2 The New Landscape of Policing
4. During the course of this Parliament there have
been a number of structural changes to policing bodies and organisations.
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and National Policing
Improvement Agency (NPIA) are no more, with the National Crime
Agency (NCA) and College of Policing being created. There is a
new police ICT company, incorporated in 2012 to "help police
forces improve operational effectiveness and get better value
for money and innovative ICT" (although it is not yet fully
operational).[6] The National
Police Chief's Council (NPCC) will replace the Association of
Chief Police Officers (ACPO) from April 2015, to co-ordinate operational
policing at the national level.[7]
These changes, and the functions that have moved, are set out
in more detail in Annex A.
5. There is no doubt about the scale of these changes.
Peter Neyroud, the former Chief Executive of the NPIA, told us
that it all amounted to "a hell of a lot of change",[8]
and Sir Hugh Orde, President of ACPO, recently referred to "seismic
shifts in the policing landscape".[9]
6. Keith Bristow QPM, Director General of the National
Crime Agency highlighted challenges he had encountered in creating
a new organisation, and then getting up to full operational capacity:
I think we have brought together a number of
disparate organisations and it is going to take time to integrate
those into a single agency. I think there is work that we need
to do to develop capabilities that we need that we do not currently
have, or we do not currently have enough of, and some of that
is about how we operate in a digital world. … I think we
have had a good first year. There is more to do, and the public
are safer as a result of the NCA being brought into being.[10]
7. During the course of this Parliament, all the
major policing bodies have been overhauled and reformed. There
is no part of the police service that has not been or is not being
restructured. It is now time to allow these pieces of the policing
puzzle to settle into the new landscape, so that they might achieve
the aim of making policing more effective.
Responsibility for counter-terrorism
8. When The National Crime Agency: A plan for
the creation of national crime-fighting capability
was published on 8 June 2011, it did not rule out the possibility
that counter-terrorism could be one of the NCA's responsibilities
at some point in the future.[11]
In our previous report, New Landscape of Policing, we concluded
that there would be advantages in placing responsibility for counter-terrorism
in the National Crime Agency, but recognised that there was a
danger that this would divert resources and attention from the
fight against organised crime. We agreed with the Government,
that responsibility for counter-terrorism should remain with the
Metropolitan Police until after the 2012 Olympics, not least because
the National Crime Agency would not be fully functional until
the end of December 2013. However, we recommended that, after
the Olympics, the Home Office should consider making counter-terrorism
a separate command of the National Crime Agency.[12]
9. In October 2013, in their evidence to our counter-terrorism
inquiry, the Home Office told us that once the NCA was up and
running, the Government would consider what, if any, role it should
play in respect of counter-terrorism.[13]
In our Report, we reiterated our earlier conclusion, recommending
that the work to transfer the terrorism command from the Met to
the NCA ought to begin immediately with a view to a full transfer
of responsibility for counter-terrorism operations taking place
in 2018.[14]
10. The Home Secretary has announced that any review
of terrorism policing would be postponed until after the election,
in light of the recent increase in the terrorist threat level.[15]
A few days after this announcement, Keith Bristow told us that
in his view, the most important issue was not which agency led
the fight against terrorism, but how the most effective use could
be made of existing counter-terrorist capabilities. He argued
that, given the similarities in the operating methods of terrorists
and organised crime, there would be some advantage in merging
or integrating the two sets of capabilities.[16]
11. In evidence to the Committee, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe
took a slightly more cautious view:
My view is that where we are is good, particularly
at the moment. We are, as you know, busy and I don't think it
would be wise to disturb that, particularly at the moment. A future
Government might decide to review it and I think that is perfectly
understandable, but I think we have to wait at the moment. I think
the decision of the Home Secretary to postpone that was entirely
right because I think we would have distracted some very busy
people who are dealing with some very serious issues, which would
have been unwise.[17]
12. One piece of the policing jigsaw that has
not found a settled position is counter-terrorism. We agree with
the Home Secretary's decision not to conduct a review in this
Parliament, due to the terrorism risk faced by the UK at the moment.
However, given recent national events and global atrocities, it
does not appear likely that the terrorism risk will decrease in
the near future. Therefore, we recommend that the review take
place early in the next Parliament, to maximise the impact of
the police's CT capabilities.
Collaboration between police forces
13. In December 2014 the Chief Constable of Lincolnshire
Police, Neil Rhodes, wrote to the Home Secretary to express his
fear that his force would effectively go out of business within
three years under the current funding arrangements. The alternative,
he suggested would be to cut a further fifth of frontline officers,
ending routine street patrols, ignoring a large element of minor
crime and refusing requests for mutual aid.[18]
14. Lincolnshire has one of the largest force areas
in the country, covering almost 2,300 square miles, but with few
towns and cities and a relatively low population. The force has
one of the smallest staff of all 43 forces in England and Wales.
It has reduced the number of officers from 1,220 to 1,100.[19]
As shown in figure 1, Lincolnshire Police will receive one of
the lowest revenue allocations for England and Wales in 2015/16.Figure
1: Provisional revenue allocations for England and Wales 2011/12
and 2015/16, £m
Note: Figure 1 does not include the revenue allocation
to the Greater London Authority.
Source: Police Authority Grants (England and Wales), Written Statement,
13 December 2010, Column 73WS; and Police Grant Report England
and Wales 2015-16 Written Statement, 17 December 2014, Column
99WS
15. Sir Hugh Orde, President of ACPO, highlighted
similar observations from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary
and told us that there were a number of anomalies in the funding
formula.[20] He suggested
that the amalgamation of smaller forces to achieve economies of
scale might be one possible solution, and advocated an independent
review of the "totality of policing" to look for ways
to achieve savings while protecting neighbourhood policing.[21]
Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has gone further, arguing for a reduction
in the number of police forces in England and Wales from 43 to
nine, based on regional boundaries.[22]
The Home Secretary told us that she "would be willing to
look at" proposals for force mergers if they had local support,
but suggested that there were ways of making savings through collaboration
that preserved the identities of local forces.[23]
16. In our report in May 2014, Police and Crime Commissioners:
progress to date, we explored how police force areas might work
more closely together in the interests of efficiency and effectiveness.
We concluded:
Collaborative working has the potential to save
money as well as providing a higher standard of policing. We support
the efforts of commissioners in working with their neighbours
and others in fields as diverse as the provision of blue light
services, mental health, community safety, organised crime and
counter-terrorism. Although there has been progress in some areas,
it is clear that a majority of police forces are not yet exploiting
the full potential of collaboration. … We also support the
alliances between Warwickshire and West Mercia, and Surrey and
Sussex, the former of which has achieved the majority of their
required savings over the current spending period through collaboration.[24]
17. We are concerned that some police forces believe
that they will not be able to operate in their current form while
making further efficiency savings. We are also concerned that
senior leaders in the police appear to be keen to tear up the
police forces map to make savings. We have previously examined
how forces can collaborate both with their neighbouring forces,
and with other blue light services. We believe that potential
savings from collaboration between forces and between the emergency
services at local level have not yet been fully realised and offers
the best opportunity to achieve further efficiency gains. We recommend
that where pre-existing alliances have proved successful, and
there is local support police forces should be allowed to merge.
NCA performance
18. One area of police operations under the new landscape
that we remain concerned about is the recovery of criminal assets.
At our evidence session with Keith Bristow QPM, Director General,
National Crime Agency, we explored how it was performing in its
first year, and particularly if it was going to be better than
the Serious Organised Crime Agency SOCA. He told us that in SOCA's
last year of operation it recovered £14.9 million of assets,
whereas the NCA recovered £22.5 million in its first year,
with 3,229 arrests and 400 convictions. However, this level of
recovery was achieved with a budget of approximately £500
million.[25]
19. We requested further detail on the NCA's asset
recovery performance, which has been provided in the tables below:Table
1 Breakdown of NCA Criminal Assets Recovered
| Cash forfeitures
| £3.1m |
| Civil recovery and tax receipts
| £7.7m (see Table 2 below for further detail)
|
| Confiscation Orders enforced
| £11.7m (of which £5.518m was recovered by the NCA Asset Confiscation Enforcement Team see Table 3 for further detail)
|
| Total | £22.5m
|
Source: NCA letter dated 29 October 2014Table
2 Breakdown of Civil Recovery and Tax Receipts
| Cash | £7.129 m
|
| UK Property |
£0.566m |
| Luxury Watches |
£0.02m |
| Antiques | £0.009m
|
| Vehicles | £0.003m
|
| Total | £7.729m
|
Source: NCA letter dated 29 October 2014Table
3 Breakdown of the £5.518m recovered by the NCA Asset Confiscation
Enforcement Team
| UK Property |
£4.5m |
| Financial Institution
| £0.100m |
| Jewellery and Other Valuables
| £0.005m |
| Cash | £0.019m
|
| Vehicles | £0.020m
|
| Overseas | £0.849m
|
| Other (Business Interest)
| £0.025m |
| Total | £5.518m
|
Source: NCA letter dated 29 October 2014
20. When the National Crime Agency was created,
it was an opportunity for a new organisation to shake off the
practices of its predecessor, and to show improved performance
under a new regime. We welcome the work done by Keith Bristow
in leading the National Crime Agency - in particular the way he
has been open and transparent with the Committee. However, we
are not seeing the level of performance we would expect. The NCA,
like SOCA before them, is an organisation that can claw back assets
from those involved in criminal activity. However, like SOCA it
is not recovering assets in sufficient volume to justify a budget
of half a billion. The NCA must improve drastically in this area
so that the returns achieved equate to the resources that are
made available to it. Furthermore, the NCA needs to produce and
make public benchmarks whereby its performance can be assessed.
Parliament needs to be able to hold the NCA to account for its
performance so that there is ongoing improvement.
21. The Committee did initially register concern
about the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP)
coming under the control of this organisation, however generally
the NCA has proved to be a more effective body than the other
new organisations. The most significant remaining concern the
Committee has is regarding the intelligence received from Toronto
Police before CEOP came under the NCA upon which no action was
taken. The NCA must address the backlog of abuse inquiry cases
which it inherited from CEOP with the greatest of urgency.
6 https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/helping-the-police-fight-crime-more-effectively/supporting-pages/police-ict-company Back
7
http://news.acpo.police.uk/releases/update-on-acpo-future Back
8
Home Affairs Committee, Third Report of Session 2013-14, Leadership and standards in the police,
HC 67-I, Para 21, Back
9
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29662893 Back
10
Home Affairs Committee, The work of the National Crime Agency,
HC 688, Oral evidence, 14 October 2014, Qq 75-77 Back
11
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/97826/nca-creation-plan.pdf,
p 13 Back
12
Home Affairs Committee, Third Report of Session 2013-14, Leadership and standards in the police,
HC 67-I, Para 90 Back
13
Home Affairs Committee, Counter-terrorism, HC 231, Home Office
written evidence (INQ0007) http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/home-affairs-committee/counterterrorism/written/4863.pdf,
para 15 Back
14
Home Affairs Committee, Seventeenth Report of Session 2013-14,
Counter-terrorism, HC 231, para 141 Back
15
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29547445 Back
16
Home Affairs Committee, The work of the National Crime Agency,
HC 688, Oral evidence, 14 October 2014, Qq 35-40 Back
17
Home Affairs Committee, Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000,
HC 711, Oral evidence, 11 November 2014, Qq 171-178 Back
18
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11276719/First-police-force-faces-going-out-of-business.html Back
19
As above Back
20
Home Affairs Committee, College of Policing, HC 800, Oral evidence,
9 December 2014, Q2 Back
21
Home Affairs Committee, College of Policing, HC 800, Oral evidence,
9 December 2014, Qq 33-34 Back
22
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/14/reform-cuts-public-risk-police-emergency-services-austerity Back
23
Home Affairs Committee, The work of the Home Secretary, HC 500,
Oral evidence,15 December 2014, Qq 192-193 Back
24
Home Affairs Committee, Sixteenth Report of Session 2013-14, Police and Crime Commissioners: progress to date,
HC 757, Paras 24-25 Back
25
Home Affairs Committee, The work of the National Crime Agency,
HC 688, Oral evidence, 14 October 2014, Qq 50-62 Back
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