Cambridgeshire County Council are considering getting more involved in scrutising the work of Cambridgeshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Graham Bright and Chief Constable Simon Parr.
Councillors on the police scrutiny committee, which they call the Safer and Stronger Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee are to discuss their future work programme at their meeting on the 3rd of September 2013.
A proposal before the meeting suggests calling in the Police and Crime Commissioner and Chief Constable for a grilling by councillors in public every three months.
The scrutiny committee is chaired by UKIP Councillor Paul Bullen.
I have asked to use the public speaking slot at the meeting to make some suggestions, I wrote:
I would like to use the public speaking opportunity at the Safer and Stronger Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee on the 3rd of September 2013 to make some suggestions on the committee’s work programme.
I would like to draw the committee’s attention to the way Cambridgeshire’s Police and Crime Panel is scrutinising decisions made by Cambridgeshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner. The panel is allowing the commissioner to decide which of his decisions he puts before them for scrutiny[1]. This approach allows the commissioner to evade scrutiny by the panel. There are many decisions which the commissioner has made which he has not volunteered for scrutiny including for example:
- Decisions which the commissioner claims have led to the improvement of non-emergency call handling performance.
- Decisions relating to the staffing levels in the Commissioner’s office.
- The decision to hold the Commissioner’s key decision making committees, particularly the Business Coordination Board[2] in secret and private; only publishing meeting papers well after the meetings took place.
- Decisions on which transactions to include in the Commissioner’s published spending data
- Decisions on pro-active publication of information; including police performance statistics and Force Executive Board papers.
Perhaps the Safer and Stronger Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee could itself seek to fill the gap left by the Police and Crime Panel’s approach and scrutinise those important decisions the commissioner is not highlighting to the panel? I suggest calling the chair of the Police and Crime Panel to appear before the committee.
The Safer and Stronger Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee could also look at how the Police and Crime Panel is operating and encourage them to adopt a more comprehensive approach?
I can see the Safer and Stronger Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee already has non-emergency call handling on its work programme. When the committee comes to investigate this I would like to see details of any decision taken by the commissioner revealed (the commissioner has repeatedly stated he took action to resolve the problems). The committee has in the past[3] asked the police to provide details on call waiting times where their targets are not met; what is required is data showing the full distribution of call wait times both for the call being initially answered and for any “second wait”. I would like to see such data from both before and after any intervention by the commissioner.
In September 2012 Cllr McGuire, who represents the County Council on the Police and Crime Panel and serves as its chair told the Safer and Stronger Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee the Police and Crime Panel could scrutinise the Police and Crime Commissioner’s staffing levels and come to a view on if they had overstaffed their office[4]. Perhaps the scrutiny committee could call him back to ask why the panel has not yet embarked on this?
I am concerned by many of the public statements by the Police and Crime Commissioner which appear inconsistent with information published by other sources. I am concerned by the commissioner’s claims the costs of his office will be less than the costs of the Police Authority; questions need to be asked about what he is considering as the costs of the Police Authority. Is it reasonable to include members’ allowances and expenses, or to cite a budgeted cost even now information on actual spending is available?[5] On another subject the way the commissioner has described the “ECINs” data sharing website has been dramatically at odds with information provided to Cambridge’s Community Safety Partnership, the commissioner has stated the only information shared is if an individual has come into contact with an organisation, whereas the CSP papers suggest sharing of more details.[6]
In relation to the Commisioner’s new “ALERT” / eCops service the commissioner has suggested to the police and crime panel it will provide comprehensive information on at least burglaries, car crime and anti-social behaviour; he also told them it was developed by the Home Office when justifying his approach [7] (something the Home Office deny[8]). Perhaps the Safer and Stronger Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee could seek to challenge the commissioner on the accuracy of some of his public statements and urge the Police and Crime Panel to do this more too?
Details of the council’s “Public speaking at Overview and Scrutiny Committees” are currently unavailable as the relvent link on the council’s How you can play your part webpage linked from the agenda is broken.
12 responses to “Councillors to Step Up Police Scrutiny”
The Peterborough Telegraph is carrying a video of the Commissioner saying he dealt with the 101 problem within three days of coming in to office:
http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/local/cambridgeshire-police-commissioner-congratulates-101-call-centre-staff-1-5442132?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed
Commissioner Bright says the advantage of being one man rather than a 17 member committee (like the Police Authority) was that he could make an instant decision.
Why have details of this decision, we now know was made in November 2012, not yet appeared on his public list of decisions (it is only those decisions on that list which he has presented to the Police and Crime Panel for scrutiny; the panel have not yet reviewed his actions in relation to the non-emergency number).
Commissioner Bright says the longest wait is “probably 33-34 seconds”; however neither the force or the commissioner have published the data behind such a claim.
Notably images from the contact centre in the video don’t show maps. I’ve been astonished to be told when I’ve called the non-emergency number that the operators don’t have maps, and so find it hard to understand where problems are when they are described to them.
I attended the meeting as planned. I filmed my contribution and the questioning which followed:
Transcript:
Dates for the Diary
The dates the Police and Crime Commissioner and Chief Constable are expected to be summoned to appear before councillors to answer questions and have their performance scrutinised are:
Anyone can request to make a contribution in person to these meetings; ideally submitting their comment or question in advance (if not it’s up to the chair to decide if to allow a contribution).
When the Police and Crime Commissioner does meet the scrutiny committee for the first time I’d like to see him ask for their help; seek their assistance with for example monitoring the performance of call answering as they are already doing, and in looking into how local priority setting is working around the county, as is also on their work programme.
The commissioner could ask councillors on the scrutiny committee and/or police and crime panel to help him with sampling of police complaints this would give the councillors involved oversight of policing a greater insight into what is happening; they could also themselves review, and raise any concerns with, the police performance statistics.
Cllr Paul Bullen, the chairman of the Safer and Stronger Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee, spoke to me outside the Police and Crime Panel meeting on the 6th of November 2013.
Cllr Bullen told me his committee was getting “no co-operation” from the Police and Crime Commissioner. I asked if the commissioner would turn up to the committee and Cllr Bullen told me “he won’t turn up to the committee”.
I think this is astonishing.
The commissioner is refusing to allow councillors to scrutinise him on the detail of his work. There’s a big difference between taking a couple of questions and answering them briefly at a full council meeting and engaging properly with a scrutiny committee – providing the information they request – and appearing in front of them to answer questions on it.
I’ve asked the council for a copy of the Commissioner’s response to his invitation to attend the committee:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/police_and_crime_commissioner_an
Hi Richard – it doesn’t surprise me – the PCC’s view will be that it is the job of the Panel to hold him to account and that the committee has no legal power to do so. He is not a community safety partner under the Act and so a council committee has no formal legal power to get him to attend.
I do know however that in other areas – West Midlands, I think – the PCC has been willing to talk to council scrutiny committees.
Cllr Bullen has written to me:
I am very impressed that Cllr Bullen has taken the time to write to me with an update.
I’m utterly unimpressed at the Police and Crime Commissioner’s decision not to allow councillors to robustly hold him to account, in detail, for his performance.
I have been sent a document which will become a report to the 19 December Safer and Stronger Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee. It contains further justification of the Police and Crime Commissioner’s decision. The commissioner has told the committee:
No one ever suggested the commissioner was statutorily required to attend the meeting, however councillors on the committee have been working on a number of areas which he is responsible for and it would be very useful if he would co-operate with them.
While recognising that I don’t necessarily want to provide a running commentary, and also that councils and commissioners will be making decisions subject to legal advice to which I obviously defer, I’d say the following:
a) Scrutiny committees can invite whoever they wish to attend their meetings;
b) Unless there is a statutory obligation for a person to attend those meetings, a person can refuse and there’s not much anyone can do about it;
c) The guidance – which was a co-production between CfPS and the LGA, although these comments are my own personal opinion – does not say that local O&S does not have a statutory role in scrutinising the PCC. It says that CSP scrutiny committees and PCPs will need to liaise about how the task of scrutiny, from top to bottom, of policing strategy and operation is carried out. CSP scrutiny committees’ roles are essentially tactical in nature, and they can and do look at policing – it is common for district and borough commanders to attend scrutiny meetings around the country to give updates on operational matters and to answer questions.
I can see why the council committee might wish to see the PCC – he will be making decisions that have a direct impact on the CSP and as such he is a relevant person to invite. However, I can also understand why he has chosen not to attend and he is legally within his rights not to do so. The formal legal role of scrutiny of the PCC sits with the PCP alone, although naturally CSP scrutiny committees will have an interest in that role and should feed into it, subject to agreement. Again, discussions between the PCP and the county CSP scrutiny cttee as to shared and duplicated responsibility might provide a means for those concerned to iron out who goes where, who speaks to whom and, fundamentally, who is holding who to account over what.
But as I’ve said, everyone here is operating within their legal rights – in my non-qualified opinion, and it goes without saying that none of the foregoing should be construed as giving a definitive picture on the law or giving legal advice.
The Police and Crime Panel has just had a change in membership. One of the East Cambs reps, leader James Palmer, has been replaced by Tom Hunt, a back bench councillor who was very active in Sir Graham’s election campaign.
Commissioner Bright was challenged on his refusal to attend the scrutiny committee at the Home Affairs Select Committee on the 26th of November 2013:
I”ve had a response to my FOI request for the responses from the Chief Constable and Police and Crime Commissioner to their invitations to the committee.
In relation to the December meeting the police have said:
This is far from a promise that the Chief Constable will attend; and notably there is no commitment to supply relevant information in advance of the meeting, or even at it.
It appears the Commissioner is unwilling to attend despite the committee chair only asking him in the first instance to “discuss how the Committee can most usefully exercise its role”.
Neither Police and Crime Commissioner Graham Bright or any representative of the police attended the meeting of the committee on the 19th of December 2013; this was despite some of the commissioner’s favourite topics appearing on the agenda – parish councils and speeding.
The committee resolved to submit a motion to the full council on the subject of the lack of accountability of the Police and Crime Commissioner; calling the current situation “disgraceful”.
Cllr Bullen said the Police and Crime Commissioner is to all intents and purposes totally autonomous and answerable to nobody unless he breaks the law himself.
Cllr Bullen suggested the council, or cabinet, could lobby central government and request a more robust system of accountability.