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Sir Norman Bettison blasts think-tankers

 

He is certainly not everyone's cup of tea, but you have to take your hat off to Sir Norman Bettison for his response this week to another think-tank report. Asked by the ACPO press office to respond to publication of a document by the IPPR, Sir Norman delivered a withering verdict.

“This IPPR report is more superficial than most and has a few good ideas, none of them novel," the West Yorkshire chief observed. Just reading that sentence, one can almost hear the weary sigh.

There was some slightly more conciliatory stuff before he concluded: “Think tank reports will come and go but the Service continues with its strategy to try to get closer to the public that we serve and address their day-to-day concerns."

Chris Grayling enters the fray on reform and elected commissioners

Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary, has stepped up to the plate and entered the debate on the future of policing.

He's told the APA conference that a Conservative government would dramatically reduce Home Office interference with police forces, go ahead with elected local commissioners and abolish the Metropolitan Police Authority.

He said: "We are not driven by dogma, we are driven by a desire to make things work, to trust our police officers and give them the freedom and discretion to get on with the job. And to end the era of overweaning interference from the centre."

In London, he would strengthen the hand of the Mayor in dealing with Scotland Yard: "I can see little benefit in making the Metropolitan Police work with both the Mayor’s office and a separate police authority."

Mergers, which are favoured by most police chiefs, were not mentioned. We understand that Mr Grayling had a private meeting recently with Sir Hugh Orde in the wake of the Acpo president's warnings that elected commissioners were "die in a ditch" territory for the cops. The meeting was said to have been "constructive, but heated".

You should be able to view the speech on the Conservative Party website.

Those Peelian principles in full

Much talk of Sir Robert Peel's nine principles of policing this week as Denis O'Connor joins Sir Hugh Orde and others on the reform path.

Here is the version set out by New Westminster Police Service in Canada on its website. Shouldn't this appear on every UK force website too?

1. The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.

2. The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions.

3. Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.

4. The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.

5. Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.

6. Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient.

7. Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

8. Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.

9. The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.

G20 report exposes fundamental flaws in UK policing

Deep in the footnotes on page 100 of the HMIC report on Public Order Policing, is a description of how forces buy their riot gear. It speaks volumes for the disjointed, disorganised state of British policing.

It states: "There are currently two separate processes for the purchase of body armour, with 21 forces supporting one process and 13 forces supporting the other. Ten forces have not opted to join either process."

The NPIA (God bless 'em) are trying to sort it out.

A not dissimilar state of affairs exists in public order training - 18 forces train with intermediate and round shields, two forces have long and round shields and one force uses all three types of riot shield. (Doesn't say which one unfortunately).

Sounds like a strong argument for fewer forces, a joined up approach and few basic economies of scale?

Comment of the moment (1)

From Arni Highfield responding to our post on Opposition to Sir Hugh Orde on Police Reform

"The re-organisation of the police should be limited to removing the political interference. For example, (true story) the public complains about violent street crime. Home Secretary calls in Chief Constables and tells them to do something or face being replaced by somebody who can. "Lovely" says the public. So one CC goes back to his force, takes almost everybody off traffic, anti-burglary, etc etc, and puts them on Friday and Sat night patrols to stop street violence. Of course this is all out of proportion, and traffic accidents, burglaries, thefts go through the roof, but this CC is in the clear with the Home Secretary. Several senior officers had adverse comments written in their records when they protested, damaging their future promotion prospects, that will be filled, of course, by 'Yes men' as they have been for decades now, to the detriment of professionalism. Now we see the results, where Political correctness, ambition and passing the buck are endemic. This is why the UK police have lost so much ground, and are nowhere near as good as many overseas forces. Its tragic, and the poor officers at the bottom have to face most of the trouble that results."

Soho 1983: Cressida Dick recalls her second arrest as a WPC

Most coppers remember their first arrest, but Cressida Dick - the highest ranking woman in the Met's history - prefers to recall her second collar.

As she patrolled Soho alone around 1am one night in 1983 she spotted two men smashing open a payphone to steal the coins inside. WPC Dick, who cuts a fairly diminutive figure, radioed for assistance then slammed the door of the phone box shut and leaned against it as heavily as she could. A member of the public came to her aid and both men were detained.

It was, she recalls, a "very satisfying" moment - especially for a new recruit who was discovering that some of her new colleagues moaned more about fast-track graduates than they did about women in uniform.

Police chiefs drive policy ideas - where are the politicians??

Last week it was Sir Hugh Orde proposing policy in The Times and this week it's Chris Sims. But why do we have a situation where it is police chiefs and not the Home Secretary or the prospective Home Secretary driving the debate?

There's an election looming, a public spending crisis that is going to hit the police service (and everyone else in the public sector) and a recession that is likely to drive up crime. Later this week HMIC will publish its report on the British policing model in the wake of G20. But where is the debate on the future of policing and the criminal justice system? So far we've heard little from Alan Johnson, apart from a plan to advertise Jacqui Smith's Policing Pledge (doesn't that sound like a furniture polish?). And Chris Grayling (who incidentally is the author of a little-known history of the Bridgewater Canal) has given us a bit of a blunder over The Wire and a conference speech about cheap alcohol and anti-social behaviour. Are there no policies, is there no vision for the future?

Click here for a Specials song that could provide the soundtrack for the current political debate on policing. 

Opposition to Sir Hugh Orde on call for police reform

Sir Hugh Orde sparked a debate this week when he called in an interview in The Times for a review of the structure of policing and a radical programme of force mergers.

Dave McLuckie, chairman of Cleveland police authority, is leading the fightback on behalf of small forces against the idea of "superforces".

“There is no evidence to support the view that big is always beautiful when it comes to policing," says Mr McLuckie. "Cleveland is one of the smaller forces yet we consistently are amongst the best performing in reducing crime, we have one of the highest confidence levels in the country and we have pioneered modernisation and the use of new technology to maximise resources going into both local policing and key protective services such as anti-terrorism and organised crime.”

These are just the opening salvoes; this one could run...

Thierry Henry: when does cheating become a crime?

After the Bloodgate scandal in rugby, you would have thought that cheating in sport could not really get much worse. But Thierry Henry's exploits in handing World Cup qualification to France have trumped that and more.

Surely it's time that law enforcement somewhere in the world began to take an active interest in this. The excuse for not acting over Bloodgate was that the rugby authorities had imposed internal sanctions. But if neither FIFA nor UEFA are prepared to act over the Hand of Henry, should there not be some sort of criminal inquiry. Was this not fraud? Did M Henry not gain a pecuniary advantage (qualification for the world's richest football tournament) by an act of deception? Were not people defrauded? Clearly the gambling industry thinks so - many bookmakers are repaying punters who bet on Ireland. And the net is awash (above) with attacks on the French captain.

Being Irish, I declare a vested interest. But there is a serious issue about the growing extent of corruption/cheating (call it what you will) in the multi-million pound business of modern sport.

Online banker? Not me, says e-crime chief

Here's a vote of no confidence in internet security and the safety of online banking.

Detective Superintendent Charlie McMurdie, head of Scotland Yard's cybercrime unit, has a national role in forming police policy in relation to e-crime and takes on major investigations wherever they originate in the country.

But does she do her personal banking online?

"Er, I thought you might ask that... No."