Police and Justice Bill

I cannot comment on head counting, but I can comment on the effect on efficiency. I am more concerned about the efficiency and effectiveness of policing than head counting. I know that the policing in Bridgend has been efficient, effective and successful, and that is what I am looking for. I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman, too, would look for that. It is something to be welcomed. When I met members of my community safety partnership, they said that they felt that every antisocial behaviour order granted by the courts was a failure for them. However, they have been successful because they have used the antisocial behaviour legislation and the community safety partnership as a way of working together to ensure that troubled youngsters at risk of coming into the criminal justice system are targeted for resources and for the services that can help them to stay within legal boundaries and improve their behaviour. If the services are targeted at them, they will have access to the support, advice, guidance and mentoring that they need. I welcome the extension of the remit of the Independent Police Complaints Commission to the immigration service. That will increase trust and provide a rigorous assessment of complaints about the immigration service. I also welcome the standardisation of powers for community support officers and the extension of their powers to cover truancy. That is an obvious and clearly needed extension—a sensible measure that will assist local authority education welfare officers to ensure that as many pupils as possible are in school in school hours, which will reduce the risk of young people being drawn into petty crime, drugs and alcohol abuse. The deployment of community support officers in my constituency has been highly effective. Opposition Members who suggest that they have been a failure should come to Bridgend to see how our police force has learned to utilise them effectively. In one of my wards, Wild Mill, community support officers have reduced the incidence of vandalism, antisocial behaviour, and drug and alcohol abuse. Generally, it is now a much safer community in which to live. The one negative, if there is one, with community support officers in my constituency is that we tend to lose them, albeit to the professional police force. They see their job as a way of learning the basic skills and gaining the expertise and knowledge that will enable them to be more effective and move into a full-time career in the police. However, that is the only negative that I have found. We will welcome the increase in the number of community support officers in Bridgend. I am sure that the Minister is waiting for the word ““but””—and it is coming. There are proposals in the Bill about which I must say ““but””; I would not be standing here unless there were. I therefore seek reassurance and some changes. I am worried about the extension of the right of housing departments and registered social landlords to call for parenting contracts and parenting orders. I do not believe that the staff in those agencies have the required skills and expertise, or the necessary background in assessment and evaluation, to make such decisions. I shall cite an example from one of my surgeries. A gentleman who came to see me described the problems that he was experiencing with a neighbour in the block of flats that he lived in. The neighbour’s behaviour was extremely difficult, and was in many respects a prime example of behaviour calling for a parenting contract. The gentleman described the scratching of cars and the smearing of oil on car windows. He told me about the problems of noise and the deliberate playing of records late at night. He described how his neighbour would knock on his door when he was getting ready for bed late at night: he would hear banging on the door, but when he opened it the neighbour would be gone. All this would appear to be prime territory for a parenting order, but after I had heard more about the perpetrator’s background, I realised that this involved a mental health problem, and a parenting order is not the best way of dealing with such problems. Staff in agencies that call for parenting orders and parenting contracts need to assess fully the reasons behind the failures leading to the behaviour being experienced. Every alternative means of support and engagement should be employed before a parenting order or contract is called for. Those skills reside within the social services departments, the mental health services and the youth justice teams, and their engagement must be assured before anyone is given the power or the responsibility to call for an order or a contract. Building parental competence is a complex process, which organisations such as Sure Start are best placed to provide. As for skills development, the youth justice teams and other organisations in my constituency, such as Youth Works and KPCY—the Kenfig Pyle community youth project—offer the mentoring, the boundary setting and the skills base that will allow parents and children to understand where their behaviour needs to change and improve. I want to speak briefly about the proposal to create a single inspectorate. Before I entered the House, I worked as an inspector with the Care Standards Inspectorate for Wales. I welcome the creation of a single inspectorate; I recognise the value of such a body. I can see the sense in combining five inspectorates into one. There will be savings in information technology, financial administration and human resource functions—but I must add a ““but””. I seek assurances that the ethos, skills base, culture and expertise required for those who work in the individual inspectorates will not be diluted into some fantasy base whereby a skilled inspector in one field is automatically considered to have transferable skills. Some skills are transferable, but inspectors need to remain at the forefront of best practice and of requiring and encouraging change and improvement. They must be ever watchful for abuses, failures and neglect. Full cognisance of legislation and service providers is required to meet the needs of a single inspectorate, and we must ensure that the focused skills of the five inspectorates are not diluted but strengthened by joint working. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) pointed out, unannounced inspections and the monitoring and reporting of the gaps between agencies are important, but the individual performance of each agency must still be the focus of the inspection. I would urge an appropriate start-up period. Time for those five agencies to come together to talk about how they will integrate, co-ordinate and start to work together is critical to the success of the new agency. Not putting that start-up time in place would reduce public confidence in the competence of the new agency, and it must be part of any move to a single inspectorate. I give a conditional welcome to the concept of the community call for action. This must be extended to a call not only to the police but to the local authorities, to provide the community facilities, services and agencies that can be critical in ensuring that there is no antisocial behaviour and no low-level crime in communities. I cite, for example, the community of Kenfig Hill in my constituency, where the local authorities failed to provide funding for KPCY, which has reached the end of its lottery funding. KPCY provides support for 750 youngsters; it has cut antisocial behaviour, petty crime, vandalism and graffiti, and provides invaluable mentoring and support to young people, as well as to local parents. One parent said to me that she could not have coped as a single parent if she had not had the support of KPCY, and had not known that it was somewhere safe to send her children where they could do their homework, get access to computers and play without being targeted by drug users and drug sellers, as well as those who would target youngsters to get into petty crime and petty thieving. The local police strongly support the retention of KPCY, knowing that crime will increase exponentially in their area if the organisation goes. The community call for action must enable communities to call on local authorities such as Bridgend county borough council to provide funding for youth facilities such as KPCY and restore funding to youth groups such as the Guides, Scouts and Brownies—organisations not known for attracting youngsters with antisocial tendencies—but they do not even provide funding for youth facilities at that level.