Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, first I declare an interest as a former chair of a police authority, a former chair of the Association of Police Authorities and the current president of the Association of Police Authorities. I wish to speak to Amendments 83ZZA, 83C, 85B, 92AA and 167ZA in this group. As the previous speaker said, I hope that my amendments are also considered non-controversial as they are extremely important. They are a constructive attempt to ensure that the Bill helps to deliver effective public consultation on policing and build on the strong relationship between police authorities and local crime and disorder reduction partnerships; and on our knowledge, after a dozen years or so, of what works best at local level in terms of co-operation between different policing bodies. I believe that effectiveness is most likely to result from arrangements that are transparent and co-ordinated between different agencies and that make a meaningful link between neighbourhoods and the strategic force level. Amendment 83ZZA sets out to ensure that the local policing body works as effectively as possible with the local crime and disorder reduction partnerships and community safety partnerships. This amendment would remedy the Bill’s proposal to break the link which exists under the current arrangements between those local crime reduction co-ordinating bodies and the strategic level of the police authority. In many ways the Bill builds on the innovation of crime and disorder reduction partnerships that were introduced almost 15 years ago, with their simple premise that tackling crime and disorder requires the concerted insight and action of a range of local public, private and third-sector agents. I was very surprised to find that, in trying to join up agencies concerned with crime, the Bill does not carry forward the requirement on the strategic policing oversight body to play a full role in local crime and disorder reduction partnerships. There are countless examples of these local crime and disorder reduction partnerships and CSPs providing a crucible within which creative solutions to local crime problems have been found. It would be senseless for the strategic policing body not to have an effective two-way channel of communication with such a body. I chaired my own local crime and disorder reduction partnership for six years from 1999 to 2005 and I know what an important body it can be in working to reduce crime locally, and the importance of having links directly from the crime and disorder partnership at local level through to the strategic policing body. That is what my amendment seeks to bring about. I will not repeat the concerns voiced by many noble Lords that a single police and crime commissioner would be too remote from communities spread across literally hundreds of miles in areas such as that of which the Minister has exemplary knowledge, the Devon and Cornwall force area, or the 2.4 million people within Greater Manchester. Meaningful links between the members of the panel and the local crime and disorder reduction partnerships or community safety partnerships can help to bridge the gap and tackle perceptions of remoteness. Panel members being on these partnerships at local level can ensure that the strategic oversight of the police is not excluded from but can be influenced by, and benefit from, the insight of local partners working together to tackle crime. As I have said, I hope that this is non-contentious. To me it is common sense. Amendment 83C sets out the important minimum arrangements for police and crime panels to hold public meetings. This seeks to keep the public accountability of the police public, not reduce it—as the Bill that came to your Lordships' House effectively proposed—to off-camera conversations between just two central characters, the chief constable and the commissioner. Again, this amendment seeks to make good the Government’s stated desire to bring the public and the police closer together to bridge an oft-cited and worrying gap between the two. My noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey spoke eloquently on past Committee days of the efficacy and, indeed, constructive power of ensuring that the public can not only hold to account politicians on the police authority or any future panel, but interact with and hear from senior police officers in a public forum. To reduce public accountability of the police to what could amount to a private chat between the chief constable and the elected commissioner behind closed doors is to diminish, not augment, the public’s everyday access to seeing, understanding and trusting that the force they rely on is being held to account. Public trust and confidence in this most essential of public services demands that the police are not only held to account, but are seen to be held to account. It was therefore strange that there was no requirement in the Bill that meetings of the commission should be in public. We often hear that people no longer come to meetings. Indeed, attendance may not be what it was, but that is no reason to shut the public out. Thanks to the web, the public need no longer come to the mountain. We can be streamed into the homes or businesses of anyone interested in our deliberations. I therefore envisage the requirement for public meetings to encompass meetings being filmed and made available on the internet. Such a move merely extends existing best practice. To take one example, more than 4,000 members of the public have this year watched the recorded proceedings of South Yorkshire Police Authority. That is obviously an exciting broadcast—and people have been watching it. I therefore believe that the meetings of the commission must be in public wherever possible, with appropriate allowances for the commission to hold meetings in private session only where absolutely necessary. This amendment sets out how this might happen. Amendment 85B expands the scope of the annual report that the local policing body must produce to include the extent to which crime has gone up or down at both the force level and divisional level. During our previous deliberations in Committee, the Minister made deservedly fulsome praise of the popularity of the crime-mapping website by which people can learn the facts about crime in their immediate vicinity. In fact, we are told that this is the most popular government website ever. This excellent facility was developed by the soon-to-be-disbanded National Policing Improvement Agency and piloted with excellent results by the West Yorkshire Police force and authority. This demonstrates that the overwhelming focus of people’s interest in crime is local. By that we mean micro-local: my street, my immediate neighbourhood or the estate around my workplace. This amendment therefore builds on the success of the service, of the Government and of what the public have made clear they want by making the policing body produce an annual report that is meaningful for every community, showing crime’s rise or fall at the local divisional level that people can relate to and understand. The alternative of policing reports focused on the force level will have at best limited traction and relevance for the people of an area such as Humberside, which no longer exists in local government form, or police forces that cover two areas, such as Avon and Somerset—to say nothing of the relevance of statistics about all of Hampshire for the fortunate residents of the Isle of Wight. In other words, force statistics will not be meaningful for a lot of people. Such relevant local clarity will only facilitate the Government’s stated goal of ensuring that the police are held to account and trusted on the firm basis of relevant evidence that must be taken at a local, as well as a force, level. Amendment 92AA proposes that the local police and crime body should fill an important gap in the Bill—that of co-ordinating the plethora of consultations about crime and community safety carried out by a range of local actors, thereby reducing unnecessary duplication and assisting joint working. A number of agencies—not least the police, a future police and crime commission, local authorities, organisations representing victims and a victims’ network—will all seek to consult the public about their perceptions of local crime and disorder and what should be done about it. This multiplicity of approaches is not necessarily harmful, but it is only by those agencies bringing their findings together that the fullest possible picture of public concern may be painted. The Bill fails to ensure explicitly that one person or agency is responsible for co-ordination and removing duplication. The commission provides an ideal opportunity to establish that single point of analysis and co-ordination and it is only logical to make that explicit in the Bill. Finally, Amendment 167ZA proposes that, having consulted the chief constable, the local policing body should ultimately decide which neighbourhoods are in the local police area. That is intended to ensure that co-ordination between the police, local authorities and other relevant local agencies is not hindered by different partners having non-coterminous borders. It enables partner agencies to take advantage of stronger working relationships, clear lines of contact and publicly understood limits of responsibility. Although the chief constable’s view must of course be taken extremely seriously in these matters, the determination of neighbourhood boundaries will inevitably involve political and public sensitivities, not to mention practical issues of co-ordination with the boundaries of various other agencies, such as health and local authorities. I doubt that the chief constable’s time is best spent negotiating that potential political minefield. Decisions about local boundaries, which may be controversial, should be publicly accountable. I hope that the amendments are not seen as controversial. To me, they are common sense and are intended to fill what I think are gaps in the Bill’s provision. I commend them.