Case Studies

MPs: ‘Policing urgently needs more money’

by Mark Rowe

Many ‘volume’ crimes, including robbery, theft from the person, and vehicle-related theft, are now increasing at an alarmingly steep rate, after a long period of decline. Recorded crimes have risen but the number of arrests, charges and summons are down. If these trends continue, the police risks a serious decrease in public safety and in confidence in the police and the wider justice system, according to a committee of MPs. They point to falling staff numbers, outdated technology, capabilities, structures, fragmentation and a failure of Home Office leadership.

Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Labour MP and former Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, said: “Police officers across the country are performing a remarkable public service in increasingly difficult circumstances, but forces are badly overstretched. Crime is up, charges and arrests are down, and the police service is struggling to respond effectively to emerging and growing challenges, such as online fraud and online child abuse.

“Policing urgently needs more money. The Government must make sure policing is a priority in the Budget and Spending Review, or public safety and communities will pay the price. The Home Office has shown an irresponsible failure of leadership in the face of changing patterns of crime. Ministers and Home Office officials must not continue to stand back, as the police cannot do this alone. When the new challenges to public safety require major police technology upgrades, new action with the internet companies or new partnerships with the NHS, then it is the Home Office who should be pulling that together.”

As for new online crimes, tackling them cannot be done by the police alone. The private sector needs to contribute to funding online law enforcement, and regulation of the internet companies should include new requirements on tackling online child sexual abuse, the committee says. In too many places, the police are the only emergency service for those in mental health crisis, and they are being used completely inappropriately as a gateway to healthcare, the report says. As for training, such as in forensics, the MPs complained that ‘under-qualified and inexperienced officers are being forced to take on responsibilities for which they are inadequately prepared’.

The MPs called on the Home Office to launch a transparent review of policing; and for the College of Policing to undertake a review of barriers to innovation and reform. MPs held a private roundtable event under ‘Chatham House’ rules, to hear officers from a range of ranks and lengths of service, besides people from the Police Federation, the PSAEW, the Police ICT Company and Police Now. Policing witnesses were almost united in lamenting a risk-averse ‘culture of blame’, according to the report. Bright, tenacious young people were leaving policing, in part due to enormous hierarchies above them and delays to decision-making, the MPs heard.

Witnesses included senior police such as Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick; Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs); academics Gloria Laycock, Tim Newburn and Andromachi Tseloni; and Katy Worobec, Managing Director, Economic Crime, at the trade association UK Finance.

As for online fraud, the MPs said that despite efforts to improve its response to victims of fraud, the reporting line Action Fraud ‘has irretrievably lost the confidence of the public, and reasonable expectations from victims are not being met. It is sensible to have a centralised reporting facility for fraud, but this must not simply become a way to divert and fob off victims of crime.’ As for the City of London Police suggesting to the committee that public expectations of Action Fraud are unrealistic, the MPs said that called for Action Fraud to be a proper system to investigate crimes and respond to victims, ‘or it will become irrelevant’.

The proportion of fraud cases being investigated is ‘shockingly low’, the report said, and MPs complained of ‘lack of transparency in the way that fraud statistics are published’. They suggested that it’s ‘highly unlikely that more than one in 200 victims ever sees their perpetrator convicted’. That made it unsurprising that so few victims reported such crime, the report added. It called for ‘drastic improvements’. The committee welcomed the Joint Fraud Taskforce, ‘but it has little to show for two and a half years of work’. MPs noted that its first annual report, promised for summer 2018, has not yet appeared.

Police witnesses to the committee told it that the private sector could do more on fraud; for example, a central register of bank accounts would speed up investigations. More companies need to be “secure by design”, MPs were told. The report took up the idea that banks might be ‘named and shamed’ for shortcomings in security. “Consumers have the right to choose their banking provider based on the full knowledge of the risks they may be taking with their finances. Greater transparency may provide the commercial impetus required to ensure that industry does more to tackle this problem at source, and reduce demand on an overstretched police service.”

Comments

At the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) its chair, Chief Constable Sara Thornton, who was among the witnesses to the committee this summer, said the threats and challenges faced required a response across the whole system and cannot be developed by institutions acting alone. She said: “We want to see more involvement and leadership from ministers and officials in the development of strategy and transformation in partnership with chief constables and police and crime commissioners. The Home Office alone cannot determine which capabilities should be delivered nationally or regionally, nor should they be left with the responsibility of joining up police technology. However, there is a need for the Home Office to lead in developing the broad framework, showing leadership when change is stalling, and ensuring that funding is sufficient overall and targeted where there is greatest need.”

For the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) its chair, Mark Burns-Williamson, West Yorkshire PCC, said: “Our police officers and staff do a fantastic job keeping our communities safe, often going above and beyond, so we need to ensure that the service is funded appropriately going forward. PCCs are working closely with chief constables and partners locally, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Home Office nationally to review our demand and resources in preparing a comprehensive submission in the run up to the next Government spending review.”

And at the Police Federation of England and Wales, PFEW Vice-Chair and Welfare Lead Ché Donald said: “As the report recognises, and our own welfare work identifies, an absolute key priority is to improve partnership working with other public services and agencies by pooling resources and setting out clear roles, responsibilities and where possible, relevant protocols.

“We have always said that a police cell is not the appropriate place to detain someone suffering from a mental health crisis. But NHS cuts and shortfalls in other areas like social services and the national shortage of mental health beds mean that in too many areas the police are being used as the sole emergency service.

“This cannot be allowed to continue and chiefs must prioritise mental health training for their staff and officers as well as taking steps to safeguard and assess the mental health and welfare of their own employees.”

Picture by Mark Rowe; statue of Sir Robert Peel, Edgbaston, Birmingham

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