The Conservative dominated Westminster government is running the risk of creating a perfect storm within our police service by cutting starting salaries for new police officers. This comes on top of budget cuts that have forced many forces to freeze recruitment, and reduce officer and civilian support staff numbers with redundancies. There will be consequences including a shortage of younger and older officers and a reduction in front line services as civilian support staff are also reduced in number.
Many police forces across the UK are already under severe pressure, as they attempt to balance budget cuts and a drop in personnel while simultaneously trying to maintain a high standard of policing and ensuring public safety. On Tuesday the Home Secretary announced that police officers' starting salary will be cut by 17% to £19,000. This is the latest of series of assaults on funding for public services which are ill thought out and ill-timed.
The Con Dem government’s unsustainable budget cuts and proposed changes in working practices will threaten to undermine the morale of hard-working officers in every force in England and Wales. Our police do a superb and difficult job but both the reputation of our police services and the safety of communities may be put at risk. The Con Dem London government’s priorities are clearly driven by ideology, rather than principle.
We have reached a historic low when it comes to this Westminster Government’s absolute lack of respect for the police service and a complete lack of understanding for the important role our police play in our communities and society. The short term decisions made by this Westminster government will have far-reaching and potentially long lasting consequences by making it more difficult for the police to ensure that they are able to deal with crime and public order.
One unforeseen consequence of Police budget cuts may be a boost to the not so secret Conservative privatisation agenda – back in February (2012) G4S a private security company signed a deal to design, build and run a police station in Lincolnshire. This agreement between G4S and Lincolnshire Police was the first of its kind in the UK and may hint at the future of policing as it is envisaged by Cameron’s Conservatives.
As part of the deal, around two-thirds of civilian support staff employed by the force is to be transferred across to the private sector. This contract might possibly save Lincolnshire Constabulary around £20 million pounds but at what cost over the medium term to support staff terms and condition and the provision of services to the public.
This probably a step too far for most people, but, despite any mutterings to the contrary from Labour in Wales’s representatives in Westminster our Police forces here in Wales are in my opinion acutely vulnerable to back door privatisation and further potential cuts in funding and services. The sooner Policing and Criminal Justice are devolved to Wales the better for all of us as this would strengthen the democratic process and protect our police services and our communities.
Showing posts with label Devolving Home Office powers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Devolving Home Office powers. Show all posts
Wednesday, 16 January 2013
Monday, 30 January 2012
A WAFER THIN BLUE LINE?
At the moment, despite Teresa May (who may actually turn out to be a worse Home Secretary that Michael Howard) there are some 136,000 officers spread across the 43 forces in England and Wales. These figures for the number of police officers in England and Wales record a fall of 6,000 over the past year, as public spending cuts have bitten deep. Interestingly enough if you want to play the numbers game this fall takes us back to where we were (in numbers at least) back in 2002.
The last New Labour government learning a lesson from Mrs Thatcher (that seems to have escaped the current Con Dem Government) spent more money and employed more Police Officers and Civilian Support Staff to make services better and to buy their acquiescence. The Tory right believes that New Labour only made them more inefficient and that what with the constraints on public sector spending they believe that new ways of policing need to be explored, and that cutting substantially the back office staffing will reduce paperwork and red tape.
This is a right wing fantasy that has little basis in reality, which shows how cut off from reality they are closeted away in their own little world. To this end, the Con Dem’s have decided that there will be elective police and crime commissioners. They justify this be suggesting its part of a value for money agenda that will protect front-line services. As for value for money, back in September 2011, the Westminster government postponed the elections for Police Commissioners from May to November of 2012.
Somewhat ironically this decision has pushed up the costs of the implementation process by around £25m to a total of £75m. The Westminster Home Affairs Committee was told last September that the £25m additional cost of staging the elections in November would not come out of the existing police budgets and the Home Office was in discussions with the Treasury about where the money would come from.
The Con Dem’s road to elected Police Commissioners in England (and Wales) which are being brought in as part of the Police and Social Responsibility Bill, has been a pretty rocky one. The plans were rejected once by the House of Lords (in May 2011), and rejected by the National Assembly (in Cardiff) who chose not to pass a Legislative Compliance Motion (LCM) , even the Association of Chief Police Officers have expressed their concerns.
As to what an elected Gwent Police Commissioner will be able to accomplish is pretty much open to question. Gwent Police are now engaged in some serious belt tightening as the force comes to terms with seriously reduced funding. Retaining Police Officers (on and off the beat) and civilian support staff has to be the bottom line.
Once you go down the path of cutting civilian support staff, which some may consider an easier and slightly more acceptable situation than reducing police numbers, there will be real consequences. A reduction in civilian support staff numbers will lead to a reduction in the availability of operational police officers, which will have consequences for all of us.
Policing, like everything else is driven by funding - this is the reality of modern (and old time) policing, our hard pressed Police Service (whether in Gwent, South Wales, Dyfed-Powys or North Wales) all need additional funding and an increase in the number of serving officers. On top of that our Police Officers actively need the active support of our communities, especially if we are seriously going to deal with crime and anti-social behaviour and to ensure proper Policing within our communities.
Lets be honest there is absolutely no reason why we should not be more creative when it comes to the ‘how are Communities are policed'. Certainly a more flexible approach to shift patterns to tackle periods when higher levels of criminal offences actually take place are higher is worth exploring and may pay dividends.
We need to actually respond to local communities concerns rather than those of Ministry of Justice's (formerly the Home Office) perceived priorities and targets. We need to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past when it comes to basing Policing strategies on core and periphery because the end result is that some of our communities will lose out when it comes to access to Police services and resources.
If we are really serious about reforming and reorganising our Police then we need to develop a coherent national community safety strategy with a clear approach to tackling crime and the fear of crime in our communities. And be prepared to ask and answer hard questions: do we want two tier Policing? Should Policing targets be generated by local Police officers and local communities?
And where are we going to find the money to do this because Policing is not cheap? At one level if we want to solve, curb or reduce crime in Wales, then it makes sense for the control of Policing as well as Justice and Prisons within Wales to be fully devolved to the National Assembly.
Oddly enough in Scotland where they already control their own Policing (and have done since 1945) we have not had any of this nonsense. Perhaps this is because the Scot's competently manage their own Police, I don't for a moment believe that we in Wales are less capable than the Scots or less of a nation than Scotland?
The last New Labour government learning a lesson from Mrs Thatcher (that seems to have escaped the current Con Dem Government) spent more money and employed more Police Officers and Civilian Support Staff to make services better and to buy their acquiescence. The Tory right believes that New Labour only made them more inefficient and that what with the constraints on public sector spending they believe that new ways of policing need to be explored, and that cutting substantially the back office staffing will reduce paperwork and red tape.
This is a right wing fantasy that has little basis in reality, which shows how cut off from reality they are closeted away in their own little world. To this end, the Con Dem’s have decided that there will be elective police and crime commissioners. They justify this be suggesting its part of a value for money agenda that will protect front-line services. As for value for money, back in September 2011, the Westminster government postponed the elections for Police Commissioners from May to November of 2012.
Somewhat ironically this decision has pushed up the costs of the implementation process by around £25m to a total of £75m. The Westminster Home Affairs Committee was told last September that the £25m additional cost of staging the elections in November would not come out of the existing police budgets and the Home Office was in discussions with the Treasury about where the money would come from.
The Con Dem’s road to elected Police Commissioners in England (and Wales) which are being brought in as part of the Police and Social Responsibility Bill, has been a pretty rocky one. The plans were rejected once by the House of Lords (in May 2011), and rejected by the National Assembly (in Cardiff) who chose not to pass a Legislative Compliance Motion (LCM) , even the Association of Chief Police Officers have expressed their concerns.
As to what an elected Gwent Police Commissioner will be able to accomplish is pretty much open to question. Gwent Police are now engaged in some serious belt tightening as the force comes to terms with seriously reduced funding. Retaining Police Officers (on and off the beat) and civilian support staff has to be the bottom line.
Once you go down the path of cutting civilian support staff, which some may consider an easier and slightly more acceptable situation than reducing police numbers, there will be real consequences. A reduction in civilian support staff numbers will lead to a reduction in the availability of operational police officers, which will have consequences for all of us.
Policing, like everything else is driven by funding - this is the reality of modern (and old time) policing, our hard pressed Police Service (whether in Gwent, South Wales, Dyfed-Powys or North Wales) all need additional funding and an increase in the number of serving officers. On top of that our Police Officers actively need the active support of our communities, especially if we are seriously going to deal with crime and anti-social behaviour and to ensure proper Policing within our communities.
Lets be honest there is absolutely no reason why we should not be more creative when it comes to the ‘how are Communities are policed'. Certainly a more flexible approach to shift patterns to tackle periods when higher levels of criminal offences actually take place are higher is worth exploring and may pay dividends.
We need to actually respond to local communities concerns rather than those of Ministry of Justice's (formerly the Home Office) perceived priorities and targets. We need to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past when it comes to basing Policing strategies on core and periphery because the end result is that some of our communities will lose out when it comes to access to Police services and resources.
If we are really serious about reforming and reorganising our Police then we need to develop a coherent national community safety strategy with a clear approach to tackling crime and the fear of crime in our communities. And be prepared to ask and answer hard questions: do we want two tier Policing? Should Policing targets be generated by local Police officers and local communities?
And where are we going to find the money to do this because Policing is not cheap? At one level if we want to solve, curb or reduce crime in Wales, then it makes sense for the control of Policing as well as Justice and Prisons within Wales to be fully devolved to the National Assembly.
Oddly enough in Scotland where they already control their own Policing (and have done since 1945) we have not had any of this nonsense. Perhaps this is because the Scot's competently manage their own Police, I don't for a moment believe that we in Wales are less capable than the Scots or less of a nation than Scotland?
Monday, 26 July 2010
HERE WE GO AGAIN!
Oh Boy! Here we go again, a few years ago we had the botched New Labour attempt to reorganise our Police Services now the Tories are at it! For starters the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) which was only established four years ago (by New Labour) is going to be abolished. it is worth remembering that, in 2009, Soca was heavily criticised when statistics revealed that for every £15 of public money spent, barely £1 was recovered from criminals and criminals' assets.
The home secretary has proposed amongst other things the establishment of a new national crime-fighting agency (no doubt soon to be known as the British FBI). All well and good, but, it gets even more interesting as people will also be able to vote in two years' time for locally-elected officials to oversee each police force.
Policing in the 21st century - is described by the Home Office as a radical blueprint designed to make the service more efficient and accountable - with Elections taking place in May 2012 for police and crime commissioners to replace Police Authorities, which will have the power to set police force budgets and appoint and dismiss Police force chief constables. As you would expect both police Authorities and Senior Police officers may well be described as being less than chuffed at the prospect.
The new National Crime Agency (NCA) will include a new border police unit, the child exploitation and on-line protection centre (CEOP) and some parts of the National Policing Improvement Agency (which may well be phased out). The NCA will concentrate on cross-border organised crime, drug trafficking, and provide support to individual Police forces.
Now, while there is room for cost cutting and room for improving Police force administrative processes and procedures the Tories run a very real risk of overtly politicising our police service. Such a move would be hugely detrimental.
Good and proper policing is by consent and there is a risk that this consent may break down if the police becomes politicised, especially if our Police services ends up doing things for overtly political ends. The sooner Home Office and Ministry of Justice functions are devolved to Cardiff where they will be accountable to the Welsh people, the better.
The home secretary has proposed amongst other things the establishment of a new national crime-fighting agency (no doubt soon to be known as the British FBI). All well and good, but, it gets even more interesting as people will also be able to vote in two years' time for locally-elected officials to oversee each police force.
Policing in the 21st century - is described by the Home Office as a radical blueprint designed to make the service more efficient and accountable - with Elections taking place in May 2012 for police and crime commissioners to replace Police Authorities, which will have the power to set police force budgets and appoint and dismiss Police force chief constables. As you would expect both police Authorities and Senior Police officers may well be described as being less than chuffed at the prospect.
The new National Crime Agency (NCA) will include a new border police unit, the child exploitation and on-line protection centre (CEOP) and some parts of the National Policing Improvement Agency (which may well be phased out). The NCA will concentrate on cross-border organised crime, drug trafficking, and provide support to individual Police forces.
Now, while there is room for cost cutting and room for improving Police force administrative processes and procedures the Tories run a very real risk of overtly politicising our police service. Such a move would be hugely detrimental.
Good and proper policing is by consent and there is a risk that this consent may break down if the police becomes politicised, especially if our Police services ends up doing things for overtly political ends. The sooner Home Office and Ministry of Justice functions are devolved to Cardiff where they will be accountable to the Welsh people, the better.
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
THE THIN BLUE LINE...
A measure of understanding on the attitude from the new Government towards our Police forces may be gleaned from the proposed cuts that have been announced by Nick Herbert (Policing and Criminal Justice Minister ) as part of a UK-wide cut of £125m in funding for forces. South Wales Police faces cuts of £2.8m, North Wales Police faces cuts of £1.4m, while Gwent Police faces cuts of £1.3m and Dyfed-Powys Police cuts of around £900,000. The cuts in funding for 2010/2011 have been announced as part of efforts to help reduce the UK's budget deficit
During the final stages of the last Westminster Election Campaign, everyone (and every political party) was heard calling ever loudly for more Police Officers on the beat which happened to be something which most people wanted to see. Now if you are lucky and get a quiet moment and you use it to ask any senior Police officer about beat policing, then especially in a guarded quiet moment and you may get told that it's probably one of the most inefficient form of Policing going, with officers walking for (on average) something like 49 miles before they come across a crime in progress.
Now while this may be true, it obviously ignores the deterrence and reassurance that is generated on our streets and in our communities and may well be influenced by pressures from the Ministry of Justice, a lack of Police officers and the need to generate reams and reams of arrest related statistics. Maybe this is driven by a desire for local bobbies on the beat that goes back to an earlier simpler era, maybe it’s TV inspired nostalgia driven desire for that mythical Dixon of Dock Green / Heartbeat figure which has now almost become a real historical memory – until killed off by successive police reorganisations, force mergers, budget cuts and top down largely then Home Office driven changes in the way our communities are policed i.e. panda cars, the loss of local Police stations, reduced opening hours, etc.
Now nostalgia and Policing are a particularly heady and dangerous mix, I can personally recall Conservative politicians in the 1990's who argued against the use of body armour, stab vests and side handled batons, pepper sprays, etc – saying that it would change the nature of Policing, create unbreakable barriers of hostility between the public and the Police, end tradition, etc. All that aside, one thing all of those things did was significantly reduce the number of Police Officers stabbed and killed in line of their duty – so enough with the nostalgia.
When it comes dealing with crime and effects of crime on our communities we really have to get past the usual meaningless platitudes about being tough on crime, etc. Certainly in the final weeks of the Westminster campaign the voters heard plenty of them what with the various London based parties making much out of how they were going to get serious about cutting crime, reducing anti social behaviour, and making our communities safer. Now that the dust had settled, then we shall all get a measure of the new government and see how they act as the empty rhetoric fades away.
Cuts, are not the answer, for unless we will actually seriously invest in the Welsh Police Services and make more creative use of existing financial and manpower resources. We could begin to make our communities safer by making more use of Community Support Officers, but without full powers of arrest, and lacking in proper training this can be nothing more than a temporary short term solution, what we need are more Police Officers.
Policing, just like everything else is driven by funding - this is the reality of modern (and old time) policing, our hard pressed Police Service (whether in Gwent, South Wales, Dyfed-Powys or North Wales) all need additional funding and an increase in the number of serving officers. On top of that our Police Officers actively need the active support of our communities, especially if we are seriously going to deal with crime and anti-social behaviour and to ensure proper Policing within our communities.
We need a more flexible approach to shift patterns to tackle those periods of the day when higher levels of criminal offences take place and need to actually respond to local communities real concerns rather than the Ministry of Justice's (formerly the Home Office) perceived priorities and targets. We need to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past when it comes to basing Policing strategies on core or periphery because the end result is that some of our our communities will lose out when it comes to access to Police services and resources.
The fact that the Ministry of Justice (and lets be honest changing the name has not fixed the basic problem) has long lost the plot and has become bogged down in a morass of spin, number crunching, paperwork, bureaucracy and red tape; add to the fact that it largely exists in an unreal world far removed from the realities of day-to-day policing on streets of Abergavenny, Caldicot, Cwmbran, Newport, Underwood or Tredegar, let alone Llanbedr Pont Steffan (especially on a Saturday night at chucking out time).
If we are really serious about reforming and reorganising Policing then we need to develop a coherent national community safety strategy for Wales with a clear approach to tackling crime and the fear of crime in our communities. And ask and answer the hard questions: do we want two tier Policing? Should Policing target be generated by local Police officers and local communities, where are we going to find the money, because Policing is not cheap?
If we want to solve or curb crime in Wales, then it makes sense for the control of Policing as well as Justice and Prisons within Wales to be fully devolved to the National Assembly, much of this already happens in Scotland, are we less capable than the Scots or less of a nation than Scotland? - I think not!
During the final stages of the last Westminster Election Campaign, everyone (and every political party) was heard calling ever loudly for more Police Officers on the beat which happened to be something which most people wanted to see. Now if you are lucky and get a quiet moment and you use it to ask any senior Police officer about beat policing, then especially in a guarded quiet moment and you may get told that it's probably one of the most inefficient form of Policing going, with officers walking for (on average) something like 49 miles before they come across a crime in progress.
Now while this may be true, it obviously ignores the deterrence and reassurance that is generated on our streets and in our communities and may well be influenced by pressures from the Ministry of Justice, a lack of Police officers and the need to generate reams and reams of arrest related statistics. Maybe this is driven by a desire for local bobbies on the beat that goes back to an earlier simpler era, maybe it’s TV inspired nostalgia driven desire for that mythical Dixon of Dock Green / Heartbeat figure which has now almost become a real historical memory – until killed off by successive police reorganisations, force mergers, budget cuts and top down largely then Home Office driven changes in the way our communities are policed i.e. panda cars, the loss of local Police stations, reduced opening hours, etc.
Now nostalgia and Policing are a particularly heady and dangerous mix, I can personally recall Conservative politicians in the 1990's who argued against the use of body armour, stab vests and side handled batons, pepper sprays, etc – saying that it would change the nature of Policing, create unbreakable barriers of hostility between the public and the Police, end tradition, etc. All that aside, one thing all of those things did was significantly reduce the number of Police Officers stabbed and killed in line of their duty – so enough with the nostalgia.
When it comes dealing with crime and effects of crime on our communities we really have to get past the usual meaningless platitudes about being tough on crime, etc. Certainly in the final weeks of the Westminster campaign the voters heard plenty of them what with the various London based parties making much out of how they were going to get serious about cutting crime, reducing anti social behaviour, and making our communities safer. Now that the dust had settled, then we shall all get a measure of the new government and see how they act as the empty rhetoric fades away.
Cuts, are not the answer, for unless we will actually seriously invest in the Welsh Police Services and make more creative use of existing financial and manpower resources. We could begin to make our communities safer by making more use of Community Support Officers, but without full powers of arrest, and lacking in proper training this can be nothing more than a temporary short term solution, what we need are more Police Officers.
Policing, just like everything else is driven by funding - this is the reality of modern (and old time) policing, our hard pressed Police Service (whether in Gwent, South Wales, Dyfed-Powys or North Wales) all need additional funding and an increase in the number of serving officers. On top of that our Police Officers actively need the active support of our communities, especially if we are seriously going to deal with crime and anti-social behaviour and to ensure proper Policing within our communities.
We need a more flexible approach to shift patterns to tackle those periods of the day when higher levels of criminal offences take place and need to actually respond to local communities real concerns rather than the Ministry of Justice's (formerly the Home Office) perceived priorities and targets. We need to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past when it comes to basing Policing strategies on core or periphery because the end result is that some of our our communities will lose out when it comes to access to Police services and resources.
The fact that the Ministry of Justice (and lets be honest changing the name has not fixed the basic problem) has long lost the plot and has become bogged down in a morass of spin, number crunching, paperwork, bureaucracy and red tape; add to the fact that it largely exists in an unreal world far removed from the realities of day-to-day policing on streets of Abergavenny, Caldicot, Cwmbran, Newport, Underwood or Tredegar, let alone Llanbedr Pont Steffan (especially on a Saturday night at chucking out time).
If we are really serious about reforming and reorganising Policing then we need to develop a coherent national community safety strategy for Wales with a clear approach to tackling crime and the fear of crime in our communities. And ask and answer the hard questions: do we want two tier Policing? Should Policing target be generated by local Police officers and local communities, where are we going to find the money, because Policing is not cheap?
If we want to solve or curb crime in Wales, then it makes sense for the control of Policing as well as Justice and Prisons within Wales to be fully devolved to the National Assembly, much of this already happens in Scotland, are we less capable than the Scots or less of a nation than Scotland? - I think not!
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