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The power of direction and control is a necessary part of a chief officer’s operational independence. If it were made open to interference, his authority would be undermined. However, having heard the debate, I should like to look into the matter a little further. It seems that there might be an anomaly and I should like to clarify it. On that basis, I would ask for the amendment to be withdrawn. I will look at this in detail and come back on that specific point.
Baroness Henig: I thank my noble friend for his reply and for the sliver of hope that we might be able to agree on this in the future. Relationships do not quite work in the way he described. A police authority and a chief officer consult; you do not have a situation where the chief officer says, “You are not going to do that”, and then the police authority says, “We will”. It does not work that way. If ever there was a scenario such as the one described, the thing would not work. It works 99.9 per cent of time through consultation and the good offices and common sense of the police authority and the chief constable. I hear what my noble friend said and I am heartened by it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Harris of Richmond: Amendments 23 and 24 are interdependent, and I shall outline briefly why I think they are desirable. Collaboration in a policing
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At the heart of this lies a tension between lines of control and lines of accountability under what are, essentially, joint ventures. These arrangements cross defined geographical boundaries in a situation where different bodies are responsible for governance and for operational responsibility. Under existing collaboration agreements, difficulties have arisen about indemnities relating to grievance and other claims against police officers who are acting under the terms of collaboration agreements. At present, the “home” force of a police officer retains responsibility to indemnify or otherwise cover any grievance or other claims which arise from that officer’s actions. This remains the case even in a situation where that officer is acting under a collaboration agreement which places him under the command and control of another chief officer. In effect, this means that forces and authorities must provide indemnity for police officers against actions over which they may have no control when a collaboration agreement comes into play.
The amendment closes this loophole. It enables responsibility for indemnities to be transferred to the force responsible for command and control where this is the most appropriate course of action. I beg to move.
Baroness Henig: I strongly support the amendment which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, said, covers the loophole that currently exists. It provides a stronger basis for ensuring that collaboration arrangements operate effectively and that indemnities are given to cover situations as necessary.
Lord West of Spithead: The two amendments raise the sensible point that indemnities which may need to be part of the detail of a collaboration arrangement should be considered before any agreement is made. The agreement may also need to set out where the responsibility for indemnities lies. It is a sensible point and sound advice.
However, a permissive provision of this kind, in addition to the provisions already set out in proposed new Section 23B on payments, is not necessary to enable the inclusion of these details. I can confirm that it is intended that indemnity arrangements can and should be included by virtue of this new section.
While I do not believe it is necessary to state indemnity specifically in statute, this is a useful piece of advice that will be included among the planned recommendations in the statutory guidance that the Secretary of State will be issuing to support the provisions along with many other subjects. It would be inappropriate to include all such details in primary legislation and trust that this House would agree that guidance based on best practice is a sensible place. The fact that it is in Hansard has been extremely useful. I thank the noble Baronesses for making this important point and placing it on the record with the fact that indemnity should be included along with other payments in proposed new Section 23B. I hope that on that basis the noble Baroness will withdraw the amendment.
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Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: Before my noble friend comes back on her interesting and necessary point, under these collaborative arrangements, should it be necessary for a member of the public to know what the arrangements are, where to get redress, where to go in case of indemnity and so on, at the moment it is obvious where the line of accountability is. How will it be obvious to them when the new arrangements come in?
Lord West of Spithead: I do not believe that it should be in primary legislation. I will come back to the noble Baroness with details of the way in which the arrangements will be put across so they can be easily accessed.
Baroness Harris of Richmond: I am most grateful to the Minister. Including this information in guidance is the appropriate way forward. As he said, it will be placed in Hansard so that everyone will be able to see what the intention is. I am most grateful to him and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
6.45 pm
Baroness Harris of Richmond: Once again, I am afraid that we return to the wide-ranging powers of the Secretary of State in the Bill. This provision is unnecessary and is more likely to kill collaboration than encourage it. First, police authorities must already report collaboration agreements to the Secretary of State as efficiencies in one form or another, largely through their policing plans, which must still be lodged with the Home Secretary, although information on other efficiencies is also gathered through performance frameworks and audit. I am not altogether clear between these existing reporting arrangements and the overarching duty on police authorities to secure efficiency and effectiveness what the Home Secretary adds by being consulted in this way.
On the contrary, there seem to be a number of disbenefits. It would add another layer of bureaucracy when the Home Office claims to be reducing bureaucracy. It would lead to delays in decision making and consequently delays to bring improvements in policing. It seems to fly in the face of the Green Paper proposals for more local devolution. If the intention is to retain a strategic grip at the centre, why is there no de minimis provision? Even low value minor agreements will require consultation with the Secretary of State if they involve more than six parties, as proposed, which begins to look like micromanagement.
For example, a number of police authorities might decide to share a member of staff to help with technical interpretation of forced performance information, or they might put in a joint bid for funding, perhaps to support an initiative linked to anti-social behaviour. Does that really need the Secretary of State’s permission?
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“It would be a huge culture shock for any Minister—be it policing, education, or health—to give up micro-managing all these aspects of life. The Minister said that it could not happen and it could not work, but it does in most western democratic countries where central Governments do not have power over decisions on local health provision, the police force, education and so forth. It is a culture shock that one day, hopefully, the British Government will get to grips with”.—[Official Report, Commons, Policing and Crime Bill Committee, 3/2/2009; col. 209.]
I agree with his sentiments and hope that the Minister will be able to give me some reassurance.
Finally, it is completely unclear to me how “six parties” is defined. If police authorities and police forces enter agreements together, does it mean that the provision will be triggered if more than three police areas wanted to work together on something? I beg to move.
Baroness Hanham: I am interested in the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, because it raises many questions. We have not explored in great detail the Government’s proposals about collaboration. As I understand it, collaboration could extend from anything to do with IT and amalgamating the behind-office organisation to security and employing detectives across the piece. There seems to be a host of areas where such collaboration could take place. There is interesting wording, which is not six or more other “authorities” but six or more other “parties”. How is “parties” to be defined? The collaboration agreements as I understand them are to be with other police forces, but parties is a different word. I wonder whether there is an expectation that collaboration can take place with, for example, a local authority.
An agreement to have an arrangement to share payroll with a local authority would open up a wider debate on where the collaboration is going to take us. Perhaps when the Minister replies he could expand a little more on where the collaboration agreements are going to go, how widely they are going to go and whether they can be wider than between police forces.
Lord West of Spithead: The issue raised in proposed new Section 23C(1) was discussed at Second Reading by several noble Lords. I would like to reassure them that the Bill’s provisions are not intended as a form of micromanagement being imposed on the police service because the Home Office does not trust it to make its own judgment on collaboration.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, properly pointed out, the police have been carrying out collaborations for a long time. For that reason there is no blanket requirement for all collaboration plans to be given the Government’s stamp of approval. However, where agreements are so geographically extensive that they exceed even the largest of the ACPO policing regions—six police force areas being the largest for these regions—that would represent a strategically significant development of which the Government would want to be aware as
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That concern was raised by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary during the consultation with the police service on the legislation’s development. There was general agreement that a mechanism was needed with as light a touch as possible to guard against that eventuality. I am happy to clarify that we are determined that the process of seeking approval in such a case would not impose any significant burden, although I appreciate that timing can be an issue. Large-scale agreements are not made overnight and early notice of such plans on the scale being considered should allow the Secretary of State, with the advice of HMIC, ample room to confirm within the appropriate time frame that there is no conflict.
In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, we are trying to look at collaboration across the board at all levels, covering almost everything, so that we can work better and more closely together. As I say, we are looking at these larger-scale collaboration agreements as ones where we would like to monitor and take action, while in the smaller-scale agreements we would let people get on with it themselves. For the reasons I have given, I cannot agree to the proposed amendment. I hope that, on the basis of these assurances, the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Harris of Richmond: I thank the Minister as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, who asked a range of relevant questions about collaboration.
In my area, North Yorkshire, a very large rural area crossing the whole of England almost at the top of the country, we collaborate with West Yorkshire, Humberside and South Yorkshire. That is an enormous region. Is it then considered necessary for that huge rural area with a mix of urban and rural forces—mainly urban, with South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire—to collaborate with, say, Cleveland just over one side of the border and Cumbria on the other? Would that trigger the six parties? Would the Home Secretary say that those two little forces that made up the six had triggered his wanting to know what was going on?
I ask this because it seems strange, although and I do not know whether the Minister is able to reply. Little Cleveland has a tiny force just to the north of North Yorkshire, where everyone can be hurled together in 30 minutes—the whole of the police force can be at police headquarters in that time. Cumbria may not be quite like that but, again, it is a big rural area, on the edge of North Yorkshire. I still do not see the point of the six parties being specified so clearly. Will the Minister comment on that before I think about withdrawing my amendment?
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Lord West of Spithead: We picked the figure of six because it is the number of police force areas in the largest known region. The process is triggered by the figure going over six—when it goes to seven, eight or nine—because we believe that that represents a strategically significant development that the Government would want to be aware of. It might be that it is a tiny thing that has no real impact but, as HMIC said during the consultation, the Government should be aware of it. That is how we have arrived at that figure.
Baroness Harris of Richmond: The Government “being aware of” and the Government “interfering with” are perhaps two different things. I will read carefully what the Minister has said. We still might come back to this on Report, but for now I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hanham: This small amendment tries to clarify proposed new subsection 23C(5). As I understand it, the collaboration agreement can be entered into by either the police authority or the chief officer, in which case both sides have to consult the other. A police authority cannot enter a collaboration agreement without having consulted the chief officer, and a chief officer cannot enter into a collaborative agreement without the agreement of the police authority. If they all agree to the collaboration, that is fine—but what if they do not agree, to stop it? How does the consultation go again?
The police authority says to the chief officer, “We don’t think this collaboration’s any good. It’s not working at all. We think that we ought to talk to the other authority and call it all off”. The chief officer says, “It’s going absolutely fine. I don’t want this to stop”. Or, the other way around, the chief officer who entered into it thinks it ought to stop, but the police authority does not think so. Where does the authority actually lie for terminating those agreements if there is a disagreement between one police authority and its chief officer?
Lord West of Spithead: The provision of the proposed new subsection requires police forces and authorities to reach a mutual agreement in order to dissolve a collaboration venture. They must therefore show a degree of commitment that I believe collaborations require. That protects the group as a whole from the dangers of losing a partner, and I argue that it is more important to protect the group than to allow each party the freedom to unilaterally withdraw once that agreement has been made. If one party were to withdraw, it would leave the rest to try to make new arrangements work, or the collaboration might collapse altogether.
If the investment made by any party to a collaboration agreement were vulnerable to the sudden withdrawal of another party, the risks could seriously damage the
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If the amendment were to be accepted, it could result in police forces not engaging in collaboration agreements where they would be beneficial, or in minor disagreements resulting in agreements falling apart; whereas the clause as it stands means that the parties involved have to take these seriously. It therefore has benefit because it makes sure that the parties are committed to it, they are fully locked in and there will not be any loss or waste of resources in terms of value for money. In the light of this, I ask that the amendment be withdrawn.
Baroness Hanham: It may sound like semantics, but it seems that the Minister has not quite answered the question. There could potentially be a disagreement. Take the police authority that has entered into a collaborative agreement. It has consulted with its chief officer, who has said, “OK, I don’t mind doing that”. After two years, though, the police authority says, “This absolutely is not working”, or, “It is far too expensive”, or, “We think that it’s time that we viewed it again”, and the police authority on the other side of the agreement is quite happy about that. However, the chief officer, with whom they consulted originally and whose agreement they had to have, says, “I don’t agree with you. The chief officer on the other side and I think that the agreement is wonderful and is working spectacularly well”. Who has the authority to finally decide that the agreement can be ended? This is a disagreement in one particular police authority between that police authority and its chief officer.
Lord West of Spithead: I did not answer the noble Baroness’s question, and I see exactly where she is coming from. The police authority has to agree to a police force agreement; if it does not agree, the force cannot terminate that. However, the procedure is not clear enough in the Bill. I take the point that things might change two or three years down the track. While it makes sense that in the short term no one can suddenly say, “I’ve changed my mind”, and try to terminate it, I agree that there may be circumstances over the slightly longer term where there has to be a mechanism for this to be debated. I would like to come back to the noble Baroness on that, because the question of how that would be done needs to be resolved. If she is happy with that, I ask her to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hanham: I am grateful to the Minister. I look forward to that coming back, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
7 pm
27: Clause 5, page 7, line 3, at end insert—
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“( ) A collaboration agreement may be entered into jointly by a police authority and the police force for its area with another party or parties.
( ) Any police force collaboration agreements which imposes any legal liability on the police authority must include the police authority as a party to that agreement.”
Baroness Henig: As with previous amendments, this one aims to bring greater clarity to collaboration agreements. The first paragraph would make it explicit that police authorities and their police forces could enter agreements jointly. I am not convinced that this is currently clear in the Bill.
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