Oral evidence: College of Policing, HC 845
Oral evidence, 19 April 2016.
Witnesses
Steve White, Chair, Police Federation of England and Wales, Andy Fittes, General Secretary, Police Federation of England and Wales, and Chief Superintendent Gavin Thomas, President Elect, Police Superintendents Association of England and Wales, gave evidence.
Chair
Could I bring the Committee to order and refer everyone present to the register of member’s interests, where the interests of this Committee are noted?
James Berry
Could I add that in my practice as an independent barrister I have acted for members of the Police Federation and the Police Superintendents Association of England Wales, and provided legal advice to the Police Superintendents Association and to the College of Policing?
Chair
Thank you. Could I welcome Steve White and Mr Fittes back to the Committee? Mr Thomas, congratulations on your election as president of the association.
Chief Superintendent Thomas
Thank you.
Chair
We did not manage to get in your predecessor in the three years that she was the president, but we managed to get you in early, so welcome. The purpose of this panel of witnesses today, and the next two panels, is to look at the College of Policing. The Committee decided that it would regularly look at the College because it was an integral part of the Home Secretary’s new landscape of policing. I want to start with you, Mr Fittes. When you last came before us, we were looking at a very new organisation, which was finding its way. It has now been around for a while. I visited the site near Coventry. Mr White gave them 8 out of 10 for effort but 6 out of 10 for outcomes, so that was quite a low score. Has it improved since the last time you came before us, Mr Fittes?
Andy Fittes
I am a hard taskmaster when it comes to scores, so maybe I will not do scores. But yes, they have improved. There are some concrete examples of how we, as staff associations, and the College have worked together and produced some constructive output, which is for the benefit of police officers and the public. So yes, I would say they have improved since last time.
Chair
When I came over here from the Chamber today and I asked a number of police officers whether they had dealings with the College of Policing only one in three had heard of the College of Policing. The second person had no dealings with the College. The third was complaining about the fact that they might be introducing fees. Do you hear concerns? Because you are the Police Federation, you represent the vast majority of members. In terms of profile among your members, have you detected any warmth towards the college? Is it a concept that is going to stay?
Andy Fittes
I have not detected a great deal of improvement in the officers’ knowledge of the College, and that is their next step. For myself, because I get to deal with the College, and I get to sit on these very interesting committees and do the work, I have seen the improvement. If I was going to tell the College what it should do next, it would be to spread what it is doing with me to ordinary officers who now need to know what the benefit of the College is.
Chair
Mr Thomas, in your role as president of the superintendents, what is the feeling among superintendents about the work of the College—the general feeling? Is it doing a good job? Is it doing its job too slowly? Where are the improvements? We support the College, in this Committee—we said so in our last report—but we want to try to find some recommendations that are going to be of value. Where can it be improved?
Chief Superintendent Thomas
First of all, it is good. It is improving. It is still on a trajectory. As you mentioned at the outset, it is still a relatively new organisation. I think it still has some way to go to get traction in terms of what it personally means to be a member of the College of Policing. In answer to your question, the next step for the College is developing that personal relationship.
Chair
Do you think that is lacking at the moment?
Chief Superintendent Thomas
It still needs to be improved in terms of what it means to PC Thomas coming on the afternoon shift this afternoon being a member of the College of Policing. What does it mean for me personally in terms of my own personal development? I still think there is some way to go yet. But that is not being critical; I just think that is where we are in terms of the maturity of the College of Policing in its journey as a representative body for policing.
Chair
Do you have a representative? Does your organisation have a representative on the board?
Chief Superintendent Thomas
Yes, we do. That will be me, as of next week.
Chair
Excellent. So you will be even more in tune with what they are doing?
Chief Superintendent Thomas
I will, and have a voice representing those views as well.
Chair
Before I come back to you, Mr Fittes, since we have Steve White here, as chair, Mr White, could you just comment on two issues that are in the public domain? The first is that it was reported in The Guardian on 18 March that officers of the Federation have been arrested in respect of moving funds from the Police Federation account into a charitable account. Could you enlighten this Committee any more on that?
Steve White
As you are undoubtedly aware—and it is in the public domain because of the press statement by Surrey Police—there is a live ongoing criminal investigation, so we need to be a little bit cognisant of that.
Chair
Of course.
Steve White
But essentially, over the course of the early part of March, I and the General Secretary became aware of some issues within the organisation that we felt were worthy of further investigation. That culminated during that week with a number of discussions with Surrey Police, and me, on behalf of the organisation, making a formal criminal allegation in relation to the movement of in excess of £1 million of members’ money outside of the organisation. That is a live, ongoing investigation. As you might imagine, it is not a step we took lightly.
Chair
No. So basically the Police Federation called in the police?
Steve White
Absolutely.
Chair
To investigate other police?
Steve White
One of the things that we absolutely have to demonstrate when we are talking about that kind of money was that there was going to be independent oversight of what we were looking at. We had done the initial investigation and we needed to ensure transparency and openness, which of course is a key tenet in relation to the review.
Chair
That brings me to my next question, which relates to your reserves and the funds that you hold. What are the current levels of reserves that the Police Federation has?
Steve White
In terms of the joint fund nationally, they stand at £12 million. Now, what has been interesting is that since we last appeared before the Committee a large proportion of those reserves has been spent. They have been spent—
Chair
I will come on to that in a moment. I will come on to what it has been spent on. But your current reserves are £12 million?
Steve White
Yes.
Chair
What about at a local level? What is being held at a local level? One of the concerns of the Committee the last time you were here was that you did not know how much was in the bank accounts of the individual affiliates of the Federation. Do you now know how much is being held by Leicestershire or Surrey or Sussex?
Steve White
Yes, absolutely. The year-end accounts were signed off on 31 March. I do not have those details to hand but I am more than happy to write to the Committee to give you the details.
Chair
But you are the chairman of the organisation. Since you signed them off—presumably you sign them off?
Steve White
I sign off the joint accounts.
Chair
You do not need to write to us, then, do you?
Steve White
No, this is the national accounts that I have responsibility for.
Chair
But can you not remember, since you signed them?
Steve White
No, sorry: I have told you the figure in relation to £12 million around that reserve; what you are talking about is the individual 43 Joint Branch Boards around the country.
Chair
Exactly.
Steve White
That is the data that I can share with you once I have—
Chair
Do you have that data?
Steve White
We have it centrally, yes.
Chair
So now there is no problem; they send you this information? That was the concern of the Committee.
Steve White
To be fair—
Chair
How often do they send you the information as to how much money they hold?
Steve White
Yearly. Of course the Home Secretary every year calls in the accounts of all of the Joint Branch Boards, and she will do so again this year.
Chair
We are not concerned about the Home Secretary in this Committee. We are concerned with you and what you know. So on an annual basis you will know what is in these accounts?
Steve White
Yes.
Chair
Is that what caused you concern when you saw £1 million being transferred to a charity?
Steve White
No.
Chair
This was a completely separate thing that came to your attention?
Steve White
Yes.
Chair
In respect of the letter you sent me about a case that was raised with you, you said to the Committee that 75% of your budget was being spent on legal costs—that is £40 million—and that for this year it is projected to rise to 85%. Is that right?
Steve White
Yes. This is because of—
Chair
This is a huge amount of fees paid by members, by police constables; 85% of their money goes on legal costs.
Steve White
Yes. That is something I am very proud of, because it shows that the money we are getting in subscriptions from our members is being spent in support of the members through legal support. That is the primary reason why most of the members who belong to the Police Federation pay their subscription: they know that if they require legal advice, we have the capacity to provide the very best legal advice there is. In addition to that, certainly in the last couple of years, we have had several very significant and very large high-profile cases, which we have always considered are probably one-offs. But those one-offs seem to be getting—
Chair
Does that include the Andrew Mitchell case?
Steve White
The Andrew Mitchell case, Hillsborough, historic investigations in which we are having to support members who have been retired from the service for maybe 10, 15 or 20 years. When the fund rules were made in relation to how we fund ourselves it was never envisaged that the funds would be used to fund historical cases. That is one of the things that we are looking at. Hillsborough in itself is several million pounds.
Chair
So you see the function of the Police Federation as being overwhelmingly to provide legal advice and assistance to police officers?
Steve White
It is certainly one of them, but our members—
Chair
It is the main one, is it not, if you are spending 85% of your budget on legal fees?
Steve White
Fortunately, of course, in terms of the way that we present arguments on behalf of our members, a lot of the time it does not cost a lot of money. But in terms of representing members from a legal perspective, in terms of the amount of subscriptions they pay to us, the majority of them—
Chair
What if you were to ask the average constable, “Do you think it is right that we have spent 85% of your subs on legal fees?” A lot of them are very upset that they have to spend so much on their subs. They would not be very positive about that, would they?
Steve White
I think what they would be positive about is that over the last five years we have not increased subscription rates at all, yet the proportion of the money that we spend on legal fees has increased. So, in effect, we have kept the cost low to the member, but the benefit has gone up.
Chair
In terms of recommendation 36 of the independent review—and this Committee’s recommendation the last time you were before us—we asked that some of those subscriptions be returned to your members. We felt it was not appropriate for you to hold such a large amount of money. Was that done?
Steve White
That is essentially what we have been doing over the last couple of years.
Chair
You have handed them back?
Steve White
No, the reserves have been used to fund the services to our members. As I said in the letter back to you, Chair, when we get to the point where the review is complete and we have a complete, full picture in relation to where the money is, if we can afford to return money or to reduce subscriptions, absolutely we should do that.
Chair
We like having witnesses like you before us, Mr White, as opposed to other people who come and spin a tale because you are very straight with us. So when I said to you, “Have you returned money back to PCs up and down the country?” because you had millions and millions of pounds just sitting in a bank account, you said, “Yes, we have because we have spent it on legal services.” The answer is surely, “No, we have not returned any money.”
Steve White
No, we have not returned money to the members.
Chair
Which is what we recommended.
Steve White
Yes.
Chair
On this point, I call Mr Winnick, since he was also involved on this.
Mr David Winnick
One or two points. Mr White and Mr Fittes, I doubt if you would dispute the fact that the Police Federation have gone through a rather rough patch. Much of the publicity whenever the Federation has been in the news has been rather adverse, to say the least. Can you give any explanation as to why this has occurred in the last few years?
Steve White
Initially, you are absolutely right. Certainly going back two years, just to the point where I became chair of the organisation, we were still reeling then from a lot of negative coverage in the media, not just in relation to the Police Federation but the police service as a whole. Over the last 18 months, that has been turned around. I have said this many times at meetings up and down the country. Let us just move back to 1 March, shall we say. When did you last see a negative story around the Police Federation? That is because of the work that we are doing in relation to the review, because of the way that the organisation is transforming itself. That takes time. I entirely accept that in terms of the investigation that Surrey Police are currently investigating, that is correct; there are some negative headlines. But I would make this point: they are nowhere near on the same level that they were two years ago because we are reforming and changing the organisation. We present evidenced and coherent arguments in support of our members, and we are beginning to be listened to. It is frustrating.
Mr David Winnick
You would accept that police officers would like to feel that their organisation is held in high esteem and certainly respect. There must be a strong feeling—perhaps you will dispute it—that among such officers, perhaps the majority, there is disquiet that the Police Federation has fallen into a situation where when it is in the news, it is not good news, public relations-wise?
Andy Fittes
Building on what Steve said, we would absolutely—he and I and others talked about this—have rather not been in the press over the last three weeks over this, but we both agree that we could not do nothing. Doing nothing and hoping it goes away and does not appear in the press was not an option for this.
James Berry
I have generally been on the other side of the Police Federation in disciplinary cases, but I can entirely identify with what you say, Mr White: most federated officers are members of the Federation because they want the first-class legal representation you will provide if they get caught up in a disciplinary process, inquests, criminal case or the like. That is why, as a barrister, I am a member of the Bar Mutual—for that very reason. So I can certainly identify with what you say there. But I just wanted to push on one point. The historic sex abuse inquiries would largely be about whether the police and the authorities investigated allegations sufficiently. There are potentially thousands, if not tens of thousands, of federated officers who will be involved. These will be historic cases, so they will be retired. It is much more labour intensive for you and the lawyers to unpick those kinds of cases. Are you confident you have the budget to represent them to the standard that you do if someone was in front of a disciplinary hearing tomorrow for a recent case? If not, where would you get those funds from?
Steve White
In simple terms, no, we do not, because we were not set up to provide that level of cover. There needs to be a proper engagement with the membership of the organisation and we need to say, “We can provide it for you, if you wish, if you think this is something that you want us to provide, so that when you retire from the service, and for 20 or 30 years past that, you are still covered for historic inquiries, but it is going to cost a lot of money.” At the moment our budget of around £21 million or £22 million a year would not cover that.
James Berry
Let us say that the Goddard inquiry calls 1,000 police officers. Maybe that is an accurate number; maybe it is wide of the mark. That would blow your budget.
Steve White
Absolutely.
James Berry
Very easily. How will you help those officers?
Steve White
Potentially, yes.
Andy Fittes
We have to be clear moving forward about how we deal with inquiries like this, because if an individual officer is held to account, it is right and proper that we as a Federation support that officer for whatever he or she is held to account for. But if it is an organisational issue then, in my mind, that is for the force to deal with and not for us to pick up the bill on that.
James Berry
I will move on to the question I was meant to be asking.
Chair
You will move on in a minute, because we have not finished with Mr Fittes on the first question. Unfortunately you will not have the benefit of the first-class service that Mr Berry was providing when he represented you, as he has declared it. Just two final questions, Mr Fittes, on police volunteers and recruitment from the BAME community. 15,000 staff jobs have gone, and you now have 9,000 police support volunteers. Do you think that the College of Policing should have a role in training these volunteers?
Andy Fittes
Yes. Anyone who works in the police environment needs to have the proper skills in order to do it.
Chair
Are they providing training at the moment?
Andy Fittes
I would say no, because they are struggling to create the remit by which they train officers and explain to officers how they are going to be trained.
Chair
But you would like to see them acquire that role?
Andy Fittes
Yes, anyone who works in policing should have the proper skills to do it.
Chair
For the police support volunteers?
Andy Fittes
Anyone, yes.
Chair
In terms of BAME recruitment, do you think enough progress has been made in sending out a message? This is clearly a part of the College of Policing’s remit; you sit on the board.
Andy Fittes
Yes.
Chair
What has the college done in respect of recruitment and more BAME officers and the promotion of those officers? Do you think it is a good record?
Andy Fittes
The College has tried hard. Everyone in policing has tried to achieve better representation in policing. Is it enough? No, it is not, because we have not achieved the levels we should have done, so everyone needs to try harder, and we need to look at different ways of achieving, because we have tried for decades, probably, now to do this and we have not succeeded. We need to start to look at different ways of trying to succeed.
Chair
Of the 43 chairs and secretaries of the Federation, how many are from the ethnic minority communities?
Andy Fittes
I do not have that; we are going through the process of finding out. Minimal, I would say. I would know if it was a sizeable—
Chair
Are there any chairs of any of the Police Federation branches who are black or Asian or from the ethnic minority communities?
Andy Fittes
I do not think there are.
Chair
Are there any on your executive committee?
Andy Fittes
Yes.
Chair
How many?
Andy Fittes
Two.
Chair
Out of?
Andy Fittes
About 30.
Chair
What are you doing about it?
Andy Fittes
Part of the review is to deal with this issue.
Chair
You are talking about the College of Policing review?
Andy Fittes
No, the internal review.
Chair
You are having a review on this as well?
Andy Fittes
Yes, part of the review deals specifically around protected characteristics and how we deal with them in future. The Federation will probably hopefully lead the way on this. Because we are a regulated body, whatever we do around protected characteristics is going to be regulated, and I hope that if we can succeed people can look at what we have done and think that might have a wider role to play in policing.
James Berry
Just to return to my last question to make sure the Committee has the answer correctly, if you have a vast swathe of officers asking for protection cover in the Goddard inquiry and you breach your reserves, you will be going to the forces and saying, “You should be paying for this”, and in turn they may have to get the Home Secretary to ask?
Andy Fittes
Before we get to that stage we need to work with the forces, PCCs and the inquiry to say, “This is the group of people we represent and under what circumstances. This is who you should represent and under what—” because otherwise we are going to reach the point that we do run out of money halfway through, and that will not be good. We need to do that now.
James Berry
But the bottom line is that when the money runs out, you will be saying, “We cannot provide that representation”?
Andy Fittes
I would like that discussion before we get anywhere close to that.
James Berry
Absolutely. The chair of the College of Policing has said there is an inconsistent and variable practice in police education that risks undermining the professionalism of the police service. First, is that something that you recognise and, secondly, what more could the College do to ensure consistency of standards across the country?
Steve White
Certainly I have had many conversations with the chair of the College where we have discussed inconsistency. It is something that frustrates not just the College but the Police Federation of England and Wales and, more importantly, it frustrates our members. There is an inconsistency. It is ridiculous to have a situation where an officer is trained up to the eyeballs in driving a traffic car or a response car in one part of the country, and when they transfer to another force they have to start all over again from scratch. We have to provide a consistent level of training. The College plays a hugely important part in that, because that is what the College is all about. It is about providing that standard, but you have to ensure that the 43 forces all buy into that. I do personally have concerns around the structure; 43 forces in England and Wales with 43 chief constables is always going to lead to variations. It is a huge task for the College to provide that consistency, and we are beginning to see how that can be valuable, whether in undercover policing, firearms accreditation, and so on. Consistency is absolutely key.
James Berry
Let us focus on firearms, because that is something where officers are trained to an extremely high standard, and are world-leading in the work they do in this country. As in all other areas, the College of Policing does not provide that training. It is provided by the local forces to a College of Policing manual, and the trainers within the forces have to go on a College of Policing accredited training course. Are you saying that that sort of level of oversight by the College should be applied to other areas of policing, or would you say there is a variation even in firearms?
Steve White
There is a variation in firearms, and speaking as an ex-firearms officer myself, I recognise that. Just in my own region, between Gloucester, Avon and Somerset and Wiltshire, they all work very closely together in a tri-force arrangement and collaboration, but there is variation. No matter how hard you try, there will be, because you still have separate forces. The simple answer to your question is that it would make perfect sense to have that level of oversight and buy-in, in terms of consistency. Surely it has to make sense that the training in relation to crime inquiries in Cumbria is the same training and accreditation that you get in Kent—why should it not be?—because you are talking about consistency of service to the public. I see no reason why that cannot be achieved. But you are starting from a place within the service and the culture and the structure where we are a long way from it at the moment, so it is not something that can happen overnight.
James Berry
Mr Thomas, do you agree with Mr White? If you do agree with him, how would you say that consistency could be provided where the training is not provided centrally by the College of Policing?
Chief Superintendent Thomas
I think we have been consistently inconsistent. The College will set the standard, and this has been recognised by HMIC. Sir Tom Winsor articulated this extremely well, and gave tangible examples of where there were inconsistencies. The most obvious one—and I might be leaking my personal frustration here, because like Steve, we are trying to put national standards across the forces in England and Wales—is they are, to all intents and purposes, individual organisations individually led. A good tangible example of inconsistency would be the Code of Ethics, widely reported by HMIC. We all signed up to the Code of Ethics, as the Code of Ethics for Policing. Yet when HMIC inspected, we found on one end of the continuum some forces have taken it wholly, exemplified with good leadership and behaviour, and at the other end we have Code of Ethics and local values Code of Ethics as well, which has been a completely confused interpretation. That is a very good example of where inconsistency is. You have this quandary now that the College is trying to do its level best in terms of implementing these standards across the service. It is down to leadership across the service to come together and implement the standards consistently. Just to amplify what Steve said, in the current structure, it is going to be a hard ask.
Mr Chuka Umunna
Can I ask you all whether you think that the education of officers around their use of police stop and search powers is sufficient?
Andy Fittes
We have come a long way.
Chair
We do not mind if there is no answer, if that is what you want.
Andy Fittes
No, there is more that can be done on that, because until we make the public comfortable with our use of powers, we have not achieved all we can achieve. So there is more to do.
Mr Chuka Umunna
Would you agree with that?
Steve White
The important thing here is that because of the model of policing by consent we have in this country, to a degree it is probably going to vary from community to community. We have to ensure that the community is satisfied. It goes back to the point you were just making about consistency. In theory the education and the consistent application of that power should be the same across the country, but we also have to be cognisant of the sensitivities within communities. Part of the beauty of policing by consent is ensuring that you maintain that confidence. So there will be some areas where perhaps you need to go the extra mile in order to get that confidence. In some areas perhaps less so.
Mr Chuka Umunna
But the problem is, in some senses—Mr Thomas, I will come to you in a minute—if you look at the police forces across the country, they are consistently bad in the way in which you are seeing stop and search powers being exercised. If you look at the HMIC report that came out in February, of the 43 forces, 13 were suspended from the best use of stop and search scheme and are undergoing inspections. A further 19 were failing to comply with all the rules. So 32 out of 43 forces had deficiencies. The question is: is the problem solely one of education, or is it one of how all of the forces are operating and the extent to which there is a will to do something about this problem?
Steve White
It is a mixture of the two. Gavin spoke just now around the inconstancy with 43 forces led in 43 different ways with 43 different priorities. In some areas of some forces, stop and search is perhaps used more extensively because of a particular crime problem or a particular issue. In other areas it is less so. I suspect that stop and search is not used in the rural parts of Cumbria very much at all, but probably in some very urban parts it is used a lot more. So you have to make sure you have that level of consistency. What is difficult against a backdrop of potentially rising knife crime and violent crime is to ensure that the service has the powers that it needs to try to tackle that, while at the same time ensuring the confidence in the communities that they are serving. It is not an easy one. Some of it is probably cultural as well. The culture within the service needs to be more responsive and more open to thinking about different ways of doing things.
Mr Chuka Umunna
The same HMIC report, Mr Thomas, made it very clear that essentially, primarily, in some senses, the failure is a lack of leadership. They said, and I quote, that they were “Frustrated by the apparent lack of commitment by the leadership of forces to ensure that stop and search is used properly and legitimately and that HMIC is looking for leaders to take action to address these issues”. Why is it not happening?
Chief Superintendent Thomas
I go back to my previous answer. I share that frustration. There are bound to be local nuances in terms of delivering services—localism—but in the example you have just asked us about, it cannot be, in my view, that a citizen has a different experience in how the process of stop and search is applied to them in one area, as opposed to the area next door. My second point would be that you can have the best training, you can apply the law, but unless this power particularly is applied with empathy, transparency, and looking at it through the eyes of the person that has been stopped, then it just touches upon what Steve mentioned: you are not going to get that power recognised within communities as a power that the police need—
Mr Chuka Umunna
Sorry to cut you off. In my community—and this is a major issue in my community—we completely agree with you. You are echoing what we think. The question is: what are you guys going to do about it? I was not on this Committee in the last Parliament, but the Chair will tell you we have had officers and people in leadership positions in the different forces come and empathise with the complaints that we have made, but what are you going to do about this? Is it a problem with the way we are educating officers? You have officers coming into my community who do not understand my community, or the different cultures in it. Or is it that systems are not in place to make sure that people use these powers properly?
Chief Superintendent Thomas
It is a fundamental issue of the service coming together saying, “We need to provide how we apply this power consistently across the service.” It goes back to what you just referred to a few minutes ago. It is around leadership, but we have 43 different leaders—police and crime commissioners and chief officers and my colleagues as well, leaders in the service—who need to apply this power consistently. At the moment you have the National Police Chiefs Council, which is a co-ordinating body; it has no power. It is co-ordinating. You have the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, a co-ordinating body, with no power. So there is nobody nationally who can say, “This is how it is going to be done”.
Stuart C. McDonald
I want to ask you about the College’s slightly controversial proposals that new entrants to the police force should have a degree-level qualification. Mr White, I think I am right in saying that you have been on record already as describing these proposals as barmy; is that correct? Yes. Yet these are requirements in other countries, other professions in the UK. Some forces already have types of pre-entry qualification requirements. Some might even say that that would be one answer to the inconsistencies in training that you have already been talking about. Why do you think it is such a bad idea?
Steve White
I, for example, do not have a degree, and if I had needed to have a degree when I joined the police service I would not be in the police service. The most important thing—going back to talking about having a service that reflects the communities that we serve because of that important element of consent—I do not believe that you have to have a degree to be able to reflect that. I also think there are more practical elements, in terms of getting the right mix of people within the service. It could be more of a hindrance than a help. Do not get me wrong: I am not saying that people with degrees should not be joining the police service. Yes, of course they should. But there should be sufficient routes into the service to allow people who do not have degrees, but maybe have skills and abilities that will be of huge value to the police service, to be able to join. To say that in order to be a police officer you have to have a degree is too restrictive. To be fair to the College, that is not in fact what they are proposing. They are still proposing a route of entry that does not mean that you have to have a degree.
Stuart C. McDonald
An apprenticeship, for example?
Steve White
Yes, and of course I would say we already have an apprenticeship; it is called a two-year probation. Often we say there is no such thing as an original idea in policing. I would still say that that is right and proper. But what we do not want is to say that you have to self-fund yourself in order to get to the point where you can start your probation. That would be foolhardy.
Stuart C. McDonald
These are obviously your views based on your own experience, but have you consulted your members about this, and what would you expect in terms of the number of members who would want to undertake these degrees or even do their masters?
Steve White
It is great that whenever we recruit as a service, it is always oversubscribed. People understand what a brilliant career it can be to be in the police service, and that is wonderful. So there will always be a cohort of people who will try that hard, but I think what will happen is that you will end up with recruits, particularly from hard to reach communities, who are not going to get that advantage. We are talking about having something that is so specific to the police service, in terms of a pre-entry qualification. An ordinary degree, for example, gives you flexibility, but if something is so defined, in terms of a pre-entry qualification for the police service, it is going to be less attractive. It is going restrict the diversity within the service. Interestingly, there are two things that certainly my members get animated about—they get animated about many things, but two things in particular recently—and they are: the use and availability of Tasers, and the argument around needing a degree to join the police service. The majority of the members I represent, even those that have a degree, are supportive of the view you do not need a degree to be a police officer.
Chief Superintendent Thomas
I will be as brief as I can; I am conscious of the time. The Association is broadly in favour. We have consulted our membership, and we are broadly in favour of it. There are some howevers within it, which I can broaden if you wish.
Stuart C. McDonald
Yes, absolutely. How do you respond to Mr White’s criticisms?
Chief Superintendent Thomas
We are broadly in favour of it, in terms of you have to look at this in the context of taking the service forward into the future and people coming to the service in the future. It needs to be professionalised, recognising the complexity of what policing is dealing with now, in terms of the change in crime and the changes in society, and how they are applying new technologies. That requires complex thinking. It needs to contribute to the overall professionalising of policing. You need to look at it in the context as well of the ambition of the service, in terms of opening up the service to different points of entry and exit and moving in the service between police staff and warranted police officer, so somebody who joins the service can come out with something tangible that recognises them as a profession—something that they can use in other fields outside service, and come back in as well. There are opportunities here. At the moment, if you do 30 years in the police service, you may well come out of the service with nothing tangible to demonstrate the fantastic skills and the qualifications you have achieved in the service. We need to move on. Broadly, we are in favour of it.
Mr David Winnick
Mr White, the Police Federation say, in effect, in opposing graduates only, that what a police officer requires is knowledge, skills, expertise and ongoing training. Sound judgment, common sense and the ability to get involved in physical confrontation when required are equally vital. So what you are telling us is that such assets or essential needs for a police officer are such that it does not require being a university graduate?
Steve White
Yes, essentially. One point that I would make is that in terms of where we are with the College of Policing, in terms of the comments that were made earlier in relation to the engagement with the membership, in my view, what the College of Policing should be talking about is not the applicants of the future, but the people currently in the service. They have to engage with the people who are already there, the majority of whom do not have degrees. One of the reasons why the College perhaps has a bit of an issue with engagement with the service is because they see the headline, “You need a degree to enter”, and they say, “That’s great; they do not see the value that I have as an individual because I do not have a degree”. I know that that is not true, but it is sending out the wrong message. We should be concentrating on accrediting the skills, the expertise and the education that serving officers already have—picking up on Gavin’s point—and accrediting that, as opposed to looking at saying that you have to have something before you even get into the service.
Mr David Winnick
I will come in a moment to you, Mr Thomas. I know you have a strong opposing view. We respect both points of view. We are trying to get a reflection of what the two organisations consider is so important for entry into the police force. I put this point to you, Mr White, if you would like to be devil’s advocate: there has been so much change since the fictional Police Constable Dixon of half a century ago, played by Jack Warner. So much has changed, not least technology and the rest of it. Do you need a different type of police officer than in those days, and should the entry requirement be much higher?
Steve White
What you need is a mixed economy because in policing, while of course it has changed beyond all recognition in the last 50 years, some of the basics in relation to the skills that you need remain. That is vitally important. The amount of expertise that you need in some areas of policing are such that you could argue officers are already operating way above degree level in any case, but equally there are a lot of our members out there who, day in and day out, 24/7, are doing an incredibly hard and difficult job. They are doing it incredibly well. They do not have a degree. They do not need a degree.
Mr David Winnick
Mr Thomas, you refute much of that presumably? You are on the board of the College of Policing, and the College of Policing will be giving evidence directly very shortly. You do not accept basically what Mr White, on behalf of the Police Federation, has just told us?
Chief Superintendent Thomas
I accept there are going to be some challenges in terms of where we are now, and I do pick up Steve’s point on officers who are currently in the service, in terms of giving them that offer of getting their skills professionally accredited and recognised with a degree. Just to go back to the point you have just raised, Mr Winnick, the other qualification for a police officer is always going to be a constant. This is not just me saying this. HMIC recognise this as well. It goes back to the days of “Dixon of Dock Green”. You will still need young men and women who are brave, compassionate, and prepared to put themselves at risk to protect their fellow citizens. The good example of that is only last week in Sheffield, where you saw five officers injured, one officer with a life-changing injury. That is going to continue to happen, so no matter what we do in this debate, in terms of qualification and recognising that, you are going to still require people who have those qualities, and who are prepared to put themselves at risk on behalf of their citizens.
Mr David Winnick
Could I put this to you, Mr Thomas? At this stage most school leavers do not go to university. I think it is 40%, 45%—I am not certain, but it is along those lines. Time and again, the point has been made that the police force should be representative of the community as a whole. Last week, as the Chair obviously recalls, he put questions about the representation from those who are not white and so on. Is there not this danger that if what you consider should be the point of entry is not representative, those who come into the police force in the future, based on what you or the College of Policing would like, will simply not be representative of the overall population, and that the gulf could be a dangerous one?
Chief Superintendent Thomas
I am pleased you asked that question, because it is something that I have publicly recently talked about. Let us not forget where we are with this now. It is consultation, and it has come back in. We are going to wait for the consultation from the College. But at the moment you can still recruit young men and women at the age of 18 and a half into the police service. Going back to my previous point, if you had a conversation with somebody who is 28—which from memory is probably the average age in the service at the moment because of recruiting—around social media and technology, it will be a very different conversation with somebody who is 18 and a half. I agree with your point, Mr Winnick, around the diversity. We need a diversity of sociodemographic coming into the service. There is a challenge in making sure that we get a mixture of people still coming into the service. But the overall point, as I said from the outset, is that my Association and I favour, in terms of our journey, in terms of professionalising the service, having people who are professionally recognised with a qualification.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
Mr White, I would like to pick up on some of the points you talked about earlier. This follows neatly from Mr Winnick’s question a moment ago. Would you not agree that contemporary policing is as complicated a role as, say, that of a social worker or that of a nurse?
Steve White
Yes and no, and I know that sounds ridiculous.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
One would be helpful.
Steve White
Yes, it can be.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
We know that those professions only accept graduates. For that reason I am confused as to why the Police Federation is against a degree-level qualification. Perhaps that is the point. You have talked about degrees, but what we are talking about is degree-level qualification. Surely that is helpful to your members.
Steve White
It can be, but it is whether or not they have to get that before they join the service. One could argue that just because another profession has that level, it means that it is applicable to all professions, and I do not wear that argument at all. I do understand that in terms of assessing someone’s ability to reach the required standard you could say that it is helpful. But policing needs—picking up on Gavin’s point—to be reflective of society. As Mr Winnick said, only 45% of people are currently going to university.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
On that point you talked about the right mix of people joining the services. What do you mean by “the right mix”?
Steve White
The service should reflect the communities that we currently serve.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
Is there a particular group that you think would be disadvantaged if it was to move down the road of having degree-level qualification?
Steve White
The group that would be disadvantaged is those that cannot afford to go to university.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
Even with the support that is provided to those who are least well off?
Steve White
Yes.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
That is not shown by all the statistics that are out there in terms of those entering university and university-level qualifications, including under the new system.
Steve White
I am not entirely convinced, but what you must also know—
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
They are statistics. You quoted statistics at us about your members, and we accept that. Surely you must accept the statistics that show that those from the least wealthy background have gone up.
Steve White
Until the requirement is there and we can understand whether or not it has an effect, then to a certain extent we cannot measure it accurately, can we? Certainly some of those—
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
You do not think that the situation elsewhere, in terms of other courses and other professions, will be replicated in the police?
Steve White
No, because when you are looking at a career as a social worker, barrister, lawyer, or surgeon, it is a completely different career structure, so it is going to attract different candidates. I would say that the police service is a vocation. You do not join the police service to make a huge amount of money. You join the police service because you want to serve your community.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
I am sure plenty of people who work across the public sector would say exactly the same, because we want to make sure that there are opportunities for people to serve their country in whatever way they are best suited to do. Turning then to the other end of one’s career, and those who perhaps retire early or leave the police service for whatever reason, are they not disadvantaged by not having some sort of qualifications? Those who retire have a lot of skills, as Mr Thomas has said. Are you not disadvantaging your members by saying that this should not be introduced?
Steve White
No. What I have said is that it is the entry requirement that we have an issue with. What I did say earlier is that the existing education and skills that police officers have should be recognised and should be accredited, so that when they leave the service they have that accreditation.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
So degree-level qualification is fine by what you said?
Steve White
If they are going to get it within the service. What we do not want to do is to keep that door shut to some people who otherwise would join. I will be brutally frank: some people might say, “This would have been great”, but if I needed a degree when I joined the police service, I would not have joined the police service.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
I would not dare say that, Mr White. One further point—
Chair
And we are all glad you did.
Steve White
That is very kind.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
One further point before I bring in Mr Thomas. I heard what you said earlier about having real-world skills, and Mr McDonald talked about an apprenticeship. In PGCE training, teachers spend some time in a classroom of their own, or some time in a school; do you think that sort of model is the ideal way forward?
Steve White
It could be complex, because of course the first day in—more or less the first week that I joined the police service, once you make your oath, your attestation, you are then a fully attested officer. and you have the powers and all of the restrictions that go with it. So it is not something you can dip in and out of. At what point do you get to be given those powers? If you are going through an experience on-the-job qualification, you have to go out and you have to arrest people; you have to deal with them, I am not quite sure how that would work.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
You talked about the probationary period earlier, so could it not be possible for a scheme to exist where people do get some time not on the front-line, not out in the community, but in a classroom, so they are able to learn the skills they need at a degree level, which is good for them, good for the police service, and ensures that people are getting on-the-job training too?
Steve White
In terms of the way the student officers are currently trained, we are definitely moving in that direction.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
But you would be happy to see that go further?
Steve White
Absolutely, because you are recognising the skills of officers currently in the service, as opposed to having that gate to prevent them from joining in the first place.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
Mr Thomas, what is your view of the College’s proposal to require masters-level qualifications for advancement to superintending roles?
Chief Superintendent Thomas
Again, in favour. Can I just go back to your previous question? I said I am in favour of qualification. Let’s go back to the consultation. If, as it is proposed now, it is a level 6—that is, bachelor degree—we may have some reservation on that. We would have to look at the detail, but certainly where it is a level 4, higher national certificate or foundation degree, that point where you do some academia and also some practical work, as they do for nursing, is a good thing. The other point I wanted to make was that there is an opportunity here. It is an offer, which the service can say, “Look, join the police service and you will get professionally recognised in terms of the work you are doing”. If you cannot afford it, if you are disadvantaged economically, then the College will offer you bursary or scholarship. I see this as part of the offer, reaching out to communities and saying, “Come and join the police service, you can come and get something from the service as well as offering something to your community”.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
Not so barmy after all.
Steve White
No, I still think that the idea of needing a degree to join the police service, as bland as that, is barmy.
Chair
We are coming to the end.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
Just coming back to the superintending ranks proposal for masters qualifications, you also talked about direct entry, which I think is linked to this. What is the assessment for direct entry to superintendent and above? I know there have been nine successful candidates. They should now be reaching, or have reached, the end of their training.
Chief Superintendent Thomas
Literally in the next week or so. Again it is the same principle as I have just said: if they have undergone that level of intense training and development, then they should be recognised as well as somebody who comes through another route. The whole principle here is rather than looking at it being, which I have experienced, joining at 18 and a half, doing your 30 years and coming out, we need a flexibility of people who can come out, do 10 years in the police service, become a Member of Parliament, maybe do a period of time, and then come back into the police service. So we break the service up to new ideas, new thinking, and new cultures. That is the opportunity. That is the prize with what we are trying to do here. I understand it is challenging, but there is a real opportunity here.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
Final question, Chair. Does the outcome of the direct entry scheme, Mr Thomas, give you confidence in the new model of police recruitment?
Chief Superintendent Thomas
It does give me confidence but I will say that it is due for assessment at Parliament by 2019. It will be evaluated. It is being evaluated each year but it is due for final evaluation in 2019, so we shall see.
Chair
Quick question from Mr Berry and then we must close this session.
James Berry
Mr White, you mentioned that the other issue that police officers were very concerned about was Tasers. Can you just outline what the concern is, please?
Steve White
Yes, absolutely. It always attracts a lot of comment and attention. The Police Federation of England and Wales 12 months ago changed its stance in relation to the roll-out of Taser. Having seen its benefit, having seen the way that it was embedded, having seen the way that communities have accepted it, we moved to a position where we said that any frontline uniformed officer who volunteers to carry it should be afforded the opportunity. We have seen yet more instances recently where Taser has been used effectively. The incident in Sheffield, that was brought to a successful conclusion by an officer who had Taser. The first officer on the scene was not equipped with Taser. I have grave reservations that at some point a police officer or a member of the public, because we do not have the equipment that we needed, could be seriously hurt or injured. Whether that is the case in Sheffield or not I cannot comment. But our members are saying that they need it. We are pushing very hard in relation to conversations with the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Chief Constable, and indeed this Committee now. I truly believe that there is an opportunity here to give something back to the service. They see the value of it, and it is something I am deeply passionate about because my members are deeply passionate about it as well.
Chair
We must end there. Quick-fire final questions. Mr White, Mr Fittes, the last time you came before the Committee you said that the Certificate of Policing needed to be looked at again. Here is a quote from you, Mr Fittes: “As a theoretical test it does not assess people properly for what they are needed to do”. Has it changed? Is it better? Or do you still have concerns about it still not being—
Andy Fittes
I still have concerns as part of this wider debate we get the right people into the organisation—
Chair
Forget about the wider debate, talk about the test.
Andy Fittes
We test people to get the right people into the organisation. We turn them into excellent people after that once we have them; that would be what I think on that. It is still not fit for purpose.
Chair
Police Scotland, Mr Thomas. Have you or Mr White studied what is happening in Police Scotland, the way in which they recruit? We are getting evidence from Phil Gormley very shortly on what they do there. They have one uniform application system, one set of training guidance and one police force to join. Do you think that we need to be much more cohesive in the way in which we do this training, Mr Thomas?
Chief Superintendent Thomas
By what you have just said, Chair, that in itself helps to get that consistency in terms of standards, which is what we have just discussed in this Committee.
Chair
So you like that idea?
Chief Superintendent Thomas
I do.
Chair
Mr White?
Steve White
I tend to agree. We are watching the model in Police Scotland very carefully because again the Federation has said that 43 forces are too many and it needs to be reduced because of consistency and quality of service.
Chair
It is something the Committee is going to look at. We obviously look forward to being hosted by Mr McDonald, when we go to visit his country. Thank you very much for coming. If there is anything we have missed, please write to us, because the inquiry is still open. We want to put some practical suggestions to Parliament about how the College can be improved. We, like yourselves, are fans of the College, but we want it to do even better. We are most grateful to you for coming here today. Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses
Dr Anya Hunt, Chief Executive, Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences, and Janet Davies, FRCN, Chief Executive and General Secretary, Royal College of Nursing, gave evidence.
Chair
Ms Davies, Dr Hunt, I promise you that members of the Committee, even though some of us probably did a GCS O-level in sciences, are not going to get into the detail of what you do. We are interested in the structure of your organisations and how we can get the College of Policing to where you are—two much respected chartered organisations providing services for members. If I could start with you, Dr Hunt, why did the Society of Forensic Sciences pursue chartered status?
Dr Hunt
We pursued chartered status at the end of 2009, 2010, to move towards a better framework for offering support to our membership. Also we were looking for recognition of the professionalism that the Society had demonstrated in the previous 50 years of its history, but more towards the professionalisation of all disciplines, including forensic science, to be able to offer better support and more recognised models of certification that would be recognised by the court.
Chair
Janet Davies, obviously the RCN is one of the most respected of all colleges in the country; it is a very impressive brand name. Becoming a Royal College, which is what the College of Policing is not at the moment: what difference has it made in the history of the RCN?
Janet Davies
We became a Royal College in the 1930s, so we obviously have a long history of having that royal charter. We were established in 1916, so it is our centenary this year. It took a little while to get that royal status. It helps mostly with having a very clear charter that we work towards. It is very clear on the objectives of the organisation. Even if we wished to move away and do things that might not be so useful, it keeps us focused on the education and the welfare of nurses. It is very clear on what we should be doing. So that is very helpful. The other thing is that image that it portrays and the standing it has. Having a royal charter in reality makes a big difference to how people perceive us, and it does help in opening doors. In addition we work very much as multi-professional teams, so we work very closely with the medical Royal Colleges, and it helps that we are all Royal Colleges when we get together working for NICE, setting standards, and setting multi-professional standards.
Chair
Dr Hunt, you have heard the exchange about whether policing should be a degree-only profession. Yours clearly is, is that right?
Dr Hunt
Yes.
Chair
You are not as big as the RCN. What is your membership?
Dr Hunt
We have about 3,000 members in 60 countries, but about 85% to 87% is here in the UK.
Chair
Tell us a little bit about your co-operation with the universities and with colleges of education, because you do not do all the training and all the education and professional development within your boundaries. Is that right?
Dr Hunt
That is correct. In approximately 2004, following on from the Select Committee report “Under the Microscope”, the then Forensic Science Society was approached to look at the accreditation of university courses. In the early 2000s, many new universities started to develop a lot of forensic science programmes, and they became rather overwhelming. In order to look then at the quality of the forensic science that was being taught, the Society developed an accreditation scheme. That specifically looks at level 6 and level 7 courses. Since that time, the scheme has been expanded to look also at level 5, and in the very near future will also be looking at level 4 BTEC courses. The aim of that is to allow students and the people that are footing the bills for those students—mainly parents—to make informed decisions about which courses people will take. We list on our website all accredited courses held at institutions around the United Kingdom. That has now been expanded around the world, and we do have accredited courses as far away as Australia.
Chair
Janet Davies, RCN nurses can now do a university degree, of course. At De Montfort University in Leicester, we have a big course on nursing. What is your role in education, and what kind of relationships have you built up with the colleges and universities?
Janet Davies
We have a number of roles, and we have close relationships with universities, but our accreditation tends to be at the post-registration level. Nursing has moved into being an all-graduate profession, and that means to train as a nurse, you do a degree programme, most of which are in physical universities. That means there are many suppliers, so we tend to accredit the post-registration programmes, rather than the pre-registration programmes, because we also have a regulator. The Nursing and Midwifery Council must accredit and approve that training before they are allowed to hold those courses, so they all have to be accredited by the NMC, which is the regulator. We, however, supply areas of good practice, standards of practice, much more in the practice environment than the education environment, but we also provide training for our student nurses as well as our post-registration students online, which supports their education in the university, so we work very much in tandem with the universities. Specifically for post-registration practice, then most people would be looking for RCN accreditation for their specialist practice programmes, so that is the masters-level, PhD-type programmes.
Chair
How do you help with that professional development, to take people from just being nurses and give them the additional qualifications that they need—the leadership in nursing, if you like?
Janet Davies
There are many programmes. The Royal College of Nursing has a clinical leadership programme. We do not provide that for free, because some of our products, as we would call them, are commissioned, usually by hospitals or by community services, and they are often in situ. The clinical leadership programme, for instance, is sort of ward sisters, people who are interested in leadership. We provide that in the workplace—we get the facilitators in their workplace—so we accredit the facilitators and the programmes are done in situ. We believe that is much more productive than taking people away and giving them a leadership programme, as when they then come back, nobody else has changed, and nothing else has changed in the environment. So we do lots of work in the environment to develop people’s practice.
Chair
You have no disciplinary functions? Is that conducted by you or another organisation?
Janet Davies
No. The disciplinary functions are by the Nursing and Midwifery Council, so we have a regulator, and the regulator’s sole purpose is public safety—very important for nursing.
Chair
Of course.
Janet Davies
They have the disciplinary process, and that is why they are the people that regulate the pre-registration education, which means you can be a registered nurse at the end of that, and they hold the register of nurses.
Chair
Just remind us: how many members do you have?
Janet Davies
Just over 430,000.
Chair
We will come on to financing with a later question, but what is the fee you charge your members, Janet Davies?
Janet Davies
It is just under £200 a year now.
Chair
Dr Hunt, what fee do you charge?
Dr Hunt
Our fees range from £25 for student entry, for people studying, it is up to £98 for professional membership, and £120 a year for fellows.
Chair
Thank you. Chuka Umunna on standards.
Mr Chuka Umunna
I had one other question I was going to ask you both. In both of your professions, I know diversity is an issue, in the way that it is in the policing profession, although it seems that in both your professions, you do slightly better than the police on the diversity front. To both of you, but in particular to Janet Davies, why do you think you do better on diversity than the police?
Janet Davies
We target certain areas. We feel it is very important that nurses represent the community in which they are working. It is certainly very important that nurses really understand the people that they are working with. Obviously, the people that we deal are often in a time of distress and are at their most vulnerable. We have spent a lot of time looking at the recruitment of nurses and widening the entry gate. When nursing moved into being an all-graduate profession, there was a lot of concern that it would be only certain people who would be interested, I guess, in undertaking a degree. We have found the opposite, because it has lifted the status, so people are keen to go into nursing. I think particularly in some minority populations, where going to university is seen as very important, it has opened nursing to that population. The other thing that I think is really key is that the universities have all done a lot of work on pre-degree programmes, working with higher education, and looking at their entry criteria, so although it comes through UCAS, they look in a very different way. You do not necessarily have to have three A-levels at a certain grade; it is important you have the ability to study, that you have the right sort of will to be a nurse, and that you have the right sort of attitude and compassion.
Mr Chuka Umunna
Are you saying the new requirement for a degree-level qualification has helped promote diversity?
Janet Davies
Yes. It also has enabled people to come in later as well, so we now see that the average age of a student nurse is 29, not 18; it is older. People are coming who have had life experiences, which we think brings an awful lot to nursing. If you have had more life experience, you can understand, you can empathise better, and also they want to do that.
Mr Chuka Umunna
But in spite of the progress you have made though, you still have similar challenges to the police in terms of senior nursing positions?
Janet Davies
Yes, we do.
Mr Chuka Umunna
What are you doing to address that?
Janet Davies
We are doing a lot with that. There are specific programmes and specific targeted programmes. We are working very closely with the employers, who also see that as being an issue, and we have specific groups within our organisation that enable that to happen. In fact, as our College, we have done quite well.
Chair
Thank you. Dr Hunt, do you want to answer Mr Umunna’s question?
Dr Hunt
I would certainly agree that the universities have had a part to play in this in their diversity programmes and making programmes accessible to all. Therefore, as people come through those programmes and are qualified equally, they are playing on a level playing field when it comes to getting jobs. Now, forensic science is largely in the private sector in the UK, and I think that also has a part to play in this, because it also has its own diversity legislation in place to ensure that it is a fairer system.
Chair
Did you give a figure to Mr Umunna as to the profile of your members in terms of diversity? Could you give us that figure? If you do not have it today, will you write to us?
Janet Davies
I do not have it with me, but I would want it to be absolutely accurate.
Chair
Could you write to us, because I think that would be very useful to know? Thank you very much.
Mr Chuka Umunna
If you could, that would be useful. My final question is maybe a little bit unfair, but I am going to ask it anyway: clearly your members work with police officers, and I was thinking when I was reflecting on the fact that you were going to be giving evidence is: what is the kind of situation where perhaps you come across an officer? It will be in all kinds of situations, not least in an A&E situation. The nursing profession is picking up stuff that is going on in my community that is simply not being recorded by the police, such as all of the serious youth violence we see happening and impacting on our minority young people. When your members come across young officers, do you think they are sufficiently trained and educated to understand all our different communities?
Janet Davies
I do not have that information, and it is not something that we have looked at in terms of our relationships with the police, although we are working very closely with the College of Policing.
Mr Chuka Umunna
Of course, Dr Hunt, many of your members will be practitioners presumably within the police service?
Dr Hunt
Absolutely. We have many members who are police officers. We are working widely with police officers as well. It is very interesting that many of them are taking up some of the training and competency assessments that we offer, rather than that offered by the College of Policing, but that is perhaps another issue.
Mr Chuka Umunna
No, no. Why is that? You cannot just go over that one.
Dr Hunt
I think some of the advantages that the forensic community offers are that we have a fully self-sustaining financial model, and we are 100% independent of the police force. For example, we offer a certificate of competence for crime scene investigation, and that is being taken up by police forces because of the independent element and the fact that it is seen to be fit for purpose and offering good value for money. We are a registered charity and all our income comes from our own activities, which I think is key.
Mr David Winnick
As far as financing is concerned, would you describe both of your organisations as being self-financed?
Dr Hunt
Yes, 100%.
Mr David Winnick
100%. The same, Ms Davies?
Janet Davies
Yes. Our main role as a College is from membership income, but we also have a wholly-owned subsidiary, our publishing company, which does make a profit that we can then bring into the organisation, which supports keeping our membership fees low. That would be the nursing journals and so on that people would buy; we publish those. It is owned by us, but it is run slightly separately. We also have a charitable sector, but the charitable sector—we have a foundation—does not support the workings of the organisation; it looks at supporting nurses in need, and also helps fund some nurses who require financial help with their education.
Mr David Winnick
Does that give both organisations a degree of separation from Government, so you do not rely on central Government? The independence that your organisations obviously have is clearly, to say the least, something that you are proud of.
Janet Davies
Yes, we are entirely independent from Government, and we are also a trade union, of course, and we are a trade union that has no political affiliations whatsoever.
Mr David Winnick
I never suspected for one moment that you did.
Janet Davies
No, but we are very proud of that, so that keeps us very independent. We can speak for nurses, and our nurses can work with us, totally independent of any political influence.
Mr David Winnick
Are you affiliated to the TUC?
Janet Davies
No, we have no political affiliations, nor to the TUC.
Mr David Winnick
That would not necessarily be political, but be that as it may. Dr Hunt?
Dr Hunt
Approximately 40% of our income comes from membership, and 60% comes from our other activities, including the accreditation of educational programmes, running training events, CPD and so on.
Mr David Winnick
Like the organisation represented by Ms Davies, totally independent?
Dr Hunt
100%, yes.
Mr David Burrowes
What is your budget?
Dr Hunt
We have a turnover of around £350,000 a year, and we have an asset value of around £700,000.
Mr David Burrowes
Ms Davies?
Janet Davies
It is obviously much more significant than that, but I will give you that. I do not have it absolutely to hand, because I would like you to have it in the separate areas of the three organisations in the group. I think it is better I give it that way.
Mr David Burrowes
In terms of income generation—this is probably particularly appropriate for Dr Hunt—do you provide any services or training to other bodies, to other countries?
Dr Hunt
We do a small amount of overseas training, but that is very minimal, to be honest. Our income is largely from within the UK, and it is events, training courses, continual professional development, certificates of competence.
Mr David Burrowes
Do you have any codes of conduct in relation to the types of organisations or indeed the types of countries that you would do business with?
Dr Hunt
There would always be a due diligence process in looking at the engagement. Yes, there would be. I cannot give you a list now. We have not ever said no, but we have never been approached by anyone that—
Mr David Burrowes
The country that you have had a connection with in relation to providing services: which one is that?
Dr Hunt
I cannot really say at the moment, because it is still waiting to get the contract signed and I think that would be a little bit stupid.
Mr David Burrowes
Okay, fair enough.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
Ms Davies, what impact has the introduction of mandatory degree-level entry had on the way in which people have progressed and been retained in the profession?
Janet Davies
We tend to have problems with retention of nursing staff, but it is not those newly-qualified nursing staff; it is nursing staff more generally, probably at the middle of their career. There has been some initial difficulty, I believe, in the students and retention of students at the beginning, probably slightly higher than the previous method.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
Just relating to the difference between those who have been through the degree-level entry and those who are already in the profession, has there been resistance to the changes from the latter?
Dr Hunt
Initially there was. Initially when all-graduate was proposed, there were clearly some very difficult conversations. There were some people who were very concerned, who obviously did not have a degree; they were worried that they would be left behind, particularly as there were quite a lot of changes in nursing in short succession. We had a purely state-registered nursing qualification that was done by hospitals, obviously with a standard programme of education by the then General Nursing Council. It then moved to the United Kingdom Central Council and it moved to a diploma, and then it moved into higher education authorities, so there was a lot of change in succession. It probably needed to do that rather than go straight to a degree, but people were very nervous about their own positions. I think now people accept it generally, but I think some of our older nurses still do not quite see it.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena
I am very conscious of time, so a yes or no answer will be fine to this, if possible. Do you believe that the cultural understanding of nursing has improved due to the introduction of degree-level entry? Is it being viewed more as a profession?
Janet Davies
Yes.
Chair
It is a shock that it has all finished so quickly, but before that, we have Naz Shah.
Naz Shah
Are there any elements of your organisational structure and functions that can be directly applied to the College of Policing’s ambitions?
Janet Davies
Yes, and obviously we have been talking to the College of Policing, because we have been helping with some of their education work. We started as a College of Nursing and we then had the charter status, then in the 1970s we also became a trade union. That, I think, has given us that longevity. It has given us that more secure funding, and it also has led to a more comprehensive workstream for us. What we were finding as a college in that time—of course it is before my time, but from reading—the environment in which nurses were working was a huge issue for the College. The division between the College being able to represent members and what was then the trade union was too far apart, so they became a trade union, so that they could act as an independent trade union representing nursing issues only and, doing that, look at the environment in which people work.
Dr Hunt
There are certainly some areas of crossover between the work of the College and the work of the Chartered Society, particularly in the fact that forensic science is a subset of policing. I realise of course that the College of Policing is looking much wider than that, but certainly some of the areas I have already alluded to—competence particularly, and the development of continual professional development and training and education services within the forensic sciences—could be seen as a crossover. I would hope, moving forward, that the College and the Society can work together to ensure that there is no duplication of those efforts. The fact that we are already established and moving on that would be something that could be left with the Chartered Society, and not particularly taken into the College of Policing.
Chair
Janet Davies, why are you helping? Why is your organisation helping the College of Policing on education? Surely they should be doing this themselves. What is it that you are giving them?
Janet Davies
They are doing it themselves. I think that we can help because of our history and because we have some advice. We have been very impressed with the College of Policing. In fact, one of the reasons we got in touch in the first place, I think, was because—
Chair
You got in touch with them, or they got in touch with you?
Janet Davies
No, we employed a former member of their staff.
Chair
Oh, right.
Janet Davies
Like anything else, it was very fascinating, what she was telling about what was happening with the College of Policing. We have lots of areas of joint interest.
Chair
So you decided to ring up and help them after you heard?
Janet Davies
They help us as well. It is a two-way thing, so I would hardly like to say it is just going in and advising them. We do have someone sitting on their advisory board, but we have had some very productive joint meetings where we have areas of mutual interest, particularly in terms of setting standards.
Chair
Sure. Do you think they eventually want to become you?
Janet Davies
I do not know. You would have to ask them that. I think it is a good model. It is not a model that everybody agrees with. There can be tension between being a trade union and being a professional organisation. We feel, on the whole, it is better to be together than separate, but it is a model that I think people need to decide themselves.
Chair
One final question about immigration issues. The last time you were before us, we were told that there would be a crisis in nursing as a result of the immigration rules. Has that now eased?
Janet Davies
Yes, because nurses are now on the shortage list, so that decision has been made. It has been a very, very helpful decision, and it has made things much better for organisations.
Chair
It was one of our recommendations. Thank you very much, both of you, for coming in here. If there is anything that we have missed that you think would be helpful, especially with regards to the budgets and other issues, please do write to us.
Janet Davies
I will send that information, yes.
Chair
But we are very grateful indeed. Thank you very much. Examination of Witnesses