Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380
- 399)
WEDNESDAY 2 JULY 2008
Sir Ronnie Flanagan, Chief Constable Ken Jones, Chief
Constable Ian Johnston and Assistant Chief Constable Nick Gargan
Q380 Lord Young of Norwood Green:
I just want to explore the point that was made by Assistant Chief
Constable Gargan about the way that the embedded SOCA liaison
officers do start to cross those cultural and judicial differences.
It seemed to me, when we walked along that corridor where they
were all stationed, that that really did make a difference. It
seems to me that if the Met have a role in relation to counter-terrorism,
well why do they not embed a liaison officer, or do they?
Sir Ronnie Flanagan: Yes, that was the
point I was making, they do exactly that. They have one and have
imminent plans for a second one to be embedded.
Q381 Lord Teverson:
Let us move on to the European Parliament which will have to satisfy
itself that Europol has a positive impact on UK forces in terms
of "competent law enforcement authorities" for the purposes
of the Europol Convention and Council Decision. Will SOCA be best
placed to provide this information? I would be interested, within
that context, to understand really how you would see the European
Parliament oversight work.
Chief Constable Jones: The bold answer
is yes, SOCA are best placed, the mechanisms they use are transparent,
they are open, we feel we have good access to them and there is
a good two-way flow of information. The challenge will come as
Europol, hopefully, increases its capacity and leverage over some
of the critical threat and risk areas I mentioned earlier and
whether that will be sufficient, but we currently feel absolutely
it is. One of the problems of course is that, in terms of competent
authorities, some agencies which are important to us, and Sir
Ronnie has mentioned one of the issues is terrorism, are not regarded
as competent. For example, some of our security agencies in the
UK are not part of that group and that does need some thinking
frankly. That was more critical a few years ago of course because
MI5 had a remit around organised crime which it no longer has
and they had an oddity where they were not a competent authority,
but we managed around that. As terrorism becomes, and I agree
with some of the recent assessment that it is, enduring and is
probably going to be around for a generation then, the view of
what is and what is not a competent authority will need to be
looked at afresh.
Q382 Lord Teverson:
That sounds like that could be quite a critical area in a way
in how this is structurally laid out.
Chief Constable Jones: Yes, it is. It
is one-way and when we get back to this visibility and the value-added
of Europol more needs to be done to raise that and that will result
in more challenge, more critical challenge and hopefully constructive
and more improvement. Ultimately we are here to try to make neighbourhoods
safer and if we are not, we are wasting our time and your money.
There is this feeling that it does tend to be a bit one-way at
times.
Q383 Baroness Henig:
What is your view of the added value of Europol's work in the
area of counter-terrorism, and what value do you attribute to
the Europol Terrorism Situation and Trend Report?
Chief Constable Jones: There is a tremendous
amount of value-added in our liaison, not just with Europol but
through Europol to other agencies around Europe and it is particularly
at the operative level. Sir Ronnie has already mentioned that
the NPS have placed an individual at the heart of that and it
is actually becoming more and more important now that we continue
to improve and develop those links. In terms of TE-SAT, I have
the report hot off the press. Although it is constructed from
open source, it does give a very useful overview to the less well-informed
about terrorism across the EU; it is a useful document but it
does not really go into the detail which might be of value to
operational people. However, it is very influential in terms of
political oversight and certainly I have used it when I was chairman
of the terrorism committee to influence people in that particular
area, particularly a committee such as this. There is some very
useful information in it, but it is open source at a very, very
high level. It is a developing field and I return to my point
about competent authorities: we cannot just exclude certain agencies
because they do not fit the definition of what is or not a competent
authority.
Q384 Baroness Henig:
I assume that a number of bodies deal with issues relating to
counter-terrorism of which Europol is one, so it is quite a crowded
field.
Chief Constable Jones: It is.
Q385 Baroness Henig:
I am not quite clear how they all mesh together or how the liaison
works. I was not in The Hague last week when there was a visit
there and I get the impression that Europol is very much information
exchange and bureaucratic centre, and I just wonder therefore
how it ties in with presumably more active players in the terrorism
area.
Chief Constable Jones: Through one of
the work files, one of the 18, it is becoming more of a node,
more of a centre, more active but it has come to the party a little
bit later than some of the other agencies. Then we get into this
other issue about nervousness around compromising information
and intelligence. I have to tell you that on some of the investigations
that I am aware of, the liaison agency to agency that goes through
Europol is incredibly effective but Europol's role in this is
to facilitate and they need to be an authoritative source of who
is talking to whom, which country is talking to which country.
They do not need to know the content of that from our perspective,
but an agency in this country is dealing with an investigation
and I have seen them take in Holland, France and Spain and then
an investigator in Spain needs to know from somebody where these
investigative links are and then discussions around sharing the
content of those enquiries can take place at the operational level.
Europol needs to locate itself securely as that central flagging
point in the way that we used to have the crime squad and now
we have SOCA doing that for inquiries within the UK.
Q386 Baroness Henig:
Is there anything that needs to be done to enhance its role? From
where you are sitting, is there anything that we perhaps might
need to consider that could make that rather more effective?
Chief Constable Jones: We do need to
raise that issue up. It is done, but I am not able to say whether
it is done effectively or ineffectively. My sense is that it is
not visible and that is a challenge that needs to be made. I could
not say with confidence this morning that it is working well or
not working well but it is critical and those at the operational
investigative leading edge in any country can go to a central
point. It avoids what we call blue-on-blue, where investigations
might cross one another. There are real concerns around the compromise
of information because ultimately lives are at risk.
Q387 Lord Teverson:
In terms of trust levels, obviously there is even an issue between
SOCA and the other organisations, which we presume is good, but
given that a lot of very sensitive information could be disappearing
in all sorts of areas, is there enough trust there or does one
pull back to a certain degree on certain issues?
Chief Constable Jones: It is a case-by-case
basis really but we are getting smarter and quicker at dealing
with other jurisdictions and overcoming those issues quicker.
Certainly there are some people that maybe think that all information
needs to be put in one database centrally somewhere and everything
will be all right, but actually therein lie some real problems
for us. It goes back to the human relationship issue, but we are
getting much swifter at doing that. These jurisdictional barriers
are real and they do take time to overcome.
Q388 Lord Marlesford:
I got the impression, visiting Europol last week, that the national
liaison offices are very important for many reasons and it seems
to me that one of the reasons is that it is possible, where there
is suspicion or worry about the security of information, for the
national liaison office to have things which agencies in the UK
would not necessarily want Europol to have. I was rather struck
because there did not appear to be any direct linkage between
our security service and the national liaison office. I would
have thought that would have been quite a good way of getting
the right relationship in and of course various countries have
different systems of policing whereby the security service, the
analogues of MI5, are, to a greater or lesser extent, embedded
in police forces whereas here it is pretty separate really. Certainly
the French reorganisation which we heard about this week was an
interesting one which seems to be a very big effort to integrate
much more on the counter-terrorism front. Do you think, just purely
in rather simple organisation terms, if the national liaison office,
particularly the UK one, were to be strengthened with a pretty
senior level of linkage with our security service with their own
people in the liaison office, this would help?
Chief Constable Jones: That is a question
for the agency but certainly we see the liaison activity as critical
and becoming more critical. I would agree with your broad point
but perhaps I am not best placed to answer the question.
Assistant Chief Constable Gargan: We
could usefully make the point there that the DST and the RG in
France are both part of the police so that is an internal reorganisation;
that is not our way of working traditionally in the UK so it would
be an altogether different question and a broader constitutional
question.
Q389 Lord Marlesford:
I do not see a constitutional problem in the sense that one is
not suggesting a change in the arrangements between the UK agencies
inside the UK, one is merely trying to get a better relationship
and flow of information without the inhibitions about security
with Europol.
Assistant Chief Constable Gargan: I guess
the issues would be around what is an intelligence agency not
an evidence agency, that is the security service operating with
Europol, with judicial police forces that are evidential agencies.
Chief Constable Jones: Our security agencies
quite properly make great play of the distinction between intelligence
and secret intelligence and they would see the need for a completely
different structure to be place around secret intelligence rather
than organised crime intelligence, for example. I agree with you
that there is an overlap there and there is a linkage there that
needs to be explored and that is becoming more and more critical.
Q390 Lord Dear:
An observation rather than a question and I would value your response
to it. It goes back to the question asked about trust and in The
Hague last week, if I understood the position correctly, on the
counter-terrorist side the only information which is exchanged
amongst the Member States is at restricted level, which is very
low of course and is largely ex post facto anyway.
Chief Constable Jones: Yes.
Q391 Lord Dear:
I can see enormous difficulties in trading high value, highly
ranked intelligence on an ongoing inquiry, for all the obvious
reasons about not knowing where it is going to go and who is going
to use it or misuse it. It was nevertheless ex post facto
and a very low level and I wondered whether you had an observation
on that.
Chief Constable Jones: At the investigative
level the liaison is good because it depends entirely on the links
that people have made and are already making around the current
and old investigation. Above the level where you are going to
start circulating and sharing secret intelligence, it is necessarily
very, very difficult, hence your remark about restricted intelligence.
I would not be surprised if there were greater interchange of
higher grade material between the actual agencies concerned.
Q392 Lord Dear:
On a bilateral basis.
Chief Constable Jones: Yes, on a bilateral
basis.
Sir Ronnie Flanagan: I just want to point
out that there are other mechanisms for the exchange of much more
highly sensitive material and when we talk about trust, it is
not any lack of trust in the individuals or the individual Member
States, it is rather a need to make sure that highly sensitive
material is protected so that prosecution cases are not jeopardised,
so that lives are not put at risk, so that methodology is not
put at risk. The sort of mechanisms we are describing are not
appropriate mechanisms for the exchange of information intelligence
of that level of sensitivity.
Q393 Chairman:
Does that mean that we need other mechanisms or there are other
places?
Sir Ronnie Flanagan: No, you can be assured
that other mechanisms are in place.
Q394 Baroness Henig:
We have heard that the current system places significant emphasis
on bilateral communication. What are the obstacles from your point
of view to the better use of the Europol Information System?
Assistant Chief Constable Gargan: To
the first part of that, yes, the current set of arrangements does
indeed place a significant emphasis on bilateral communication.
The Serious Organised Crime Agency send out about 5,500 requests
per annum of which around 10% are routed through Europol, so there
is that emphasis. In terms of the better use of the Europol Information
System, I suppose a start would be to get properly connected to
it, which we are not. The second thing is, if there are 62,000
entries on the system, we need to be confident that they are the
right 62,000 entries and this is where the strategic intelligence
assessment and the cyclical process of making an assessment, putting
in place a control strategy, setting out in a concerted way to
gather intelligence to fill your gaps and tasking and coordinating
your effort to make sure you are doing the things that matter
and that your chosen interventions are the right interventions,
that is where that cyclical process really comes into its own.
If Europol seeks to position itself, as it does, at the low volume
high end of the criminal investigative market, it is critically
important that those 62,000 entries are the right people. At the
minute I guess there is obviously the scope for that database
to become much larger; that is inhibited by the limited access
that I have described, by a lack of confidence which is a discussion
we have just had about respective doubts about security and a
broad lack of awareness; again a theme of our earlier discussion,
and that leads to a low level of contribution to the database.
Q395 Baroness Garden of Frognal:
We have already touched on some of the issues in my next question.
Europol may be moving away from its task of facilitating information
exchange in favour of providing analytical services. What is your
view of the effectiveness of crime analysis carried out in the
absence of a European intelligence cycle or other coordinating
framework?
Chief Constable Johnston: First of all,
we do not sense that Europol is actually moving away from its
task of facilitating information exchange and we do in fact welcome
the growth in their approach around analytical services, which
are extremely important in the future going forward. The work
of the analysts on the Europol analytical work files is based
on the NIM. During our presidency of the EU, we did manage to
get lodged within something called the European Criminal Intelligence
Model the principles of NIM which we regard obviously favourably
as they are the principles that we have adopted in the UK and
they are now generally accepted. The issue is the extent to which
they are generally applied. Because of a whole range of cultural
issues, and Sir Ronnie alluded to the difficulties in getting
the model implemented across the UK, we have exactly the same
problems getting that model implemented across all 27 countries
in Europe who want to comply. We would say that there is a model,
the model is giving us an effective product but it could be a
lot more effective if it were applied more universally throughout
the whole of Europe. I guess that is what we would be hoping others
would do for us in the future. We are aware that there are improved
mechanisms for feedback on the quality of the product being developed
within Europol at the moment and we very much welcome those developments
because it will give us the opportunity to apply pressure for
a more common approach to NIM throughout Europe.
Q396 Chairman:
When we were in Brussels last week, we asked the Commission about
the whole aspect of intelligence-led policing and they told us
that an expected report was premature, which caused us to raise
eyebrows. In the light of what you have just said, do you find
that surprising?
Chief Constable Johnston: Yes. We know
from our experience within the UK that getting a shift in approach
to issues both in a sort of procedural and cultural sense does
take time so we are realists around it. We are encouraged that
the model is there in principle, but we do recognise that in practice
there is some way to go yet. This is hardly surprising and it
will be a continuing problem as new countries join the arrangements.
Q397 Lord Dear:
Just for the record, I ought to declare the fact that I do have
a previous interest in policing. As you all know, I served in
the Police Service for a long time until 12 years ago and indeed
had a very small part in the setting up of Europol back in the
mid 1990s. I put that on the record. The ACPO written evidence,
which was very helpful, said at one stage, Europol "aims
to facilitate information exchange and provide high quality analysis
... ACPO sees more evidence of success in the former aspiration"
that is the information exchange side rather than the analysis.
That leads me directly into my question which is: do you see any
gaps in the current information exchange mechanisms within the
EU justice and law-enforcement communities? If there are any,
what would you do or hope to see to address that?
Sir Ronnie Flanagan: We see a number
of gaps and they arise as a result of a number of different causes
and those causes do need to be addressed. First of all, not surprisingly
there is the whole question of application of appropriate IT systems
and the truth is there are only some five or six countries which
input data automatically to the central base. Until we address
that, that is a potential for a real gap that exists at the centre.
Of course it is work in progress and by something like April 2010,
hopefully there will be very significant improvement in that whole
question of automatically inputted data. Secondly, there is an
irony in the very success of bilateral contacts and they work
extremely effectively and are not, in my view, in any sense to
be discouraged but there has to be a complementary inputting to
the central database as well. Where Europol is particularly effective
is where there are more than two Member States involved, where
there is a plurality and it just could not work on a bilateral
basis. However, the very success of bilateral approaches sometimes
leaves Member States being quite happy on either side of that
dialogue and communication but without the centre necessarily
knowing what is going on and bringing therefore again a risk of
a gap when others come in and have missed, because the opportunity
to draw on the experience that has been successful bilaterally
it is not centrally routine. The absence of some inputs does need
some analysis of its own and we have certainly encouraged Europol
and undoubtedly they will have plans for that analysis. My question
is, when Ken talks about visibility, I just wonder how many chief
constables would be familiar with the document that Ken has.?
We could not say with 100% certainty that 100 per cent chief constables
would be familiar with that assessment document. There is something
in terms of from the centre, from Europol, asking Member States
for their experience, seeking feedback. There is something for
Member States to be more alert and more aware of the need, constantly
be giving feedback to the centre and the absence of that brings
about again a potential gap. Those are several examples of gaps
that do exist and gaps that need to be identified and need to
be addressed.
Q398 Lord Marlesford:
On the purely practical side of that, when there is a bilateral
exchange between a UK police force and another country, is there,
for information as it were, a note of that bilateral sent at least
to the UK liaison office?
Sir Ronnie Flanagan: Undoubtedly there
should be. My fear is that there is not always.
Q399 Lord Marlesford:
When I was in Whitehall, I always thought the system of copying
Foreign Office telegrams was extremely efficient. Even though
it was not obvious that particular posts were interested, it did
ensure that no balls were dropped, or helped to ensure.
Sir Ronnie Flanagan: To go back to the
first point, the absence of automated data input systems tends
to work against it happening automatically. Mr Gargan earlier
referred in a benign way to rogue bilateral interchanges which
are not through the liaison structures. There is a whole range
of other networks, for example there is the European chapter of
FBI graduates, and that means that officers of pretty high levels
in the police forces right throughout Europe have contacts and
sometimes use those contacts and often to good effect. However,
if it is not channelled through the centre, if it is not channelled
through the mechanisms and structures we have created, there is
a great risk that those gaps result in a less than efficient ability
on the part of others, not originally engaged in a particular
bilateral.
Chief Constable Jones: We also need to
make sure the liaison bureaux are actively sharing the contacts
they have with us with Europol and I would hope that they are
so we are getting the maximum benefit from the work files, for
example. That is a question I cannot answer but I would anticipate
and expect that that link was very strong and routine and we are
getting the benefit at least from our liaison bureaux of bilateral
contacts.
Assistant Chief Constable Gargan: Perhaps
I might just offer a word of reassurance about the contacts that
take place involving SOCA liaison officers: that is centrally
held and recorded at SOCA in London so there is no chance of the
British representation in Europol not knowing what the liaison
officers in France or Madrid or any other places do.
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