Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, talked about the office of chief constable and the business of corporation sole. I shall not take up the Committee’s time longer than to say that it needs to be looked at in terms of where the office of chief constable and corporation sole stand in a legal context. It is one of the principles of policing in this country to be apolitical and independent in terms of delivery. A little bit of work could be done to ensure that your Lordships’ House is more satisfied that there is no conflict between the two. The area in which I would ask for caution to be used is finance. The Metropolitan Police historically had two commissioners: one to deliver on the operational side; and the other who then became the received person to deal with the financial side. With a budget of more than £3 billion, which it was when I was commissioner, I had a delightful relationship with the noble Lord, Lord Harris. Being a pussycat we always got on together; I was the pussycat and he was the other. It was essential for delivery on the financial side that there was an expert on financing in the Metropolitan Police. More importantly, there had to be political accountability outside that for creating contracts, sometimes for hundreds of millions of pounds, which could have got in the way of delivering what we were doing over a period of time in the Metropolitan Police, namely driving down crime and keeping the terrorists away. There were similar lessons for me when I was Chief Constable of Northumbria Police, the fourth or fifth largest force in the country. It was essential for me and my top team to concentrate on the operational requirements in 1991, after the riots, when I and the police authority inherited Northumbria Police. A system of controlling, and being responsible for, highly complex contracts in a way that might take place now, is something that needs to be thought about with caution. We must consider accountability. Although it is very appealing to chief officers, when they think about it further, and think about delivery, they might not find it so. As far as concerns appointments, I am agnostic. I was an HMI, like the noble Lord, Lord Dear. I was involved in 17 appointments of chief constables and heads of the National Crime Squad and of the National Criminal Intelligence Service, as an independent adviser to HMIC. Each and every one of those appointments was the right one. I do not believe in blue-eyed boys or blue-eyed girls. Somewhere along the line, employment law must be followed and there must be an independent assessment. Most chief constables and chief officers will want to appoint their own top team. In my experience, I have never heard of a police authority that did not take account of what the chief officer wanted, and of what HMIC wanted. I urge caution on the Minister in relation to the business of finance. We must be absolutely clear that chief constables, chief officers and commissioners will not inherit a nightmare.