Spence’s point is fair. In Merseyside, we had about-I am just trying to think now-100,000 crimes a year; we had 11,000 sudden deaths to deal with; 7,500 people were hurt on the roads; and I’ll not go on. But there are lots of things to do. The call centres will take lots of things that police officers have to do and this is not counting antisocial behaviour. I can agree with Julie’s point, which is that there are far more things to do. You have to deal with rape victims, where you never catch an offender. You have to deal with community groups who want to know what you are doing in their area. There are lots of things to do, I accept that entirely, but if you are asking the core mission, for me it has not changed much from Sir Robert Peel, which is that the idea is to stop crime happening. If it happens, you sort it out or help the victims as best you can, and the maintenance of order allows other things to flourish, whether it be the economy or whatever else. But it seems to me no one else will do it if the police don’t. Can the police do other things? Yes. But for me, it is a core mission, so in that sense I do agree with the Home Secretary. I am not sure that Julie’s point is antagonistic, necessarily. I know what she meant. There are other priorities, but for me it is a core mission.

Q57 Chair: Do you anticipate a number of your colleagues or former colleagues will be running for one of these posts?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: I don’t know.

An Hon. Member: Presumably, you won’t?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: I certainly won’t, no. I don’t know. I mean, I thought the point that was made earlier that if they do decide to run, I think it would be wise to give a period of cooling off before they were even allowed to be considered. I think it might be intuitively attractive and superficially attractive to many, initially, particularly as they leave some power to try to get back into that power. I think they have to be careful that some of the status, some of the-what’s the word?-I suppose the ego that goes with the status of the role doesn’t confuse that with being popular. I think that a democratic process, as you will know, can be a torturous process and police officers are trained to be professional police officers. They are not trained to be politicians. Some may be okay at it, but it is a different world and I think they have to be careful before they get involved in that role. Probably the final thing, just in terms of propriety and being honourable, is that if you have just left that area, it is pretty hard to say you are not responsible for the legacy you leave, and can you hold someone else to account for that?

Q58 Chair: One of the concerns expressed to me by a chief constable privately is not against the proposals, as such, but the timing of the election, which is going to be in May 2012, at the very time that we are preparing for the biggest security operation in the world, where a number of the local forces are going to have to send officers to London and police other areas. Irrespective of whether there is agreement on the issue of elected Commissioners, do you think the timing may be a wrong time? It should either be before or after the Olympics?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: I do not particularly agree with that. I have, as an HMI, a role to oversee the preparations for the Olympics and if I have heard the Olympics used as an excuse for not doing something once, I must have heard it a lot of times. It has become almost the routine reason why you would not do something, "The Olympics is on in 2012", but when you analyse it, it’s not clear.

Chair: I do not think the suggestion was to put it off for ever, but just the timing is May 2012.

Bernard Hogan-Howe: No. I realise, but I just sort of feed back that quite often, in the policing world particularly, that has become a routine answer: "2012, you can’t do other things", and I am not sure that’s the case. I think the fact that an election is going on and a new person will arrive-to be fair, I am not sure of the timing in the year, but of course the timing of the Olympics is around June/July to August sort of time-I don’t see it as antagonistic to it. I don’t see it would distract the police from doing their job. It shouldn’t.

Q59 Chair: We will be hearing evidence later on in the session from Sir Denis O’Connor about the work of the Inspectorate, but perhaps you could just tell us, since we’re also in our trilogy of reports doing an inquiry into the National Crime Agency, is there work going on in the Inspectorate about the way in which the agency is to operate?

Bernard Hogan-Howe: We’re certainly considering how best we can advise the Government, because obviously they’re going through a process of consultation. It is general consultation around the Green Paper, "Policing in the 21st Century." This is one aspect. We are putting together some feedback for the Government around the NCA proposal and the critical thing I think is to say, "Well, what is it intended to encompass?" because I think there are many options. I think obviously there will be a, "What is attainable by 2012-13?"

Chair: Excellent. Mr Hogan-Howe, thank you very much for coming to give evidence to us today.