Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

Let us go on to the Local Government Association. That seems to follow, as Amendment 239A would add police and crime commissioners as statutory partners on community safety partnerships. Under the Bill, commissioners do not replace police authorities as members of CSPs; they simply have a duty to co-operate. The Local Government Association, making the point that this is an all-party view, says that it is concerned about fracturing current local community safety governance arrangements and that placing commissioners as statutory members on CSPs would help to ensure that all bodies involved in local community safety work together through a collaborative approach in the best interest of local communities and that the commissioner does not undertake contradictory efforts to those of the other CSP members.

I apologise to your Lordships for the length of time it has taken me to introduce all those amendments. It is a medium-sized group in the context of the Bill.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, pursuing my usual course of local government recidivism, I will comment briefly on Amendment 49A, which will include local authorities in the rather wide category of criminal justice bodies set out in Clause 11(4). On Second Reading, I rather questioned the extent of that list and wondered whether it is appropriate to regard the police commissioner in the same category as, for example, the Crown Prosecution Service or youth offending teams. However, be that as it may, if there are to be bodies such as those listed here—including, for example, youth offending teams, which are regarded as criminal justice bodies—surely it is logical that local government should be included as well, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, seems to acknowledge at least on this occasion. I hope that the Minister will accept that modest amendment. However, I will endorse the noble Baroness’s amendments that refer to the need for local government to be included, particularly, for example, in relation to the annual reports in Clause 13. It would be strange if the elected local policing body—effectively the commissioner—were not to give a local authority a response to a report or recommendations that such an authority might make to the commissioner. Again I hope—possibly vainly—that the Minister will see the logic of that and accept the amendment to that effect which the noble Baroness has moved.

[Baroness Henig]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 47 in this group. I apologise that I was premature in attempting to speak to this amendment an hour or so ago, having failed to notice that, in between the draft groupings and the final groupings, there had been some slight changes.

I particularly note the Minister’s Amendment 43 on behalf of the Government, which specifies that the local policing body must have regard to the priorities of the other statutory partners in developing policing plans. That is very welcome, and it begins to improve linkages with community safety partners. However, like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I still think that there are gaps in the landscape and that the Bill proposals could be further strengthened.

Amendment 47 suggests an active role for police and crime panel members in community safety partnerships, and it specifies that a panel member must sit on each such partnership within their area. The idea of this is to enable the panel to influence the strategic priorities of those partnerships before they are set, and to provide information to the panel and the commissioner to ensure that the policing family plays its part too.

It is all very well to say that the local policing body must have regard to the priorities of other partners; but what if these were at cross-purposes? Having a panel member in the partnership would enable an intelligent dialogue to take place and would enable that panel member to pick up on concerns before they became major problems.

The Minister is right in what he said earlier about this crucial set of relationships between CDRPs on the one hand and the commission, as we have it, on the other hand. However, I do not want this to be a discussion just about generalities, and it would be nice if this happened or that happened. Ultimately, all this is about better engagement. It is about trying to get an improved response on behalf of local communities. We are looking to try to get a system that works well for local people.

I recall that in Committee this House expressed real concern that one person, in the form of a commissioner, could not undertake the kind of in-depth engagement that 17 members formerly did, and that there was a real risk that they would be perceived as remote, not just by electors but by the many other bodies—public, private and voluntary—that work with the police. If the commissioner is going to find it very difficult to get round all the CDRPs, who can do it instead?

I think that the Government broadly agreed in their recently tabled amendments that the role of the panel must be as much about supporting the commissioner as about scrutiny. My amendment is a way of letting the panel develop a supportive role in practice. We keep hearing about the panel being supportive and about stricter checks and balances, but I am trying to get the panel to play a stronger role in practice. We know that membership of community safety partnerships would be one way for panel members to help to make this ambition effective and to get panels to be more supportive and play a more practical role.

We know that the police alone cannot solve all local problems that could arise. That is why community safety partnerships were set up in the first place. If we allow local policing bodies to become disconnected from the wider community safety partners, we will go back 15 years to the kind of silo thinking that saw record levels of crime at the end of the 1990s. I cannot believe that that is what the Government want.

It might be salutary if I remind the Minister that police authorities were not originally among the bodies required to be on CDRPs when they were established. Over time, it was found to be an error and was changed so that police authorities became statutory partners. Indeed, police authority members became among the most dedicated and active members of the partnerships. The reason was that it was a good source of two-way information. It was not just that police authorities, and now police panels, would get information back. Their presence was very much valued at district level both by local councils and divisional police officers. That system is working as we speak and I would be very reluctant to see it disappear.

I understand that the concept was not invented here. The charge has often been levelled at police forces up and down the country that they are very reluctant to introduce things that they have not pioneered or invented. I feel that the Government face the same danger here. They are trying to set up a new policing arrangement. I understand that, but there are lessons to be learnt about what has happened in the past 15 to 20 years, and we need to be prepared to learn them. My amendment attempts to restore a link that will otherwise be lost. I am trying to enable panel members to keep their pulse on the local landscape and ensure that both the panel and the commissioner are aware of developments, are equipped to understand problems and are able to co-ordinate effective joint action. Once again, I am trying to be constructive and to assist. I am absolutely certain that in the years to come, sooner or later the links will be restored. They have to be, because it is common sense. That is the way in which things will work at local level; it is just a question of making the change now rather than later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Browning]

I have not addressed that question before. I will come back to the noble Baroness. I am probably doing what my officials call “going off piste” here—I do it quite frequently—but I believe the PCC has the authority to build these relationships and if they felt it appropriate for someone, not necessarily a member of the panel, to represent them for a particular purpose, perhaps a particular project or for something that had been identified as a priority, I hope they would have the flexibility and the power to do that. I will write to the noble Baroness before I get into too deep water, but on the face of it I see no reason why the PCC should not nominate someone to do that if it were felt necessary for that to happen, not necessarily on a permanent basis but for a particular local situation where it was necessary to work quickly and rapidly.

I would add that police and crime panels are to be made up of representatives from every local authority in the police area, and each CSP in the police area will continue to benefit from a local authority representative. It seems to me that this negates the need for the PCP to be represented on the CSPs in its own right. The local authority is already represented on the CSP and the PCP so, to go back to my reply to the noble Baroness, if there were special circumstances because of a situation that had arisen, I would hope that the PCC would have the authority to ensure that there was representation to deal with specific issues.

Those representing the local authority are of course responsible for linking up that work. I heard what the noble Lord said about that not always working in practice but, quite frankly, one of the difficulties that we often face is that things do not work because individuals do not communicate as expected. If there were problems in that area, and a lack of joined-up communication, I would expect a rather grown-up approach in that someone, presumably the PCC, would step in and say, “We have a problem here, let us sort this out”; or, from the local government end, if it they felt that there was a problem at their end and they were not getting enough report-back from those who represented them, whom they will have chosen themselves, they would say, “We are not getting enough feedback on this, can we do something about it?”. Sometimes breakdowns in communication actually just need a bit of leadership—it is not rocket science. Of course, leadership is what we expect the PCC to give, and there is certainly plenty of leadership in local authorities to make sure that, if there is a problem, they identify it and do something about it—they do not need that to be in the Bill.

The Government are trying to devolve to local areas and to respect the people who serve on these committees, particularly the people at local government level who are elected to carry out those sorts of functions. I am therefore very resistant to going into minutiae of this kind in the Bill. Given that representatives will hold unique and privileged insights into policing and community safety on behalf of the local authority, it is inconceivable that a competent public servant would not ensure that the appropriate links were made and that the local authority would seek to rectify that situation. On that basis, I ask that the amendment not be pressed.

Amendment 49A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, asks us to define local authorities as criminal justice bodies subject to the duty to co-operate. Again, I have some difficulties with this. First, local authorities are not criminal justice bodies. They are, however, concerned with the promotion of community safety. Secondly, Clause 11(1) already provides for PCCs and the responsible authorities that are members of CSPs to co-operate with each other. Local authorities are responsible authorities, so they are covered by the duty to co-operate in Clause 11(1). There is therefore no need to include them in a separate duty to co-operate in Clause 11(2). As I have already outlined, government Amendment 43 in this group strengthens the duty to co-operate in terms of the PCC and responsible bodies having regard to each other’s priorities in exercising their functions. This will apply to local authorities as responsible authorities. I am grateful to the noble Lord for tabling his amendment, but it does not really contradict what I have tabled.

[Lord Beecham]

I have just looked up the clause to which the noble Baroness refers—Clause 11 on co-operative working. She is quite correct to say that Clause 11(1) refers to the “responsible authority”. However, that subsection talks about the co-operation between the elected local policing body and the local authority as a responsible authority; it does not bring the local authority within the family of the other organisations in subsection (4) that are obliged to co-operate, which is why I suggested that they should be included there. In other words, this could be seen as a bilateral relationship instead of a multilateral relationship, which was the defect that my amendment sought to cure. Will the noble Baroness take it away and think about it further?

[Baroness Browning]

Yes, I am very happy to do that. I had rather thought that the noble Lord was seeking to strengthen my own amendment in this matter. I take his point about the difference between bilateral and multilateral relationships. I am very happy to take it away and look at it again, just to be absolutely sure that we have got this right. I had regarded the amendment that he tabled today as rather unnecessary, but I will double-check because I agree with what he is trying to achieve here.

Amendments 53 and 59 seek to increase the panel’s influence over the PCC. Amendment 53 provides that the panel may specify information that it requires the PCC to include in his or her annual report. Amendment 59 provides that the PCC, when carrying out his or her functions, must have regard not only to reports and recommendations made by the panel on the annual report for the previous financial year but to any other ad hoc reports or recommendations issued by the panel. I completely agree that a PCC should be listening to and actively considering the panel’s views and recommendations, and I would fully expect it to do so. This is bound to happen without it being put on a statutory footing. The panel will have the opportunity to scrutinise the PCC, and that will include the PCC’s consideration of any of its advice, reports or recommendations. If the panel believes that information is needed in the public domain, it has the powers to request and publish it itself. Ultimately the public will judge the PCC’s decisions. The Government are clear that we have struck the right balance here, so I ask that the amendments not be pressed to a vote.

Amendments 54A and 56A concern victims and witnesses of crime, and would add witnesses of crime to the list of groups whose views the PCC must seek and have regard to when drafting and issuing the police and crime plan. This is in addition to the present provision that allows for the views of the people in that police area and of victims of crime. This is already covered. I would certainly expect the PCC, in having regard to the views of people in that policing area—particularly, as it says, the views of victims of crime—to consider both the victims and the views of witnesses.

Amendments 40, 46, 55, 56 and 57 add bodies working to combat crime and disorder and assisting the victims of crime to the list of organisations that the PCC and MOPC must consult or have regard to when drafting the police and crime plan. Amendment 58 adds local authorities, including parish and town councils, to that list. There is already provision in the Bill for the PCC to consult victims of crime in the area; by extension, we would expect this to include bodies and services that help to support them. There is no need for this further provision. As for bodies reducing crime and disorder, a PCC will be driven to reduce crime and disorder simply by virtue of his or her position and electoral mandate. This is at the heart of what we expect PCCs to achieve: to reduce crime and antisocial behaviour.

The Government do not seek to tell PCCs how to go about their job in detail where that is unnecessary or disproportionate. Crime and policing strategies must be formulated according to the needs of the local area. It would be a short-sighted PCC indeed who did not consult such groups, including witnesses of crime, or pay attention to local councils within the force area. Amendment 239A seeks to list all PCCs as responsible authorities for the purpose of Section 5 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. In effect, it would make a PCC a member of a community safety partnership within each local authority area in his or her force area. To do so would place a requirement on the PCC to agree with each member of a CSP a strategy for the reduction of crime and disorder and a strategy for combating the misuse of drugs.

However, the current provisions in the Bill, as set out in Schedule 11, envisage a different role for PCCs in relation to the CSPs. We are taking a power to make regulations conferring functions on PCCs in relation to CSPs. We intend to make regulations allowing the PCC to bring together community safety partnerships within the force area to address the specifics of crime reduction and drug abuse, as listed in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. The PCC will not sit on a CSP but will have a commissioning role over its activities, including grant-issuing powers. Therefore, the police service role in delivering those activities will be represented by the chief constable or his or her nominated representative, and ultimately the chief constable will be held to account by the PCC for the force’s role on the CSP. We see the existing provisions as adequate. Therefore, I ask that these particular amendments not be pressed to a vote.