Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, I spoke to a number of related amendments in Committee and supported earlier versions of both Amendments 11 and 15 in this group. However, I shall speak first to my Amendment 11. The Minister’s response at that time focused more on other amendments in the group and did not really deal with this one, beyond acknowledging that many police authorities already carry out their collaborative functions through joint committees. However, I am afraid that that rather missed the key point about accountability, which this amendment seeks to address. It is designed to clarify not so much authority functions as chief officer accountability for collaboration. I have revived it because I am still concerned that it is essential to get governance absolutely clear in what is a very complex area. Therefore, I have removed the reference to joint committees, because I think that that rather confused the debate, and instead have focused on joint arrangements in order to get to the nub of this issue. There have been occasions in the past when collaboration has been impeded because the chief officer has refused to answer to a joint committee of police authorities for the conduct of collaborative functions on the grounds that in law his only accountability is to his home police authority. The amendment would ensure that that excuse could not be used in future and that a chief officer could legally be held to account for collaborative functions jointly by the authorities involved in that collaboration. I am not convinced that the existing wording in the Bill is specific enough about this because at present new Section 23D(1) refers only to police accountability to a home authority. Subsection (3) does mention joint arrangements but it refers to authority functions and not specifically to the answerability of chief officers. I accept that one function of an authority is to hold to account but there are many others, and the meaning of this new section is, to my mind, obscure and still open to interpretation by a reluctant chief officer. I hope that the amendment puts that beyond doubt, and it is essential if we are to be serious about removing the barriers to collaboration. I turn to Amendment 15. When we last debated this section of the Bill in Committee, the Minister indicated that there might be some merit in looking again at the delegation of police authority functions if it helped to assist aspects of collaboration and procurement. If he has done that, I have not heard so specifically from him, but I understand that the Home Office retains concerns that disapplying the bar on delegation might open the floodgates and that that might lead to authorities delegating their policing functions in their area inappropriately. However, the inability to delegate any functions is undeniably a bar to facilitating collaboration and adds needless bureaucracy to the process. I was under the impression that this section of the Bill was supposed to make collaboration clearer and easier. I am sure that it is not the intention of police authorities to divest themselves as quickly as possible of all their responsibilities. That is not what local authorities did when they were given the same power and there is no reason to think that police authorities would act differently. This would be much more consistent with the principles of greater devolution which the Government supported in the Green Paper on policing. Indeed, the only reason that police authorities were prohibited from delegating functions when this legislation was passed nearly 40 years ago was that they were then still effectively committees of their local authority. I remember that extremely well. In those circumstances it was inappropriate for police authorities to have an independent legal status outside their councils or to arrange for another police authority to carry out their functions. I understand that over the summer there has been some confusion about the ability of police authorities to collaborate in another context. I believe that the standards board issued guidance about collaborating to form joint standards committees locally. That guidance was substantially aimed at local authorities, but police authorities are covered by the same legislation on standards as local authorities are. However, I believe that the standards board initially concluded in its guidance that the Local Government Act 1972 prevented police authorities from collaborating together on their standards functions. It really is a bit of a mess. I understand that this issue has now been resolved and that the initial advice has been revised to confirm that police authorities can collaborate regarding standards. That must be a welcome move but it illustrates starkly the confusion about the matter. Surely, in a Bill which is meant to clarify and facilitate collaboration, it is essential to ensure that that lack of clarity is quickly resolved. I shall now try to help the Minister. Rather than simply disapplying the relevant part of the Local Government Act 1972, I seek to amend it to try to cover his concerns. First, it prevents police authorities from delegating all of their functions to another police authority, although the other side of that coin is that it will permit them to delegate some functions. Secondly—and here I give the Minister a big helping hand—I have included a provision that would enable the Secretary of State to make regulations about functions that cannot be delegated, although naturally that is subject to consultation with the Association of Police Authorities. Therefore, I hope the Government agree that that is an acceptable compromise which helps to remove barriers to collaboration and unnecessary bureaucracy while overcoming the concerns expressed by the Minister in Committee. I beg to move.