Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Dear Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Soley]

I rise briefly to support my noble friend who has brought forward a thoughtful amendment. I like this approach which is very much about good governance. He has picked the right numbers of between four and seven, and the right topics, those of finance, staff and equality issues. The only thing I am a little uncertain about, and which we might need to flesh out if the amendment is accepted, is how these non-executives would be appointed. I have some reservations about the commissioner being able to appoint all of them and I am not sure how the process would work.

At this stage I want simply to say that my noble friend, who has a lot of experience, has also thought carefully about the good governance issue. On these topics, non-executive directors can be very good at blowing the whistle and spotting problems as they come up. They are also good at taking some of the pressure off the commissioner, particularly on staff and financing. In that role, non-executive directors can be very productive. I wish to support my noble friend.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, since 1997 I have been continuously engaged as a non-executive director or a non-executive chairman, so I understand the environment we are talking about. It is difficult to argue against the principle that has been put forward by the noble Lord in proposing his amendment. However, I have a number of reservations. It seems that four to seven non-executive directors plus a panel is getting a bit cumbersome. I understand the principle of the non-executives arising from the Cadbury report, the Hampel report and others. Businesses quite rightly find themselves almost being pushed into the mode of having to have non-executive advice.

It is the word “shall” in the amendment that bothers me. I assume that it is a paving amendment and I hope that it will be withdrawn, but perhaps it is a proposal for the Minister to take back. In short, I applaud the principle of non-executive advice, but I am not sure whether four, five, six or seven non-executives should be in place at any one time. It could be that the non-executives advise the panel rather than the PCC. In short, the whole principle of the non-executive is one to look at closely. I am not sure that it should be mandatory.

[Lord Shipley]

I rise to support the thinking behind this amendment because throughout the passage of the Bill through the other place I think that the over -centralisation of power in one person was encouraged. That concern remains. What can be done to ensure that there is due probity, audit, equality of opportunity in appointments and so on given the powers that the Bill currently is going to give to the police commissioner?

The context is extremely important. It is not clear to me where the commissioner is to be based, in what kind of offices and with what level of staffing. A close reading of the Bill indicates that this is perceived to be cost-neutral, that the costs of salaries will be subsumed within existing budgets and that grants provided to the police will supply the additional resources required. But it would help to have a discussion about how big the staffing support structures for the police and crime commissioner are going to be. We note that there will a chief executive and a chief finance officer. The consequence is that underneath those chiefs there must be some other people, and those other people will cost significant amounts of money. There is a real danger that we are going to end up with an alternative structure of bureaucracy being created which actually is not necessary. At the moment, police authorities are housed elsewhere, and get their supplies and support in other people’s premises. For me, therefore, this amendment is extremely helpful in that it identifies the fact that we need to be clear what the support structures are going to look like in detail for the police commissioner.

I take absolutely the point about the nature of the appointments. Who are the people who can apply and how will they be appointed? Perhaps I may suggest that the obvious thing to do would be to use Nolan principles. Those are used in so many other places that that is the right approach. There is the question, too, of audit. It is not clear from the Bill exactly what audit requirements will apply in practice to the management of the police and crime commissioner’s office.

There are therefore many questions around this matter which make me believe that there has to be a further discussion about the size, powers and nature of the panels and about the nature of any non-executive board, be it of four members or seven members or whatever it turns out to be. The precise roles of those board members need to be made clear, because they will be different from those of the panel members. The non-executive board is to do with probity in finances, equality and the way staff appointments and so on are being made. They are not full-time appointments; I am not even sure that they have to be substantially remunerated, although, clearly, expenses would have to be paid. The boards are different from the panels, which are essentially about the nature of policing and supporting the police and crime commissioner in that aspect of their work.

I give a guarded welcome to the amendment but it is part of a broader discussion about the police and crime commissioner’s office.