Police Community Support Officers

Debate between Damian Green and Jessica Morden

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) on securing the debate. I am happy to discuss the powers of police community support officers with him and to deal with some of the issues he raised. He started with the particular and moved out to the general. In the interests of symmetry, I will start with the general and move to the particular, and end by addressing the issues at the school. As the hon. Gentleman said, he and I have corresponded on the matter. In believing that PCSOs do an important job very well, there will be not a jot of difference between us.

I will put the debate in the context of the Government’s wider police reform agenda. On entering office, the Government set the police a challenge: we asked forces to cut crime and at the same time undergo a radical programme of reform. The central objective of the reform is to re-establish the link between the police and the public, reflecting Sir Robert Peel’s principle that the police must answer to the people they serve. The reform of the crime and policing landscape is to ensure that policing is reconnected to the public and is sustainable, stronger and successful in pursuit of its core mission.

We have achieved that in a number of ways. First, we scrapped national targets, as the Government believe that policing must be responsive to local concerns. Priorities are now set by police and crime commissioners in consultation with the public who elect them. That approach is the embodiment of democratic accountability. The hon. Gentleman correctly talked about localism, which that approach embodies in that Whitehall is withdrawing from interfering in matters that should be determined locally.

Secondly, we have provided the public with better information about crime in their area. There is now clear, transparent and accessible information for the public. I am sure the hon. Gentleman has heard of police.uk, which I hope he is an avid user of. That website is a phenomenal success: it has received more than 548 million hits since its launch, equating to a daily average of more than 200,000. That demonstrates the public’s appetite to know what is happening in their communities and on their streets.

Thirdly, we have changed how forces are held to account, through police and crime commissioners. The Government have ensured that the public, not bureaucrats, are the judges of police success. The PCC will be held to account by the public for the delivery of effective policing. Alongside that, new roles for key policing partners have been carved out. In the new landscape we have legislated to make Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary more robustly independent, so that it acts directly in the public interest. The Independent Police Complaints Commission will continue to be responsible for ensuring that complaints against the police are dealt with effectively.

Hon. Members will be aware of the Home Secretary’s commitment to strengthen the IPCC’s ability to investigate serious complaints. That is a complex piece of work involving the transfer of resources from force professional standards units to the IPCC, but it will bolster the public’s confidence in the complaints system.

Lastly, the Government are supporting the professional development of police officers and staff. The College of Policing is independent of the Government and will not focus solely on supporting warranted police officers. Its remit will include setting standards for the professionalisation of all officers and staff.

The reform programme prioritises local communities. It places the public at the heart of policing. Neighbourhood policing is, therefore, a core part of the programme. Every neighbourhood in the country has a local policing team designed to work openly and in partnership with all members of their community. Every Member of this House understands the importance of ensuring that the public have a visible uniformed police presence in their community, working alongside them to identify and tackle the issues that matter to them.

The Government have supported that approach by introducing the locally elected PCCs, by ensuring that the police engage directly with their local communities through regular beat meetings, and by publishing street-level crime and antisocial behaviour information through police.uk. That focus on local accessibility, transparency, accountability and engagement will enable the public to support, and challenge, local police activity.

That brings me specifically to PCSOs. Neighbourhood policing has transformed how communities experience and relate to policing, and PCSOs are a vital component of that approach. They are now key to the public face of policing. I am delighted to hear that the hon. Gentleman served on the Committee that scrutinised the legislation. PCSOs were a good idea and it is now acknowledged on all sides that they are an integral part of the neighbourhood policing landscape that we want to see. They provide a valuable uniformed presence in communities. Their ability to spend time getting to know their local area means that they can understand and identify local priorities, solve local problems and low-level crime, and engage with local communities. They bring key skills, values and diversity to policing.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) mentioned the powers of PCSOs and it seems that the Minister is moving towards agreement with him. My hon. Friend agrees that it is important that PCSOs are very representative of the communities they serve. Therefore, does the Minister welcome the approach of Gwent police in appointing more part-time PCSOs, allowing more women with child care responsibilities, for example, to work flexibly? That has meant that a different kind of person can become a PCSO.

[Damian Green]

I welcome that for two reasons. First, I am committed to trying to improve the diversity, not just of warranted police officers but of PCSOs. I think it was the new president of the Police Superintendents Association who made that point; the police have not moved as far as some other institutions in developing diversity and they need to do better. I am extremely supportive of practical steps to make that happen.

Secondly, the kind of local initiative that the hon. Lady describes is precisely what I want to see. I do not want to sit here—nor have any other policing Minister—dictating to different forces around the country what their priorities must be. Initiatives that come from the bottom up through the forces themselves at the behest of the PCCs will be the best way to ensure that each force is responsive to the local needs of its community. I am happy to welcome that initiative of the Gwent police. I had a good visit there a few months ago, seeing what they were doing to engage with the community in Newport. It is clearly an innovative force.

Providing visibility on the streets is also a key strength of the role of PCSOs. According to the results of the recent crime survey for England and Wales, over half of all adults say that they see the police or PCSOs on foot patrol in their local area at least every month. There are some very inspiring stories of what individual PCSOs are doing to engage with and respond to the individual needs of their communities.

In the Isles of Scilly, PCSO Bev Faull has been awarded a citation for her work with migrant workers. For the past three years, she has focused on helping the county’s eastern European migrants, effectively planning and running multi-agency operations to tackle exploitation of workers in west Cornwall.

In Shinfield, near Reading in Berkshire, Suzie Carr was awarded Thames Valley’s PCSO of the year, in recognition of the excellent community relationships she built while launching her “Wrong place, wrong time” youth project. It is interesting to note that the award scheme is by public vote, so she was praised by the local residents of the community in which she patrols for the positive impact of her work.

I have one final example from Solihull. Riccardo Gambino was named the region’s PCSO of the year for setting up 13 neighbourhood watch schemes during 2012. What is interesting about Mr Gambino is that he was a police officer for 11 years but gave up his warrant to become a PCSO because he thought that he could better serve his community as a PCSO, specifically because what was most important to him was the emphasis on engagement.

Those are three very good examples of the work undertaken by PCSOs. As of September 2012, there were nearly 14,500 PCSOs, and I am confident that each of them is taking positive steps to engage with their community, having an impact on people’s lives. It is a back-to-roots role, unique within the police service for its emphasis on accessibility and engagement, acting as a complement to, not a replacement for, the enforcement role of sworn warranted officers. That gets to the heart of the hon. Gentleman’s point, because we are determined to maintain the difference of the role.

Of course, there might well be changes and there have been changes in the past. We believe strongly in delegating local funding decisions, for example, to PCCs, which is why the neighbourhood policing fund, which historically funded such officers, is subsumed into the police main grant from next month. It will then be for police and crime commissioners, in consultation with individual chief constables, to take decisions on resourcing and deployment of PCSOs based on local assessments of need and risk. That is right, and I anticipate that this will make forces even more responsive to local concerns and priorities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Green and Jessica Morden

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on being appointed to my old job by the Leader of the Opposition. I did it for four and a half years and I can say with complete sincerity that I hope he does it for even longer.

Yes is the answer to the very serious question that the hon. Gentleman asks. He has been intimately involved in this subject for some years, so he will be pleased to know that the e-Borders system will continue, I hope in an improved way, under our new arrangements, and that other areas of capital spending such as the integrated casework project will also continue so that we use technology and the experience of our border officers to keep our borders safe.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

15. What consultation her Department has undertaken on the future of the Newport Passport Office.

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

On 19 October, the Identity and Passport Service began a formal 90-day consultation period with the trade unions on the future of the passport application processing centre at Newport. In addition, as the hon. Lady knows, I have had meetings with her and the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), the leader of Newport city council and the Secretary of State for Wales.

[Jessica Morden]

Will the Minister reassure me that the consultation on the future of Newport passport office is truly a consultation, in that he is genuinely listening to the concerns of people in Wales, including the 17,000 who have now signed the South Wales Argus petition on the future of the office and its staff?

[Damian Green]

I am happy to give the hon. Lady that assurance. She has quite rightly made her position perfectly clear in defending her constituents’ jobs, and I would expect no less of her. I hope that she can help me correct the misunderstanding that has been put about that Wales is losing its passport office. It simply is not. The passport office delivering passports to people in Wales will remain in Newport.

Newport Passport Office

Debate between Damian Green and Jessica Morden

Monday 25th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

That would be a fundamental difference if it were true, but it is fundamentally wrong. It is false, and the hon. Gentleman is misleading people if he is saying that Wales will be left without a passport office. There will still be a passport office for people to go to in Newport. The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said that people travel from the south-west of England to go to the Newport passport office, and they will still be able to do so. I have read many recent editions of the South Wales Argus, with pictures of people holding placards saying, “Wales mustn’t lose its only passport office”. I am happy to assure not just the people of Newport, but the people of Wales that Wales is not losing its passport office, and it is simply misleading for hon. Members to keep repeating the falsehood that it is.

I recognise that this is a difficult time for many people, and I appreciate that many members of staff working in passport offices up and down the country have contributed to the success of the passport operation. That is why the IPS carried out an objective assessment of its UK operation, to establish how to respond to the excess capacity. A comparative assessment was made of the five centres to determine how best to achieve a better, more efficient service for all existing and future passport holders. The assessment was based on the criteria of cost, affordability, estates, people, customers, partners, performance and operational feasibility.

The primary consideration lay in the ability of the agency to achieve the right level of efficiencies, while retaining sufficient operational capacity to maintain the current high level of service. The assessment had to consider whether an application processing centre could be closed without the need to recruit additional staff back into the remaining offices. Achieving the savings through efficiencies was a key criterion, but it had to be demonstrated in the assessment that savings would be sustainable and would not simply reappear as a future cost to the IPS during periods of peak demand. As I think the hon. Member for Newport East knows, I have undertaken to carry out a full impact assessment, in line with the requirements of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I note in passing that such an assessment was not published at the time of the Glasgow closure.

I appreciate that the hon. Lady will consider Newport to be a special case that should receive special consideration. I would expect hon. Members in constituencies across the UK to consider jobs in their constituencies similarly to merit special consideration. However, the IPS applied the same economic criteria to all areas, for two reasons: first, to ensure consistency and fairness; and secondly, because the IPS is a UK-wide service and requires an operational structure that ensures the highest standards of delivery and service for all its customers, in all parts of the United Kingdom. The IPS has identified the Newport passport application processing centre as the main potential candidate for closure by using an evidence-based approach. The closure would be achievable at the lowest cost, and would represent the most favourable net present value and enable the IPS to retain sufficient operational capacity after closure without the need to recruit staff to back-fill into other offices. The IPS is looking to achieve the necessary staff reductions while avoiding compulsory redundancy wherever possible. That is why, in the case of Newport, the IPS is working with the Wales Office and other Departments to help to identify opportunities elsewhere.

I repeat, in the hope that hon. Members will accept this salient fact, that the proposed restructuring of the regional application processing centres does not mean that Wales will be the only devolved nation without a regional office. The IPS will retain a customer service centre in Newport to service south Wales and the south-west, employing up to 45 people to provide a counter service and with the ability to deal with applicants in the Welsh language. That will cater for the 47,000 people a year who use the current Newport regional office and also provide capacity for 7,000 interviews. The service proposed for Newport after spring 2012 will be similar to the services currently in place at the IPS offices in Glasgow and London.

The point was made strongly to me by the Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan)—as it was by the hon. Member for Newport East—that shops in the centre of Newport have been closing and that there is a threat to the town centre. The footfall of those 47,000 people who visit the passport office is therefore essential to give some hope to the shops that remain in the town centre and to the town centre’s continuing regeneration. I found that argument very persuasive from my right hon. Friend and from the hon. Lady, and that is why I have decided that that office should stay in Newport. It could be moved to somewhere else in Wales; that would fulfil the criteria desired by other Opposition Members that Wales retain a passport office, and I could obviously do that without retaining it in Newport. Given the particularly difficult circumstances that Newport has faced, however, I think that it is right to retain the customer service centre there, and that is what we intend to do.

Obviously, this will be of little comfort to the hon. Lady’s constituents and those of the hon. Member for Newport West who might lose their jobs through the closure of the Newport passport application processing centre, but the decision reflects the importance that the IPS attaches to providing a service to passport applicants and holders across the UK. I am afraid that the IPS simply has excess staff capacity in its application processing and interview office networks of around 350 full-time equivalents. It has excess physical capacity of approximately 25% across the whole application processing estate, and excess staff capacity of about 150 full-time equivalent jobs and 39 local offices across the interview office network. That is why what is happening in Newport is not the only reduction that the IPS is having to go through. It is having to make cuts across all its regional offices and across the interview centres as well.

The IPS has begun a formal 90-day consultation period with the trade unions. It began on 19 October, and we will provide the unions with extensive background information on the decision to close the Newport processing centre. We are also looking into whether that information can be made public before the end of the consultation period. To answer another specific question, the IPS will be producing a full impact assessment, which will include an assessment of the economic impact of the loss of approximately 250 jobs. Home Office economists will support the IPS with that analysis.

We will seek to include as part of the assessment the impact of job losses on a local area, but that might not be specific to the economic environment in Newport. The IPS has conducted its closure analysis as an operational task, and to include in the analysis the effect on a specific local area, we would need to conduct a local economic impact assessment on all five application processing centres. Clearly, that is not a function for the IPS.

IPS officials are continually offering meetings to the First Minister and to local council officials in Newport. As I have said, I have already met the local council leader.

[Jessica Morden]

May I ask the Minister why he did not consult the Welsh Assembly Government before taking this decision?

[Damian Green]

As I say, we have started a consultation period, but, regrettably, as so often happens, for some reason somebody chose to announce this before all the consultations had properly taken place. The hon. Member for Newport West had asked for a meeting with me and I had agreed to meet him in the intervening period. As he knows, however, the BBC and various other journalists got hold of the date for the start of the consultation process. These things happen, and it is very unfortunate—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Green and Jessica Morden

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I am obviously aware of the problems that have emerged with what are perfectly reasonable investigations. Children are being brought a long way across the world unaccompanied, so it is not unreasonable for there to be some checks, but I am aware that there have been problems this year, and I shall be happy to take up any individual case that my hon. Friend would like to raise with me.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

At a time when the Government are looking to police forces to save money, will the Minister tell the House how much it will cost to elect and fund the proposed directly elected police commissioners?