By Clare Fraser | 7 March 2014
Cuts of 20% to police funding were among the deepest austerity measures and the election of PCCs was highly controversial. So why are the reforms hailed as a success?
The thin blue line has been stretched taut by some of the deepest cuts in public spending ordered by the government. The 2010 Spending Review announced an overall 8.3% reduction in public spending over five years, but Home Office funding to the police service was to be cut by 20%. Meanwhile, the police have found their role expanding.
Overall crime may be down by 58% since 1995, according to the Crime Survey of England and Wales, but officers have taken on extra duties including those of guardian, counsellor and mediator. Pressure on the health service meant that in 2011/12, more than 9,000 people were taken into police custody due to mental health concerns. New forms of criminal activity, such as growing instances of cybercrime, will continue to challenge police forces and change the type of work they are required to do.
Four years into the austerity drive, the police and criminal justice system has been one the success stories of effective reform. The centrepiece has been the government’s creation of 41 elected police and crime commissioners across England and Wales (excluding London). They were designed to bring local accountability to policing, claiming a democratic mandate to change criminal justice services to reduce crime.
The landscape of criminal justice is changing too. Scrapping of central target setting, more flexibility of police employment and a more independent Inspectorate of Constabulary has given chief constables and PCCs greater power to organise services. The newly established College of Policing promotes an evidence-based approach to policing. The Home Office sets high expectations on the commissioners to drive reform. Guidance from the Home Office identified PCCs as a potential ‘catalyst for partnership work to cut crime, encouraging joint planning, commissioning and prioritisation’.
Many PCCs have risen to the challenge and succeeded in truly delivering more for less. Across the country there are excellent examples of PCCs improving service design. Radical innovation was required, and a move away from existing procedural frameworks. Removal of ring-fencing around budgets has enabled PCCs to work flexibly across priority areas and collaboratively with local partners. There is evidence that forces are becoming more collaborative, more local, more responsive and more innovative.
In West Mercia and Warwickshire, PCCs Bill Longmore and Ron Ball have achieved savings through overseeing a strategic alliance between their forces. Although chief constables are retained locally, all junior posts are shared between the two forces. This has reduced the overall proportion of managerial roles and increased the operational proportion of the workforce. Resources are deployed more flexibly and intelligence sharing between the forces has improved the response to local needs. Cost has been driven out through rationalisation of the custody estate such as a shared operations centre, firearms licensing unit and forensics service.
In Dorset, Martyn Underhill has opened a victims’ bureau through which the public can feed back to the police information about their experience of dealing with the service, as well as questioning the commissioner directly. This year, the bureau will be expanded to encompass all criminal justice agencies, ensuring that victims are supported throughout the process. By meeting the victims’ needs for information and support, it will also free up more frontline police time.
Tony Lloyd, PCC for Greater Manchester, has embedded policing in the community. He has piloted a scheme whereby call handlers and radio operators are based in neighbourhood offices, enhancing their knowledge of the part of the community callers come from. Detectives are based within neighbourhood policing teams, enhancing the ability of local officers to tackle all levels of crime.
The PCC for Kent, Ann Barnes, has released funds for a predictive policing computer system that feeds intelligence from reported crime and patterns of criminal behaviour to patrolling officers. This allows police to focus resources on crime hotspots and reduces the need for a greater number of bodies on the ground. Targets only reduce the use of police initiative, and this is a valuable resource that must be protected if we want the police officers who are on the street to really add value in the criminal justice system.
Since PCCs took office, spending has been slashed, yet crime has fallen and HMIC surveys show higher levels of victim satisfaction. In a speech to the Reform annual dinner last year, Home Secretary Theresa May said: ‘When we said we would cut central government police budgets by 20% in real terms over four years, the critics – not just the Labour Party, but ACPO, the Police Federation and many academics – were united. Frontline policing would be decimated and crime would go up. But in fact, the opposite happened – crime is down by more than 10% since the election.’
Despite these positive reports, PCCs continue to face resistance from some quarters. The report of the Independent Police Commission, chaired by Lord Stevens for Labour, recommended that PCCs be abolished in their current form and returned to the rhetoric of bobbies on the beat, enforced partnership and mandated response times.
A key proposal is a local policing commitment that would centrally mandate how many officers patrol neighbourhoods, how quickly police respond to calls and how frequently they make contact with crime victims. This would make it more difficult for police chiefs to focus manpower on crime hotspots and redeploy resources from one area to another based on local need. This top-down way of working was tested to destruction by the previous government, now replaced across our public services by a recognition of the need to focus on outcomes not inputs.
Another of Lord Stevens’ recommendations is the use of legislation to mandate joint working between the police and other agencies. This ignores the fact that the increased freedom of PCCs has created more collaboration than ever before between police, probation, health services and other local agencies. Legislating for collaboration is a blunt response, and would do more to stifle than encourage true partnership.
New figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that the majority of government spending cuts are yet to come and, with additional spending commitments of more than £6bn a year after 2015/16 already pledged, additional cuts will have to be made. In 2013, Reform showed that as a result of the planned spending cuts, the UK state would effectively shrink by 10% over the next five years.
PCCs must continue to do and deliver more, but the easy gains may already have been made. Last year, HMIC found that the majority of forces are making less than 10% of savings through collaboration with local partners, other forces or the private sector. There needs to be a frank and open debate about the role and remit of the police in an era of scarce resource. The pressure on the police is rising and it will have to work in an increasingly collaborative way with other blue light services to tackle community problems more holistically. PCCs may have been in post for more than a year, but the hard work has only just begun.
Clare Fraser is a researcher at think-tank Reform
This feature was first published in the March edition of Public Finance magazine
