Lords Hansard text for 4 Jul 200604 July 2006 (pt 0828)

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I am surprised that the Government feel the necessity to have this reserve power. For someone like myself, who is trying to be constructive throughout this debate, because there is so much good in the Bill, clauses like this unfortunately reinforce the view that the whole balance is shifting and that it is not just at this level but at every level that the Home Secretary is taking greater powers. I shall not press my amendment at this point, but I maintain considerable misgivings about the necessity for this particular reserve power. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Clause 4 [Police authorities as best value authorities]:

Baroness Harris of Richmond moved Amendment No. 81:

(a) section 1(1)(d) is omitted; (b) section 1(4) is omitted; (c) section 24 is omitted.”

The noble Baroness said: The amendment stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Dholakia. As I said at Second Reading, we object to the clause on the grounds that it will give police authorities a duty to secure best value, but no power to enforce that duty. The Bill will remove the ability to commission best value reviews. However, we accept the Government's view that the best value process has become unwieldy and bureaucratic. Our amendments would give authorities the flexibility to scrutinise force activity in a way proportionate to the circumstances.

Best value legislation needs to remain applicable to police authorities, especially provisions relating to inspection. That will give the Audit Commission the locus that it needs to participate in joint inspections with the new CJS inspectorate envisaged in paragraph 12 of the schedule. We are, in any event, seeking to have this paragraph removed from the Bill. We do not support the involvement of the Audit Commission in police authority inspection because it does not have the necessary experience and expertise in this area. If the Government are determined to involve the Audit Commission in police authority inspection, the commission has wide enough powers under other legislation which would enable this, and it is always open to the Government to include specific provisions about this in the relevant part of the Bill.

However, the Government rejected these amendments in another place because, while committing police authorities to continuous improvement, they disapplied all of best value and shut out the Audit Commission. That is exactly what I intend.

The Local Government Act 1999 required councils and police and fire authorities to pursue continuous improvement, but, because there was no real understanding of how to make best value work—reflected not least in inspection—they pursued a sort of paper chase. The annual cost in missed service improvements and savings is hard to judge, but a CBI estimate of March 2005, based on Treasury figures, supports the view that it runs into billions of pounds.

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A well run value programme should yield a combination of improved services and savings worth 10 times its costs. Continuous improvement methods to review products and services and secure best value can be sought from relevant trading organisations through the marketplace. It is out there and it is not the Audit Commission which supplies it. We have permitted a two-tier system of continuous improvement practice to evolve: the practice of the private sector, for which this work is imperative; and a lesser standard in the public sector, which has muddled along. It is therefore extremely important that police authorities are free to secure the advice of any number of the organisations specialising in this field and to demonstrate to the rest of the public sector how to manage continuous improvement and secure best value. I beg to move.

Baroness Henig: I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendment and I endorse much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, said.

Based on my experience as a former chair of a police authority, the best value duty was an important one. It enabled police authorities to scrutinise and become familiar with detailed aspects of policing which some chief officers would previously have guarded as matters of operational independence. It gave us access to some of those dark and dusty corners which had previously escaped rigorous scrutiny. Indeed, police authority involvement in best value reviews actually helped to strengthen relationships with the force and gave officers greater confidence that authority members understood the issues and challenges facing them.

Of course, it also involved a great deal of red tape and bureaucracy. This was mostly due to the guidance issued by the then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. When the APA and the Home Office together produced some guidance specifically for the police service, much of that was swept away.

Best value, as such, may now have had its day; I know that colleagues in, for example, the Metropolitan Police Authority are using other forms of scrutiny very powerfully to achieve the same ends. However, the difficulty with what the Government are proposing is that it places police authorities between a rock and a hard place. They will still have a duty to secure best value; they will still be measured against best value measures, or SPIs, as they are now called; and they will still be inspected against the duty. But they will no longer have the levers or the tools to fulfil that duty—that is, the power to carry out best value reviews. If best value is dying, let us kill it off altogether. We do not want to leave authorities with a duty and no power. Powers to inspect police authorities are already being taken elsewhere in the Bill. The Government continue to have powers under the Bill to set strategic priorities and appropriate measures. Why do we need to continue to apply these provisions?

Lord Bassam of Brighton: The amendment is best described as rather curious. As I understand it, the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, and my noble friend Lady Henig have explained that police authorities continue to support the notion of best value and want it retained. It has been argued fairly that leaving in

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place the overarching duty to promote best value while removing the tools provided for best value reviews and best value performance plans might leave police authorities somewhat hamstrung.

The noble Baroness's solution is simply to disapply the entire best value regime for police authorities. That is a strange solution to what is seen as a problem. I do not see it as a problem at all. I cannot accept the analysis. In repealing the duty to undertake best value reviews, all we are removing is fairly acknowledged as an overly bureaucratic and resource-intensive process. Those are terms and words that I would have thought would be more than a little familiar to the noble Baroness, Lady Harris; I recognise them as terms that she might use to describe best value at its worst, when best value becomes more overbearing than useful in getting good value for money from any organisation. As I understand it and as I attempted to make it work in my time in local government, that is what best value is about.

Of course, police authorities, as with any other statutory body corporate, may do anything consistent with the exercise of their functions. They do not, therefore, need express statutory powers to undertake reviews in order to do so. I would have thought that an element of good practice in any organisation involved in local government or in police authorities is that it is important at all times to review the way in which the organisation operates to secure good value for money. Furthermore, police authorities can continue to draw on their powers in Section 22 of the Police Act 1996 to request a report from their chief officer. In other words, the chief officer has a continuing commitment and obligation to ensure that good value is provided through the police authority.

Police authorities will still be able to discharge their general duty to secure continuous improvement in the delivery of police forces’ functions. That general duty is well worth retaining without the cumbersome bureaucracy that best value can have associated with it, although it has often been shown to be positive. In those circumstances, I am puzzled why the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, takes agin what I would have thought would be recognised as a government move that provided for some freeing up.

My noble friend Lady Henig has acknowledged that the Metropolitan Police Authority is using other tools of scrutiny to secure best value. In a sense, that makes the argument for the Government. If that is the case, what is to stop other police authorities acting in a similar way? They do not need the cumbersome nature of some best value practices to carry out reviews or assess performance plans. I would have thought that this would be a welcome change of approach, because it would enable some scope and some use of imagination in how reviews can be carried out to benefit the police authority and ensure that it continues to deliver the services that it is asked to provide at good value.

5.30 pm

Baroness Harris of Richmond: I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, for her support. I am disappointed that the Minister finds it a curious

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amendment. I do not know whether he understood my first sentence in speaking to the amendment. It is still very important for police authorities to secure best value, but the Bill will remove the power to enforce that duty. I heard what the Minister said about police authorities’ ability to get other forms of help in securing best value, but one of my main points was the power of that extraordinary body, the Audit Commission, to inspect the authority. Will it have the wherewithal to say what sort of best value it ought to apply to police authorities? Will it advise them on how they should best seek this advice? It certainly does not have the experience to do that.

When the Minister looks again at what I have said, perhaps he will consider a little more carefully what encouragement I am trying to give the Government.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I do not know whether this is the right thing to say, and it is certainly not in my brief—I know it is always risky—but having heard what the noble Baroness said, I am thinking back to a time when I had the privilege and good fortune to act as the leader of my local authority. Every year, we used to receive something called the auditors’ management letter, which the noble Baroness will no doubt be familiar with. This was long before the days of best value and during what I thought was a rather heavy-handed regime called compulsory competitive tendering—although I freely acknowledge that it had its benefits. What I used to find particularly helpful was not so much the letter itself, but what preceded it: external invigilation and review of important functions of the local authority, including, perhaps, its housing benefits system, occasionally its poll tax or council tax, or whatever regime it was. That acted as a catalyst for a good deal of internal thinking about processes and good management.

I did not require a regime for that to happen. I enjoyed the fact that there was some pressure on the organisation and management to think about how we procured and secured and how we made organisations, functions and processes work. I guess that in this case we are aiming to achieve something not entirely dissimilar. So, yes, police authorities will have a duty to secure best value, but they will have some freedom and responsibility to do it in a way which is most appropriate. That is what we are trying to get at. I hope those comments are helpful and give some colour and understanding to what we are about.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation. I remember with fondness many management letters during the20 years in which I was a county councillor. I also remember CCT very well. As I said, it has all failed. It has cost billions of pounds because it has not been used and understood properly. It works in the private sector, but it does not work in the public sector. Therefore, it needs to be looked at again. I still feel very strongly that the Audit Commission should not have any hand in this whatever, because it has neither the necessary experience nor the expertise. It would be wrong for it to be involved. The processes have failed. Having heard what the Minister said, I do not want to

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labour the amendment much longer. I will withdraw it, but I may well come back to this issue on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 4 agreed to.

Clause 5 [Standard powers and duties of community support officers]:

Viscount Bridgeman moved Amendment No. 82:

The noble Viscount said: Clause 5, as the Explanatory Notes tell us, inserts a new power into the list of powers in the 2002 Act that may be conferred on persons designated as community support officers. The Explanatory Notes go on to state:

The amendment in my name and that of my noble friend would insert a new subsection into Clause 5 to make certain that,

The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, refers specifically to,

The amendments to some degree overlap, the aim being to probe the nature and extent of the powers which the Secretary of Sate might want to introduce in standardising the powers and duties of CSOs under this clause. The Home Office’s consultation demonstrated that there was general agreement that some standardisation of powers is desirable. However, a range of organisations have expressed concern about whether too much standardisation is proposed. Indeed, the APA argues that the consultation that it undertook last year demonstrates that police authorities support only a minimum set of standard powers and maximum local flexibility.

I commend CSOs for the work that they do. It is clear that they bring some reassurance to the public by their presence on the street and help provide local flexibility. Indeed, they can adopt a targeted approach to each area in which they work. I will discuss their important role with children in the next amendment.

Organisations such as the APA, however, are worried not only that, by increasing the CSOs’ automatic powers, particularly the power of detention, the Bill will erode the cost differential of training for full officers and CSOs, but also that the latter will spend less time on the streets and more time behind desks completing paperwork. ACPO has made similar noises, stating that,

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I remind your Lordships that the Home Affairs Select Committee commented that a reduction in the street presence of CSOs would be counterproductive. I hope that the Minister will explain to the Committee in full the powers that the Government wish to standardise and those that they do not, and to what degree standardisation is removing more discretion from chief constables.

Perhaps I may use this opportunity briefly to discuss truancy. I know that some organisations such as the Police Federation welcome the extension of the power to deal with truants to CSOs—indeed, they highlight the enormity of the problem and the time it consumes. But do these powers really answer the question? The Children's Society has questioned the efficacy of truancy sweeps as a way to tackle non-attendance at school, highlighting that the National Foundation for Educational Research concluded that, while sweeps had raised awareness of the issue, it was,

Despite a plethora of initiatives, national rates of unauthorised absence have not changed in 10 years and they increased in 2004-05 to more than 0.8 per cent of available school days. I hope that the Minister will inform us what the Government are doing to re-examine their strategy for tackling truancy and to shift the balance away from enforcement measures in favour of more strategic initiatives that respond to children’s and young people’s reasons for not attending school. They should focus more on some of the good early-intervention initiatives which address family difficulties such as those seen in Kent and recognise that this is one of the more likely roots of the problem. If we can address the causes of truancy, we can help cut the amount of time our officers and CSOs need to spend addressing it. They can then focus on other areas that require more skills. I beg to move.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: I rise in support of Amendment No. 82 and will also speak to Amendment No. 84, which stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Dholakia. Amendment No. 82 raises the argument about whether it is better to have standardised powers—which the Secretary of State would be able to impose anyway—or the power of a chief constable to allow local flexibility in determining what powers a CSO should have.

We know that the power to detain will be made standard, so that everyone will recognise that all CSOs, like police officers, have this power. I am opposed to their having this power, because I think it could cause immense problems, especially if an energetic and enthusiastic CSO gets it wrong. There is greater likelihood of that, because their training is minuscule and their experience far less than that of a fully fledged police officer. However, as the Government seem to think it is a good idea to allow power to creep to them, let us at least make sure that they all understand what is expected of them.

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I much prefer the stance taken by the APA, which would give chief constables discretion to decide whether their CSOs should be deployed in this manner. I hope chief constables would decide that in consultation with their police authorities. In 2002, when we discussed the powers of CSOs—how well I remember that—ACPO said that CSOs were,

In its view it was only for sworn police officers to deal with circumstances where,

We can see that there are clear boundaries to the role of police CSOs. Local flexibility is the key to using them. I hope the Minister will agree that this amendment helps forces get the best out of their CSOs and use them as local policing style dictates. That can only be decided by each force and police authority.

Amendment No. 84 is a probing amendment intended to discover the nature and extent of the powers that the Secretary of State might want to introduce under the clause. It is rather strange that extremely detailed powers are included in Schedule 4 to the Police Reform Act 2002, explaining exactly what powers CSOs can exercise: issuing, in effect, fixed penalty notices; detaining, for up to 30 minutes, suspects who fail to give details; and using reasonable force to detain people in those circumstances. As I said, I am opposed to the power to detain anyway. It always assumes the use of force, however light, and the repercussions of that could be horrendous, even litigious. Apart from the fact that CSOs are not trained sufficiently—nor will they be—in the gentle art of detention, it is entirely wrong that they should be given the power to use force to enable them to undertake it. Apart from anything else, their own safety could be badly compromised; far better that this power be given to a fully trained police officer, who knows when and how to apply force appropriately.

5.45 pm

Baroness Henig: One of the reasons why I want to speak to this amendment is to pay tribute to the Home Office. Heaven knows that in recent weeks the Home Office has not had many friends in this House. I want to take this opportunity to point out that CSOs have been one of the big success stories of the last three years. The Home Office has to take some of the credit for that, both for securing the finance and for making sure that all police authorities came on board and realised their usefulness. That has to be said, and I wanted to begin by saying it.

In Lancashire we saw very early on the value of community support officers. We asked for a lot of them right at the start. I think we had the highest number outside London and Manchester. We used

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them throughout Lancashire and they were a very effective part of our extended police family. In the next three years, community support officers will be an invaluable and integral part of the rollout of the neighbourhood policing initiative, which both sides of the Committee will welcome. That is why it is so important that we look at that role, see how they have been used, and use them most effectively. They have been successful and will be even more so.

Lancashire was one of the forces to have a pilot scheme in relation to detention powers. CSOs operated with powers of detention in two divisions in Lancashire. In one division it worked very effectively; in the other division it did not. Interestingly, at the end of that experiment, Lancashire Constabulary felt that it did not want powers of detention for CSOs. I think that is a point worth making, because it tried all this. My own preference—although I would not push it too vigorously—would be for the chief constable to have discretion over these areas. I say that only because, as I have already argued, these community support officers are going to be an absolutely essential community resource in the next few years. We need to try, as far as we can, to get the relationship and powers right so that we can use them to maximum effect. While I would not strenuously oppose what is suggested, I would like it noted that I think maximum flexibility and discretion may well be the most effective way forward here.

Lord Dholakia: That is precisely the reason why my noble friend said that this is very much a probing amendment. We really want to see exactly which powers will be vested in community support officers. This was discussed very substantially during previous legislation. We certainly support everything the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, has said.

It might be useful to cast our minds back to look at the extent of the conflict police officers find themselves involved in when detaining people. Many of us are used to seeing this on CCTV and many programmes on television. If those powers are to be used by community support officers it is vital that they are properly trained for that purpose, rather than be expected to perform a task that needs years of police training. If we do not tread carefully, the sympathy that exists at the moment in relation to community support officers will gradually disappear if there is a confrontation between them and the individual being arrested. It might be very helpful if, at this stage, the Minister could indicate two things. First, will community support officers receive adequate training—meaning as good as that given to police officers? Secondly, will they also be subject to the discipline of the Independent Police Complaints Commission?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I thank my noble friend Lady Henig for the compliment she paid the Home Office. It is a rare moment and I will savour it for a long time. May I say with all humility that on this occasion it is perhaps justified only because of what has been said by other Members of the Committee, not all of whom were as enthusiastic

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when CSOs were originally introduced but who have now become stalwart converts to their benefits. I had the great pleasure last week of speaking to a head teacher who had been extremely antipathetic to the thought of working with police officers or indeed with CSOs, and is now extolling their virtues and benefits. We have converts it appears not only all over the Committee but all over the country, which we must of course celebrate.

It is right that people are jealous of that success, because PCSOs have added colour, flavour and intimacy to the way in which the community can respond, which we value. I wish to reassure the Committee that our seeking to standardise some of the powers under which CSOs will operate is only to bring clarity. It is not to bring rigidity or to try to undermine the efficacy of the way in which they work. It would therefore be right to make it plain, in response to the question of the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, that the list of the powers that the Government propose to confer are set out as standard in annexe B of the Explanatory Notes. None of the proposed powers is inappropriate to CSOs. They are already in legislation, which is what the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, indicated, so we should not see PCSOs abstracted from the community as was feared. I understand what the noble Viscount says about their visibility, accessibility and importance. An approach that took them away from that front-line role would be extremely regrettable.

I am not sure whether I misheard, but I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, referred to powers of arrest. I remind the House that CSOs do not have a power to arrest, although they have a power to detain. I thought that he did not intend that. The power to detain is worded as a requirement to wait with the community support officer for up to 30 minutes. The use of force is therefore not inevitable. It has been piloted successfully. The power to use reasonable force is separate and will not be a standard power. I particularly endorse the views expressed by my noble friend Lady Henig that the way in which it can be delivered has been found successful in many situations, and on other occasions not so. The power to use reasonable force is a separate power that needs to be judiciously used.

I turn to the truancy sweeps that the noble Viscount raised. They are only one element of the strategy that we intend to use: there are issues on how we respond to truancy in terms of educational welfare, the assessments made at school, parenting orders, the attempts to engage the parents in relation to it, and the now greater connection between the wraparound services and the agencies working together in partnership to identify need and interventions which will encourage children to remain in school. Special programmes for children are being developed. Some of the groups teach them in a slightly different way, which is more interesting and likely to retain their presence at school, one hopes. All those matters have to be undertaken. This is but one extra step, which cannot ever be a panacea but can be an additional support.

Children who are truanting are disproportionately likely to be engaged in anti-social behaviour and disproportionately often at risk. The training for PCSOs

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is not minuscule; it is often around four weeks and the chief officer has a statutory obligation in that regard to ensure that they have proper training. Training is an issue to which we will return on a number of occasions. It is also right to say that the reason why we are not persuaded that Amendment No. 82 adds value to Clause 5 is that there is, as I have already indicated, provision in the clause that requires the Secretary of State to consult police authorities and chief officers prior to exercising the order-making power. In putting our proposals for consultation, the Secretary of State will in any event need to strike a balance between the benefits of a standardised set of powers for community support officers and the advantages of according chief constables a degree of local flexibility, which has already been echoing around the House as one of the benefits that we have been able to derive to date.

The Home Secretary will then have to consider carefully the comments made in response to that consultation. We have been candid about the whole process since last summer. The proposed set of standard powers for community support officers has been formulated following a formal public consultation in which the Association of Chief Police Officers was specifically invited to comment. Our intentions, which will be subject to debate in this House, are set out in annexe B of the Explanatory Notes. The Bill recognises that it is desirable for some powers to be standard and for some to remain available at the discretion of individual chief officers. In deciding which powers should be standardised, the Secretary of State will take into account the relevant factors and views. We believe that the duty to consult achieves the ends sought by Amendment No. 82, and I hope for that reason the noble Baroness, Lady Harris—at whom I am looking, but my remarks are also intended for the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman—will be content not to press the amendment, as it is not necessary. As I said, we understand why it was tabled.

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