Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, two amendments in this group, Amendments 189A and 192CA, stand in my name. One refers to the appointment of a chief constable and the other to the dismissal of a chief constable. In Amendment 189A, I suggest that new words are inserted into Schedule 8: "““A police and crime commissioner should take advice from HMCIC before making any decision as to the appointment of a chief constable””." I shall come back to the word ““should”” in a moment. This relates to the suggestion that the advice from an outside agency is taken prior to any decision being made by the PCC and prior to the subsequent discussion of that by the panel. We are looking at this in the context—we have talked a lot about context through the various stages of the Bill—of the fear of the untrammelled exercise of power by the PCC. There are a good many examples over the years of police authorities looking only around their own feet rather than at the broader horizon. The risk is somewhat greater when one has a fully elected individual who has very few of the constraints that police authorities have. Although I am absolutely sure that, in the majority of cases, if PCCs come into being, they will exercise their power sensibly, in your Lordships' House we are often preoccupied with the thought that some of them might not. In this case, the lack of exercise of the sort of expertise that one would look for would lead to the risk of a blinkered mentality or, as has already been mentioned this afternoon, a silo mentality and a failure not take account of the talent that is available in the wider sphere nationally. Quite obviously, that would lead to a very insular approach from that PCC, the appointment of safe bets, perhaps the appointment of candidates who are personally known and favoured by the PCC, and the appointment of people who are locally or regionally accented. In other words, the whole thing would be driven inwards rather than outwards. At the moment, there is no national pool of talent within the police service, which is managed in much the same way as some multinational corporations, national organisations or the Armed Forces manage their emerging top positions. The report by Mr Neyroud, which was published earlier this year, and the report that we expect to have from Mr Winsor, which is expected at the end of this calendar year, will have an emphasis on leadership within the police service and I dare bet will propose a whole raft of new developments, formalisation, and improvement of the present structure. I hope they do. On various occasions in your Lordships’ House, I have spoken at length about the crying need for better leadership and structured leadership within the police service. The system at the moment involves a mixture of advice given to police authorities by ACPO, by the Home Office and by the inspectorate. The inspectorate, which I have included in the amendment, offers advice at varying stages prior to the shortlist being constructed by the Home Office and then offered to the police authority. It offers advice on the shortlisting carried out by the police authority itself and then at the interview stage. My experience of seven years as an inspector of constabulary was that I was asked by police authorities to sit on a large number of appointment interviews when chief constables were being considered. Usually, the advice that I gave was followed and sometimes it was not. I did not take it personally when my advice was rejected, but I saw it as an exercise of democratic accountability in the best possible sense. Earlier I mentioned the word ““should”” which appears in the amendment. I thought for some time about whether it should be ““must”” or ““may””—that the police commissioner must take advice or may take advice. I left it as ““should”” and I hope that if the Minister takes this amendment away and refers to parliamentary draftsmen for their view, they will leave it as ““should”” which is somewhere between ““must”” and ““may””. Whichever way we go on this, I am clearly seeking a very strong steer to the PCC to put it into a position where it takes the best possible advice that is available. Without that advice and without recourse to the inspector of constabulary, there is nowhere else that it can go, given the current structure, that would give it an oversight of the national pool. Quite clearly, the Home Office will stand back from the elected commissioner. This is an exercise in devolution down to elected, locally appointed individuals on the ground—as I understand it, 44 of them or at least more than 40. Unless the Bill steers them to a repository of expertise that can give an impartial view, there is no mechanism envisaged in the Bill at the moment whereby those individuals, those PCCs, can or should look outside for advice. If we do not have that, I would confidently expect that in some cases we shall revert to what used to happen before, which was a recourse to the grapevine, to gossip, to reports which are partially constructed and an imperfect appreciation of what is on offer nationally. It could even lead to emerging chief constables—those who aspire to that rank—involving themselves in PR campaigns, in lobbying and trying to advertise themselves to people who otherwise would not know that they exist. I commend this amendment to your Lordships' House. I shall be very disappointed if we do not see it on the face of the Bill. Amendment 192CA moves from the appointment of a chief officer to the dismissal of a chief officer—the alpha and the omega, if I can put it in those terms. The amendment suggests that the panel must make a recommendation—rather than may make a recommendation—to the police and crime commissioner. The wording in the Bill is permissive and, from my standpoint, it should be mandatory. Today the organisation would have the Home Office involved in the discussion. The Bill, as I have already said, seeks to devolve, and will devolve, all the authority down to the PCC and, again, the inspectorate is uniquely positioned to advise in an impartial manner. It would be commenting on actions which are alleged to have been committed by the errant chief constable and on errors and omissions. When so commenting, the inspectorate is positioned in such a way that it can draw on its knowledge of best practice throughout the whole country; it can draw on previous examples from its own experience; and it can look at national trends in policing. Without that advice, the PCC will be flying blind; it will not know what the general picture is within which it can route its concerns about its chief constable. In my experience, I think that, on the majority of occasions when this admittedly unusual procedure would take place, the inspectorate will agree with the PCC. Nothing in my amendment would prevent the PCC from rejecting that advice. That is democracy in action. However, the taking of that advice—and the very fact that that advice is being sought—is an invaluable protection for both the chief constable and the PCC. I conclude with this observation. I cannot believe that the Bill team which has constructed the Bill so far has not taken advice from within the Home Office about what happened prior to the Police Act 1964, which had as its progenitor the royal commission that reported twice, in 1960 and 1962. The royal commission found that the system that pertained in city and borough police forces, which were overseen in those days by watch committees, vested too much power in politically appointed individuals within the watch committees. What one saw was a picture that had parish pumps all over the place, partisan views, partisan appointment particularly, exercises in special pleading, and blinkers and silos, about which we have talked before. I would not want to see our newly appointed PCCs in a position where they cannot and do not take advice and where the panels advising them do not advice from outside. You cannot force a PCC or the panel to do that. I suppose the analogy would be taking a horse to water with an invitation for it to drink; you cannot force them to drink this particular water. However, I do believe that the ventilation given in both those amendments by having recourse to the inspector of constabulary is well worthy of consideration. I beg to move.