constabulary

Investigating Officers

Submitted by JMB on Sun 17/May/2009

Back in the fifties, the British Police got a bit fed up with dealing with motor cars, so the post of Traffic Warden was created to do the tedious business of wandering about giving tickets and keeping traffic moving. The Traffic Wardens – there are still some about – have Yellow-banded caps, and are not to be confused with local authority employed Civil Enforcement Officers who wear red-banded caps. The latter were introduced when the Police decided that even running Traffic Wardens was a major pain in the behind, and de facto lobbied for decriminalisation of many parking offences by virtue of not enforcing the law.

HatSpotter

A few years ago, the Police also realised that much of the grunt work of walking about the place being visible, issuing criminal penalties and talking to the public was also a major pain in the behind. Furthermore, the government of the day (prop. A. Blair) noticed that Police Constables were actually quite expensive, what with all the training and the final-salary pension.

So via the Police Reform Act 2002, Britons were introduced to Police Community Support Officers. Now I’ve met quite a few PCSOs – in my professional capacity, not theirs – and they are a great bunch. Enthusiastic, willing to get stuck in, and frankly if it weren’t for the money issues they’d probably all be Probationary Constables. (Although there is one member of the team I’ve seen patrolling Cotham Brow in a XXXXL stab vest who could perhaps use a bit of nutritional advice). You’ll recognise them by their blue-banded caps.

PCSOs are less expensive than Police Constables, but oddly that hasn’t resulted in a reduction in Police budgets. In Bristol, it is actually that Local Authority that pays for a good chunk of the PCSOs deployed in the city. The trend throughout this narrative is that you, the taxpayer, tend to get a reduced quality of service, but end up paying more for it. This is not intended as a slight to PCSOs, but given that they have few police powers beyond issuing fixed penalty notices (although see below for nuances) it is a brutal truth that they are not performing anything close to the same role as a constable on beat patrol. Some might say “ah, but they are not intended to replace beat patrols by constables”, to which I reply “yes, pull the other one, it has bells on”.

I’m running for elected office, but in the short-term, there’s not much I can do about my perceptions of the relative expense of policing in Bristol. If there was a Conservative administration here by the end of June 4th (and assuming I was in it), I’d be agitating for the break-up of the Avon & Somerset Constabulary, and the creation of a City of Bristol service force under the command of a Chief Constable appointed by an elected City Mayor. But that’s a big aspiration. So, one wonders whether there are smaller interventions we could have a go at that might make life better for Bristolians.

Here’s my thought:

The City Council’s contribution to policing is around £4 million pounds (over and above what the Constabulary spends). The last time it was mentioned in a Council budget, around £1.2 million of that was the budget to pay for 43 PCSOs.

That money is largely a waste. There is just no evidence that PCSOs do a great deal to deter crime or improve the safety of our streets, particularly since they cannot stop, search or arrest perpetrators. Your average criminal is no genius, but neither is he completely thick; he can recognise the difference between a sworn officer with police powers and a civilian. Even the chairman of sort-of-a-Union, the Police Federation, was quoted as saying:

[PCSOs] were performing a passive role, being essentially a public relations move to reassure the public and had never been intended, he said, to take an active role in the fight against crime.

But there is another type of police civilian position that was created in the Police Reform Act 2002, called Investigating Officers. To understand the difference between a Community Support Officer and a Civilian Investigating Officer, let’s run through their powers:

Powers of a Police Community Support Officer:

    1. Power to issue fixed penalty notices
    2. Power to detain (for 30 minutes)
    3. Power to require name and address of person acting in an anti social manner
    4. Power to use reasonable force to detain person
    5. (Seizure) Alcohol consumption in designated public places
    6. Confiscation of alcohol (Young Persons)
    7. Confiscation of tobacco etc. (Young Persons)
    8. Entry to save life or limb or prevent serious damage to property
    9. Seizure of vehicles used to cause alarm etc.
    10. Removal of Abandoned vehicles
    11. Power to stop vehicle for testing
    12. Power to control traffic for purposes of escorting a load of exceptional dimensions
    13. Carrying out of road checks
    14. Maintain a Cordoned area
    15. Power to stop and search vehicles etc. in authorised areas

(This list may surprise you. Is is generally assumed that PCSOs cannot use reasonable force or detain people. In fact, the law provides for these powers, but not all Chief Constables give the relevant training and policy guidance to their staff. And ultimately if a PCSO wishes to detain you, and you scarper within the 30 minute detention period, then the outcome will be at most a £1000 fine).

Powers of a (Civilian) Investigating Officer:

    1. Search warrants
    2. Access to excluded and special procedure material
    3. Entry and search after arrest
    4. General power of seizure
    5. Access and copying in the case of things seized by constables
    6. Arrest at a police station for another offence
    7. Power to transfer persons into custody of investigating officers,
    8. Power to require arrested person to account for certain matters
    9. Extended powers of seizure

These powers are still not full police powers, but they do cover a reasonable amount of the territory required to investigate crimes that have occurred. If we were paying for staff to do this sort of role, we would then free up some Constables to perform street patrols.

Now admittedly, I can’t find any indication that any police force has ever appointed a Civilian Investigating Officer. I suspect it might prove rather unpopular with the ladies and gentlemen of the Criminal Investigation Department who have earned their plain-clothes status by virtue of a few years as a uniformed officer. And no doubt the competition would not got down well with uniformed officers who aspire to plainclothes status.

Well, sorry guys, but tough. I’ve been burgled twice in the last few years, and I want a better quality of service. And that means proper deterrent patrols on the streets, and investigation of crimes committed in a timely fashion.

So that’s my suggestion – ditch the Community Support Officers, replace them on street patrols with sworn officers who have police powers, and recruit some specialists to do investigative work. And that’ll keep things ticking over until we can carve out a City of Bristol police force and get it under local control.

Scrap the Avon & Somerset Constabulary

Submitted by JMB on Fri 04/Jan/2008

The Conservative Party stands for three core ideals:

  1. A Smaller Government
  2. Lower Taxation
  3. Personal Responsibility

Well, that's the theory anyway. Like it or not, British politics is oriented toward London, and all career politicians have an implicit bias toward centralisation and control. For example, The National Curriculum (micro management of individual lessons) and Rate Capping (micro management of local government finance) were both instituted by the Thatcher government - not a group typically remembered as being wishy-washy socialists.

I'm not aware of any London administration that has significantly reduced the centralisation of society, but there are some interesting policies being generated by the current Most Loyal Opposition that might get us closer to that goal. I quite like David Cameron - I only think half of what he and his team say is questionable*, whereas practically everything coming out of the current government is a a load of tosh.

As a country we need a "bonfire of controls". Politicians and Governments are often falsely credited with creating economic success, when in fact the best outcome to which they can aspire is to not muck things up too much. We really need our elected representatives to stop fiddling with society - no matter how good their intentions - and let private enterprise and individual entrepreneurs work the magic to make us all healthier, wealthier and wiser.

One potential line of policy which I want to develop relates to the structure of the police service here in Bristol. From 1974 through to 1996, our city was administratively part of the now-defunct County of Avon. Although Avon is no more, it still lives on in various local services that are still organised and funded regionally. For example the Avon Fire & Rescue Service and the Avon & Somerset Constabulary (formerly 'AvSom.police.uk).

The two governing bodies for these services are the Avon Fire Authority - about whom I have recently blogged - and the Avon & Somerset Police Authority. Both of these organisations are constructed from democratically elected councillors, which gives a suggestion of accountability. But the authority of the Authorities is somewhat diffuse.

Consider the Avon & Somerset Police Authority. As a local voter in a ward in Bristol, you will - every four years - be offered the chance to elect two representatives, for a total of 70 councillors in the City. 2 of those councillors will be appointed to the 16-strong membership of the Police Authority. Therefore as a voter and tax payer, your proxy-representation on the council is almost nothing - let's call it half a percentage point of the constitution of the Authority.

six district map

 

The core business of the Police Authority is "to set objectives, approve the local Policing Plan and set an annual budget for the force." But how? The enormous breadth of the Constabulary's operations means that at best the members can give a nudge in the desired direction, and maybe tweak the strategy in response to another Criminal Justice Bill (3,000 new crimes and rising) or Whitehall dictat.

The official mission of the constabulary is:

“Make the communities of Avon and Somerset feel safe and be safe.”


which does implicitly acknowledge the difference between "being safe" and "feeling safe". And their vision?

"The communities of Avon and Somerset will have the highest levels of confidence in our delivery of policing services.”

Have a look at this, and tell me if you feel you are getting your money's worth from the Police:

What about if we analyse the Police like any other moribund service organisation? Then the answer is clear: Break it up into smaller parts, so that each is responsive to its customers.

The structure of British Policing supports a decentralised approach - constabularies are organised as Districts, also known as Basic Command Units (BCUs) coterminous with Local Authority boundaries. (Interestingly Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabularies chops and changes a bit in the way they refer to Bristol's structure, and has separate BCU reports for North Bristol, South Bristol and Central Bristol).

"Bristol" is one of the largest BCUs in England & Wales, with (at last report) 944 (Full Time Equivalent) Police Officers and 176 (Full Time Equivalent) Civilian Staff, operating in smaller teams.

In the Neighbourhood

Chopping out the bit of the constabulary covering Bristol would mean taking the BCU staff, and grafting on the appropriate number of plainclothes detectives, boffins, dog handlers and other support services.

Would this be Easy? Nope: Council Tax funding only accounts for 30% of the budget of the current Constabulary, the rest coming from a mix of Business Rates (locally collected, centrally disbursed) and other Whitehall Taxes. There are such things as "Non-Home Office Forces" - for example MOD Plod - but they don't have access to the same funding lines. On the other hand, a new "Bristol City Constabulary" under the same regime of central control could be just as unresponsive to local concerns, delivering the same identikit mix of CCTV and debased coppers. In the absence of some major reform of the UK tax system, or clever negotiations with Whitehall, fully funding a City Constabulary on the same basis as today would cost a Band D taxpayer about £500 a year, on top of the bill from the local council and fire service.

If it can be made economically viable, this idea would not be a panacea for our city's problems, but I believe it would lead to the Police becoming more responsive to ordinary Bristolians and in the long term a better quality of life for Bristolians. It's not the only area for consideration, though. The prosecutorial function of the Crown Prosecution Service may also need review. And our front line police officers are constantly chasing paper, due to legislation that assumes they are fundamentally untrustworthy (another legacy of the Thatcher Government, I'm afraid).

But let's sort out one problem at a time.

 

*To forestall the "So why are you standing for the Conservatives then?" comments, may I suggest you Google "Ideological Purity".

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