I sometimes wonder why institutions that exist solely because this country is a democracy should be so united against the principle of electoral accountability on occasions.

It is as though elections are generally a good idea, but if they are to be used to extend accountability to areas previously regarded as the private domain of people already in charge of them, then this must be wrong.

No more has this been manifested than in the context of electing Police and Crime Commissioners.  The latest salvo came, according to last Sunday’s Observer, from the judiciary.  “Judges warn of ‘disastrous’ reforms to the justice system” the headline said.

The report goes on to describe an “astonishing attack, approved by the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales”, which includes “grave concerns” about allowing Police and Crime Commissioners to become responsible for victim support services.

The premise of their argument appears to be that Commissioners will choose what services are offered.  Mr Justice Calvert-Smith is quoted as saying  ”The proposal that the service provided to victims and witnesses… be left to individual police and crime commissioners elected on political platforms is potentially disastrous.”

There is a complete lack of logic to this argument.  The fact that a Commissioner must deliver a high standard of victim and witness care or face losing the next election is completely ignored.

Yet the reality is that courts are the last place that should be criticising greater accountability for victim support.  There is much they can do to get their own house in order before doing so.

Far too frequently judges permit victims to be the subject of bullying styles of cross-examination, rather than intervene.  Victims and prosecution witnesses are still exposed to the trauma of having to wait outside the courtroom, facing the unremitting attention of friends and family of the defendant.

When it comes to sentencing, judges appear to accept anything said on behalf of the defendant at face value.  The lawyer’s fig leaf “my instructions are” covers the most outrageous nonsense by way of mitigation, so a burglar who obviously hasn’t worked a day in his life is mysteriously starting a job (better still, an Apprenticeship) next Monday, has – against all the medical odds – shed his heroin habit and decided he will turn his life around.

The result is that instead of seeing the burglar sent to prison, which would be the best thing the victims might hope for, they instead realise he will be out with his mates by the time the pubs open.

It is absolutely right that Police and Crime Commissioners will be responsible for victim support – in fact it is the “and crime” part of the job that makes it so different and so much better as a form of governance than the limited remit of Police Authorities – and not least because the vast majority of victims do not get anywhere near a court.

In my local force, only one in eight Burglaries are detected.  That this is a woefully inadequate performance goes without saying, but it is clear that for every offence where an offender is identified, seven other victims exist and all need an effective service from the moment the crime is reported.

The report will come to the police and from that moment, the interest of the Commissioner should start.  There is no better way of supporting a victim than to detect the crime - clearly within the “effectiveness” remit of the Commissioner.

Yet there is far more.  Many studies show that understanding the circumstances of the victim heightens the probability of detection.  They are reinforced by the demographic data that consistently demonstrates certain socio-economic groups are more likely to be crime victims.

In many crimes of violence, the perpetrator has a relationship with the victim.  One of the most important lessons for a Homicide investigator is the adage “people are killed by people they know”.

On top of this are the opportunities to create lasting relationships with victims of crime, their families and neighbours.  Far too many corners are cut when dealing with investigations of crimes that are “routine” for the attending officers, yet anything but for the victims.

In addition, the victim of a burglary is far more likely to become a “repeat” victim within a few weeks, especially as the burglar is unlikely to have been caught or will have told his associates where new items will be available when the insurance pays out.

As any business person knows, the way in which you deal with people presents the opportunity for them to ask you for other services in the future, to recommend you to others or to seek your advice.

High quality initial contact and attendance at crime scenes enhances all these opportunities – which can be converted into more effective Neighbourhood Watch participation, greater take up of Crime Prevention advice – even recruitment into the Special Constabulary.

As a Superintendent, I arranged for every dwelling burglary have as a standard action an officer calling at the ten closest addresses, so that all in the neighbourhood knew what had happened, which stopped “series” of burglaries occurring in the same street as the residents took that little bit of extra care about home security.

The Chief Constable of the day, Sir David Phillips, went a stage further – so concerned was he about the quality of crime scene attendance, he had a building converted into a “burgled house” so every uniformed officer was trained in how to effectively deal with that crime.

As a minimum, the aim should be the person is prepared to call the police the next time something happens – a worrying fact is that many people don’t.

If they are responsible for victim support, Commissioners will also be able to follow the process through – to examine it at every stage, to match the level of service with the individual requirements of the victims, to seek their feedback – and they should be prepared to make it very clear where people are being let down.

One of these points will no doubt be where the police have identified the offender and the file of evidence is passed to the Crown Prosecution Service.  This is where victims are frequently forgotten as cautions are decided upon rather than prosecutions, or lesser charges are brought to avoid “not guilty” pleas.

By far the most frequent will be the “discontinuance” of proceedings and Commissioners will no doubt be alert to the commentary these present on the quality of evidence gathering demonstrated by their police force – and hopefully asking some pointed questions about all these things when the indications are that those concerned could do better.

I disagree with the view taken by the judiciary about the involvement of elected Police and Crime Commissioners in victim support.  I absolutely believe that one of the great benefits of reform is that one person will now have end-to-end responsibility for ensuring the care victims and witnesses get is significantly improved.

I want the local Commissioner to speak out when Police, Crown Prosecution Service or Court officials are letting victims down – which may be the reason that judges are expressing their concern – they know the courts need to improve.

And I am delighted that whoever the Commissioner is, he or she will be accountable at the ballot box to all the people in this area for making sure these improvements happen.

This article was published in Conservative Home on 20 August 2012

Fresh from attending the Olympics, or watching them on television, prospective Police & Crime Commissioner candidates will have two impressions – one about the absolute shambles G4S made of providing security staff and the other concerning the tremendous job done by the military personnel and Police Officers to keep them safe.

That the operation was scaled up massively at short notice and the people concerned had travelled far from home at great personal and family inconvenience was never apparent and as Theresa May and Nick Herbert have both said, Britain demonstrated just how good our military and police services can be.

No doubt the guillotine blade is being sharpened at G4S to deal with the immense reputational damage done to that company, but there are wider implications for policing – especially as many of the “big players” in the field have similar reputational challenges to handle, Reliance (prisoner handling), KBR (Guantanamo Bay), this is a sector that carries presentational difficulties no matter what the benefits may be.

Before the news about G4S, a number of forces were considering significant “outsourcing” arrangements.  Whilst the West Midlands and Surrey were at the forefront, many more had appended their organisation to the tender document, so they could take advantage of the arrangements later if needs be.

Labour had already labelled this as “privatisation of the police” and obviously bad (conveniently forgetting similar arrangements had developed whilst they were in Government) and it will be a key campaign issue in the forthcoming elections.  However, having read the tender document I wrote about my reservations at the wide nature of the proposals, because if all that was included were done by someone else, what would the Police actually have left to do?

Ministers have moved properly and swiftly to say there is no question of patrol being outsourced away from the police, whilst reaffirming the need to think imaginatively and radically to maintain front line services.

Yet there is no doubt that private sector efficiencies can and should be utilised as part of the cost savings Police & Crime Commissioners will have to achieve to maintain and improve the service as we drive through police reform.

This isn’t a mantra about “public bad, private good” but acknowledging, as Ministers have, the great strengths the operational side of the police can demonstrate, whilst seeking to make the essential support elements more efficient and deliver better value for money.

I believe the approach should be that where something is being done in the Police that does not need the training, skills and powers of a Police Officer to do it, the first question needs to be “Why are you doing it in the first place?”

For example, “Health & Safety” and “Diversity” advisers abound in the police and have not been cut because Chief Constables are too risk averse to do so.  Yet Health & Safety is a core management activity, knowledge of which should be a selection criterion before people are promoted, rather than a “dark art”, understood only by the chosen few.

“Diversity” problems are best avoided by setting standards and giving clear leadership, backed up by discipline, rather than sending everyone on “Traveller Awareness” seminars once a year.

Get people who are being paid high salaries to manage, to do just that – and recognise that as Commissioner, the job is to deliver the message to the public as to why these changes are happening.

It’s time to move away from the situation where Police Authorities make budgetary decisions that impact on services, but are strangely absent when it comes to interviews about it on local radio, leaving this for the Chief to take the flak.

If the work is required, the second consideration is “What is the most effective and efficient way of doing it?” Which presents the opportunity to consider whether the additional flexibility brought by having police officers undertaking a task, or the way in which the post holder thinks about the context of the activities being undertaken may have a beneficial effect.

Quite often it’s a good idea for somebody who actually understands the patrol environment to be working in a Headquarters post where their operational knowledge may give a bit of common sense to a policy – especially if that individual can be told at a moment’s notice by the Chief Constable to get his riot kitbag and jump in a van to go and help another force out.

This is especially relevant where salaries for support staff are frequently not much less or even the same as a uniformed Constable – and the reforms developed by Tom Winsor will reduce the differential even more – and it’s not me as an ex-cop wanting to protect the retention of police officers, in my business I much prefer to have employees who can fulfil more than one business need – it saves money.

The final issue is “How can the best value for money be achieved?” Which enables delivery of a support service using whoever can provide the quality required in the most cost-effective manner – which may be by sharing with another force or local council,  or even the Fire, Ambulance or Hospitals in the area, as well as using the private sector.

Commissioners should consider simplifying the procurement process to enable small local businesses to compete for these opportunities, which will circulate money the force has to spend on support services within the local economy, thereby promoting growth and employment opportunities.

My experience in business has led me to believe that effective relationships with small providers of services generally work to the benefit of overall achievement and that they are far more flexible than larger organisations.

Similarly, having been frustrated by it for many years as a police officer I know the unwieldy manner in which Public Sector procurement operates limits the scope for small and medium sized businesses to bid for work, whilst at the same time costing a fortune in terms of bureaucracy.

Whilst it is entirely proper for taxpayers money to be spent with financially resilient, stable suppliers, the way in which this is translated into requirements in bid documents excludes many for no reason at all.

Why should a small business need to get “Investors In People” accreditation just so they can paint the windows at a Police Station?  Not only will local decorators be able to undertake the work – they will be proud to say they support their local police in this way.

Additionally, although large spends have to go through processes that involve competitive tender, greater value may be may be obtained by properly and legitimately devising frameworks that enable a preselected group of local suppliers to undertake schemes of work without attracting allegations of disaggregation, whereby an overall contract value above the tender thresholds is given to one provider by the back door.

The Public Sector also pays inflated prices to those businesses they deal with – and that’s before somebody changes the contract specification.  Then watch the price go up – it’s not that long ago our force’s Chief Constable ended up with the embarrassment of a new shower facility costing £27,000 because the project was allowed to creep.

Above all  grind out the efficiencies by making management do what it is paid to do.

On average, about 40 members of the (about 1000) support staff in my local force are off sick every day, at an annual cost to the taxpayer north of £1m.  It is clear there is a level of tolerance for sickness in the Public Sector that is not apparent in Private Sector organisations.

I have to confess this was a lesson I learned early on when I made the change from public to private sector.  I was rather proud of my approach to sickness management as a senior policeman, only to have my hubris exposed when fellow Directors told me not to worry about the issue and then showed me why.  The problem simply did not exist.

Contrast this with a conversation I had not that long ago speaking to a senior staff member at a Public Sector college, who bemoaned the level of sickness she was having to deal with but would not change her approach because she would have “grievance procedures” to deal with if they got tough about managing absence.

It goes without saying that not only will productivity improve if staff are present all the days they are paid for, but you will probably find that less people are required and long term savings can accrue.

The same applies to support staff numbers and their job roles, the local force (about 1400 police officers strong) has more than eighty people in “HR”, fifty-odd in “IT” and nineteen in a “Futures Directorate”.  These levels of over staffing can and should be got rid of.

None of this is glamorous and it’s certainly not easy, but if it’s glamour or an easy life someone’s looking for, being a Police & Crime Commissioner may not be the best career choice.  However, it may be that before they put all their faith in “big” outsourcing, they may generate the savings they need and get better support services as a result by adopting a simpler approach.

This article was published in Conservative Home on 21 July 2012

I have liked and respected Lord Ian Blair since I shared a classroom with him on the Police Senior Command Course almost twenty years ago.  It was clear even then that he was destined for the very top of the service.  However, I simply do not agree with his views on the Police Reform Programme.

Writing in the New Statesman recently, Lord Blair declared “Police independence is under threat” and gave four reasons for his views.  I truly believe each to be wrong.

Firstly, he says that “a series of connected decisions” reinforce the view “the main job of the Police is to catch criminals”, which he goes on to criticise.

Leaving aside the obvious – that this seems to be an intrinsic part of the public’s, let alone a Conservative perception of what the Police should be doing – it ignores the consistent message from both Theresa May and Nick Herbert that the primary responsibility of the Police is to reduce crime, which is not just a semantic difference, but a fundamental and strategic shift of thinking, with a much wider impact than merely arresting people.

This change is embodied in many ways – the most obvious being the cross-departmental responsibilities that Nick Herbert deals with as Minister for not only Policing, but Justice as well.  No previous Government has had the imagination to have a single Minister dealing with the end-to-end process of Criminal Justice in this manner.

Building upon this, the Government is introducing Police and Crime Commissioners, with far wider responsibilities than the Police Authorities they will replace.  It is clear that Lord Blair (and many other people) have not grasped the real opportunities these wider responsibilities will bring – to scrutinise at a local level the whole of the Criminal Justice Process; to fund Crime Reduction Partnership activity, thereby focussing on the wider causes of crime and anti social behaviour; to really connect different strands of activity, drive efficiency and eliminate waste.

Far too many people who should know better talk of “Police Commissioners” – and I regret to say, the culprits include many Ministers – who forget the crucial words “and Crime” in the title.  It is the “and Crime” that makes the difference – that gives Commissioners the opportunity to drive the greatest and most effective reform of our approach to reducing crime and anti social behaviour that we have seen in decades.

Secondly, he criticises the budgetary restraint that is being imposed upon the Police, saying it will “probably force the Police to retreat into an outdated method of working” where Neighbourhood Policing will suffer, because all the Police will be withdrawn from these activities.  There is no evidence this is occurring.  Additionally, removing the multiplicity of targets created for every strand of Police activity the last Government created is saving Officer time and getting them out of the Police Stations where people want to see them.

Lord Blair is not alone in this mantra about “savage cuts”.  Yvette Cooper and all her Parliamentary colleagues continually bemoan the fiscal position Police Forces are in and the issue is shaping up to be a key element of the forthcoming elections.  It really is about time everybody realised the fairies do not bring money in the night and every possible efficiency saving has to be generated for the next decade if we are to sort out the financial mess Labour left the country in.

The third attack is about the Association of Chief Police Officers, which Lord Blair considers is being distanced from policy development, whilst at the same time criticising the demise of the National Police Improvement Agency, which he describes as “trying to do what it said on the tin”.

With regard to the ACPO, the facts speak for themselves – Theresa May and Nick Herbert use them as a resource all the time.

Of the National Police Improvement Agency, one has to say that others hold a different view from Lord Blair – one which highlights the massive spending and lack of outcomes associated with the Agency.  One has only to refer to the debacle over deployment of mobile data terminals to Police Officers, which saw some forces left woefully short of these devices whilst others had more terminals than Officers.  However, the creation of a Police Officer led Border Force, the Police Professional Body and the National Crime Agency demonstrates the Government’s determination to ensure national standards of professionalism and expertise remain and are developed far more effectively in the future.

Finally, Lord Blair reserves his deepest opprobrium for Police and Crime Commissioners and what he forsees as an inevitable consequence – the loss of operational independence by Chief Constables.

Citing everyone from Robert Peel to Sherlock Holmes, referring to academics from the sociological criminologist Egon Bittner to Kelling and Wilson (of “broken windows” fame in policing circles) he declares as “particularly ironic that Peel’s own party is involved in driving the partial destruction of his greatest legacy”.

I have never been attracted to the argument the sky is going to fall in if a particular policy is pursued, budget reduced, or decision made.  However, there is one element of Lord Blair’s argument with which I totally agree.

We lose operational independence in policing at our peril.  That a Chief Constable (or indeed any person holding the Office of Constable) can act without fear or favour in executing the duties of the office is a fundamental difference between our police and most other law enforcement bodies in the world.

I do not believe the transition from Police Authorities to elected Commissioners presents the risk Lord Blair identifies.

Firstly – although most people don’t know this, the vast majority of Police Authority members hold their position at the whim of party group leaders on councils.  They have every reason for toeing the party line, for fear of being removed from what is a fairly lucrative appointment.  This is local political patronage of the worst sort and the direct relationship between future Commissioners and their electorate is certainly to be preferred.

Secondly, Theresa May has – for the first time in the history of policing in this country – created a series of protocols which define key elements within the relationships involved.  Never before has such clarity been given to the relationship between Chiefs and the people to whom they are accountable.

Not only have the protocols been developed  – with the agreement of the Association of Chief Police Officers, no less, somewhat undermining Lord Blair’s argument about them being marginalised – they have the force of law, having been created by Statutory Instrument.

Much has been made of the power Police and Crime Commissioners will have to “hire and fire” Chief Constables.  Lord Blair describes this as placing them in a position where they will not stand up to their Commissioners.  I think we need to get away from the macho descriptions being used and I don’t agree that Chiefs will be as malleable as Lord Blair says.

The simple fact is an effective Commissioner will need the support of the Chief Constable to really make radical change happen and to grind out efficiencies in the Police and elsewhere on a day to day basis.  Behaving in a dictatorial fashion will not achieve that objective.  If constant reference is being made to “The Protocol” – both of them have failed.

The concept of “Operational Independence” is fairly simple when analysed and the relationship between that and the Commissioner’s statutory responsibilities about effectiveness, efficiency and value for money should be the first agreement the two parties reach.

A Commissioner who cannot live with a Chief Constable needs to understand not only will their Police and Crime Panel have to ratify the decision, but also their local media will commence every story about them with the details of the event for the remainder of their term in office.

It follows that for Lord Blair to say that Police independence is under threat is not only wrong, but each of the arguments are flawed.

Actually, it really is, as Bernard Hogan-Howe, Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said recently, “time to shut up and move on” when it comes to Police and Crime Commissioners.  However, in doing that, we also need to get a real sense of clarity about why our approach is right, to get it understood by the wider Conservative movement and to generate the same sense of understanding amongst the electorate.