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.
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.
28 Responses to “Theresa May is right to take on ACPO and reform the police”
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’.
Diane Lowe
Home Sec Theresa May is right to take on ACPO and reform Police? http://bit.ly/9yLaRi
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!
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