Matthew Ellis, Staffordshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner has today spoken about the newly published report, ‘Policing for a Better Britain’.
The report was commissioned by the Labour Party and written by ex Metropolitan Police Commissioner John Stevens who was Gordon Brown’s security advisor as PM.
During the two years of research over 32,000 police officers were interviewed alongside 2,000 members of the public. The report, which is earmarked as radical, is said to form the basis of future Labour Party policy.
But Mr Ellis says that while every contribution to the future of policing is welcome, many of the recommendations are already out of date and the theme of the report reverses the move towards clearer democratic accountability for policing as well as sounding the death knell of local police forces in favour of a national police service.
He said,
“The crux of the report signals a move from 41 local forces to national policing over time and also harps back to the days when there was a perception that the police were the answer to every problem in society on their own.
That simply isn’t supported by the facts and a key reason that crime over recent years has reduced is because of the police’s drive towards greater joint working with other agencies across the public and voluntary sector.
In Staffordshire there have been impressive inroads to joint working over the last few years but the last year has seen even greater progress towards a more integrated policing and criminal justice system that is faster, fairer and more effective as well as a workable plan to deal with the challenges of police incidents involving people with mental health issues.
Police use of technology is a decade behind other sectors with limited progress in sharing information between forces, and also locally to national. But the technology programme for Staffordshire will put thousands of visible policing hours every week back into local communities. And in the last four months, for the first time ever, genuine progress is being made to integrate national and local systems as a result of PCCs coming together with the Home Office.
The 42 major pieces of work going on in Staffordshire now will start to reconnect young people with police, make the wider system fit the needs of victims and witnesses better and bring all strategic agencies around a single table for the first time.”
Mr Ellis does concede that Lord Stevens’ worry about shrinking neighbourhood policing numbers is of major concern. He says preventing crime and anti social behaviour before it happens is at the heart of his strategy for Staffordshire:
“Whilst far more of an officer’s time will be freed up to frontline policing in future, the Stevens report is spot on when highlighting that boots on the ground are critical to local people feeling safe and secure. Response policing is crucial and excellent here but getting to the roots of problems in local areas is also vital. That takes community policing.
The Chief Constable is already working on proposals with my office to avoid cutting neighbourhood policing numbers as far as was previously planned. I’ve made clear that fewer police officers will go than under the old Police Authority plan but the only way to do that is by saving money, buying better and doing things more effectively across the whole organisation.
I’m confident that despite only being 12 months in we are heading towards achieving that meaning more resources than planned can be shifted to supporting front line policing numbers.
Whilst Lord Stevens demands more resources for policing from Government I firmly believe we must ensure that money already available now must be spent better than it has been. Going to tax payers to fill the financial gaps that inefficiency causes is not something I support. Operating more effectively to free up more funding for the frontline is where we are heading.
Much of what Lord Stevens raised is valid but in short I think he’s asking the right questions but coming up with answers that are a decade or more out of date or highly centralised and further away than ever from local people.
His dismissal of Police and Crime Commissioners only 6 months into office when written is extraordinary.
That said, I do concede that democracy brings some risks at every level from PM down. It’s entirely true that there are many PCCs who are struggling and some who are completely out of their depth. It’s up to the electorate to decide who is best placed to move the sector forward.
But at a time when policing, particularly the Met, is being challenged on practise, transparency and ethics a strong spotlight to hold the police clearly to account whilst driving sector wide improvement is critical. The fact is that whilst Police Authorities served a governance role for over 40 years, national research showed that only 6% of people knew they existed meaning a critical aspect of public accountability is weak.
Contrast that to the figures nationally which show that after just 7 months in office 62% (10 times more) of people in England and Wales know they have a PCC and how to contact them. And in Staffordshire my office receives 30 times more correspondence from people each week than the old Police Authority ever did.
Whilst I find Lord Stevens’ report demoralising personally and understand that he wanted it to be stark and somewhat sensational I think that the next 12 months will start to either prove or disprove much of what he writes.”
