Sir Hugh Orde speech at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
The Future of Policing.
Friday 10 September, 2010.
The subject I have been asked to address you on today is the future of policing. It is a timely opportunity: as I stand before you police Chiefs across the country are currently spending a significant proportion of their time considering this very issue, in the face of financial pressures that are unprecedented and fundamentally call into question received wisdom about what policing is and does in this country. Indeed, only yesterday I met no less than seven senior colleagues from various forces working in town on behalf of the service. Some were meeting the policing minister Nick Herbert to discuss a sensible way forward on performance, some working on our response to the Policing in the 21st century consultation and finally some attending a debrief involving senior detectives from across the country targeting the most dangerous criminals (whose crimes, without question, impact on local communities but whose activity can only be taken out by concerted and co-ordinated national and international activity).
It is in my judgment a direct consequence of our willingness to adapt and reform over the years to take on emerging threats, combined with our absolute commitment to the cornerstone of the British style of policing, and together with the quality and commitment of our officers and staff, that has led to some Indisputable facts:
*overall there were estimated 9.6m crimes as measured by the British Crime Survey in 2009/10. A fall of 9% compared with the previous year.
*there were 4.3m crimes recorded by the police in 2009/10, an 8% decrease compared with 2008/9.
*the BCS estimates that the risk of becoming a victim of crime in 2009/10 is the lowest since the BCS started in 1981.
*the independent BCS figures also state that 68% of communities are confident in police service delivery.
These facts tend to go ignored by the national media. For example, if anyone here bothered to read the Spectator, a recent article blithely diagnosed reluctance on the part of cops to ‘prowl the streets apprehending thugs’ because apparently constables don’t want to put themselves in a situation they regard as dangerous as the routine of modern policing. Now whilst I am sure that within the workforce of around 140,000 people the odd lazy individual exists, without question that is a grossly ill-informed analysis and an insult to the overwhelming majority of police officers who routinely place themselves in harm’s way every day on behalf of the public. Perhaps that assertion should be explained to the family and colleagues of Constable Bill Barker, killed in the execution of his duty protecting members of the public at Workington during devastating floods in November 2009.
Or those who knew Gary Toms, who died of injuries six days after attempting to arrest robbery suspect in East London, in April 2009.
Or, in my old world of Northern Ireland, the families, friends and colleagues left behind by Stevie Carroll, murdered on his way to answer a routine call for help from a vulnerable member of the community in March 2009. These are just the sorts of events that lead in my experience to officers driving towards, not away from danger.
In other words… The service is not broken. And recognising the clear fact that investment in policing has been substantial, although balanced by the ever-widening of the police mission, the public can be reassured that whatever the challenges we currently face, in particular in relation to the financial situation, we are entirely focused on protecting the front end of the service. In respect of the title of this address, policing does indeed have a future!
In speeches such as this, given by those charged with leading the police service, it’s become almost axiomatic to point out that policing ‘stands at a crossroads’. This is perhaps not surprising: the last serious attempt to stand back and consider the structures and delivery of policing in its entirety was the Royal Commission in 1962.
To understand the future it is worth looking back at the past. At the time of the Royal Commission, Dixon of Dock Green was in its heyday. The huge technological developments of the past half century, the explosion of 24/7 media, the global movement of people, money and goods we now take for granted today were all embryonic.
The challenge we face as senior police professionals is to explain - in a way which is not defensive - how the policing mission has grown over time in response to society’s changes, and the demands the service now faces in the future. Articulating this message is not easy!
For most people their perception of policing is shaped by the visible ‘bobby on the beat’ in high visibility yellow coat – which many lament they do not see enough of! TV has also played an influential role in forming people’s perceptions.
That is the appearance: the reality is the police are both a visible and an invisible presence. The visible parts are well understood or at least identifiable. In more recent times The Bill picked up where Dixon left off in depicting the notion of a civilian police service dealing with everyday crises. However, while subject to substantial oversight and accountability – more of which later - much of our world is secret, or at least behind closed doors. The police service is not like other public sector organisations in this respect.
What do we mean by the visible and invisible parts of policing? The two are interlinked. For most people feeling safe leads to a focus on local issues – is my house safe, will by children be safe walking to school or using the internet? The bobby on the beat is a cornerstone of British policing – Chief Officers are unswervingly committed to delivering a familiar and accessible local policing service to the public. The Met are trailblazers on this. To state the blindingly obvious: all crime – even cybercrime! – is committed in a real geographic location, wherever it may be. The uniformed officer on patrol in the community, whether providing intelligence, deterring or responding to crime, is a vital presence. But it is only a part of the policing equation.
Much so-called local crime is no less that the first or last step in an international crime organisation’s effort to make money. These groups are entrepreneurial in spirit. A high value car stolen by a local ‘creeper burglar’(security technology dictates that the keys must now be stolen) may already be pre-booked by way of a container into West Africa, and sold on to a local drug dealer, who pays in cocaine which makes the return journey. The burglar makes £200, the gang about £50,000 on the outward journey and 10 times that on the return. The victim claims on insurance and we all pay the increased premiums. When you look at the policing strategies for keeping people safe from this threat, they are a long way from a community policing patrol – but that patrol may also play a key role.
A second example brings out the cross-border nature of crime on this scale. A story which caught my eye over the summer was the conclusion of a police operation against 31 suspected facilitators of illegal immigration. One arrest was made in the UK, 13 in France, 5 in Germany and 12 in Hungary. In total, 66 immigrants from Vietnam were found during searches of 42 houses. The price paid for their journey from Vietnam was 40,000 Euros. This is big business and it demands organisation to deal with.
To take it from another perspective: that of an individual force not a million miles from here. In 1959, one Constabulary had 0 people working on scenes of crime, taking fingerprints or photography. In 2009 that number is 84. In 1959, it had 42 people in its CID. In 2009 it has 490, plus 131 in specialist crime units, 24 engaged in the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System and 29 on surveillance duties. In 1959 it had no one involved in domestic abuse, child abuse or sex offences. These were not reported at the time and, if they were, would have been ignored. In 2009 it had 153 people. To suggest we are unreformed or disconnected from public concerns against this backdrop is simply ridiculous.
As a service, I do think we have struggled to communicate the way in which the evolving changes to threat, risk and harm over the last 50 years have affected the way in which we work to keep the public safe. Whilst it is absolutely right to ask questions around deployment and challenge what police officers are doing, we have been driven over the years to ever increasing specialisations to deal with specific parts of the policing spectrum; hate crime units, domestic violence units, rape units, serious crime units, computer crime units, paedophile units, neighbourhood units, response all make absolute sense at one level as they professionalise our response, but at the cost of those available to front line patrol with the challenges of that particular shift.
However, people generally tend to focus only on the local.
Prioritisation of police availability to the public will require us, and those who hold us to account, to challenge existing orthodoxies: reform shift patterns, seek greater employment flexibility and continue to drive out inefficiencies. Part of that debate will include the difficult territory of pay and conditions: a debate that must recognise the unique employment conditions of sworn officers - such as officers’ inability to strike - balanced against the new fiscal reality.
On a slightly different note, looking at issues that often span a number of police force areas, Sir Denis O’Connor, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary and one of the longest serving police officers in the country, has recently explained that the police service is divided roughly 50/50 between those dedicated to visible available policing and those delivering specialist services. These are all equally compelling; counter-terrorism, public order, major crime, international organised crime, civil contingencies, critical incidents, London 2012 and so on. Of the 50% dedicated to available visible policing, delivering a 24/7 service understandably requires a shift system. Against that backdrop it is less surprising to consider the stark figures plucked out of the air by politicians - on a Friday night around 11% of the service is actually visible to deal with the challenges of that particular shift. It has to be balanced, and the figure is hardly surprising when considering the wider context.
Without question, policing has largely done what was asked of it during a period of substantial growth. Overall crime is down and public confidence in the police has increased. This is not to say that the Police Service has been in any way self-congratulatory or complacent – crime is always too high, a point that featured in the recent argument between the Home Secretary and Shadow Home Secretary in Parliament. The challenge we now face is to maintain the standard in the new world.
And it is a very different different place.
The question for the future is; how do we re-design for a period of austerity? Some of that re-design, which is already under way is being driven by politics and the impact of the new coalition government. All of it must be considered in the context of less money. So what will policing look like in future?
The first point I want to make on this concerns accountability, which will be different, as I’m sure you’ve read in Policing in the 21st Century.
Sir Robert Peel and the architects of British policing deliberately created a doctrine of constabulary independence, designing the police as a public service but characterised as autonomous servants of the law; we answer to the law and the law alone, insulated from central and local government control. Accountability is critical to policing – if a police service anywhere is to retain its privileged position as an operationally independent service, with the right to take the liberty of a fellow citizen away, then it must be subject to robust and effective challenge.
How that challenge is delivered can take different forms. In my old world of Northern Ireland, Lord Patten saw this as a vital part of the confidence agenda and his report created a bespoke structure reflecting the communities and their political representatives. The Northern Ireland Policing Board, which consists of 10 directly elected individuals to Stormont have who been appointed under d’Hondt principles to the Policing Board, (so not directly elected as per the 21st Century document, but high quality, high profile politicians balanced by nine independent members), held me to account in a highly visible and robust way. I missed only two of the 65 meetings held during my time in office, and only then with the permission of Policing Board. They had an absolute right to expect Chiefs to attend the live, televised debate. The debates were always challenging, but the ability to have such debates in an open and transparent arena could only be beneficial to policing – one of the key aspects of success in NI, which could be applied here.
As senior police officers, we had to hold our nerve and do the right thing operationally and professionally whilst ensuring all stakeholders—elected and non-elected, statutory or voluntary, national or international —were given the opportunity to inform, advise and shape decisions in a real and meaningful way.
It is of course absolutely right that others, not the police, should decide how we should be held to account. We consider operational independence to be the lynchpin of a professionally led, accountable and essentially British model of policing. The coalition government has given an emphatic statement of its commitment to operational independence - Chapter 2, paragraph 13 I think of Policing in the 21st Century states in stark terms that this not going to be meddled with - alongside a determination to introduce elected individuals in place of police authorities.
But we have an absolute right to understand how it works.
We have been working to respond to the government’s request for professional advice in this area and are grateful for the opportunity to offer that perspective. The need for clarity now boils down to some hard questions: how does a locally elected individual, who will replace the 17 to 19 individuals who make up the current Authorities, deliver oversight for the breadth of modern policing work I have described – a substantial proportion of which takes place beyond the local. These individuals will have a mandate for policing that spans many constituency boundaries. In my county 16 MPs represent the communities, in Devon and Cornwall for example, it is 18. One person will need some support to properly represent the diverse communities we are responsible for – we do not police for the majority but the totality, and indeed often the most vulnerable come from minority communities. We will ask for some clarity on the structure and how it operates.
What happens where an election promise, by a DEI or Policing & Crime Commissioner as they’re now called, places an individual at odds with a Chief Constable’s professional judgment about how to keep the public safe… a Chief Constable who also has a partly national agenda as well as a local one? How will the policing and crime panels, intended to act as a check on the Policing and Crime Commissioners, operate without duplicating existing police authorities or adding fresh cost? We will continue to work closely with government to assist in resolving the issues.
The wider issue of accountability is, in the longer term, equally fundamental to the future of policing. Freedom of information has already hit the service – driving openness and transparency in a hugely positive way but also imposing a growing and startling administrative burden.
Now real time, social and 24/7 media is changing our world. It’s already apparent in the weekly diet of policing news: the last 7 days alone gave us the appalling CCTV pictures of a Wiltshire sergeant now sentenced to 6 months in jail for assault on a 59-year old woman in custody, broadcast across the world. Meanwhile the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police made the news through his regular blog, which itself observed the way in which the manhunt for Raoul Moat was broadcast on live television. It saps the energy of Chief Officers to run the 24 hour news agenda whilst running hugely complex and highly dangerous operations to catch dangerous people who in essence are serial killers or potential serial killers. In his words, officers in charge now often spend more than half their time dealing with the media.
There are many positive examples of the way in which policing is embracing the opportunities created by new media, using real time social media to reassure communities during live operations, or to engage with and listen to the policing priorities of local people. But the impact of citizen journalism and instant scrutiny means that policing, along with other organisations both public and private, face a future which demands that it adapts to no longer being able to control the timing or flow of information and accountability.
Beyond the media, the modern Chief Officer is answerable to a huge range of bodies, from the prime minister or home secretary down to local level, taking in HMIC, IPCC, Audit Commission and a host of other bodies on the way. Some of this introduces a cost and bureaucracy that the government recognises is no longer sustainable. A ‘de-cluttering’ of the national landscape is underway and most welcome.
This leads to my second point. If policing is to meet the challenge of the future it must do so unencumbered by some of the baggage we loaded on to it in better times. Gold plating policing was never desirable: now it is no longer affordable.
Politicians of all parties are now speaking a common language about the need to jettison the bureaucracy. At the sharp end, we need to understand that those words translate into brave choices. Where we moved Northern Ireland on (sadly, nothing around what I did, but to do with the frontline) was where an officer, sergeant or street constable took a risk and decided to do something different. To walk down a street no one had walked down in 10, 15, or 20 years, to drive down a street they’d only flown over for many years, to go into a house or building and engage with somebody who historically wouldn’t engage with us: this is what inexorably led to me standing between two interesting people with quite different backgrounds. That’s where policing has moved on. Empowerment of the front line is critical to success in the new world, this is very much what we are working towards – less bureaucracy, more freedom to succeed and a recognition that sometimes we’ll get things wrong. Doctrine, guidance and national standards are a response to the sheer breadth of demand on policing I have earlier described – an attempt to assure quality of service for the public.
Some came from within the service itself and from ACPO, but nearly all policing guidance has been driven where a constituency of interest arose: either in response to government demand, or a report from HMIC, or a campaigning minority, or a particular critical incident. Invariably it has been well-intentioned, which is why the process of challenge and decommissioning ACPO is now going through in relation to our own guidance for the police service is not straightforward.
Guidance can never describe every eventuality and over time it became self-defeating. Policing is partly science, mostly art. You cannot over-codify it.
The future must hold a return to first principles: the ancient office of constable is founded on professional judgment. But that does mean that when mistakes are made or tragedy occurs, we need the confidence to understand that learning and improvement take place within the service, not reach for a new manual. Chief Constables need to support their officers when mistakes are made for the right reasons, and when appropriate stand firm in rejecting third party intervention in our world where we simply cannot afford to sustain it.
My last point comes back to what the police service now delivers. Simple economics tells us that the future must hold a slimmer and streamlined police service. 80 per cent of the policing budget is people: it is an indisputable fact that there will be fewer of them in future. So when we consider both the invisible and visible parts of policing, we will need honest conversations with politicians and the public about what services policing continues to deliver, and what stops. No one has yet been able to tell me what should.
There are hard choices to be made not just at force level but at the centre, where the National Policing Improvement Agency delivers critical services – Airwave, the police national computer, the DNA database to name but three - which may not naturally sit within the remit of a crime-focussed National Crime Agency. Much of what the NPIA delivers is vital to policing and however it is badged, must be funded and housed somewhere.
ACPO itself must change, and we see the potential to build a more keenly-focused professional body as a hugely welcome opportunity. One of the first things I did as President was attend Keith Vaz’s Home Affairs Select Committee and put on record my unease at ACPO’s apparently unaccountable, limited company status, which was taken to give the ability to hire staff and rent premises as a legal entity. We are now working towards a more keenly focussed, professional body. The future as I see it is acting as the professional voice of policing, a body that develops the profession from cradle to grave – something all members should aspire to be part of. Pre-requisites for the ACPO of the future should be a clear governance framework and a legal position which makes more sense to the public than the limited company status we are saddled with presently.
Across policing we cannot underestimate the scale of these challenges. In my professional view there is an inevitability that the process being driven by financial realities at national and local level will lead to continued re-examination of the optimum structure through which policing is delivered. It is hard to reorganise when you can’t reorganise. Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire provides clear evidence that we will have to work very hard at collaboration in the absence of an optimal solution.
Chief Officers acknowledge the lack of political enthusiasm from any party for supporting mergers or re-opening this debate. I understand that entirely: and having heard government’s view on the matter, our role is get on with the job of keeping people safe. But it is also our obligation to point out where, in our professional judgement, change could better protect the public.
Many forces will struggle to remain fully resilient and efficient in balancing the fight against serious and organised crime, while upholding their capacity to deliver neighbourhood policing locally. It is possible that some forces may become unviable and we will need to plan for that.
The future is more complexity, not less. The threat from international terrorism continues to loom large and will continue to put communities at risk and place immense pressure on policing. Organised crime will continue to adapt and take advantage of changing society. The need for policing to deliver safe and confident neighbourhoods and engage effectively with the public will remain. The complexity of future problems will require more effective collaboration and partnerships at local, national and international level and new collaborations with the citizens and the private sector.
The positive news is that I am convinced the future is in good hands. The depth of talent coming up within the service is truly impressive, and where previous efforts have struggled, I am optimistic that the new generation will put its minds to the task of articulating and explaining the entirety of the business of policing with success.
The British policing model must adapt to keep pace with the challenges of the future. But neither must we lose sight of the fundamentals which have made it so admired across the world.
ENDS