Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, I speak from a position of neutrality on these amendments. I wish to illustrate my remarks by recounting something that happened to me when I was a Member of the other place. A rave occurred in rural Montgomeryshire, which involved 10,000 people, loosely described as hippies, invading a couple of fields in the south of the constituency. As the local Member of Parliament, I made an arrangement with the police that I would telephone them late every evening for a report on what was going on in relation to public order around the rave and all the other issues that arose. One evening I telephoned at midnight from my then home in Berriew to the public line of the Dyfed Powys police. The telephone was answered by a man called Ray White, who was the chief constable of Dyfed Powys at the time. He was manning the public telephone line, doing his turn in the office of constable. I tell that anecdote because in my view whether a chief officer of police is a corporation sole and however we dance on the head of a pin about the legal definition of a corporation sole, I suggest that the overwhelming purpose of a chief constable—I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response—is that he acts, albeit as chief, in the office of constable. I therefore urge the Minister to recognise that whatever grand titles are given to him, and whatever the legal technicalities of the matter—far be it from me to avoid legal technicalities; many of my learned friends make a good living from them—it should be recognised that in this legislation we are seeking to strengthen the role of the chief officer of a police force, not in the role of manager but in the office of constable at the head of his force. Having said that and having watched at close quarters the splendid Mr White, for whom I came to have enormous admiration, running his force, I realised in our many meetings that he was also the chief executive of an organisation that covered in Dyfed Powys a huge area and, like all police forces, had a massive budget and set of responsibilities. As it happens, Mr White had some good management qualifications that he had acquired along the way through his life as a police officer, and he put them to good use. I hope that my noble friend will confirm in her response that the purpose behind the Bill and the creation of a chief constable as a corporation sole is to enable him or her more effectively to be the chief executive of what is, in effect, a large public business, and to remove from that chief officer some of the inhibitions that may currently exist in running that business. I hope, too, that the Minister will confirm that the chief officer who is a corporation sole will have to pay extremely close attention to employment law and employment law standards as they are today. For example, it was suggested that a chief officer might surround himself or herself with chums—people who he or she likes because they happen to agree with him or her on most issues. As political party leaders learn quickly, it is actually a bad idea not to have among your top team people who are prepared to disagree with you on a daily basis and to act as devil’s advocate in any event. However, in order to achieve a real top management team, whether or not they agree with the chief constable, I hope that the Minister will confirm that appointments standards will have to be high and that they will have to accord with the self-same standards that are required in the appointment of senior managers in companies. One can also look at the public sector for examples. The Judicial Appointments Commission has a transparent system for the appointment of judges that includes lay membership of appointment bodies. I hope that the Minister will confirm that fair interview techniques and appointment systems will conform to the very best standards in the public sector. I know that later we will debate matters of discipline, but it would help if at this stage my noble friend also confirmed that in conduct and disciplinary matters—a difficult area for chief officers of police—the same high standards that are applied elsewhere in the public sector will apply to police forces. I hope she can also confirm that a chief officer, albeit as a corporation sole, will never be able to act as judge and jury in their own cause. I promise the Minister that my learned friends will make a real killing if that is what occurs, because every such decision would be open to immediate judicial review, and the chief officer would lose if he or she did not act in a way that was neither arbitrary nor disproportionate. Finally, I wanted to say something about finance directors. I return to my experience of Dyfed Powys and of some other forces for which I have acted as an adviser professionally, either for the police force or for the police authority. I observed that the chief finance officer of the police force was an extremely important figure, who held a sort of honorary ACPO rank, although he or she was not a police officer. The chief finance officer of the police force and the accounting officer of the police authority seemed to carry out completely different roles. The chief finance officer of the police force was really the chief accountant of a very big business. The accounting officer of the police authority carried out a much more restricted role, because the turnover of the police authority was inevitably much smaller—at least as regards its functions, as opposed to those of the force. Duplication would be unwelcome, and I hope that my noble friend will confirm that if there are to be separate finance officers, they will not carry out duplicated roles. Perhaps she will explain to the House what their different roles will be, at least in outline.