Theresa May is right to take on ACPO and reform the police

One of the immutable laws of British politics is that any hint at radical reform to British policing disappears without trace, entering a sort of Bermuda Triangle of public service reform, never to be seen again.

Back in 1993 Sir Patrick Sheehy recommended radical (and quite justified) restructuring to police ranks to cut costs and improve decision-making. The report was shelved. More recently, Charles Clarke’s more modest effort to reduce the number of police forces from 43 to 12, ending the ludicrous, duplicating, county constabulary system, met with a similar fate.

So current incumbent, Theresa May, deserves some credit for standing her ground this morning when she told police chiefs at the Association of Chief Police Officers conference in Manchester a few home truths about the need for them to modernise in the face of “big” budget cuts.

This followed leaked warnings from Sir Hugh Orde, President of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), that police numbers were not “sustainable” in the face of home office budget cuts.

In her speech the home secretary announced a long overdue review of police terms and conditions, saying:

“It cannot be right, for example, that police overtime has become institutionalised. We may not win popularity contests for asking these difficult questions, but it is time for them to be asked.”

She also pledged a review into procurement, asking:

“Does it really make sense to buy in police cars, uniforms and IT systems in 43 different ways?”

Of course, Ms May is approaching police reform inadvertently – from the position of a dutiful minister with responsibility for spreading the pain of public spending cuts. But necessity is the mother of invention and the net result of her direction of travel should be a leaner, more modern and accountable police service – a result progressives should applaud.

And the Tories are on the right lines with elected police commissioners too. The sheer opacity of current police force governance makes a mockery of public accountability. Unelected police authorities made up of appointed councillors and lay people – who no-one elected and who pay minimal heed to the needs and wishes of their local communities – are little more than a fig leaf to preserve the feudal powers of chief constables.

At the very least, an elected commissioner provides a rallying point for local communities to focus on if their particular local priorities are not met. As the home secretary argued:

“It means a directly-elected individual at force level, setting the force budget, agreeing the local strategic plan, playing a role in wider questions of community safety and appointing – and if necessary removing – the local chief constable.”

But the police argue that stronger democratic control would skew operational matters, in a similar way to how some health professional argue targets in the NHS alter clinical priorities. But let’s be clear: policing, quite literally, is not brain surgery. The police’s job is, as the home secretary reminded them this morning, is to cut crime, “nothing more, and nothing less”.

But ACPO is a formidable opponent and adept at the political black arts that force politicians into headlong retreat. And little wonder with the high opinion it has of itself. Its Statement of Purpose claims that it “leads and coordinates the direction and development of the police service in England, Wales and Northern Ireland”.

Now it’s fair enough for any professional body to want to be a collective voice for its profession, or to share best practice, but leading the “direction and development2 of the police is surely a matter for Ministers and Parliament?

In fact, nowhere in its aims and objectives does it even talk about ‘best practice’. The truth is that ACPO is a producer interest group, pure and simple. And a powerful one too. It works to create a consensus for political inaction; fighting for greater autonomy for its members and vetoing any changes it doesn’t like.

So in a bid to ameliorate her hard message on budgets and reform, the home secretary foolishly caved-in on other issues, promising, for example, to scrap the 10-point policing pledge. She would have done better to stand her ground and demand ever greater customer focus from the police. They still face too few of the public guarantees now common to other public services, as the BBC’s home editor, Mark Easton, has pointed out.

But Ms May was more tactically adept in inviting ACPO to produce a “national plan for the way the service does business”. Either the police top brass comes up with its own cuts and reforms, or they have them imposed by the long arm of HM Treasury. It is perhaps ironic that it takes the threat of severe public spending cuts to kick start reforms that should have been made years ago.

And there’s a lot to do. Instead of pioneering moves to share back office services, redress the balance between police and civilian staff, increase the use of IT, or becoming more customer focused (have you ever tried emailing the police?) they are literally years behind the rest of the public sector.

A long, ignominious line of home office ministers have opted for a quiet life and done ACPO’s bidding. But for today at least, Ms May deserves two cheers for not being one of them. Her challenge, however, as always in government, is to turn rhetoric into action.

http://twitter.com/houseoftwits/status/17349717686 House Of Twits

RT @leftfootfwd Theresa May is right to take on ACPO and reform the police: http://bit.ly/aKZ3Le
http://www.twitter.com/niaccurshi Lee Griffin

“The report was shelved.”

The report was shelved after a large police movement to protest the changes. People that believe the report was “quite justified” clearly have no knowledge of how much the structure currently operates on good will and would therefore collapse under such proposals.
http://twitter.com/niaccurshi/status/17350391417 Lee Griffin

Jesus christ, @leftfootfwd keeps getting more crazy http://bit.ly/aKZ3Le <– Sheehy report good? Elected police commissioners good?!
http://refusingthedefault.blogspot.com/ cim

At the very least, an elected commissioner provides a rallying point for local communities to focus on if their particular local priorities are not met.

How would you go about stopping someone like Joe Arpaio getting elected? (remembering that far-right candidates can do surprisingly well in local elections especially on law-and-order string-em-up issues)
http://twitter.com/jiiiii/status/17351673302 justin partridge

http://bit.ly/du1Au6 a different take on Home Secretary's speech to #ACPO.
mc

This article seems to be backing ‘reform’ ideas fairly indiscriminately, seemingly for the sake of sounding radical. Elected commissioners sounds like a nice idea but few experts (from any point on the political spectrum) agree. Yes, police authorities are moribund, but that does not mean elected commissioners are the answer. Mergers also – there may be better, more pragmatic alternatives, albeit less easy to sum up in a soundbite. Two of the other things you praise Theresa May for – calling for reform of procurement and overtime – were already well under way under Labour, albeit they could have started sooner. See Chapter 5 of the Policing White Paper from December 2009 – this had already started to be implemented during early 2010.

I do however agree with you (and Mark Easton) that scrapping the policing pledge is a backward, anti-reformist, step – as well as a classic example of undermining front line public services behind the veil of talk about cutting ‘waste’ and ‘bureaucracy’.
http://twitter.com/maxloweltd/status/17352154190 Diane Lowe

Home Sec Theresa May is right to take on ACPO and reform Police? http://bit.ly/9yLaRi
http://twitter.com/drkmj/status/17355243847 DrKMJ

Theresa May is right to take on ACPO and reform the police: http://bit.ly/aKZ3Le via @leftfootfwd
anyleftiwonder

elected police commissioners good? No!No!No!
http://bestblogs.labourhome.org/2010/06/29/theresa-may-is-right-to-take-on-acpo-and-reform-the-police/ Theresa May is right to take on ACPO and reform the police « The best Labour blogs

[...] More… [...]
http://twitter.com/andy_s_64/status/17360838045 Andy Sutherland

@leftfootfwd: Theresa May is right to take on ACPO and reform the police: http://bit.ly/aKZ3Le <Sticks in the throat but she does seem right
andy williams

Why is elected police commissioners a bad thing? Is it because Labour is scared of allowing the people a direct say? So what if a hang ‘em, flog ‘em merchant ends up elected somewhere. That is the pergoative of the electorate and to deny them their say and the grounds they will generate the ‘wrong’ result is absolutely pathetic and control freakery beyond contempt.

Look at what happened in the euros. The cause? Denying people their right to vote over ‘Lisbon’.

Stop centralising control and power and start delegating it as low as possible. Just because Labour wants to run it’s own party along sham ‘democratic’ lines that have outsiders laughing in the aisles, does not mean the country should be run the same way.
Mr. Sensible

Sorry but I just do not agree with this.

These elected police commissioners certainly are not a good thing. The Councillors who serve on authorities are, after all, elected by their constituents.

How much are these going to cost?

And what if people elect some extremist?

And, finally, what does politicizing the police service do to cross-border policing, which as we saw played an important role in dealing with events in Cumbria?
andy williams

How much are these going to cost?

You’re having a laugh right? The amount of dosh that’s been ppoured into public sector spending and wasted and you worry how much these will cost? PMSL.

And what if people elect some extremist?

So what if they do. That is the people’s perogative. The country belongs to the people not the establishment and the political parties.

the police service

The Police prefer being referreed to as a Force not a Service. They regard being called a Service as apolitically correct intrusion. As for politicising the Police, this is actually quite the opposite. The individuals who stand will be appealing directly to the public in each of the Constabularies, not to the givernment. In turn, it allows the people of a given area the right to decide how they want to be policed and not how some out-of-touch Westminster creature thinks they should be Policed – it is the people after all who are bloody paying for it. Make the Police responsible to the people not the politicians.
Kevin Meagher

Wow. Some of you don’t seem to like the idea of proper democratic oversight of one of our key public services. When did democracy and accountability become the problem? Personally I hate the idea of the right making all the running with such a transparently sensible and justified idea…
Anon E Mouse

Mr.Sensible – Are you so slavishly supportive of that last useless government that you believe that everything the coalition does is wrong?

Added together more people voted for this coalition government than the last useless bunch – do you think they are all stupid?

Were you one of the supporters of the last incompetent government’s 90 day detention scheme I wonder? hmmmm

I realise after your pleasure at Gordon Brown, (Britain’s most useless chancellor and never elected Prime Minister or even Labour leader) being forced on the electorate may have suited your views but to suggest the public shouldn’t have the right to ditch useless police leaders stinks. Who pays their wages Mr.S?

Why do you want to give power to people you can’t easily get rid of? Are you mad?

Obviously you missed my last link to North Korea so here is another: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Flights-g294443-North_Korea-Cheap_Discount_Airfares.html
bobigb

All those that back pompous May…will be singing from a different hymn book
when her ridiculous cuts… means you will probably get mugged walking home…because of her brainless cuts!
Eirwen Pierrot

Kevin – To suggest that those who are opposed to elected police commissioners are opposed to proper democratic oversight is incredibly unfair.

Police Authorities already provide scrutiny of the police and put accountability into the hands of local people. Councillors, elected by the people, sit on those Boards, along with people appointed for their skills and expereince. Police Authorities allow a breath of knowledge and experience, of diversity of background, and of appropriate geographical spread that having a single individual could never achieve, and nor would be likely to be brought out by the electoral process. Looking at the experience in America, it is likely that turnout for such elections would be very low and puts a high risk of those with extremist views getting through.

Police Authorities often divide up their area into patches, which means that a single individual can have thorough oversight of a very specific area, get to know residents and be available to help. PAs do so much more for neighbourhood policing in that sense than a directly elected commissioner could. The idea simply risks people running on populist agendas without knowing or understanding the complexity associated with national and international policing strategies.

It is quite right that we don’t elect absolutely everyone in our public services. We don’t elect our magistrates, our NHS boards etc It would be unfeasable to do so. It is a basic principle of 200 years of policing in this country that the police are not politised. The police should be fighting crime, not running campaigns.

To abandon the policing pledge at the same time as making calls for more accountability makes no sense. The pledge is not a ‘target’ but a statement of a minimum standard that people are entitled to. And one of the items in that pledge is that the police need to be visible to local people and responsive of their concerns. It ensures that local people are empowered to attend beat meetings, to be involved in consultations. The pledge, combined with PAs does make the police accountable. Elected police commissioners will be a disaster.
bobigb

Mr.Sensible – Are you so slavishly supportive of that last useless government that you believe that everything the coalition does is wrong?

Added together more people voted for this coalition government than the last useless bunch – do you think they are all stupid?

Were you one of the supporters of the last incompetent government’s 90 day detention scheme I wonder? hmmmm

I realise after your pleasure at Gordon Brown, (Britain’s most useless chancellor and never elected Prime Minister or even Labour leader) being forced on the electorate may have suited your views but to suggest the public shouldn’t have the right to ditch useless police leaders stinks. Who pays their wages Mr.S?

Why do you want to give power to people you can’t easily get rid of? Are you mad?

Obviously you missed my last link to North Korea so here is another:

Mouse by name and mouse by nature…who elected cameron pm pray…certainly not the electorate of this country…the man is an unfunny ideologist joke as is his crass amateur chancellor

BTW don’t start sitting too comfortably..you will probably be involved in civil unrest very very soon!
john p Reid

When in 2001 it was revealed police figures were falling <Stephen Pound at PMQ's drew attention to the sheehy report as being a disaster for the police to Blair agreeing with him, the sheehy report was dropped as Paul condon threatened to resign-Remember it was the 9% pay rise that police with less than 8 years in were given to substain numbers, Police joining in the mid 90's were leaving in their droves as they couldn't afford to stay in, Comparing charles Clarkes admirable police mergers with the disastrous Sheehy reforms is a joke,
Not wanting to agree with Shami Chakrabarti, But the polce are supposed to be politically independet as all the Attacks on ian Blair showed, surely having elected police chiefs would compromise this
Kevin Meagher

Dear Eirewen – I understand the points you make about Police Authorities, but really, can anyone outside London name the chair of their local police authority? And if not, what legitimacy do they have? And by ‘anyone’ I mean ‘real people’, not the public sector cogniscenti.

Also your opposition to an eleected police commissioner on the grounds that there is apparently a “high risk of those with extremist views getting through” is an unfortunate canard of the left. Have we lost all faith that the left can win elections?! And talk that this amounts to “politicisation” of the police is straight off an ACPO press release.

I say again, when democracy and accountability are deemed to be the problem, then its a depressing state of affairs. Especially when we cede this entire agenda to the right.

Yours fraternally,

Kevin
Anon E Mouse

bobigb – I’m an ex Labour voter who voted for an Independent candidate but your final remark is a classic dude! Yee haa!

Up the workers eh? Come the revolution? Oh please. Spare me…

(You forgot to paste my link for Mr.Sensible as well) Oh here it is…

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Flights-g294443-North_Korea-Cheap_Discount_Airfares.html

Since you obviously hate the idea of democratically elected offices perhaps you should consider using the link yourself bobigb…
Mr. Sensible

Mr Mouse, no I did not support 90-day detention, but in my view if you want to cut that you have to have Control Orders.

And no I think some things they’re doing are sensible; linking pensions to earnings, ending child detention at |Yarleswood, and I believe they’re proposing stopping alcohol being sold below cost price. And I also support them killing off runway 3.

It’s just the majority of it I don’t agree with, and this is an example.

And I mention cost because we’re told we need to cut, cut, cut.

Lets use what we’ve got; the councillors who serve on the police authorities have been elected as councillors by their constituents.

And Mr Mouse we’ve heard that before. If the Lib Dems had gone in with Labour, we could argue that that coalition had the popular support.

I notice that, judging by the polls, since the budget Lib Dem Support has fallen off a cliff.
Mr. Sensible

An example of cross-border policing occured with the recent events in Cumbria. The local police had to draft people in from Scotland and Lancashire.

What would have happened with different police chiefs with different priorities?
Anon E Mouse

Mr.Sensible – You may notice that your response from other readers on this blog is similar to mine. If they vote for an extremist then so be it – that’s democracy.

And for the last time Mr.S… Labour did NOT go into coalition with the Lib Dems – if they had then they would have had the largest support. But that’s a typical “what if” Labour supporter scenario but it isn’t real.

If my granny hadn’t died they wouldn’t have buried her… it’s meaningless.

Although Lib Dem support may have gone off a cliff (rubbish – the poll is wrong) it will never hit the state that the last useless unelected Prime Minister did – the lowest poll ratings in UK history I remember. Saved the world? Please.

To suggest that people in this country cannot elect a decent Police Chief shows an arrogance on your behalf – why do you think that there wouldn’t be a national priority for policing that would have stopped a Cumbria?

For goodness sake man we put men on the moon 30 years ago, a rover on Mars, we can control the atom and yet you say we can’t organise a police service without government state run control?

Those days are over Mr.S – they ended May 6th and once Nick Clegg has passed his freedom act this whole country should feel different. No more stupid Labour Stalinism which leads to trying to panic the public with things like Bird Flu and results in £1.2 billion being wasted.

This coalition is the best thing to happen to this country in decades. You really need to catch the wave dude. For Labour it’s over…
crimecutter

Police accountability? locally elected this that and the other…..sit down with the Scumbag at the end of your street and ask him to be accountable to the local community for why he robbed an old lady or shoved a gun in the postmaster’s face..make him fill in ten forms on why his actions were justified…ask him to account for his time / spending / performance ?? no …instead, tie the hands of the people tasked to capture such an idiot with red tape, bind their every movement with ACCOUNTABILITY….its as simple as this…if one side has to do something the other doesnt..the other has far more time to win the war.
diane barlow

maybe the police do need a shake up, but by cutting numbers???? we are already fighting a losing battle with the criminals. not only cutting numbers, but reducing pay??? lets get rid of the waste of time “crime fighting” units that work 8-4 mon -fri i.e drugs units, burglary units etc. and have these officers freed up to actually fight crime 24 hours a day! drug dealers and burglars dont actually do much “work between 8-4p
http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/01/marke-kennedy-undercover-policeman-case/ Frontline policing matters more than Romeo enviro-spookery | Left Foot Forward

[...] Left Foot Forward has previously pointed out, this is properly a matter for ministers and Parliament, not a supercharged professional body. But [...]