I apologise, my Lords—a slip of the tongue. The paper reads: "““Only one in 58 police officers is out on patrol at any one time in some police force areas—that’s about four per town of 90,000 people—yet England and Wales has a record 143,000 officers.""Only one in 40 in some forces is available to respond to 999 calls.""In 2004/05, the Metropolitan Police spent £104.4 million on investigating robberies and house burglaries and almost as much—£101.9 million—on non-incident-related paperwork.""A man cautioned for being ‘in possession of an egg with intent to throw’ and two children arrested for being in possession of a toy pistol are among trivial offences police officers have pursued in a bid to meet government targets for crime detection””. "
So what might the answers to these thorny questions be? We are, I hope, going in the right direction with neighbourhood policing and the support now being given to PCSOs. Perhaps now another area needs serious consideration: that of mixed-economy teams. To explain these teams, Barry Loveday, again dealing with workforce modernisation in the police service, gives just two examples of excellence in the pursuit of this goal: "““In Surrey 26 police constables have been replaced by five mixed-economy teams and one constable … Each team is made up of one constable, three investigative assistants and one administrative assistant. Experience suggests that these are providing ‘powerful evidence’ that the chief officer ought to reduce police officer numbers and increase the ‘overall head count’. This can be expected to increase the number of service delivery hours provided to the public substantially””."
He goes on, "““an analysis of 700 reported crimes was to demonstrate the current problem of the mismatch of skills. It found that only 10-20% of crime incidents required the skill of a detective, while ""60% involved taking statements or handling property. Nearly a third of the cases analysed appeared to require only ‘personnel assistant type skills’””."
In the Bexley pilot, we find—I am sorry about all these quotes—that, "““the use of police staff in the role of Investigative Support-Officers … has proved to be highly effective. The first significant change followed an internal evaluation of the investigation and management of crime. A decision was made to end the system where individual CID officers were made fully responsible for investigating individual cases ‘from cradle to grave’ and were also responsible for setting up ID parades and collecting witness statements etc””."
It is my understanding that this pilot was so successful that it was shut down. Can the Minister throw any light on that? If he is not able to do so today, I would happily receive a response in writing.
At the beginning of my speech, I quoted Sir Ronnie Flanagan’s report, and now quote another of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Police, Mr. Robin Field-Smith, who says that, properly, workforce management, "““is the whole spectrum of business process engineering from workforce modelling, based on demand management and dynamic intelligence, through costed resourcing, career planning, effective leadership and management, appropriate reward and recognition, and a proper support system, geared to improved service delivery and with a clear customer focus … We are not starting with a clean sheet of paper, so there is the issue of handling obsolescent or obsolete practices, aligned to unhelpful cultures. There is also an issue of language, either where different terms mean different things, or where the impact of particular terminology is not thought through””."
We must look at basic command units—BCUs—to deliver the local and particular service demanded by our communities. In order for them to do that, power must be devolved from the centre, including the resources to enable a BCU commander to perform effectively. Will chief constables give up that power? The question needs addressing at the very least, so I ask the Minister whether he is aware of any changes within the service that will change the structure of policing. Will the long-awaited Green Paper do so? When will that be published?
In any reform it is necessary to get the balance right, ensuring that protection against serious crime is balanced with the reassurance role now expected by communities. We also need a more skilled and specialised workforce for our fight against international criminal activity and terrorism. We need leadership at all levels, complex problem solving, using coercive powers and negotiating with partners, which will take up more and more time. Flexible team structures will be needed to ensure effective and efficient action. What do police officers actually do and what do police staff do? There need to be changes to training and development. There appears to be a consensus now that training and development programmes are not quite right and need rebalancing.
There needs to be proper reward for skills. Effort and performance need to change. It should be about not just the length of service but competence and delivery. If someone is a good neighbourhood officer, why not keep him there and reward him properly to reflect his experience and skill? Finally, perhaps it is time we looked at the whole issue of warranted officers, but that must be for another day and another debate.
We support our police in the work they do on our behalf. The job is demanding, can be dangerous and is often extremely unpalatable, but society has changed completely since the days of ““Heartbeat””, and we must now help the police change for the future. Enlightened police officers know that this must happen and are anxious for change. We have been shown a way forward by many eminent academics and policing professionals. All we need now is the will to take that change forward.
Crime
Proceeding contribution from
Baroness Harris of Richmond
(Liberal Democrat)
in the House of Lords on Thursday, 20 March 2008.
It occurred during Debate on Crime.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
700 c379-81 
Session
2007-08
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House of Lords chamber
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2023-12-16 00:54:34 +0000
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