How the railways are policed and secured has, in miniature, many of the issues that affect the wider UK.
A recent review by the British Transport Police Authority (BTPA) covered the costs of the British Transport Police (BTP) and what it does for its money, which comes from train operating companies (TOCs). Among other things the review was looking at in its words ‘optimising the balance of resource between policing and security functions’. In other words, on the railways as generally the authorities are looking at more use of security contractors, and getting police to plan operations more with train operators.
While any tax-payer may grumble about what service they are getting (or not getting) from police, particular to rail is the ‘reservations’ – again to use the review’s word – of train operators over what money they have to pay for BTP policing through (to use a piece of rail jargon) Policing Service Agreements (PSAs). In other words, the user pays. Train companies are frustrated that the PSAs don’t say what you can expect from the railways’ police force. Since about 2010 the BTP has spent about £200m a year, which provisionally will rise to £223m for the year 2017-18. Understandably the train operators want value for their money. The review has agreed to ‘a zero-based review of the (BTP) force and its budget’ and wants the police to make what it calls ‘a more aggressive approach to driving out savings’. While that may mean opportunities for private contractors as elsewhere in the UK public sector and national infrastructure, as the review points out, security services are already deployed on the railway in a range of ways. The watchword is efficiency – if train companies or Network Rail the owner of the train tracks are spending money on security services, are they overlapping with the BTP? The review queries whether what train operators say they want to pay for is the same as what is best for policing and security in the public interest. And last but not least: what do passengers want?! Because as the review intriguingly puts it, ‘it cannot be assumed that passenger and industry interests will always be fully aligned’.
According to the review, personal security is not among the issues of highest concern to rail passengers; it falls some way below ticket cost, and trains being on time and clean. “The level of confidence expressed by passengers in recent surveys about their personal security when travelling by train has increased in recent years.” Why? Maybe better designed and lit stations, more CCTV, and more passengers, meaning that passengers are less likely to feel lonely and isolated, the review suggests.
This all matters also if you are a physical neighbour of the railways, or your work overlaps with trains. As in utilities the railways need safety, besides security. Take a suicide on the line; the responders must gather evidence, and remove the body; meanwhile the line may be shut and trains delayed – which itself brings penalties to the train operators, fines and unhappy passengers. The review wrestles with what works best to deal with what the review calls ‘non-suspicious fatalities’ on rail property, such as people killing themselves under trains, and causing ‘disruptions’. If you pay for more police officers, they can get to the scene sooner; or, does it pay off better if you run a publicity campaign urging people not to commit suicide – whether off bridges or car park roofs? In an echo of UK business generally, the review in polite terms tells the train operators that they don’t appreciate the work of policing and security (’the railway industry has not always been an easy client’).
To sum up, the review showed how securing the railways is a process that takes negotiating between the specialists doing security, and the rail specialists – who themselves have their own in-house negotiations over whether they are paid to make trains run to time, safely, or to make enough profit to keep the franchise. There is good news: the review quotes one train operator’s head of crime and security on how BTP and the TOC’s security team deploy in a co-ordinated way and BTP uses the TOC’s up to the minute intelligence. As that suggests, for it to happen elsewhere will depend on the BTP having a structure that matches the train operators’ routes. As the review says, it’s optimistic that more partnership work will come, but it’ll take compromise on both sides.
BTP does football policing at stations and nearby and on trains; as the review says, it makes sense for the BTP to keep policing football fans, especially as away fans cross force areas. As for how many police the railways or the UK in general need, to deal with the ‘traditional’ assaults and thefts, the review notes that ‘the popular perception that a close link exists between police numbers and crime rates has had to be revised as a result of falling crime figures in the wider community in a period when local force budgets have also been falling and numbers of police officers reducing’.
For the triennial review of the British Transport Police Authority (BTPA) visit – https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/364417/Triennial_Review_-_Part_2_final_report.pdf
Pictured: A Hastings-bound train at West St Leonards railway station, Sussex.
