Oral evidence: Reform of the Police Funding Formula, HC 476Tuesday 3 November 2015
Oral evidence, 3 November 2015.
Witnesses
Chief Constable Simon Cole QPM, Leicestershire Police, Chief Constable Steve Finnigan QPM, CBE, Lancashire Constabulary, Chief Constable Lynne Owens QPM, CBE, Surrey Police, gave evidence.
Chair
Could I call the Committee to order and refer all those present to the register of Members’ interests where the interests of members of this Committee are noted? Can I add a personal declaration? I have written a letter as a constituency MP on behalf of the Leicestershire Constabulary concerning the formula that the Government has adopted as far as funding is concerned and other members of the Committee may have done the same.
Mr Jayawardena
Yes, Chairman, in the interests of transparency I have done the same.
James Berry
In my capacity as an independent barrister I have represented a number of the forces and organisations who are giving evidence today prior to my election.
Chair
Chief Constable Cole, Chief Constable Owens, Chief Constable Finnigan, thank you very much for coming in. This morning the Committee received a copy of a letter that has been signed by six police and crime commissioners, one of whom represents Lancashire. In that letter, they describe the Government’s funding formula as unjustified, unfair and deeply flawed. Do you agree with that assessment, Mr Cole?
Chief Constable Cole
Thank you, Chairman. We have some concerns about the funding formula. There is a part of this also that is around the subsequent CSR review, but the funding formula itself from Leicestershire’s point of view we would question its robustness. We are a bit confused by the outcome that it leaves us with. Within the East Midlands, which under the present formula—which we are not keen on, to be really clear—all of the East Midlands forces suffer detriment; under the new formula only Leicestershire suffers a detriment. We are at a bit of a loss why the largest and most diverse city in the East Midlands would suffer a detriment when that brings a certain policing complexity. While the Police and Crime Commissioner, Sir Clive Loader, has not signed the letter—he and I have jointly responded to the consultation this morning at the Home Office because the deadline for the consultation is Friday and we will make sure that this Committee gets a copy of that—but we are concerned and we do not completely understand how it arrives at the outcome that it arrives at.
Chair
Yes. Mr Finnigan, you have been outspoken in your criticisms of the funding formula. The letter today that has been signed by Lancashire is less a threat for judicial proceedings, more a last will and testament on behalf of the six, because you are on record as saying that by 2020 your force will be unrecognisable. Why is that the case?
Chief Constable Finnigan
Unviable is the word I used. I share the confusion that Simon has mentioned. I have a real sense of unfairness, of injustice. I think I can see where we have been badly hit by the latest iteration of this, but essentially it is about the scale. It is about the quantum. You will be aware that we in Lancashire Constabulary would be hit to the tune of £24.5 million on this funding formula review. There is only the Met at £184 million who have been hit even harder. When I work through the numbers and when I look at what that means particularly about people numbers—because what we are trying, all of us, to get some equilibrium about here is three things: money, people and performance.
Chair
Yes, we will come on to individual examples but your overall statement: I think you used the word “madness” in respect of the proposed cuts. Normally, we do not expect chief constables to be using words of that kind. You seem to be very upset about what the proposals are to use such a word.
Chief Constable Finnigan
I am. I am very upset. I am outraged, I really am.
Chair
In your letter to me, I think you said that there are serious and significant consequences. There is significant financial turbulence and a risk to forces. Do you stand by those statements that you have made?
Chief Constable Finnigan
Yes, I do. I do. I think the process is fundamentally flawed and needs to be revisited.
Chair
Lynne Owens, you are one of the winners. Unlike Simon Cole and Steve Finnigan, you are going to get more money out of this formula so you must be very much in favour of it?
Chief Constable Owens
I think funding is a matter for politicians, whether that be police and crime commissioners or, indeed, those that operate at a national level. My role is to point out the operational consequences of decisions that might be made. The Surrey position for a number of years has been that we think the formula has been flawed. When you talk about the formula, of course, that is only part of the picture. We have a funding formula review and then we have a CSR and it is important, I think, probably not to conflate the two. When you look at the funding formula, that is about one pot of money and how that pot of money is shared across the forces so, of course, there are going to be winners and losers in that. Surrey traditionally has been the second lowest grant-funded force in the country and that has left the Surrey taxpayers having to pick up a considerable amount of our funding through the local council tax precept. That is where we stand apart in that we get a higher proportion of our funding from the local taxpayer than any other force in the country. Personally, I am not sure that position is sustainable.
Chair
Even though you are getting more under the proposals, you are very worried about the way in which the formula has been arrived at?
Chief Constable Owens
As I say, Chair, I do not think the detail of the formula is a matter for police officers. There are some operational issues from within the formula—like it takes no account of the policing of the M25, our proximity to the airports—that we think should be considered in the formula but, as I say, the matter of the formula is something that the police and crime commissioner and I will be responding on in the timescale set out by Mr Cole.
Chair
Simon Cole?
Chief Constable Cole
Yes, Chairman, it may just help the Committee to understand the scale of what Lynne has just described. For me, the funding formula provides me 65% of my funding. For Steven it is—?
Chief Constable Finnigan
73%.
Chief Constable Cole
And for Lynne it is—?
Chief Constable Owens
Just over half.
Chief Constable Cole
It is about 50%.
Chief Constable Owens
Fifty-four per cent of my money comes from the taxpayer.
Chief Constable Cole
What that means is when we are talking about the funding formula it has a very different impact on different forces because the funding formula and then what we get from local precept, the council tax, are different. If you cut my budget by 5% of the grant you cut me 5% of 65%. Steve is being cut more because it is 5% of 75% and Lynne is being cut less, in effect, but then the local taxpayer has a different burden. It is straight into a world of complexity about who is paying for what and what is coming from national and what is coming from local.
Chair
Yes. Let us look at practicalities. You are saying you are going to lose £700,000 in Leicestershire?
Chief Constable Cole
Yes.
Chair
What does that mean practically to the people of that county? What will have to go?
Chief Constable Cole
Well, broadly speaking, if you do it in police officer numbers alone, it means we will lose about 15 police officers. That is not the hugest number. The huge number is around the CSR, which perhaps we will come on to later. I think the challenge is compared to areas that we work with regularly—we are doing massive collaboration with the other East Midlands forces—it completely changes the relationship within that because they are gaining amounts that are quite significant, £17 million and £20 million.
Chair
Yes, we will come on to that collaboration later, but tell us practically: 15 police officers does not really seem like a lot of a reduction.
Chief Constable Cole
It is not a huge reduction compared to what Steve is facing through this funding formula. It is trying to understand the logic of it. I have grave concerns about the lack of any apparent diversity factor within this and I struggle to understand. There are only four factors. Quite what they tell us about cybercrime or radicalisation or child sexual exploitation I am not entirely clear, and those are the things that are occupying a lot of our time because that is where risk sits.
Chair
Mr Finnigan, what will be the impact on Lancashire if this formula goes through and cuts are made? How much will you lose in terms of money? We have heard Leicestershire is going to lose £700,000. What will you lose and what does that mean practically to the people of Lancashire?
Chief Constable Finnigan
£24.5 million and, of course, we have to link it to the comprehensive spending review as well. In terms of money and people, at the moment over the last five years I have lost £74 million off a budget that in 2010 was £301 million. That means I have lost 900 police officers and I have lost 500 police staff over the last five years. If I look at this almost £25 million and lay it alongside the CSR, where Mr Osborne is asking us to look at cuts of between 25% and 40%, at the lower end if it ended up with the CSR on top of this funding formula review being 25%, I would lose £52 million on top of the £74 million I have already lost. That would be a further 730 police officers and 540 police staff. If it is at the upper end of 40%, then I would lose £77 million. That would be 1,072 police officers and 794 police staff. My workforce will have gone from 6,120 in 2010 down to 2,853. I would have lost 3,266 people; 53% of my workforce. That is where the operational impact kicks in.
Chair
That sounds like a very serious impact. Lynne Owens, finally from me, you wrote to me on 21 August and you said you now have to prioritise. Even though you are a winner and you will get extra money as opposed to the other two chief constables, you have said that you have to look again at prioritisation of crimes. You talked about the fact that choices had to be made with your partners. In particular, you gave an example of one of the offences that you would not be pursuing would be people who made off without payment. Are these people who fill up their car with petrol and then rush off without paying? You will not be pursuing these people in Surrey?
Chief Constable Owens
Perhaps if I could give you the operational context? While we are extremely proud of our ability to reduce serious acquisitive crime and that has continued to go down across the country, the reality is that we are seeing a very different type of crime now, some of which is harder to investigate. Serious sexual offences have gone up in Surrey over the past four years by 122%. Of those that have been reported to us this year, 50% of them occurred in history. Domestic abuse has gone up by 33% over the past four years and in year it has already gone up by 38%. Now, of course, we are really pleased that victims have the confidence to come forward, but what that means is we are having to reconfigure our workforce so that we can respond to those very serious risks that are presented against threat, risk and harm.
Chair
Tell this Committee the crimes you will not be pursuing. You specifically said making off without payment.
Chief Constable Owens
That is an example. As a result of the demand work that we have done in Surrey we know that our crime is getting more complex but we also know that incidents involving the vulnerable are trickier. So 44% of the people who come into custody in Surrey have a mental health issue; 6% of those people that come into custody need us to keep an eye on them for the whole time they are with us. That does mean, Chair, that we are having to make choices. Now, other forces—
Chair
You are not going back to the point I am making. Isn’t this a green light to the criminals that you can come to Surrey, fill up your car with petrol and you can make off and not be pursued?
Chief Constable Owens
No, of course there is an absolute responsibility on us when we are making risk, threat and harm judgments to understand what we need to do about the offences. If we have a repeat vehicle or a repeat person or a repeat location, there is always going to be a requirement on policing to respond, but we are not a civil debt recovery agency and there are too many examples where policing has moved into gaps caused by others and it is those gaps that need to be filled.
Victoria Atkins
Chief Constable Finnigan, how much money is in your reserves?
Chief Constable Finnigan
At the moment, the office of the PCC has £45 million in the reserves as at 31 March. General reserves are £12 million and I think that is in the range that one would expect. It is 4.8% of our budget, prudent again I would suggest, and I suspect external auditors would say that and have said that. The rest of the reserves, £37 million is earmarked, a lot of it around the cost of change, which is around our programme of change to get through these times of austerity.
Victoria Atkins
Sorry, can you just explain that?
Chief Constable Finnigan
Yes, sure. So £37 million left after the £12 million general reserves, and the general reserve is about day-to-day risk that we might encounter. The cost of change, transition, round about £20 million; £8 million that we have earmarked for things like compulsory redundancy, voluntary redundancy, voluntary exit, which is now available to us for police officers for the first time; about £12 million has been earmarked for visibility, productivity, things like—
Victoria Atkins
Sorry, just pausing there, let’s try to see what this means in plain English. What do you mean by visibility and productivity?
Chief Constable Finnigan
A lot of that is around IT, around mobile technology. We have invested just recently over £5 million in Samsung handheld phones, which give our staff the opportunity to be out there on the ground, visible.
Victoria Atkins
Therefore, using police officers’ time more efficiently?
Chief Constable Finnigan
Much more productively, yes, absolutely. Digital engagement: we have invested in the constabulary’s approach to that so that we are offering a lot more now to the people of Lancashire to allow them to engage with us digitally, which many of them are very happy to do. Then things like our systems: our case in custody, our intelligence and our briefing system, our HR system; they are all at that stage now, because they have been previously developed in-house, where we need to take it up to another level.
Victoria Atkins
Is that money spent? Are you saying the £37 million in reserves is already spent?
Chief Constable Finnigan
No, it is not, it is earmarked. It is all earmarked and it will be spent. Some of it has been spent; the Samsung telephones that I have just mentioned.
Victoria Atkins
Have you taken that out of the £37 million?
Chief Constable Finnigan
That has only been deployed in the last two months so it is still in that figure.
Victoria Atkins
Right, because your reserves increased by 38% last year, didn’t they, or £15 million?
Chief Constable Finnigan
I am not familiar with that figure.
Victoria Atkins
That is the figure I have been given. My point is that £15 million, given that is a rise from previously, would pay for a lot of PCSOs and police officers.
Chief Constable Finnigan
Well, a lot of that, if it has accumulated to that amount, will be as a result of the change programme and specifically not recruiting police officers and so holding vacancies where you can accrue some of that money. Of course, the main thing with reserves and their ability to help us through this pretty difficult time is they are one-off. They are finite. Once they are spent they have gone. What we are talking about here predominantly is revenue recurring budget.
Victoria Atkins
I accept your point about the reserves, once they are spent they are spent, but that is a very big bank account of savings you have there. It might be said that historically to be able to make those savings into such a large reserve that perhaps you have been getting more money than you need operationally on the day. Because if you need that money why haven’t you spent it?
Chief Constable Finnigan
I would point towards Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, which only two weeks ago suggested in their inspection of the efficiency pillar of the PEEL inspection—the police efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy inspection—we are one of just five forces to be graded as outstanding around efficiency. I do not think there is any suggestion in recent years or, indeed, going back some time that we have ever been overfunded or inefficient, anything but.
Chair
Ms Atkins, do you want to ask Mr Cole and Lynne Owens the same question about reserves?
Victoria Atkins
I do, but just to Mr Finnigan this one question. Given the letter that has been sent today by the police and crime commissioners, including your PCC, how much money has he set aside for this legal fight?
Chief Constable Finnigan
I don’t know. I spoke to him about two hours ago, but we have not had that conversation. I think, knowing Clive Grunshaw as I do, that would be, I am sure, a last resort but one he would certainly think would be worth paying for because of the £24.5 million that we are currently looking at losing.
Victoria Atkins
All right, but I think taxpayers deserve to know how much money Mr Grunshaw is proposing to pay on a legal fight rather than frontline police officers.
Chief Constable Finnigan
I am sure he would be very happy to reveal that and, of course, there are seven forces and seven PCCs that I think would probably be prepared to split the cost of that.
Chair
Simon Cole and Lynne Owens, would you like to respond to the reserves question of Vicki Atkins?
Chief Constable Cole
Yes, absolutely, Chairman. We have £6 million in the required reserve that we have to have for contingencies. The recommendation from the auditors is 3% to 5% and so that has £6 million in it. We have £21 million in an earmarked reserve, and £2 million of that is for the PCC to distribute; he has just distributed last week £1.2 million to increase the capabilities of ourselves and partners around CSE. There is £1 million invested by the PCC over three years around volunteering. There is £2.5 million to sustain our numbers of PCSOs until 2017. That money all has plans. The issue that I think you are getting at, which is how does it go up when you are getting smaller, we spend typically 85% of what we get on people. What we have found is people have left more quickly than we would predict them to. We are trying to glide-path in so we know in 2017 we can afford to have 1,726 police officers. As I sit here now, I have 1,881 and I need them to leave along the way. If some of them leave a bit early, then we start to accrue some money. I think your point about scrutiny is absolutely valid and, of course, this is scrutinised by the police and crime commissioner and in turn presented as part of the budget that goes to the police and crime panel. This is a debate that we have had with them in the past and as they voted to increase the precept last year I took it that they were satisfied that our earmarked plans—because we have done things like we have rolled out the body-worn video as personal issue to 1,200 frontline police officers for all the reasons you have just alluded to; a picture speaks a thousand words.
Chair
Thank you. What is the total? You have £45 million from Lancashire in your reserves?
Chief Constable Finnigan
Forty-nine.
Chair
£49 million. How much is Leicestershire’s?
Chief Constable Cole
It is £21 million in the earmarked reserve, so that has a plan, and £6 million in the “just in case” because you have to have 3% to 5% to pass your audits.
Chair
So £27 million, yes. Lynne Owens, how much do you have squirreled away?
Chief Constable Owens
I am feeling like the poor relation. We only have £11.4 million in our reserves, with that reducing to £7 million by 2019-20. The point that I wanted to make, and I think Simon has alluded to it, is that we put some more money into reserves last year but with the deliberate intent that looking at the Chancellor’s financial plan we could see that the country looks like it is going to shrink and then looks like it is going to grow. One of the other differences for Surrey compared to the other forces is that my workforce mix is different. I have fewer police officers and more police staff. I could hold vacancies last year, put that money into reserves and it softens the blow over a three or four-year period and means that we can continue to serve the public of Surrey well. Sometimes you will save money early and that goes in the reserves to soften the blow for future years. You do need some reserves in case there is a big, significant event because there is no other way to get that money. You need at least 1% before you can even go to the Home Office and ask for any more. You need money for big technology programmes and, for all the reasons that you have heard my colleagues say, it is in that area that many of us are investing.
Mr Jayawardena
While we are talking about numbers, I wonder if each of you would be able to just very quickly outline the precept paid by each of your residents at a band D property, perhaps starting with Ms Owens.
Chief Constable Owens
I haven’t got the exact number of per band D property with me, I am sorry. I can provide that to you afterwards. What I can say is that we are the highest precepting police authority, police and crime commissioner’s office, countrywide. In Surrey, 54% of my money comes from local council taxpayers.
Mr Jayawardena
How about Mr Cole and Mr Finnigan?
Chief Constable Cole
Sorry, I am going to have to come back to you with the exact figure.
Chief Constable Finnigan
I am the same. I know what we will raise; 1% precept increase will raise about £700,000.
Mr Jayawardena
This is what local taxpayers in your police force areas pay as their contribution to the police. I believe taxpayers in Surrey pay around £200 and I believe taxpayers in Lancashire pay around £150. There is a great disparity there and that is covered not only in your two areas but in many others. Why is it that there should be such a big disparity and shouldn’t that be considered as part of any new settlement?
Chief Constable Owens
From my perspective, I absolutely agree that it should be. I am in an extremely fortunate position. Some wise decisions of previous chief constables and police authorities and then police and crime commissioners have put me in a relatively strong position compared with some other forces because of these cuts, but it does cause me some real operational challenges when I am looking at how to collaborate with other forces in the region and, indeed, my neighbouring force of Sussex. We share a lot of resources with Sussex police and yet only 38% of their money comes from the local taxpayer. I have been rightly challenged by the Surrey community and, indeed, my own officers and staff, about whether they as council taxpayers are subbing the service provided by another force. I do think there is a need to look at equalisation of precepts through this funding formula review.
Chief Constable Finnigan
Obviously, this was a really significant issue going back to 2005 when Lancashire Constabulary and Cumbria Constabulary came within a whisker of merging. It failed at that time for one reason and one reason only and that was because the harmonisation of council tax was not sanctioned. So, this is a big issue.
Mr Jayawardena
If I may, two quick points, Chairman. First, if that is the case, why is it that Lancashire Police should be able to say that it is for the Home Office to pay the tab when taxpayers in Surrey are covering the cost? Secondly, looking at the historical trend, isn’t it true that in 2005-06 Lancashire paid per capita for policing £195? It then grew by £18 when other police force areas like Hampshire lost money between 2005-06 and 2010-11. Therefore, I am struggling to have sympathy with a point of view that says you are losing money now but you have had a lot of money in the past, a lot more than many others.
Chief Constable Finnigan
Well, again, that sort of demarcation between central government grant—
Mr Jayawardena
No, this is per capita. This is per capita expenditure, so this is the cost of your police force compared with others. I will just provide for the record the statistic, which is Lancashire had per head £195 spent on policing in 2005-06. This rose to £213 and, yes, there has been a cut in the last five years and that has brought it down to £189. But compare that with residents of my constituency, who have gone from £191 in 2005-06 to now £175. That is a significant cut.
Chair
Mr Finnigan, a quick answer from each of you.
Chief Constable Finnigan
Yes. The figures I have in front of me: the total cost of policing excluding national functions per head of population in Lancashire, £177.80, where the England and Wales average is slightly more than that, £179.50, so we are a little below the England and Wales average.
Mr Jayawardena
But you are much higher than many others.
Chief Constable Finnigan
We cost 49p per person per day, Lancashire Constabulary, and the cost nationally is 55p per day.
Chair
Thank you. Mr Cole, a quick answer?
Chief Constable Cole
Yes, just quickly if I may, I guess what that highlights is that there are 43 versions of this according to what precept was set and when. I was in Hampshire in that period. I then moved to Leicestershire. When I moved to Leicestershire, council tax had been increased by 15% in one of the previous years. But I guess the answer to your overarching question is I think it is quite hard to just look at the funding formula part in isolation from the precept part because it means such different things. As a member of the public you have quite rightly said that what I say as a chief means different things to members of the public. One of my questions about this, the funding formula review I absolutely support. The damping that has been applied to it has cost me £5.5 million a year for a number of years. However, if you just look at it on its own, it does not really make any sense. The point that my colleagues have alluded to as well is 1% of council tax is worth a completely different amount in 43 different places. It is a triumph of localism and history and the local revenue-raising powers that go back to Victorian ward committees. Is it the best way of funding policing to deal with counter-terrorism and all the things we are dealing with now? I am not entirely sure.
Chair
Thank you. A quick answer, quicker than Mr Coles’s.
Chief Constable Cole
Sorry, Chair.
Chair
That is all right.
Chief Constable Owens
I agree with Mr Cole.
Chair
That is very quick.
Mr Umunna
Can I go back to Chief Constable Finnigan? You detailed how you have lost 900 officers in the last five years, I think?
Chief Constable Finnigan
Yes.
Mr Umunna
Five hundred other staff. What has been the impact on the morale of your people?
Chief Constable Finnigan
Quite significant. I know that at times people think that we can overstate some of the impact of austerity, but it has been very challenging, as indeed it has been for other public sector agencies and the private sector. I think it is interesting that over the last couple of years Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, when they have done their “Valuing the Police” reports 1 through to 4, in 3 and 4 they raised three issues. One was they pointed towards the erosion of neighbourhood policing, which I think is a really significant issue. They also pointed to the viability, both operational and financial, of some forces, which I think is really significant. But they also highlighted that the issues around welfare, morale, wellbeing of staff was quite a significant threat to performance.
Mr Umunna
You have been in the police service now for almost 40 years. How does morale compare now to the rest of your service?
Chief Constable Finnigan
I would have to be very honest and say I think it is pretty low compared to other times in my service, but then over the almost 40 years, 39 years I have been in the force, what we are going through now is completely unprecedented.
Mr Umunna
You have been quite outspoken on this. Do you think that you can maintain public safety after these reductions in the way that you were able to maintain public safety before?
Chief Constable Finnigan
If we are talking about cuts at the scale that I have described, either the 25% or 40% on CSR, on top of the £25 million through the funding formula review, I have been really clear that that takes us beyond difficulties over service delivery and it makes our mission or our purpose—
Mr Umunna
Can you protect the public in the same way as before these cuts?
Chief Constable Finnigan
As I was just about to say, it makes our mission or purpose, which is essentially to keep people safe from harm, and especially the most vulnerable in our communities, absolutely very difficult and I think there is no doubt that at those levels of cuts people in Lancashire will not be as safe as they are now.
Mr Umunna
Chief Constable Cole, would you say the same in respect of the impact of the envisaged cuts on your ability to protect the public?
Chief Constable Cole
The impact will mean that we have to get more upstream. Perhaps we have to not rely on visibility and targeting visibility in the way that we have done in the past. Clearly, the ballpark for us, if you just do the potential CSR cuts in officers, is somewhere between 500 to 800 officers fewer out of what is currently 1,881. That clearly means we are going to be doing it very differently and obviously some of the things we deal with by presence we will not be able to have the same presence in the same volume. I think that is a challenge. I think there is also a challenge for us that the crimes we are dealing with are changing.
Mr Umunna
Will it compromise your ability to protect the public?
Chief Constable Cole
It will mean that we have to have a higher tolerance of risk.
Chair
Lynne Owens, do you want to answer Mr Umunna’s question as well?
Chief Constable Owens
My response would be that I think you cannot make an organisation 40% smaller and expect it to deliver exactly the same things as it did beforehand. I think the challenge for us as operational police leaders is to say, “How do we do things differently?” I think we have been doing that for the last five years. What we would now say is, yes, our officers, staff and volunteers are under more pressure than they have ever been before. The crime and the demands that we are facing have changed significantly and, therefore, as Mr Cole has said, we are going to have to start making risk, threat and harm analysis of what we respond to and what we do not respond to. That is going to require us to put more pressure on partners and businesses, whereas previously as an agency perhaps we would have sucked up responsibilities that should have been theirs. I think what we see in the country is the public sector shrinking apart rather than together, and if we want to take significant amounts of money out of the public sector it needs a fundamental and radical relook and reform such that they are looking at in Manchester and elsewhere.
Mr Umunna
Sure, and you are talking public service reform, but at the end of the day what constituents like mine will want to know is: does this all mean that you are going to be in a better or worse position to be able to protect them?
Chief Constable Owens
Clearly, it is going to mean that we are going to be going to a different selection of things to what we would have gone to three or four years ago. Some of that might be timely change. It might be appropriate to use mobile data in a way that we have not done before. It might be appropriate for us to share resources with the fire service and the ambulance service in a way that maybe we have not done before, but we are going to have to make assessments on the basis of risk, threat and harm. Whereas previously we might have gone and visited a victim of vehicle crime, we might not visit a victim of vehicle crime in the future.
Mr Umunna
On the point of how this new funding formula is going to change allocations and the impact on funding, your police and crime commissioner, Chief Constable Finnigan, says that what is envisaged, which is going to reduce the budget—this is in the letter that was published today, which is looking at 14% reduction, £25 million per year—he says that that will result in the loss of almost all of your proactive crime fighting and crime prevention capacity by 2020. Would you agree with that assessment?
Chief Constable Finnigan
I would, actually. Again, it is my job to offer my professional judgment on the operational consequences of cuts on this pretty immense scale. I think the headline, certainly for my force, is that it moves from being a very proactive and preventative organisation in terms of its approach towards a mainly reactive force. I gave you some numbers before around the loss of police officers. I will put in place a new model of policing on 1 April next year. Just to respond to 999s in Lancashire, which is a pretty big county with lots of challenges, I need 1,050 police officers; 960 PCs and 90 sergeants. If again we go to the top end of the cuts, by 2020 I only have 1,639. That leaves me with round about 600 police officers to do everything else above and beyond just responding to grades 1 and 2 calls.
Mr Winnick
You have given us, Chief Constables, a pretty—and, I am sure, justified—pessimistic scenario of what is happening on the ground in the real world. First of all, can we work, therefore, on the assumption that bobbies on the beat are coming to an end? What I am referring to is routine patrolling, which you are all familiar with from when you started your police careers, I am sure. Is that coming to an end?
Chief Constable Owens
We do not believe that it is coming to an end in Surrey, no. We have always invested in our neighbourhood policing model and we know that is very much valued. We have just presented a new model of policing to our police and crime commissioner. We are pleased to be able to retain police community support officers within our model from April going forward and we hope that they, along with a number of uniformed constables, will remain the bedrock in communities because we see the link of people operating within neighbourhoods right up to serious and organised crime and counter-terrorism as very important. In Surrey, we are able to retain that capacity.
Chief Constable Cole
I think targeted patrol will always be a part of what we do. There is some empirical evidence that it works. I think the level of coverage will become lower. I started on the beat in the West Midlands, the area that you represent. I think the number of people we will have covering geographic areas will reduce because there are simply fewer of us. I think we will need to be accessible in different ways. We will need to have a better online offer and, of course, I think one of the great challenges for us is, as well as whatever is happening with the money, crime is changing. I am just very aware: is my 14 year-old more at risk walking down the street or when he is on that computer thing that I do not really understand? The answer to that lies in where we have to put our resources. I do not believe it is the end of the bobby on the beat but there will be less of it. It will be really targeted and focused on people and places with a problem-solving bent. We have done some work in Leicestershire: 1% of the force area accounts for 36% of our demand. That is not one place; that is 10 square miles across the whole of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, so that will be where we focus.
Mr Winnick
I should say before you answer, Chief Constable Finnigan, that the chair of the National Police Chiefs Council and the deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police have both said they see the end of routine policing.
Chief Constable Finnigan
They are both here, of course, today. In terms of neighbourhood policing, I would support what my colleagues have said. It has absolutely been the main plank of our policing style in Lancashire for many, many years. I do think, regrettably, it is thinner now than it was in my force area. It will get thinner still. In terms of resources to risk, I think what we will see is community beat managers, ie police officers, in red-risk areas of the county. We will see police community support officers in some red-risk areas but mainly in what we describe as amber, and in the green areas where there is very little risk, and that will be quite sparse in terms of coverage by both of those. I think our volunteering approach will help considerably around that.
Mr Winnick
Ministers say, in effect, that, yes, cuts are taking place, it is unfortunate, and give political reasons but as long as the frontline is being protected then, although there is no room for complacency they argue, nevertheless the essential police work is being done. The impression is it is the back aspect at the police station, the clerical people and the rest of it, and the frontline is being protected. Would you say that is an accurate situation?
Chief Constable Finnigan
If you look at what HMIC has said, they have been really clear throughout austerity over the last five years that while you can attempt to protect the frontline it cannot be preserved. While the percentage of our staff, mainly police officers, in frontline roles has gone up—across my whole workforce it is about 77%—the numbers in frontline posts have come down. It can be protected to an extent but it most certainly has not been preserved.
Mr Winnick
A familiar argument that Ministers make, and which has been made to this Committee very recently, is that, after all, crime has been reduced, so what is the fuss all about?
Chief Constable Owens
Mr Winnick, I touched on this earlier. As a police service nationally we are really proud that we have continued to reduce serious acquisitive crime in this country, but we are seeing a real change in the demands on the police service. In some areas of crime, serious sexual offending, domestic abuse, child sexual exploitation, offences committed online, we are seeing significant increases, either real increases or just increases in those that are reporting, but nonetheless extra workload for policing. Some of those offences have happened in history. In my force, 50% of those sexual assault cases that have been reported to us happened historically. We are not only dealing with today’s crime today, which is what we always seek to do in policing, we are dealing with yesterday’s crime today against tomorrow’s funding envelope. I think that is the challenge. At the same time, we are seeing a significant increase in demand for our service, particularly in respect of people who go missing and other public safety concerns, people that are threatening to take their own lives, and that takes up a huge amount of our frontline officers’ time.
Chief Constable Cole
Eighty per cent of what we do does not result in a recorded crime. Every 16 minutes—I do not know how long we have been going—we do a safe-and-well check on someone. We have probably done two while I have been sat here. So 80% of what we do is not about recorded crime. I share Lynne’s vicarious pride in the fact that recorded crime has gone down. There are lots of reasons for that. But crime has also changed
Cyber
where is cyber? How is cyber counted in that? If you go out on patrol with my colleagues you will be dealing with mental health issues, missing people, people who we are worried about the safety of. We refer more people to social services every day than we arrest.
Mr Winnick
And the same, Chief Constable Finnigan?
Chief Constable Finnigan
Yes. Traditional volume crime has gone down. It is on a downward trajectory since 1995, not just in the UK but all developed countries, but only about 20% of what we do is closely linked to crime. Certainly, in Lancashire 19% of recorded incidents result in a crime being recorded. Because not every call results in an incident being recorded, if we went for all calls received that figure drops down to 7.4%, so 81% of what we do in Lancashire is not about crime. The vast majority of what we do, 33%, is all about concerns for safety and welfare. That is about things like missing from homes, people self-harming, dependency, addiction, suicide. Of that 33%, 20% is about mental health, and certainly Simon knows an awful lot more about that than I do.
Chair
Mr Winnick, final question.
Mr Winnick
Do you think that more prosperous people, finding that the police are not able because of what is happening to sufficiently protect their estates, will go private? Is that a trend that you have noticed?
Chief Constable Finnigan
I have seen it in the media in the last few days, but do we want postcode policing? I do not think so.
Chief Constable Cole
It is not something that I have particularly seen, other than in a couple of reports in the media.
Chief Constable Owens
I have not seen that experience but you can see why people might resort to that if they felt they were not well protected.
Chair
The villagers of Upton Grey and Candovers in Hampshire offered to pay £60,000 annually for three years in order to keep PC Andy Reid, who is some kind of local hero—
Chief Constable Cole
Whom I know, Chairman.
Chair
Whom you know, right. Should they have offered £60,000 to keep him?
Chief Constable Cole
Once, a long time ago, an assistant chief constable tried to sell his beat house. You are looking at him.
Chair
Right, so should he go or should he stay for £60,000?
Chief Constable Cole
Well, it is an area of the country that has relatively low experiences of crime and antisocial behaviour and, therefore, I presume the chief constable is talking about keeping a local, familiar, recognisable face, but they are perhaps going to be a bit distant because it is not a hotspot. I guess that has not changed over the decade since I was there. I cannot believe I am talking about him. This was not in the briefing.
Chair
It was not in the briefing, very true, because it has only happened recently. The point is that here are members of the public, as Mr Winnick has pointed out, offering to pay. So offers to pay for better policing you would turn them all down, would you? Very quickly, yes or no?
Chief Constable Owens
My personal view is that there is a route through the precept, and I know that you are speaking to some police and crime commissioners next who might have tried that route. We do not want to live in a state where people who can afford policing get policing and people who cannot don’t. That cannot be right.
Chair
Indeed. Simon Cole?
Chief Constable Cole
Yes, and just quickly, we police the airport. The airport has to fund policing. We have in the past had relationships with local authorities who funded extra PCSOs, but because they also face austerity they retracted from that, although I think they would have preferred to keep it. For instance, Leicestershire County Council used to have half a million pounds worth of PCSOs that they paid for—
Chair
So the answer is no?
Chief Constable Cole
I think as part of community safety there are some legitimate partnerships that have a shared relationship under section 17 of the Crime and Disorder Act, but it needs to always be that the chief constable has responsibility for deploying that person.
Chair
Yes or no, Mr Finnigan?
Chief Constable Finnigan
There is a legitimacy about charging for police services—football matches springs to mind—but we have to think that through really carefully.
Chair
Thank you. Mr Loughton has a quick supplementary and then Mr Jayawardena.
Tim Loughton
Specifically on CSE and historic cases of CSE, can you give a rough indication of how much additional work is being provided by, first, the historic CSE cases now coming in and, secondly, the increased reporting of contemporary CSE cases that you are now having to deal with, very roughly, and particularly Lancashire, of course, as a lot of the high-profile cases involve Lancashire?
Chair
Could I ask the witnesses for brief answers? In answer to Mr Cole’s point, we have been here 45 minutes. You may not have a health check but our blood pressure is rising as we hear you, so as quick as possible, please. Thank you.
Chief Constable Finnigan
I have some figures here around crime and I suppose I would—
Chair
Summarise them.
Chief Constable Finnigan
Yes, I would highlight what I have described as a tired refrain: reform is working because crime is going down. The data that I have in front of me show that in about 16 out of 21 categories crime is going up. Sexual offences is one of those.
Tim Loughton
I am just interested in CSE.
Chief Constable Finnigan
Yes. It is not broken down specifically as an overall category of sexual offences. In England and Wales it is up 41%, which is quite a lot, up to June of this year compared to 12 months previously. I am sure my colleagues here would say exactly the same. There has been an explosion of sexual offending.
Tim Loughton
Okay, but what does that mean? Are 10% of your available police officers now having to concentrate on something that previously you did not?
Chief Constable Finnigan
I think what it means is that within the force in general we try to get people to accept that they own all of risk, threat, harm and vulnerability, but I would have to say particularly within our public protection units there is a real strain there. I think most chiefs have had to look at putting in additional resources because the level of—
Chair
Thank you. Brief reply, Mr Cole.
Chief Constable Cole
I have a significant high profile case now at court, a historic case, that I have had to go to the PCC to ask for authority to spend well into six figures on because of the nature of it. The complexity is significant and the CSE piece does not just play across reported crimes of CSE, it plays across things like missing people. The other evening, in one night, we had seven missing people reported to us. Four of them were highlighted as a CSE risk so, therefore, high-risk missing persons that required significant resources. The number is going up. Lynne earlier quoted some figures around sex crimes. Our figures would be remarkably similar to those and within that is CSE. It is good news in a sense that there is confidence to report. It is good news that partners are engaged. But we have put significant resource in. For instance, last week the police and crime commissioner released £1.2 million for a joint police partnership initiative coming from reserves to combat CSE within the force area.
Chair
Thank you. Lynne Owens, briefly?
Chief Constable Owens
A brief answer. Child sexual exploitation covers a number of crime types, so that is why we are struggling to give you a figure. It relies on us flagging individual crime reports as CSE-related issues. The best proxy in my own force is to look at child protection incidents: 607 in 2013-14, 686 in 2014-15, and so far this year 907. Now, some of that is about awareness of individual officers and our getting better at using the systems. Last year it was only one of two areas to get growth in my force and our fundamental rebalance relies on putting more resource into this area.
Chair
Thank you. Mr Jayawardena, and again, please, brief answers because we are running over time.
Mr Jayawardena
A very quick question: we have talked a lot about numbers and statistics on crime. I wondered if you could outline quickly whether you believe the proposed funding formula variables adequately capture the drivers of police demand and if there are any improvements you would make; one top improvement?
Chief Constable Owens
If I am allowed one top improvement I think it should cover roads. The M25 is a significant resourcing demand for us in terms of policing the road and travelling criminality.
Chief Constable Cole
No, it does not relate to risk enough.
Mr Jayawardena
One top improvement?
Chief Constable Cole
Bring something in that is about actual risk, so some of the things we have just talked about in terms of CSE, radicalisation, cyber. I find it hard to understand how how many bars I have indicates to me how much at risk people are of radicalisation or cybercrime.
Chief Constable Finnigan
It just does not reflect 21st century policing.
Mr Jayawardena
So one improvement?
Chief Constable Finnigan
Well, let us get in place some principles initially that would better reflect risk, threat, harm and vulnerability.
Mr Jayawardena
So, risk again. Okay, thank you.
James Berry
I have a quick question for each of you and then a general question. Chief Constable Owens, you have explained how you changed your priorities away from certain things on to other things the Chairman picked up on, but it is right that you are one of the forces that has had the fewest cuts. It is fair to observe, isn’t it, that it is inevitable in policing naturally that priorities will shift when things like historic child sex exploitation cases start coming in in their droves that you are going to have to shift your priorities away from some other activities that you have been doing traditionally?
Chief Constable Owens
Yes. One of the great things about being a British police officer is that we exercise discretion. I have done that since day one of being a police officer and this is another example of it.
James Berry
Traditionally, the police have been picking up a number of areas that are on the margins of what are core police responsibilities that, in fact, other private organisations and statutory agencies should be doing but you essentially pick up the work for them?
Chief Constable Owens
Absolutely. I would argue that much of the work that we do to look after the vulnerable should be being done by other public sectors, which is why I am very keen to see proper public sector reform. The challenge, of course, for us is that if one of our officers is called to a vulnerable person and does not take the right action, then they become personally exposed to Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation, a scrutiny and oversight process that is not subject to others. People rely on us as a backstop and, of course, we never want to see the vulnerable stranded, but we do need to see other agencies stepping up.
James Berry
Thank you. Chief Constable Cole, it is right, isn’t it, that the police have for a long time, since well before the Police Act, been available for hire by organisations such as football clubs, private businesses and, indeed, I think one of the old authorities even refers to guarding the presents at weddings? It is not a new revelation that police officers can be hired at the chief constable’s discretion, is it?
Chief Constable Cole
No. On a regular basis within my force area Leicester City Football Club, a premiership football club, requires policing. They pay for certain of that. We have the Download Rock Festival, 75,000 people a day for five days. They pay for elements of policing that. The concept is there but, of course, the challenge is that as we have fewer people the ability to produce the staffing for that changes.
James Berry
Yes. Chief Constable Finnigan, if I were a resident in Lancashire I would be happy you were the chief constable because you are fighting your corner against a funding formula that affects you to the detriment of the local area compared to other areas. It is right, isn’t it, that in 2011 you said that reducing crime would be a big ask as the impact of cuts start to bite, yes?
Chief Constable Finnigan
Mmm—
James Berry
Yet crime in your area has fallen by 11% since 2011. You also said that it would be impossible to protect the frontline and yet the proportion of officers on the frontline in your force has increased from 88% to 91%?
Chief Constable Finnigan
Yes. Proportion, as I said before, is different to numbers. The numbers have come down; the proportions have gone up. In terms of the reduction in crime in Lancashire, I am extremely proud of that, and yet I would go back to only 20% of what we do is about crime. I lead for the police service on performance and I have done for over eight years now. What I am seeing around all of the forces, you are seeing a very different approach to performance. People are moving away from an obsession with the greens and the reds, very much, as Lynne was saying, towards risk, threat, harm and vulnerability and especially focusing on high-victim-impact crimes. That is because of austerity, prioritisation, tough choices. It is also about the changing nature of demand and especially about vulnerability. We deal with vulnerability and risk every day. That is the right thing for us to do. It fits so neatly with our mission. But I would also just conclude by saying don’t think that our staff have not got an absolute determination to continue to deliver great services, because they have.
James Berry
No one is criticising your staff. I am sure they do a first-rate job for the public. Then a question for all of you, if you could answer very briefly. The Home Office is still to decide on the transitional provisions that will be put in place. Could you say in a short sentence or two what would be most helpful in terms of transitional provisions for your forces?
Chief Constable Finnigan
I can’t think of what would be helpful. There is no clarity in what is being proposed, but my real determination is to try to right what I view as a wrong.
Chief Constable Cole
It depends what it says in the CSR because if the CSR is big and frontloaded, then you add that on to this and, frankly, we will not be able to remove the number of people we need to remove. That sounds a pretty grim thing to say but that is the reality. It depends on the CSR because if the CSR is front-stacked the ability to get rid of people quickly is not there.
Chief Constable Owens
I think it depends on what happens with the next bit of the consultation, which is about local precept. If the cap is left on local precepting authorities, then there are options for police and crime commissioners to make decisions.
Naz Shah
You have talked about collaboration and you have talked particularly, Lynne, about how other forces would rightly feel that you were picking up the tabs for neighbouring forces. Have you ever collaborated with other forces in terms of resources in a way that has worked out positively? Dorset Police have told us that they have been exploited by suppliers. Have you experienced that at all?
Chief Constable Cole
We have done an enormous amount of collaboration. We collaborate on counter-terrorism, serious and organised crime, murders, specialist operations, training. The five-force and four-force collaborations within the East Midlands are pretty significant. We spend over £30 million of our budget, which is now £168 million in total, on collaborative ventures. The answer to your question is yes, we have done lots and lots of collaboration and probably are seen as quite a good example of how it should be done. That is done on the basis of sharing cost according to the percentage. I have seen examples where trying to do some of the gritty stuff around things like licences and costs have been played in the way that I think Dorset have maybe highlighted.
Chief Constable Owens
Yes, our main collaborative partner is Sussex Police but we also collaborate with the other forces in the region and the fire services across Surrey and Sussex. We have plans over the next five years to save £11 million through that route. The biggest challenge to us is, as I have already said, the different precepting levels, but in addition we are very bound by some odd procurement rules, which can mean that we could have started from different precursor systems, normally ICT systems; we will want to end up on the same system but to move from one to the other requires a very clunky procurement route. If there was anything that we could do to loosen those rules, accepting that they are enshrined in I think European legislation, that would make collaboration a lot easier. I think it is those that suppliers are able to exploit.
Chief Constable Finnigan
Just over a month ago, Lancashire Constabulary and Cumbria Constabulary signed a strategic alliance, which is essentially about looking at our respective change programmes to see if we can do some complementary work. I have not seen it on YouTube but apparently Jerry Graham, the chief of Cumbria, is suggesting that I, Steve Finnigan, would not even pick the phone up if he were to ring me now because, of course, he loses £9.5 million on the funding formula review, which is pretty critical for him. I would just mention one thing. There is a group called the National Debate Advisory Group, which was chaired by HMIC. Two big themes fell out of that. One was that to get through austerity we have to look upstream; we have to be into prevention, into early action. That is absolutely right. The other thing is genuine integration with other, especially public sector, agencies. I think that is really essential. Policing is but part of a whole system. If we do not get more integration, which needs to be facilitated by Government, with other public sector agencies, as Lynne said, we are going to shrink apart.
Naz Shah
Just picking up on your point of the neighbouring chief constable, do you feel that this whole process has pitted you guys against each other.
Chief Constable Owens
It is interesting. I think there are a number of things that pit us against one another. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary produce league tables of our performance and I think there are some ironies in that. I think the funding formula, of course, means that we are all competing over the same pot of money and, of course, as chief constables we have a duty in law to provide an efficient and effective police service in the area that we are responsible for. That is a risk and I think we need to fight really hard in the public interest that we are not allowed to divide and conquer.
Chair
Simon Cole, there were 28 winners under this formula and some losers. Are the winners all ganging up against the losers?
Chief Constable Cole
I have not seen that, no, and I think to be fair there are some examples of people who have won who have said, “We still don’t quite understand how this is happening”. To answer your question, there is an element, absolutely, in what Lynne says, but we work together I think in the most mature and cohesive way that I have seen. I became an assistant chief goodness knows how long ago, 2003. I have been a chief for five years and Sara, who is coming in later, succeeded in trying to get us to work together. The level and number of collaborations are significant but, of course, there is a bit of a tendency probably—
Naz Shah
I am not asking about your culture of leadership and your culture of working with each other. I am asking about how Government policy is affecting you. When we have cutbacks, for example, in the voluntary sector, what happens is the biggest boys win. We have just had cutbacks in domestic violence services. We have lost so many bed spaces in Bradford. Equally, people have been pitted against each other. What I am getting at here is as much as you have the best will in the world, it feels like that is happening very much in the police forces. Would I be correct in saying that?
Chief Constable Finnigan
It has the potential to cause some of that friction, some of that tension. I certainly have taken calls from some chiefs who have been beneficiaries of the proposals around the funding formula review who have said to me they do not understand the scale of the hit for Lancashire and they have said they think it is unfair. That is quite nice, but this is a difficult process. We do understand that the current system is not a good system and it needs to change.
Chair
Yes, I think you have made that point very clearly. Nusrat Ghani has the final question.
Nusrat Ghani
Chief Constable Finnigan, you mentioned collaboration, strategic alliance and integration with other public sector agencies. Do you think senior officers have adequate support to share good practice among forces and to develop the business skills that they need?
Chief Constable Finnigan
If we are talking about chief officers, is that where you are pitching this?
Nusrat Ghani
Yes.
Chief Constable Finnigan
I think that chief officers, by the time they get into that position, have generally honed those skills pretty well. We have the College of Policing now, of course, which is in a position to assist us. We are a fairly collaborative bunch. We do look at peer support. We do look to help each other out when inevitably one force might find itself under the microscope. I think there is a lot that we do; I am sure there is more that we can do.
Chair
Thank you. Mr Cole, specifically on the business skills.
Chief Constable Cole
With my senior team, I have a senior finance person and a senior HR person who are absolute experts and work and support me. Lynne and I have both been involved—Lynne more so than I, I would say—in the strategic command course and developing the next generation of leaders. We augmented on that the business bit. I think one of the challenges is it is changing. A discussion that five years ago was about outsourcing is now about transformation and what does that mean and how does that mean, and I do not think we are any different to any other kind of professionals in the public service in trying to keep up and keep to pace with that. The college is doing a piece of work about how you keep people like me up to date, which I think is quite important. There is a peer network that exists. It could be augmented a bit.
Chief Constable Owens
As Simon has already said, I direct the strategic command course on behalf of the College of Policing. We had a fundamental review of that three years ago and we have a whole module now on business skills that is provided by a business school. That does not look after the people like Simon and I who went through a different system, but the College of Policing are now looking at how to position us in terms of that development. Everybody now selected to a chief officer position will have been through that course, which gets the most up to date input on business skills and, of course, within each of the syndicates there is always somebody who has come from a different background other than being a police officer.
Chair
You have all painted a very depressing picture today of the police that the Committee will bear in mind when we write our report.
Chief Constable Cole
Sorry, Chair.
Chair
A very quick yes/no answer from each of you: Mr Finnigan, I know the Chief Constable of Cumbria may not ring you but you can possibly text him. Mergers: on or off the agenda?
Chief Constable Finnigan
I think that there ought to be something different to 43 forces. I think you would not start with this. I think there should be a smaller number of strategic forces. What size they would be would be an interesting discussion.
Chair
But yes?
Chief Constable Finnigan
I do not have a sense that there is any political appetite for that at the moment.
Chair
No, there is not, but thank you for that answer. Mr Cole, yes or no?
Chief Constable Cole
Perhaps; but you cannot just limit it to policing, in my view. What I talk about, we have collaborative ventures across the East Midlands and we are working and looking at a strategic alliance with two of our neighbouring forces. That is about policing, but there is a whole lot of stuff that drills down into Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland and into the middle of your constituency, if I may be so bold. That is about safeguarding. That is about vulnerable people. That has to go that way and that is about wider public services. You can have a model that is based on 43 police forces. You could make that 10, but unless you do something with where the other lines on the map in all the other agencies are you are still going to find some sort of stumbling block somewhere.
Chair
Lynne Owens, on the agenda yes or no? Mergers, we are talking about.
Chief Constable Owens
Yes, but as part of a broader public sector review.
Chair
Mr Finnigan, Mr Cole, Ms Owens, thank you very much for coming in to give evidence today. Could we have the Police and Crime Commissioners for Devon and Cornwall, Durham, and Bedfordshire? Can I remind colleagues we are likely to have a vote in the middle of this session? Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses
Tony Hogg, PCC for Devon and Cornwall, Ron Hogg, PCC for Durham, and Olly Martins, PCC for Bedfordshire, gave evidence.
Chair
We have the unusual position of having two commissioners called Hogg here today, so I will refer to you also by your first names if that is all right.
Tony Hogg
your letter, your critical letter, your really amazing letter—I have not seen a letter of this kind coming from a commissioner or a chief constable in all the years I have chaired this Committee—where you describe the situation as being unfair, unjustified and deeply flawed, I described it as the last will and testament of some forces. Are you ready to take the Government to court over this funding review? Is this what you want to do?
Tony Hogg
Mr Vaz, thank you for the question. There are two aspects to today. One is really the content of things like the funding formula and the other is the process. We would like many answers on the content. On the process, we believe there are process failures within the consultation, within issues like equality and suchlike, which prima facie look like there might be a case that we could establish in law. We are not yet at any stage more than taking legal advice on that direction to explore whether that is a reasonable thing to do.
Chair
This seems to be an all-party issue because, although you have signed it, it has been signed by commissioners who are from the Labour Party and, in fact, the vast majority are from the Conservative Party, so there is no party issue in this, is there?
Tony Hogg
None at all.
Chair
What do you stand to lose as a result of the current funding formula in Devon and Cornwall?
Tony Hogg
At the formula, around £15 million, Mr Vaz.
Chair
Ron Hogg, what do you stand to lose? You are not one of those who have signed this letter?
Ron Hogg
I have not signed, Mr Vaz, no, that is right. We would gain just ever so marginally within the Durham Constabulary, but quite clearly while the ratio of what we get under the new formula compared to the old is broadly similar, my main concern is the size of the pot. What is it we are actually going to be dipping into? I do share concerns about fellow forces. It is all very well for us to be marginal beneficiaries, but I do have a real concern about the impact upon UK policing when I hear some of the evidence that has been given earlier about the impact on other forces. I do think there is a fundamental issue to be addressed here.
Chair
Olly Martins, are you a winner or loser under these proposals? You are not one of those who have signed Tony Hogg’s letter. Why is that?
Olly Martins
No. We lose marginally, £100,000, under the new formula, but my concern is about the impact that is coming from the spending review. I think even beyond Bedfordshire we were widely expected to be gainers from the funding formula because my argument is that we are the worst-funded police force in the country currently. We have the fourth highest level of gun crime per head, the fifth highest level of serious acquisitive crime, the seventh highest level of knife crime, and yet we have one of the lowest levels of funding, which only supports 169 police officers per 100,000 population against the national average of 232 and 388 here in the Met. With the prospect of the comprehensive spending review, the position is going to get even worse. We are going to have to reduce police officers still further.
Chair
Tony Hogg, Sara Thornton, who will be giving evidence to us shortly, has said on the radio recently that police may no longer visit burglaries as a result of the cuts that have occurred over the last few years. Is that a situation at the moment in Devon and Cornwall? Have you reached that situation yet?
Tony Hogg
No. In the demand-reduction exercise by my chief constable, we have looked at bilkings, non-suspicious deaths and certain elements of shoplifting and we have not yet moved to the element of burglary. As you have heard from the chiefs, the matter is an assessment of threat, risk and harm and then the likelihood that the police will concentrate on the higher end of vulnerability and threat, risk and harm, so they have to make an assessment. I am sure that as with bilking and others the recording of crime will be conducted and the assessment of vulnerability at that stage, and then the police will decide whether to attend or not.
Chair
In the four years you have been a commissioner, and I am not sure whether you are standing again—
Tony Hogg
I am not standing again. Three years—
Chair
You are or you are not?
Tony Hogg
No, I am not standing again.
Chair
You are not standing again, so you can speak freely about these issues?
Tony Hogg
I can speak freely.
Chair
What other changes to priorities have you seen locally that have caused you concern?
Tony Hogg
Well, the threat ahead, do you mean, of the situation?
Chair
No, what has happened in the past and what do you think might happen in the future?
Tony Hogg
To me the threat is really often a strategic one: when we look at the detail of issues that you have heard already, I see and have seen an opening gap between the police and the public and that concerns me enormously. As the police contract and with the threats for us of £54 million over the next four years and perhaps 1,200 to 1,300 jobs, for me the greatest threat strategically is this opening gap in what is a fundamental closeness that should occur between police and the public, and that really concerns me, quite apart from the actual numbers issues.
Chair
Ron Hogg, I am not sure, are you standing again or not?
Ron Hogg
I am.
Chair
You are?
Ron Hogg
Yes, indeed.
Chair
What have you seen changed in the last four years and what do you think might happen in the future?
Ron Hogg
The primary concern I have is the ability to prevent and protect is being eroded and there is absolutely no doubt about that. Police effort is being put more and more into safeguarding and we heard earlier from others that same evidence. What we are talking about here, if I look at County Durham, we have about the third highest rate of suicide in the country and Darlington, my other unitary authority, is about 17th in the country. It is this safeguarding aspect. We are looking at increases in areas such as domestic abuse, which has an ongoing impact on multi-agency risk assessment conferences, child reports, et cetera. This whole area of workload is burgeoning. We are dealing in Durham Constabulary with one of the largest historic abuse cases with over 1,200 victims going back to the 1960s of sexual and physical abuse, and it is this sort of change in criminality that is causing us real concern.
Chair
Olly Martins, I assume you are standing again at the next election?
Olly Martins
I am.
Chair
What changes do you think might come about if these proposals go through?
Olly Martins
I argue that Bedfordshire Police is the worst-funded force in the country. I inherited a force that had decided to strip all warranted officers out of neighbourhood policing. I listened with interest to the chief constables debating about whether bobbies on the beat have a future because in Bedfordshire it is something that has already disappeared. We have been working hard in Bedfordshire to understand the nature of our demand and to model our resources to deliver the best service for the public, but what I have put in my submission suggests that we are struggling to deliver that service. We are missing our target in terms of responding to incidents. That is after we have done the threat, harm, risk assessment to determine whether the risk is high enough to respond to. We are trying to resolve over the telephone an increasing proportion of the work that is coming through. Then in terms of the community teams, we have tried to put warranted officers back into local policing, but we have only been able to do it by them bringing some of the demand with them. Our community teams are now having to conduct investigations, carry out arrests; they are a lot busier than they were in the past.
Chair
Yes. Just in terms of numbers, according to your chief constable you have 169 police officers per 100,000 in population compared to the national average of 232 and the Met’s 388. Are those correct figures?
Olly Martins
That is correct, yes.
Chair
That is why you are saying you are underfunded?
Olly Martins
Yes, and the idea that you can reduce from 169, that is a very worrying prospect.
Chair
Why is there such a high level of gun crime in Bedfordshire? What is so special about Bedfordshire that you are so high up the league table?
Olly Martins
If you look at the overall reason why does Bedfordshire struggle so much, why does it have this urban crime pattern but a rural level of funding—
Chair
In particular gun crime, why is it so high? That is a very extraordinary figure.
Olly Martins
I think it is the proximity to the capital because if you look at our organised crime groups, a lot of them have links into the capital and it is the fact that our county has excellent transport links.
Stuart C. McDonald
Ron Hogg, you went on record recently by suggesting that small-time personal drug users should not be prosecuted because that is not the best way of using the scant resources of the police. That might seem sensible to us, or some of us, but how did that go down with the public and the press?
Chair
Order. You are very fortunate you can prepare your answer. We will come back and start that again as soon as we are quorate. Sitting suspended for a Division in the House. On resuming-
Chair
We will begin the session since we are quorate. Stuart McDonald, do you want to put your question to Ron Hogg again?
Stuart C. McDonald
Ron Hogg, you have been on record as suggesting that you do not want to see small-time personal drug users prosecuted because that would not be the best way of using the scant resources of the police. Some of us here might think that is a sensible view, some not. How did it go down with members of the public and the media?
Ron Hogg
If I can begin just by explaining that I do recognise the problems caused by drugs on our streets, and it is an issue of great concern. I am of the view that the current drugs approach does not work and we do need some radical change in that regard. The main message I am putting across though is that we need to focus on the organised crime groups, the people who produce, supply and sell this misery on our streets and in the course of doing so make millions of pounds. With regard to the reaction, it is fair to say that on the very first day there was a mixed reaction nationally in the media, and there are certain newspapers who, when they criticise, I sometimes feel it is a compliment—a badge of honour—that they did attack me and I was quite prepared for that. But as the debate continued over the next two or three days, it became very clear that the body of weight shifted in favour of what I was saying to understand that this was really rather sensible and not indeed at all revolutionary in any way, shape or form. Locally, partly because I guess people are more used to me explaining this when I speak to public meetings, the strength of support I received was quite considerable from the local communities, from the local media and indeed from local elected Members. I did get quite a degree of international support from Canada, United States and Australia over the social media—people telling me I am on the right side of history. Maybe I shall live long enough to find out whether or not I am. The whole thrust is about decriminalising addiction, and it chimes very reasonably with some of the work done under the last coalition Government, which suggested decriminalisation of drugs and drugs possession could save the criminal justice system considerable amounts of money.
Stuart C. McDonald
To be fair, I do not think you are alone in having made comments which immediately seem to suggest that the police and crime commissioners were perhaps out of step for thinking slightly differently about what the role of the police is compared to the media and members of the public. It is just perhaps on your evidence you have been able to win people around. Tony Hogg, you referred earlier to this gap between police and public. Are we now in a place where public expectations of the role of the police are on a different planet from what police and crime commissioners and police forces think?
Tony Hogg
Yes. It is one of the conundrums we probably all face. I would add to that opening gap the issue of confidence and the corrosion of “Why bother?” that is coming in because the police numbers are smaller. That is something that concerns me. In my area, the biggest policing area in England, the conundrum we face is the professional judgment of the threat and what the police feel they should do to protect the public, and the public’s requirement of the police. As we face the challenges we are discussing here today it is extremely difficult to connect the public with the scale of what the police forces do—not least in the non-crime area that has been brought out to you—such that they would feel that it was worth either contributing more to their policing or lobbying their MPs or whatever it is. I do worry greatly about this “Why bother?” corrosive feeling as we go down in numbers. I will leave it there.
Olly Martins
The question is, do we want more than just a sticking-plaster model of policing? Do we just want policing that turns up when something bad happens or do we want policing that is involved in trying to stop that bad thing happening in the first place by getting upstream and taking a preventative approach? Certainly if you look at where Bedfordshire now is—sorry to say it again, but my argument is we are the worst funded force in the country; we are further down the path of where policing is going and my colleagues will be following us very shortly—as we cut and cut and numbers are reduced and reduced, it is the community policing, the problem solving, and the preventative approach that get cut first. All you are left with is the sticking-plaster model, where the police turn up after the event and try to go after the offender, but there is no work to try and stop that bad thing happening in the first place.
Stuart C. McDonald
From what you said, Ron Hogg, you were able to persuade people to your way of seeing things after a few days of persuasion but in the bigger picture is that going to be possible in coming years?
Ron Hogg
I certainly think and hope it will be because other forces have now taken an interest in some of the work around diversionary work that we are doing within Durham Constabulary. For instance we run an operation called Checkpoint, so that when someone is arrested for a low-level crime that would result in an out of court disposal, we will ask that individual to engage with us in a four-month contract. We will ask them to engage in a restorative approach should there be a victim to that crime and then we will look at what is causing them to commit crime—it may be a drugs addiction, an alcohol addiction, skills shortage and so on—and then what we are doing is diverting individuals away from crime. It is this element of getting upfront, upstream, so that we can reduce the demand and reduce the propensity to commit crime.
Mr Jayawardena
We have heard your broad-brush estimations of the effect that the police funding formula might have and we have heard about the different actions that you are taking, but I have to say I am slightly confused by some of the figures that we have heard. Perhaps I could ask you this question, Olly Martins. You have highlighted the difficulties that you have with certain types of crime. I wonder if I could put to you the question of how those changes will affect you, but allied to those the effectiveness of your existing spending because you spend, I believe, around £190 per capita on policing. That is certainly what the House of Commons Library, which is an independent source here, have provided me with. That is an increase on what you had in 2010-11 or five years prior to that in 2005-06. I have sympathy with other police forces like Devon and Cornwall who in that same period have lost money. You have spent more money per capita.
Chair
Are we talking to Ron Hogg here?
Mr Jayawardena
We are speaking to Tony Hogg and to Olly Martins—so, compare and contrast the points that have been made. Olly Martins has outlined that he has severe issues with certain types of crime and he has been spending more per capita year on year. Tony Hogg has been spending less per capita year on year and it seems that he does not have these problems, so I am slightly confused as to how the estimations you are making are leading you to say things are going to get worse when you have been spending more.
Olly Martins
Ultimately, Tony has a higher budget than I do, which is why—
Chair
Sorry, could you speak up, Mr Martins?
Olly Martins
Tony has a higher budget than I do.
Mr Jayawardena
Per capita, though, he spends less. Per person in his area, he spends less than you and he has less crime.
Olly Martins
His force has a higher number of officers per 100,000 population than Bedfordshire does.
Mr Jayawardena
You are not answering my question. He spends less per capita than you do and yet you are estimating that the cuts that you believe you will face in terms of the CSR or police funding formula are going to affect you more, but he is spending less than you already.
Olly Martins
We seem to be getting a little bit of this divide and rule going here, but I will point out Tony’s officer numbers are higher than mine. That is because his budget is higher than mine, and yet if you look at his crime pattern, it does not look anything like the urban crime pattern that we face in Bedfordshire in terms of serious acquisitive crime, gun crime, knife crime, the terror threat and the organised crime groups that we have in the area.
Mr Jayawardena
But he is spending less per capita. You have the chance to raise money. You are raising more money. You are raising £180 on a band D property. Is that right?
Olly Martins
His is a bigger force as well.
Chair
Tony Hogg, would you like to comment since you have been mentioned?
Tony Hogg
I am not sure if a question has been put to me.
Chair
Is there a question for Tony Hogg?
Mr Jayawardena
I guess the question is in reverse, Mr Hogg. You have highlighted your concerns around the police funding formula. I hear those, but the question I have is this. You have faced reductions and you have been spending less per year. How is it that other forces that have been spending more per year should be equally concerned about the issue that you perhaps rightly have raised.
Tony Hogg
I am not sure I know the answer to the question. We are paying £169 per band D property. Our array of crimes: we are a particularly rural area, and my issues in that area while I do have the cities of Plymouth, Exeter, Truro and such like—
Mr Jayawardena
You do have urban crime as well.
Tony Hogg
Yes we do, but I suspect that the concentration of the urban between Olly and myself is very different. We are a very substantial—60% or 70%—rural and we have different issues. We have very difficult issues of access into the rural areas. We also have an enormous challenge of tourism. We are the most visited two counties in the UK. Each day in summer we have the population of the city of Plymouth moving in as visitors which we welcome. We have different issues. We have urban, coastal and rural crime to police.
Mr Jayawardena
You have done that in the context of reducing the per capita spend and I welcome that comment. If I could turn to Mr Ron Hogg, likewise you have outlined your concerns on the reduction that might be faced in Durham and I can understand your position given that you have lost £21 per capita over the last 10 years, but the question still remains in my mind. What I cannot understand is that you are spending different amounts per capita, and some places that have been increasing their spend per head are complaining the same as places that had to cut their spend per head.
Ron Hogg
In an effort to explain—
Chair
If you could do so briefly, because we do have other questions.
Ron Hogg
Yes. It is the local nuances of what your crime patterns are and what your concentrations of crime are. I have a situation where 70% of the population lives in villages of 10,000 or less—that is a very exacting area to work in—whereas I have one large centre of urban crime. It is about how you put your resources out to ensure that everyone gets the best share of the resources.
Mr Jayawardena
One very quick supplementary. What I understand from Tony Hogg and Ron Hogg is that the rural aspect of crime in both of your areas is not being considered properly at the moment.
Ron Hogg
Absolutely.
Tony Hogg
I am consulting on how to improve and enhance that service.
Chair
Both Commissioners Hogg are united on that point. Victoria Atkins has a supplementary, so does Mr Umunna.
Victoria Atkins
Mr Martins, you mentioned terrorism when explaining why your policing costs more than Mr Hogg’s. It is right, is it not, that you get a special and specific ring-fenced grant to deal with counter-terrorism?
Olly Martins
The funding for terrorism, once you know that you have an issue, is ring-fenced. That is correct and the Government frequently makes that point. The bit that is not ring-fenced is the bit that should come before—the bit that community policing gives you; the bit that community intelligence, having eyes and ears, and having a relationship with communities gives you. That is fundamental to any successful counter-terrorist strategy. I would have to say that at the moment Bedfordshire’s capacity in that regard is pretty anaemic and that is the bit that we will have to reduce if our funding is reduced still further.
Victoria Atkins
That is a matter of prioritisation, is it not? You are deciding to give that less priority than other aspects of policing in Bedfordshire. That is the point of police and crime commissioners, is it not?
Olly Martins
We are having to cut our capacity to carry out any community policing whatsoever because I feel we still have a responsibility to turn up when people dial 999 and we still have a responsibility to investigate the crimes that people are reporting. It is the bit that we do other than that, which is community policing, which is going to be the first bit that totally disappears if our funding is reduced still further.
Chair
Thank you. Mr Umunna has a quick supplementary then we will move on to reserves.
Mr Umunna
One specific question in relation to the response that Mr Martins just gave. You said you get a specific sum of money for terrorism issues that you know about. Would the reserve be used for terrorism issues that you do not know about that arise, but that have not been foreseen?
Olly Martins
Reserves?
Mr Umunna
Yes, which is a question that is about to come up, but is related to Ms Atkins’ question.
Olly Martins
We use reserves for financial management and for unforeseen events.
Mr Umunna
I suppose what I am asking is, if a terrorism incident occurs, you said you get in terms of a specific—[Interruption.] Mr Hogg next to you is shaking his head and indicating that this would happen. You said in response to Ms Atkins just now that, with regard to the specific streams of funding you get for terrorism, that is in respect to stuff that you know about. The stuff that arises unforeseen that you do not know about which needs to be dealt with—would that be funded from reserves?
Olly Martins
It is prevention and prevent, rather than protect and pursue. The protect and pursue bit is the ring-fenced bit. The prevent and the community policing bit is the bit that is not, but you do want to prevent terrorism. You do not want to just pursue people who are already terrorists. You want to try to stop that.