Archived decisions

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

Decision Report :

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1) Summary of Decision Area:

1.1. That Cabinet approve the County Council's draft response at Appendix B to the Policing Green Paper "From the Neighbourhood to the National: Policing our communities together", subject to amendments, to be agreed with the Leader.

2) Issues Covered in Report:

2.1. Key Issues: "From the Neighbourhood to the National: Policing our communities together".

2.2. Proposed changes to the Police Authority which may impact on the County Council.

2.3. Responding to the consultation.

3) Recommendations:

3.1. That Cabinet approve the draft response at Appendix B to the Policing Green Paper, subject to amendments, to be agreed with the Leader.

MAIN REPORT

1) Purpose of the Report:

1.1. To provide Cabinet with information about the key issues raised in the Green Paper, "From the Neighbourhood to the National: Policing our communities together", informing the draft response to the consultation questions.

2) Contextual Information:

2.1. The Green Paper, "From the Neighbourhood to the National: Policing our communities together", which was published by the Home Office on Thursday, 17 July 2008.

2.2. The consultation on the proposals set out within the Green Paper will run until Friday 10 October 2008. A draft response is appended to this report at Appendix B.

2.3. Many of the proposals, recommendations and policy direction within the Green Paper are not unknown or new; many relate directly to the Sir Ronnie Flanagan¹ and Louise Casey² reviews of policing. There are also established links to the recent White Paper, Communities in Control; real people, real power³, which sets out how the Government wants to pass power into the hands of local communities; re-energising local democracy and giving citizens greater control over local priorities.

2.4. The consultation asks 28 questions on the proposals and the proposed answers to these are included at Appendix B. Members are asked to note that questions 11-18, 20 and 23 are specifically about police management structures and so no response is proposed.

3) Key Issues:

3.1. As background to the specific question responses there are a number of key issues.

3.2. The Green Paper is divided into three themes:

a) Empowering Citizens: the aim is to improve the connection between the public and Police;

b) Professionalising and Freeing Up the Police: the aim is to reduce bureaucracy and develop technology; define roles and leadership in the Police service; and, focus on development and deployment; and

c) Strategic Role for Government: the aim is to co-ordinate change in policing; reinforce collaboration between forces; and, improve performance in policing.

3.3. While the above themes are generally acceptable, particularly the proposed reduction of bureaucracy, some proposals in the Green Paper are controversial and are of concern to the County Council. These are: governance arrangements for the creation of Crime and Policing Representatives, financial arrangements and proposals which could undermine partnership working.

4) Governance

4.1 The key issue of concern is the workability of proposed changes to the governance of CDRPs and Police Authorities through the creation of directly elected Crime and Policing Representatives.

4.2 It is important to note the differences between being elected to the CDRP and being elected to the Police Authority:

_ CDRP: elected Members look at the delivery of local authority services as part of a partnership. At the county level, there is a strategic CDRP.

_ Police Authority: elected Members are primarily concerned with policing. There is some reference to local authorities but this is not the primary concern.

4.3 Crime and Policing Representatives would be directly elected to lead their CDRPs in each district and unitary area. For Hampshire, this means they would also automatically have a seat on the Hampshire Police Authority and together might collectively form a majority. Without direct local government Member control over decisions and budgets, CDRPs, and perhaps even Police Authorities themselves, would be vulnerable to the influence of political or minority faction groups with a single-issue mandate.

4.4 The remainder of the Police Authority would be made up of local government elected Members and `appointed' independent members. It is not known at this stage how many there will be. The best guess is that there will be a reduction of this group from the current nine Members to four, one each for Hampshire, Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.

4.5 Directly Elected Mayors automatically become chairs of the CDRPs. The major criticism of this policy is that for local government to have a say in the CDRPs the best thing for them to do is to adopt a Mayoral governance model; therefore government would achieve its commitment to increase the number of Mayors via the `back door'. No details are given as to how such representatives will be elected except in areas with Mayors.

4.6 There appears to be little consideration of how crime and policing representatives, if implemented, would work in a two-tier area. There are concerns that:

_ This undermines the role of Hampshire County Council Members as representatives.

_ Single mandate Members may put themselves forward for election.

_ This could create a lack of balance between county and district elected Member representation, putting the County Council at a disadvantage.

_ The introduction of Crime and Policing Representatives would create competing mandates.

_ This is contrary to government policy encouraging the joining up of services and breaking down silo-working, such as Comprehensive Area Assessments and Local Area Agreements.

_ The creation of new elections would be costly and would require careful management.

_ There is a lack of evidence to suggest that there is a public appetite for new elections.

These concerns indicate a narrow view of the policing and partnership approach.

4.7 These concerns prompt the view that Police Authorities should be returned to the local government strategic authority, enabling clear and visible accountability.

4.8 Should these proposals be implemented, the membership of the County Strategy Group will change to 14 Crime and Policing Representatives alongside representatives from other statutory responsible authorities. These proposals could undermine the county's strategic role in the County Strategy Group as well as other issues such as commissioning.

4.9 The Local Government Association's view is that separate police elections "will not strengthen the link between those responsible for delivering policing and the public" and that the proposals will "lead to blame-shifting and buck passing between the police authority and its local authorities, and push them in different directions."

4.10 Other proposals or options for strengthening the democratic direction of policies have been put forward. For example, Conservative Party views of Directly Elected Police Commissioners.

4.11 It is unclear at present what the direct election of Crime and Policing Representatives will mean for direct elections to other public services such as Fire or Health Services.

4.12 It is uncertain at this stage how the Councillor Call for Action will work for Crime and Policing Representatives. The Councillor Call for Action is a new power, brought in by the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, enabling local people to raise issues of concern on local government and crime and disorder matters through their local councillor. The Councillor Calls for Action would allow councillors to raise local concerns with the relevant member of the local CDRP or make a referral to the relevant overview and scrutiny committee for further action.

5) Finance

5.1. The County Council welcome the news that there will be ring-fenced funding for three years for the continuation of Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) but think that funding for PCSOs should be made permanent. Fixed term funding creates problems when the term ends. A potential impact if fixed term funding in not made permanent is that taxpayers will be expected to pay for PCSOs locally or the service will fold.

5.2. Hampshire County Council's own Accredited Community Safety Officers (ACSOs) work closely with PCSOs, as they do with all police officers. A reduction in funding for any of these uniformed services would impact on the relationship between ACSOs and PCSOs and would be likely to reduce resident's perception of feeling safe and secure. This would, in turn, mitigate against our key corporate priority and our agreed LAA targets.

5.3. The government have signalled in both the Communities in Control White Paper that they would like participatory budgeting schemes to be in place in some form in every local authority by 2012. The Green Paper reiterates this aspiration by advocating the use of participatory budgeting involving local community safety resources. The success of participatory budgeting schemes are frequently linked to the autonomy of the authority over its budgets. Without this autonomy, participatory budgeting is tokenistic and involves very small sums of money, often removed from other budgets. Also, these schemes are controversial for local government as the policy appears to compromise the authority's budgetary control, its proven ability to address the needs of its area and its ability to act strategically.

5.4. Another aspect of the Crime and Policing Representatives is that they will be given a budget to address local priorities. This is not a new fund; it will come from the existing Basic Command Unit (BCU) Fund which is managed by the Constabulary and used for policing services. As such it is not expected that this move will be popular with the police. It is not clear how this fund will work with the Area Based Grant.

6) Partnership Working

6.1. There are proposals in the Green Paper that are welcome in respect to partnership working, particularly proposals for the criminal justice system and commissioning. There are proposals, however, which could undermine partnership working between the police and local government if implemented. Issues here are regarding inspections, decision-making and performance proposals.

Criminal Justice

6.2. The Green Paper proposes greater partnership working across the broader criminal justice system and by extending the remit of CDRPs to include reducing re-offending and therefore the inclusion of Probation Services as `full' members of CDRPs. This is welcome as both will have a potential impact on low level, high volume cases.

Commissioning

6.3. The Green Paper proposes that National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) take the national lead for police IT: NPIA will develop convergence plans requiring sign-off of new investment against compliance criteria "relating to national standards and architecture and procurement policy". This can only be good news in the long term for commissioning. There could be opportunities for the County Council to recommend that NPIA should also be responsible for knowledge transfer and data-sharing as well as IT and recommend that joint commissioning with local government could offer greater value for money.

Inspections

6.4. Changes to the police inspection regime are proposed but connections to area assessments (CAA) and the other inspections and audits partnerships are subjected to are noticeably absent. While there is no issue with the inspection regime for the police per se, proposals for the cross inspectorate (which includes Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary), the Audit Commission's consultation on the Comprehensive Area Assessment, suggest that `area assessments' are supposed to be the only trigger for inspections. Such Area Assessments would also contribute towards efficiency agendas.

Decision-making

6.5. The Green Paper proposes a new national model for decision-making within the police. While this is structurally a matter for the police, the Green Paper lacks the partnership working narrative of other national government policies. Given that the Policing Pledge, for example, includes local government, a lack of emphasis on partnerships is of concern. Policing does not happen in isolation to other factors and agencies therefore partnership working between local government and the police is essential and well established in many places. Where partnerships are considered, the proposals are predicated on a urban or unitary model which does not take in county and district structures. More thought needs to be put into how decision-making and partnerships work in two-tier areas.

6.6. Proposals in relation to neighbourhood management indicate that Police Authorities should have a lead role. This function, however, stay with local government as leader with Police Authority support.

6.7. Reassurance is sought that proposals will not undermine the successful partnerships that Hampshire has constructed and that existing boundaries will be observed and any new boundaries aligned.

Performance

6.8. The Green paper proposes the writing of a new Policing Pledge to meet public expectations about the police service. The Pledge consists of twelve national standards. The intention is to implement the Policing Pledge by the end of the year.

6.9. The Pledge places tough demands on police forces and local authorities upon implementation. There will be heavy resource dependencies which will be inconsistent across the county, for instance, the proposal for monthly local meetings will be dependent on venues, staff availability, combinations with other services and expectations as to times of day.

6.10. It is proposed in the Pledge that face to face access, like local police surgeries, be held alongside other public meetings or with Members. This raises, however, some issues for partnership working:

_ What is `local'? In a two-tier area, the management of the relationship between neighbourhood areas and the County Council will need careful management. Strategic links would need to be made, with the Rural Strategy or Parish Councils for example.

_ Experience of local community surgeries suggests that local issues frequently relate to environmental issues such as residential parking, noise complaints and the displacement of problems. Enhancements to the relationship between the police, CDRP and other services such as Environmental Health and the PCT would be necessary to support this proposal. A united approach across Hampshire Action Teams and CDRPs, for example, would need to be in place.

These issues are not addressed in the Green Paper in any detail.

6.11. A recurrent theme in the Green Paper is the reduction of top-down performance targets to one central target to improve public confidence. Public confidence is a subjective target which requires the careful management of public and media perception that Hampshire is a safe place.

6.12. It is certainly welcome that there is now more of an emphasis on outcome rather than process but it is unclear how police and their partners, including local authorities, can ensure that the right balance is struck between service satisfaction and confidence levels against actual crimes. Furthermore, it is not clear how this reduction of targets will be achieved or assist the reduction of bureaucracy to get more police out on the streets.

7) Outline of Options:

7.1. Option 1:

a) Submit a response to the consultation.

7.2. Option 2:

a) Do not submit a response to the consultation.

8) Option Analysis / Comparison:

8.1. Option 1 will enable the County Council to have its views heard by national policy makers at this early stage in policy formation.

8.2. Option 2 will continue the status quo until changes are made statutory.

9) Conclusions:

9.1. Many of the proposals within the Green Paper are welcome and are supported, for example, those relating to Probation and criminal justice. There are however, some concerns about the proposals, particularly in relation to the governance arrangements and workability of the creation of Crime and Policing Representatives.

10) Summary Recommendations:

10.1. That Cabinet approve the County Council's draft response at Appendix B to the Policing Green Paper "From the Neighbourhood to the National: Policing our communities together", subject to amendments, to be agreed with the Leader.

CORPORATE OR LEGAL INFORMATION:

APPENDIX B: Hampshire County Council response to the Consultation Questions