Official Report 619KB pdf
Under agenda item 3, four panels of witnesses will give oral evidence on the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Bill. As the witnesses will be aware, our scrutiny is focused on how the bill will affect local government. As the lead committee, the Justice Committee will consider the wider issues of how the new police and fire service will operate. I therefore ask committee members and witnesses to restrict comments and questions as much as possible to areas within this committee’s remit.
Thank you for inviting us along today.
Your suggestion is for 15 members with eight local authority representatives. How might those eight be selected?
I believe that the submission says that we would look to COSLA to put forward names of elected members. That would give a broader spread across the country, as it were. The elected people on such boards represent the board, not their own authority. By the same token, they are at least cognisant of what goes on in the world beyond their own little patch, which makes quite a difference.
The Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers sets out its position on this matter in paragraphs 4 and 5 of its submission to the consultation, which we have resubmitted for the committee’s interest. Like COSLA, we question whether the non-departmental public body route is the correct approach and, in our submission, we suggest that a truly national and local partnership be created. Councillor Grant mentioned a shared service, and we think that it should be shared between the national and local levels. As our submission explains a lot of the rationale behind that suggestion, I will not waste the committee’s time going back into it. I simply flag up the point that the particular route set out in part 1 of schedule 1, where the body’s status is described, brings with it a whole lot of other consequences.
On the point about policing having been a local government matter for quite some time, I have to wonder whether it can be said that since reorganisation in 1995 policing has been truly part of the local government family. As Councillor Grant rightly pointed out, folks who are appointed to boards do not represent their local authorities. Moreover, if we take Fife and Dumfries and Galloway out of the equation, the only power that local authorities have with regard to police boards relates to finance and my understanding is that no local authority has ever refused to pay the requisition. Will the witnesses comment on that?
That is perfectly true. As someone who sits on the Strathclyde joint police board, I am not aware that the precept has ever been refused. Of course, where people do not adhere to the precept, the board has the ability to requisition money from the local authority, but I am not aware of that ever happening.
At the moment, apart from Fife Council and Dumfries and Galloway Council, no individual local authority has any real say anyway. Do you agree that the link between local authorities and policing was broken with reorganisation in 1995-96?
A local authority always has the authority to go directly to the chief constable or any of his subordinates and say what they want or what they feel. Local authorities have never been barred from doing that. As a member of a local authority, I can lift the phone and speak to Steve House at any time—I do not have to be a member of the police board. A local member can phone up and speak to anybody in the police at any time to make their presence felt, make their views known and have discussions. There has never been any problem that I am aware of.
And that will not change—elected members will still be able to approach local commanders.
Well, we do not know that. The difficulty is that there is a big hole at the moment and we have not been able to get a handle on that.
My questions are about community planning and engagement, which is probably the issue that I have been asked about most by members of the public. What are the bill’s implications for community policing and fire and rescue services and the community planning partnerships? To what extent do the proposals threaten continued community engagement? How will local police and fire commanders engage meaningfully with the public under the new structure?
You are asking questions to which we do not yet have answers, as we do not have the detail to be able to respond positively. Community planning is a big focus for local authorities and we are concerned that the outcome from the community planning partners should be a positive one—that is what we want to focus on. Of course, community planning partners are not just the police and fire services; health and all sorts of other areas are involved, and it has all got to knit together. That is one of the strong things that we want to major on and, hopefully, expand and make better.
How could that be improved with a single police force?
We are led to believe that there will be a commander at a local level, but we do not know whether that commander will be for one authority or several authorities. An agreement will, supposedly, be reached between the local commander and whatever authority, but, if they do not agree on anything, is there a way to have an adjudication on that? We do not know as yet. We want to ensure that the local commander is on side with what the local authorities want to do and the outcomes that they are looking for.
That is an important question that needs to be teased out. We raise some concerns about it in the SOLACE written submission. There is a danger that the somewhat simplistic division of national and local policing obscures the issue. Local policing is not the same as community planning in the locality as it operates at the moment. In the two unitary authority areas—Fife and Dumfries and Galloway—and the smaller of the other police areas, engagement with community planning takes place at a much more senior level within the force. Notwithstanding how the organisational structure of the new force develops, the idea that the local area commander will be the be-all and end-all of the police’s engagement with community planning is fraught with risk and danger, as we try to highlight in our submission.
Good afternoon. I want to follow that up at a local level. In Fife, we have a pretty good relationship between Fife Council and the police, especially at local level. We have wards, area committees and so on, and as a councillor I regularly meet constables, sergeants, inspectors and chief inspectors. It works well, especially with the community engagement model that we now use successfully.
One of the difficulties is that there is a huge gap in the information about how such aspects of the bill will work. From what we have seen of it, it is not at all helpful on how we will engage. We are okay with what will happen at the very lowest level and, perhaps, with the person at the very top, but we do not have enough information about that huge gap in the middle. Unfortunately, what we have is all far too sketchy to be able to give you a definitive answer, which is what I would like to do. We are not in a position to do so at the moment, because we do not have enough information about how it will all knit together.
Is COSLA in discussions with the Scottish Government about some of that detail? Is there any on-going dialogue?
We have been in discussion with the Scottish Government for a considerable period, but I cannot say that it has taken on board much of what has been said. It sent out two consultation documents last year and there was quite a good response. Neither of those consultations showed that people were in favour of a single force, but that is what we have and what we have to deal with. I hope that we will be able to do as best we can and that we get the outcomes that we all want, but unfortunately we do not have enough information at the moment to be able to say anything definitively.
As I have said, in Fife we have a pretty good relationship with all ranks in the matrix structure, from that of chief constable downwards, and I am sure that the same is true in Dumfries and Galloway. A look at those relationships might be worth while.
Absolutely—I am all in favour of starting at the bottom and working our way up—but the business of how we get from the ground floor to the top is the bit that we need filled in. I am sure that others who are working on the subject will come forward with that information ere long, because there is a tight timescale to work to.
The question of how to knit together the national and local bits, particularly in relation to community planning, is at the heart of this. Section 47 of the bill vests the duty to participate in community planning in the local area commander—full stop. From our point of view, the whole force structure needs to have a duty to participate—it cannot just be left at the local area commander level, because some community planning issues are handled above that level, as I said. That issue will need to be looked at as the bill proceeds. The whole authority, or at least the chief constable and the service, must have a duty to participate, whatever is said about the local area commander.
Will local authorities have sufficient influence over local policing and local fire and rescue plans, including budget setting and resource allocation?
We will have no influence at all over budget setting—moneys will be handed down, as it were. Once a chief constable and his subordinates are in place, it will be up to them to decide how much money goes where. I hope that, when the money is devolved, it will fit in with whatever the agreed plan is, but we have no way of knowing that at this point. If the budget does not fit with the money, I am not sure where we will go.
You have answered my question—thank you.
We touch on the issue in our submission. At the heart of it are accountability and responsibility and how people can be accountable without having responsibility for resources or some influence over how resources are allocated to localities. Those are real questions that people have not begun to get their heads round. I noticed in The Herald last week some debate about decisions of the existing fire board on fire stations in the Highlands and Islands, which were taken with a view to reorganisation. As such issues come to the fore, local influence over the allocation of resources will come into sharp focus.
When we heard from the bill team a couple of weeks ago, it suggested that a local authority could decide to buy in additional services. Would that allow for some responsibility for resources? For example, an authority could say that it wants additional police officers in an area. The national service would pay for the majority of the core policing, but local authorities would still have the opportunity to make additional resources available.
Local authorities already put in money for additional services, such as campus cops. We do not know what will spring up, but there is a level of business that must be undertaken, which I presume has to be agreed locally. We would hope that the funding would be available, but we have no guarantees of that. The Cabinet Secretary for Justice says that the level of policing will remain the same—17,234 police officers—but that includes those doing all the extra things that are being done. Between 600 and 800 polis are already embarked on extra things, which come out of that chunk of 17,234. If the funding is not there from councils because they are a bit strapped, that amount of policing will not be there.
I will play devil’s advocate a bit here. Councillor Grant, you point out that some local authorities choose to pay for additional policing. However, no local authority really has a say in budget allocation at the moment—you have already given evidence in that regard. The budget is set at the national level and the board sets the level that has to come from the local authorities. You have already said that no requisition has ever taken place because authorities just pay the money straight over. Do local authorities have a say in the budget allocation, apart from funding extra policing if they choose to do so?
The say is always there; it is just that local authorities have not chosen to use it. However, when it comes to the bit, it is up to each council to decide what to do.
The say is not there because if a council decides not to pay, the board can requisition anyway. Councils have no budgetary rights at the moment.
Mr Stewart is technically correct in that if the board gets to a budget decision, it levies a requisition, which local authorities are bound to pay. However, that is the legal situation, not the practical, political reality on the ground. Mr Stewart implied that boards are somehow not part of local government, but they are. They are constituted under the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994 and are entirely composed of appointees of the constituent authorities. They are part of local government, although it is correct that they are separate from the constituent councils.
A number of the consultation responses referred to the tripartite structure, which is approved of as having a good balance between the national and the local, and political interference. From what you have said today and from your submissions, it appears that there is a real concern that without proper detail about the allocation of resources at local level, the local committees will be nothing more than a talking shop or an extension of a non-departmental public body. Would you prefer the current arrangement of the police grant to remain to give those local committees real teeth in financial decision making?
The tripartite arrangement has worked extremely well. It is a bit like a three-legged stool—if you take a nip out of one leg, it all goes a bit to pot. It is hard to see how the new arrangement will work as well. We cannot go back to what we have had—that is just a no-no. We will have to go forward and make the new arrangement work well. We have got to be there, up front, ensuring that what we get in place works well.
Is it your definite view that there should be specific and clear provision in the bill for funding at a local level?
If there was funding at local level, or an arrangement to provide such funding, it would make the whole business much more accountable locally, which is where we seem to be missing something.
We said in our submission that we should look at how local government can continue to be a route for some of the funding for the new services. We have been concentrating on the police, but we must not forget that we are talking about fire and rescue services as well.
Are you suggesting that we should have a national police service and a national fire service, for which the 32 local authorities would have to come to an agreement on how much they should pay?
As we say in our submission, creating such a system is not without complexity, but the detail could surely be worked through. Within these islands, we have models that involve just such a system—for example, there is a national-local partnership around the policing of the capital city of the United Kingdom. The answers are out there to be looked for, if we want to look for them.
The funding issue is a bit of a red herring. It is national Government that decides what goes on in each force area, because it provides 51 per cent of the funding; the 49 per cent automatically comes from local authorities, without using requisition. Am I right in saying that for a number of years national Government has decided the resourcing in each force area?
The 51 per cent police grant comes directly from the Scottish Government to each police board and the 49 per cent comes through the grant-aided expenditure distribution of revenue support grant to local authorities. As I explained, the position is usually the result of consultation among the constituent authorities before the board sets its budget. You are quite right about the legal position: if the board sets its budget, the authorities must meet the requisition. One could observe that pretty well all local government’s money comes from the Scottish Government. That is the reality. The 49 per cent comes through the revenue support grant, which provides all bar 10 per cent of what local government spends.
It is right that a lot of the money that goes to local government comes from central Government. In most areas local government can decide how it spends the money, particularly now that ring fencing has gone, but in relation to police funding, since the change in the system in 1996 it has always been the case that every local authority has paid the boards 49 per cent, to match the 51 per cent from central Government. Is it the reality that national Government currently sets the budget for police forces? Yes or no?
The legal position is as you described it. If the board sets a budget and levies a requisition, the authorities must pay it. The situation has never arisen, I suggest because of the pre-budget-setting consultation that I described. If a particular police board and force decided to exempt itself from the whole drive on efficiency, for example, and was not prepared to cut into budgets, there would be a pretty serious issue. It would be pretty serious if a budget was set at a growth level and a requisition came down that the authorities would be legally obliged to pay, at a time when the authorities are having to meet substantial efficiency targets in their own budgets. The practical, political reality is that such matters are discussed and the point is never reached at which the legal requisition must be met in the face of opposition from the constituent authorities.
Would you welcome clarity on the funding that is available to local committees? Would you very much welcome direct funding to local committees, to give them the accountability that they need if they are to form a partnership between national and local policing and fire services?
That is our position, as we said in our submission.
The submissions from both witnesses reflected concern about whether there will be independent information gathering that is separate from the information that is provided by policing and fire alone. Reference was made to the importance of local intelligence and the kind of information that currently comes to committees in relation to serious crime and so on. Will you talk a little more about that and allay our fears about the important role that local government plays in that regard?
Will you be a little more specific about what you mean?
COSLA said in paragraph 37 of its submission:
I am with you now.
I am slightly concerned that you are getting on to operational matters of policing, which is going beyond where we should be in terms of the committee’s remit.
Are you content that the provisions in the bill give you the mechanisms to provide that local intelligence?
I hope that they do.
But you are unsure. You would like that to be clarified.
There are many things that we do not have information about at the moment.
I do not see any reasons why those mechanisms cannot continue under the new structure. It is a matter of how things are organised and what the relationship is between local government and national Government. That is the point that we were making in the paragraph that you referred to, which has to be read in the context of paragraphs 6, 7 and 8. In essence, the point is that you cannot tease out which issues are local and which are national because the one type informs the other. The risk is that, if you get too fixed on the idea that the only business of local government in relation to the police is what is defined as local policing, you will miss that wider picture.
Is it your perception that there might be additional costs to local authorities as a result of the provisions in the bill?
If local authorities wanted to do something specific that was not part of their general agreement, that would represent an on-cost. We still have to—
I was thinking more specifically about some of the provisions around training or information sharing. Are there other costs that might be incurred as a result of the provisions in the bill?
We would ask whether setting up committees for police and fire services will represent another on-cost in relation to the current provisions around the way in which local authorities work with various committees. Will it cost a bit more to set up another bureaucracy around a police and fire committee? Obviously, training is always undertaken, but it might need to be more extensive as a result of the bill.
Does SOLACE have any concerns?
I suppose that, in theory, having a local police committee and a local fire and rescue committee—or even a combined police, fire and rescue committee or a wider community safety or public protection committee—that serve the purpose that is set out in the bill represents an additional cost, as we do not have that at the moment. Personally, I do not think that that is a huge issue. We have committees for all sorts of things. We combine committees and disband committees and recreate committees. That issue is not as significant as some of the others that we have been discussing.
Do you have any comments on the provisions, or lack of provisions, about dispute resolution in the bill?
We do not know who will deal with any disputes. If a council goes forward with a plan and hopes that its local commander will be happy with that plan, because that is the outcome that the council wants, will someone sit in arbitration with regard to the way forward? The bill contains nothing about how that would work. Would both sides just bang their heads together in the hope that they will come up with a good answer?
More clarity on that would be welcome.
Yes—more clarity on much of the bill would be helpful.
I wonder whether you really want to go down the route of including dispute resolution machinery in the bill. We raised a concern in our submission at the second stage of the consultation about whether the local authority would approve or simply be consulted on the local plan. That has been clarified in the bill: it is approval. What happens if the authority does not approve the plan?
You have both touched on the questions that I am about to ask with regard to relationships. Will those involve working together or not? Does SOLACE or COSLA have any concerns about variation between the areas and the seniority of local commanders and senior officers? Should there be a direct relationship between local authorities and the governing boards of police and fire services?
At present, the relationships between councils and police and fire and rescue services are excellent, and we certainly would not want to lose that. I am fairly hopeful that we will not, but everyone will be working through a new piece of ground.
We raised that issue in our submission. The target operating model—as it was called—that underlay the business case mentioned a potential span of four ranks from which the area commander would be drawn. That may or may not—in fact, it will probably not—be the end result as the organisational design is progressed, but there will still be a disparity because the 32 councils, which must all have a local commander, must fit into whatever organisational structure the new force develops.
Councillor Grant, is it your view that each local authority should have a police and fire committee?
No. My view is that it should depend on how each council feels about the issue. Certainly, my council in East Renfrewshire is looking at the pathfinders business and thinking that it would not go down the route of having a separate police and fire committee, but would formalise what is being done informally at the moment and look at its cabinet reporting to the council on the business that it has done. East Renfrewshire Council is a small authority, but bigger authorities such as Glasgow City Council or Dundee City Council might want to have a police and fire committee. It will be up to each authority to decide the best way forward for it.
There are no further questions, so I thank the witnesses for their evidence. You are welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting, if you wish.
The panel for our second oral evidence session is slightly bigger. If the witnesses feel that someone has covered an area to their satisfaction, it is not necessary for them to answer every question.
There are a number of issues. The national board will be a very important part of the new structure. The one thing that has been missing from the discussion so far and is missing from the bill is the part that the citizen plays in it. There is no reference to the connectivity between the national authority and the citizen, nor is there any direct reflection in the bill of the relationship with the citizen and the local authority. To ensure that the process is democratic, there must be some form of compulsion on the police authority to have a consultation process with the citizen so that it is informed by what the people of Scotland think.
I am happy to agree with most of what Kevin Smith said. I further emphasise the point that some others have made to the committee, which is that the number of board members seems insufficient to the conveners. I sit on a board of 18 for Lothian and Borders Police. Some of my colleagues sit on boards that are only slightly smaller and others sit on boards that are quite a bit larger to deal with the business of policing throughout the eight areas of Scotland. It is quite tough—there is quite a workload on some of the people who are more heavily involved. Without having a bigger board than is suggested in the bill, it will be very difficult to get through the business and bring the proper scrutiny that is required, especially when sub-committees have to be set up for certain issues.
Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. The question that you pose about the board is a long-asked question that stems back to the 1962 Royal Commission on the Police, which tried to strike a balance between democracy and accountability at both local and national levels. We do not seem to have found an answer to that yet, although what is proposed takes us some way forward.
Good afternoon. I am pretty sympathetic to what Andrew Laing has said. I have considerable experience of corporate governance, and my primary concern is whether any police authority is competent to hold the command team to account. I do not subscribe to the view that the current arrangements are uniformly robust, and I therefore welcome the proposal to establish a police authority whose members will be appointed on the basis of their competence. There is another issue here, which is that at least some of the members will need to be security cleared to a fairly high level if they are to hold the chief constable and his or her team to account. I am fond of saying that there is a world of difference between hearing an account and holding to account, and for me the primary role of any police authority and the acid test of its performance will be whether it actively and successfully holds the command team to account.
Do you think that the current system holds the command team to account?
Others are better placed to comment on the current system, but my experience, albeit fairly limited and focused on complaints handling, is that there is considerable room for improvement. I published two reports last year, one of which was intended to assist police authorities and boards with holding the command teams to account, particularly with regard to complaints handling. It is a checklist that is adjustable for both national and local contexts.
By and large, the SPSA is comfortable with the proposed numbers. Over the past four to five years, it has usually operated with a board of eight members—currently seven—and with the sub-committees there has been consistent delivery of output and governance at a strategic level. We do not have the same policing organisation that sits underneath the SPSA, nor do we have the interface at a local level, but I am conscious that many multinational and highly complex organisations run with a board of between seven and 11 people.
I have a question for Professor McNeill and Mr Laing. The joint best-value reports by Audit Scotland and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary have shown failings in a number of areas. Can you comment on some of those failings? Could the situation be improved with a new national authority?
I am convinced that a national authority can improve performance. I qualify that by saying that performance is not uniform across Scotland. Some time ago, I held a seminar in Dundee for representatives from police boards at which I emphasised the importance of the boards being resourced adequately. That means not just having an executive director or the finance, but having information and time made available, along with training in the discharge of their role. One of the primary functions of a Scottish police authority should be to confirm public confidence in policing by underlining the need to learn from complaints and, in my judgment, it would be able to do that more effectively than would a variety of boards across Scotland.
Mr Laing, will you comment on the best-value audits that you carried out with Audit Scotland?
Certainly. First, though, I just want to support Professor McNeill’s comments.
I want to go back to my initial question. How will the bill affect community engagement and community planning partnerships? Will it restrict such engagement? How are we going to engage with the public who, after all, will be the first to complain to us? They are certainly the most concerned about the issue.
This is a very difficult area and the bill does not give us much of a clue about how any of the local arrangements will be taken forward and—critically—gives us no clue about how the Scottish police authority will deal with the public. There has to be a direct relationship in that respect, and others might want to amplify that comment.
How does the number of Edinburgh councillors who sit on a committee compare with the number who sit on the fire board? I would have thought that more councillors would sit on a council committee than would be involved with the fire board.
There will probably be a few more. I cannot speak for all councils. To use Edinburgh as an example, we have nine members on the Lothian and Borders Police board and the average membership of our committees is about 15, so there may be a few more on committees, but not a significantly larger number. It will, however, make a difference to some of the smaller council areas, where the membership could increase from two to a much larger number—it depends on how they determine the membership of their committees.
I will have another go—you heard us discussing this with the previous panel—at the idea of local commanders. In Fife, we have a good relationship at the lower levels—by which I mean wards, area committees and so on—between communities and the police. That works very well and involves constables, sergeants, inspectors and chief inspectors. I believe in a national police force, but I am concerned about the idea of a local commander. Perhaps we are spoiled in Fife, because we have the same area for both the police and the council. That is fairly straightforward, but Scotland has 32 local authorities, so the new set-up could, in theory, include as many as 32 local commanders, although I doubt that it will. I think that this will be key.
If I can return to the previous question, you may then wish to turn to Mr Smith, who is in the process of thinking through the detailed arrangements. Part of the issue about community planning partnerships and the relationship between local commanders and local bodies centres on governance and accountability. Community planning partnerships work reasonably well, but each of the constituent organisations, such as police and social work, housing and other local authority agencies, is functional in its make-up. In the context of what the bill describes, those partners will need and require to continue to participate—there is no lack of clarity about that. I think that the community planning arrangements that are in place will be perpetuated under a local commander.
It is not unreasonable to be concerned that the advent of the new force could mean that all the good local policing will stop all of a sudden and somehow go to another place, but local community policing is in our DNA—it is absolutely part of how we are brought up as police officers and it reaches up to chief officers. No matter whether someone is a chief in a large urban area or a small rural force, local community policing will remain integral to what we do.
I agree with Kevin Smith on the importance and reality of relationships at the local level. A key element is how complaints that are essentially about local relationships are resolved at the local level. In the guidance that I set out last year, I expected them to be resolved as quickly as possible at the lowest possible grade in the police and clearly within the locality. I am delighted that ACPOS is currently taking forward training in dealing with complaints, and I see no reason why that training should not inform the approach of any future Scotland police service in dealing with complaints at the national and local levels.
I am not sure who I will aim my question at, but I am sure that someone will jump up and down—although most of the witnesses will simply look at their feet. Should the bill prescribe the structure and operation of local authority police and fire committees? I ask Mr Laing to answer that question, as he is looking at his feet.
I was actually writing down what I was going to say. [Laughter.]
That is what I thought.
A great deal of care has to be taken in forming the legislation, and a primary principle should be put in place. The question is whom we want to manage the service. I return to the comments about operational independence and the ability to execute and exercise the law. If we want the chief constable to manage the service, we must be careful not to build legislation that constrains that too much or, by default, tries to govern how the service is managed. That is probably a clumsy way of saying that the process is so new that it will have to be given the flexibility to evolve. From HMI’s perspective, an important part of that is scrutiny and auditing to ensure that what is intended actually starts to happen. If it does not, recommendations should be made to allow things to flex a little bit and become better. If the legislation is too tight and definitive, the scope to do that will be very much restricted.
I agree. A key element will be not only how responsive the local bodies are to stress testing the local policing plans, but how active they are in informing the content of the policing plans.
There must be a fair degree of flexibility, and the pathfinders are intended to look at that. However, there are some areas that I do not want to get lost between the national and the local. For instance, at the moment police boards have responsibility for custody visiting schemes, but there is nothing to tell us what will happen to them, although we will require to have them. We need to meet our international commitments on the right of people in custody to have a custody visiting scheme, but where will such schemes be placed? Even if they are the responsibility of the new authority, will it want to sub-contract the running of them locally to the local authorities? It might well do, because they currently recruit people and have the local knowledge about where people go in the custody process. There is a whole host of issues around that.
I want to draw out some of the detail that I think would benefit the bill, some of which I have touched on. I suppose that it is a question of having one’s cake and eating it; there is a need for flexibility, but key areas must be clear.
I make two general comments. First, it is crucial that whoever is a member of the police authority recognises the corporate nature of the work. There are dangers, which are very evident in the experience of a number of oversight bodies. When representative members are put in, quite often their default position is to represent their base, consciously or unconsciously, and the whole principle of fiduciary responsibility goes out of the window. It is of paramount importance that whoever is appointed signs up to working for the police authority in a corporate way.
I was going to ask questions about relationships and ministerial direction, but both issues have been well covered.
Mr Laing should answer that first.
Thanks, Mr Smith.
I heard your name being mentioned.
Perhaps I used loose language in my previous comments about operational independence. To be clear, I was throwing out the challenge that we need a better definition of it. We are in danger of having a heated agreement. [Laughter.] We need something—it might be called operational primacy—and we need a bill that spells it out.
Yes.
Section 5 gives ministers the authority to give general or specific directions. I suppose that the key to maintaining independence will be ensuring that, as ACPOS said, the resourcing of the local committees reflects the variations between communities throughout the country. We must also ensure that resources are not transferred to an urban area at the expense of a rural area.
I drew earlier from my experience in another place. There is a concern that resources will be moved from rural to urban areas—more specifically, to the central belt. I have worked in the central belt, and the concern there is that the resources will be spread even more thinly to the more rural areas. Whether in Glasgow or somewhere much further north, police share the concern that they will lose resources. Our responsibility in developing the new service is to come up with a scientifically based resource allocation model.
This is a difficult area to get into. I will comment on some of the questions that COSLA and SOLACE were asked about the resourcing of local committees and how they look at these things. For instance, the current resource model is not implemented properly. The grant-aided expenditure allocation formula has not been updated since 2004, so my policing area is underfunded because there has been population growth and change. Such things will have to be looked at again by the new chief constable and the force. There must be fairness and proper scrutiny—scrutiny is the big issue.
So, the authority must be accountable and transparent, and resources must be allocated, with details of how that happens. Are there any other comments on that specific point?
I endorse what Councillor Whyte has said. For me, one of the key tests for the Scottish police authority will be how it monitors and responds to the feedback that is provided to the local commander by the local authority. The bill provides for the local authority to monitor and give feedback to the local commander on reviews and on any policing matter, and, importantly, to recommend improvements. I am keen to see a duty imposed on the Scottish police authority to justify its response to the improvements that have been recommended to it by local authorities.
It is critical that we resource locally, and that we maintain that. However, what we are doing here is setting the context for significant savings. If the chief constable has no flexibility to move resources and rationalise them across Scotland, we will not make the significant savings that are needed. I caution that this is all being seen as local, but although local is a big and very important bit, the chief constable and his or her command team must have flexibility, and if he or she is too constrained by 32 demanding bits of governance there will be no capacity to move and rationalise resources, and make the required savings.
In your submission, you talk about financial arrangements, the inability to hold reserves and a spend-it-or-lose-it mindset, which does not seem a sensible way to proceed.
We have talked about some aspects of the way in which the new authority will be set up, ministerial direction and so on. As things stand, we will have a significant VAT liability, although Government is working hard to resolve that. Furthermore, we have been working hard since 2007 to resolve the SPSA issue. Other issues that arise are limited borrowing powers and the inability to carry forward reserves. National bodies are used to working within that type of framework; we are not. Good strategic management and good risk management in an emergency organisation require a capacity to carry reserves forward, in order to deal with the unforeseen and with contingencies. We have not been party to the considerations up to now, but we feel that, without that capacity, we will be drawn back to the Government too regularly. Being able to carry forward reserves will be a key component of the patchwork of things that will allow us to maintain our operations. I was about to say “maintain operational independence from Government” there, but I mean everything to do with our operations. We should not be regarded as just another national body or just another Government body. Policing should not be part of a Government body.
We take that key point from your evidence today—that the police are a special case, distinct from health boards or other national bodies.
Do we want a complex system of dispute resolution? I think that we want dispute prevention. We suggest that a formal relationship between the local and the national will be key; the local must inform the national, and vice versa. We want dispute prevention, rather than a complicated process of dispute resolution.
Do you regard the local level as key in the resolution of complaints within the service?
Yes. In essence, complaints are about relationships. Most relationships will be at the local level, so it makes sense for them to be resolved quickly at the lowest rank possible. The police have worked closely with me and my staff to make that possible.
If the culture is that the local force commander reacts to complaints from the public, there is an oversight role locally, through police boards, to ensure that complaints are handled properly and issues highlighted. Members raise issues relating to their own areas, and I am sure that that will continue. Feedback is very important in local scrutiny.
Given what Councillor Whyte said, I will say that I come from an area in which the police board has always been underfunded and has only recently made some headway. However, I do not want to be too parochial.
If anything in my evidence made you suspect that we were going to fiddle with things from day one, let me reassure you. Day one of the new service will be about low risk and soft landings. If a person needs the police, I hope that they will notice no difference. The badge, the logo on the car and the introduction on the telephone will be different, but, by and large, I hope that there will be no difference. On the new chief constable, the new era and the development of the new resource allocation model for the future, the resources in your or any other area will largely be the same as they are at present.
I am glad to hear that. Personally, I am not that bothered about badge changes. I am sure that they will be followed through.
I am unaware of the numbers throughout Scotland. I can speak only for my own police board. Its members are not all council leaders, but we have dialogue with other council leaders. In Edinburgh, both the council leader and the deputy council leader are members of the police board.
I will turn to Mr Laing. Certain best-value reports state that there are not enough senior folk on a number of police boards throughout the country. Am I right in saying that those areas for which the best-value reports were not so good had no senior councillors on their boards?
Yes. The picture is mixed across Scotland. Councillor Whyte has rightly identified the position in Lothian and Borders. There are areas in which council leaders and deputy leaders are not on the police boards. The selection process is a matter for the constituent local authorities. The notion that there may be a hierarchy in relation to how councillors are appointed has been mooted in the past. An important issue for the future, particularly as we approach local government elections and a transitional period, is the challenge of who will fill the posts in the interim period. We need to pay close attention to that over the next few months.
Just for clarification, the leader of Stirling Council sits as a vice-convener on the central Scotland joint police board.
I will go back to the issue of police boards and the continuous improvement of complaints handling. I have been heartened by the willingness of the conveners forum and police board members to work closely with my office over the past year or two. That has been particularly apparent in the dip sampling to which Councillor Whyte referred, which identified a number of concerns. A crucial element has been the willingness of a number of boards—one in particular—to stretch the current legislation to resolve an issue that their dip sampling had identified. I am confident that, if we are clever about this, we can get an axis between the police authority, local authorities, the police investigations and review commissioner, and the command team—the police in general—that will drive up the standards of complaints handling and confirm confidence in policing throughout Scotland.
This might be the final question. I was heartened to hear Kevin Smith mention earlier that an inspector or chief inspector would be the local commander to look after Clackmannanshire. I live near there, and that is good.
My role is in the SPSA, which has no police officers. In effect, we provide a range of services on a national basis—forensics, information and communications technology and training—to the police forces. We look at training for all the ranks, and just now we are looking at what will be needed for change management to help to skill and prepare officers of all ranks for the significant change that they will need to deal with. It is well understood that there will need to be a real focus on the training agenda and what needs to be delivered, which continues to evolve, as we understand how the picture is evolving. Significant work and thought has already gone into what the training requirements will be for skilling and ensuring that we have the right structure.
Perhaps I can introduce a cautionary note. The local commander will have a vital, pivotal role in policing partnerships, communities and building the relationships that have been talked about all afternoon. However, as an inspector of constabulary I am slightly concerned that if we see the development of community planning partnerships and another body at local level—a police committee—to hold the local commander to account, most of the time will be spent in servicing those bodies. There is a vital job to be done at the back of that and real care must be taken not to build in a level of bureaucracy that inhibits that job.
Are there any thoughts on those points?
I hope that this committee will note the concerns about the potential costs of the proposals. Margaret Mitchell asked about the resourcing of local scrutiny, which is a real concern. Local authorities will have to be left with some resource once transfer takes place to allow them to undertake scrutiny. To properly run a committee a clerking system is needed as well as research and policy support. Within councils, there must be responsibility allowances for a convener and vice-convener. All such aspects involve a limited use of resources, but they must be thought about, quantified and put forward. I am not sure that there is anything about those in the financial memorandum at present. The committee’s assistance to local authorities on that issue would be helpful.
It is not like me to try to defend the police, but anyway. There was reference earlier to terms and conditions and people being moved around. Perhaps I have not listened properly, but I have not heard anyone mention terms and conditions or contracts. Are the unions involved?
You are asking about what will be the most important area of work, because we have eight police forces, the SPSA and the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency. I am sure that Gillian Campbell can speak much more knowledgeably about the issue than I can. There is huge variety out there, and a major part of the reform programme will be about the harmonisation of terms and conditions. That will be a significant piece of work.
From an employment law perspective, a number of things need to be taken into consideration in the context of contract harmonisation. On its formation, the SPSA had its own set of terms and conditions and policies, and eight other sets came in. It took four years for the position to be resolved so that we had a harmonised set of terms and conditions.
A big reason for the proposal to move to a single police force is that savings will be made. To what extent will the bill place additional costs on local authorities? Councillor Whyte touched on costs of administration in relation to contracts, and the submission from the Scottish police authorities conveners forum mentioned costs. Concern has been expressed about resources being moved from local level to the new national authority. Specialist knowledge and expertise might have to be replaced at local authority level, for example in relation to camera safety partnerships. Will the witnesses elaborate on that?
I mentioned the cost of running local scrutiny committees. Under the new arrangements, in Lothian and Borders we would have five committees instead of a single police board, which would create an additional cost to be spread between the local authorities. The authorities currently pool their resource; it goes into the police board budget and is top sliced, and we then buy back the resource that we need—mostly from City of Edinburgh Council, although it could be from any of the constituent authorities—based on time. The new arrangements will multiply all that by five. Of course, resource also has to go to the centre, to run the police authority and the force headquarters.
Do other witnesses want to comment on the potential for additional costs at local level?
I can give a specific example. The business case looked at savings of £2.5 million per annum for the police through the transfer of the function of traffic wardens to local authorities. I cannot see how that is a saving; if we transfer the function I imagine that local authorities will look for the salaries. Even if there is a saving for the police there will be a cost to another part of the public purse. There are other functions in that regard—I cannot remember the detail.
I reiterate what I said about the dangers of the bureaucracy that 32 local committees will create. The pathfinders projects that are established will try to develop some of the detail around the issue. It might be inevitable that we end up with 32 local committees and that the financial cost of running them and the cost in terms of demands on local commanders’ time will be significant.
If there are no further questions, I thank the witnesses.
I welcome our third panel of witnesses. It is another large panel so, if the witnesses indicate to me when they want to speak, I will try to ensure that everybody gets the opportunity to feed into the discussion when appropriate.
There is a clear view among our members that some form of democratic accountability needs to be built into the new Scottish police authority board. Indeed, there must be a link from the national authority back into the local policing areas.
Some of the previous witnesses covered some of the issues about which the Scottish community safety network is concerned. However, community safety partnerships are concerned about the separation between ministers, the board and operational delivery.
The SPF’s views largely mirror those that Kevin Smith presented, with a heavy leaning towards John McNeill’s comments—we do not consider the two points of view to be in any way contradictory.
Unison echoes what the federation and many others have said. The numbers proposed—seven to 11 members—are not enough to cover a national board; we should be thinking about 15 plus.
I echo and endorse a lot of what has been said this afternoon, but I want to add something that we set out in our written evidence. We could assess the board’s role and effectiveness against a set of democratic criteria. I particularly highlight the distribution of power in the board and the balance between the national and the local.
I return to David O’Connor and the idea of the board perhaps being full time. Should the whole board or only some of its members be full time?
In the early days, given the significance of the new police authority’s task and the scope of its work, there will have to be a clear focus on getting Scotland’s new police service up and running in order to do the job justice. I am not sure what other commitments the potential appointees would have. The point was made that the work will probably take a couple of years.
That is interesting. Obviously, it would be difficult for local councillors to have that work as a full-time commitment.
I return to my original question on community planning and engagement. How does the bill affect that? Will it restrict or enhance it?
We clearly have a real focus on community safety but, as a result of the local commander’s role in community planning—many of our members will probably be designated as local commanders—there will be the potential to improve local community planning and engagement. I agree, however, with previous comments that have been made about the need for links into local community and strategic planning. There has been a great deal of focus on and discussion about local commanders—potentially 32 of them—being involved in community planning, but we must consider that some problems will transcend boundaries and consequently we may need to consider community planning arrangements across a number of local authority areas. I sense that some of our discussions will need to go in that direction.
I will pick up on Kevin Smith’s earlier comments about local community policing being in our DNA. We do not need legislation to tell the police service how to engage in community planning; we would do that regardless, even in the absence of legislation. David O’Connor’s point about going beyond the local authority element is important. Again, I suspect that, almost without the requirement for legislation, circumstances will evolve to enable that to happen.
I am conscious of what Andrew Laing said about the danger of the local commander being so closely involved with the local bureaucracy that he or she ceases to be able to undertake an effective operational role. There are a number of established local partnerships, such as child protection committees, alcohol and drug partnerships, community planning partnerships and community safety partnerships. Their make-up and effectiveness vary significantly. We would like a means of engagement that is effective and improving, so that services such as community safety are delivered much more effectively locally. However, as a retired police officer, I say that it is important to ensure that that does not impact negatively on operational delivery. Appropriate strategic involvement locally is key.
I hope that David O’Connor will remember that I said to the previous panel that superintendents are all very nice people.
Contrary to what Councillor Grant said, superintendents supported the establishment of a single service during the consultation exercise.
One key challenge for community safety partnerships at present is dealing with the speed and frequency of changeovers of individuals in local policing arrangements. We see an opportunity to address continuity of membership on some of the key partnerships that we have spoken about, such as community safety partnerships and child protection committees. People in such partnerships can begin to develop an effective working relationship with their local police contacts, but when those people are—for understandable policing reasons—moved on, the partnerships have to spend considerable time on building up new relationships. That can have a significant negative effect on a partnership’s effectiveness. We can never expect guarantees, but we look for reassurance that continuity will be maintained as much as it can be, to ensure that partnerships are as effective as they can be.
If any partnership or relationship is built on the rank of the officer, it is built on the wrong thing. Relationships and partnerships surely work most effectively because of the personalities of the individuals involved. I have not yet found a situation where the rank of one person makes them any more informed or better placed to take their place in a partnership than any other individual.
A footnote to that response is that we have just carried out a piece of research evaluating the Fife community engagement model. The model is well received by the community across Fife and one reason that it works so effectively is that it encourages a problem-solving approach to be taken locally, because it deals with issues that local people bring to the meetings. Such issues are often not to do with crime but with disorder, antisocial behaviour, youths hanging around and so on.
Another issue with regard to community planning is funded posts. A lot of posts are currently funded, be it part time or 100 per cent, by local authorities. The posts and services include mobile closed-circuit television, community intelligence analysts, researchers, safety camera partnerships and the like. That also needs to be looked at. What happens when we move to one national board? Where will the money come from? Will we retain those services?
My question follows that response. Gillian Campbell, who was a witness on the previous panel, answered Anne McTaggart’s question about the transfer of employees, which was more related to the police. Are there existing local variations or employment agreements that should be taken into account in transferring local authority staff—which I think you touched on—to new services? What needs to be considered in transferring local authority staff to the new services? I was a wee bit surprised when Gillian Campbell said that it took four years for that to be dealt with when the SPSA was set up.
That is not my recollection; it happened much more quickly than that. At the inception of the SPSA, the employer and the trade unions came together admirably on harmonisation of terms and conditions of employment. If we do the same again, I do not think that there will be a problem and it will not take four years.
Does anyone else have a comment on the transfer of local authority staff?
I am not sure that my comment is necessarily about the transfer of local authority staff, but one issue is funding for additional officers in specific roles—Barbara Grant mentioned campus cops, for example—and additional neighbourhood policing, which is funded either by community safety partnerships or by local authorities. There is a lack of clarity about how such funding will be carried forward through the transitional period. I recognise that budgets and responsibility for finance will be shifting. It will be interesting to see whether local authorities will still be in a position to fund additional services, should they feel that there is a need for them because of local circumstances. A bit of additional detail on that might be helpful.
I will make a point about police officers. There will certainly be areas of the bill that we will scrutinise in terms of the impact of the changes on officers’ terms and conditions. We have heard that officers will transfer into the new service with their current terms and conditions, and we will carefully consider that over the weeks and months ahead. One thing that the bill proposes is the dissolution of the Police Advisory Board for Scotland, and we will seek clarification about what will replace it.
I will ask a different question this time. Is that okay? [Laughter.]
I will start—again.
I was hoping that you would.
The reform process has been built on making efficiency savings, and such savings normally lead to financial savings, which ultimately lead to cuts in people’s jobs—in this case because 84 to 86 per cent of police funding is spent on staff. The Association of Scottish Police Superintendents believes that the new model must be predicated on a balanced workforce, which means a balance between police officers and police staff, with the right people with the right skills doing the right jobs at the right time. We have a lot of highly experienced, competent and skilled police staff and we need to maximise opportunities to retain those skills.
Would it be wrong of me to talk about the 2,000 posts that I have read about, but which you have not mentioned?
The figure has been mentioned in the context of the reform programme. I sense that we need to take this one step at a time. It will be key that we maintain service delivery during the reform programme and, critically for us, that we maintain staff confidence and morale. I am sure that George McIrvine can respond better about the fears among police staff.
We are moving into an area that is probably for the Justice Committee, but it is only fair to let George McIrvine in on this point.
We are hearing about being truthful and transparent, so I will give a simple answer: there most certainly is an impact. You cannot get rid of 1,000 posts through early retirement, voluntary redundancy and the non-filling of posts without there being an impact on services. I will just give a wee example. You are talking about 1,000 times 36 hours a week, and that is a lot of policing hours. We talk about the 17,234 police officers but not about the 5,000-plus police staff; near enough one in three of the police family are staff but we never speak about them. There is a wide range of specialised and administrative support posts, including forensic scientists, scene-of-crime officers, intelligence analysts, control-room dispatchers and custody staff.
I will make a brief point on that. A group of police staff with whom we work closely consists of crime analysts, performance analysts and intelligence analysts. They play a crucial role in the provision of effective intelligence-led policing and we have built up a lot of expertise over the past few years by using such analysts. It seems to me to be a backward step to start not to use such people, who can help to deploy resources effectively and build an evidence base for policing practice and so on.
I understand the sensitivities in the debate. The requirement to save money is evident across all areas of public life and, indeed, all areas over which the Government reaches. I understand the focus on the 17,234 police officers but, as is always the case, it depends on what the starting point is. In the 10 years before the pledge on 1,000 extra police officers—between 1997 and 2007—police officer numbers in Scotland increased by only 8 per cent, while support staff numbers increased by 71 per cent. That was undoubtedly in large part a consequence of how the police service has evolved.
I have to be very careful about what I say, because I am married to a member of the police support staff.
A number of the submissions from the panellists, including those of the Scottish Police Federation, the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents and the Scottish community safety network, stress the importance of retaining political neutrality and operational independence for the police. The SPF goes a little bit further, and states:
I think that points about the SPA have been largely covered by Kevin Smith, including points on the ability of a committee with between seven and 11 members to discharge all its functions—which tied in nicely with Barbara Grant’s comments about incapacity.
Building on that, Mr Smith talked about seeking clarification on ministerial direction. We have heard about operational independence, operational responsibility and operational primacy, as well as about accountability. I sense from the bill that we need to clarify what all those things mean to the men and women who actually go out and provide the service. The one thing that has been missing in the debate so far is recognition of the fact that we are held accountable for our actions by the courts—that is what people need to remember. When the men and women who go out and deliver the Scottish police service day in, day out decide to do something, the first thing in their minds is that they will be held to account for their actions by the Scottish courts. That is true of the constable, the commanders and, ultimately, the chief constable. The operational independence and operational neutrality that police officers need in order to apply the law—Mr Laing also mentioned this—are a fundamental part of case law that has been handed down from generation to generation. We need to seek clarity about what all this means. The local commanders among my members will certainly seek clarity.
Will you underline the special case, in policing terms, for a national police force, as opposed to the case for other national bodies?
As agents of the Crown and as officers of the law, we have a duty to enforce the law. In that respect, we are different from other parts of the public sector.
One of the difficulties in working with a number of partners in communities is their lack of understanding of what the law actually means and how it can and cannot be applied. Andrew Laing’s comments were helpful in terms of understanding what operational independence actually means, and greater clarification of that would be helpful. Sometimes, there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the police can and cannot do, and that can get in the way of effective partnership working. That being made clearer might contribute to far more effective partnership working at local level.
On the resources issue, it is fundamental that you have the resources to do what you want to do. The Scottish police authorities conveners forum mentioned that it would not be able to keep reserves from year to year in order to use funds in the way that it wanted; other financial restrictions have also been noted. Moreover, Unison wrote:
The resourcing of the police service is not just about financial resources; it is about people resources, too. Kevin Smith talked this afternoon about the fact that the police are the biggest gang in town, and we must get across to local communities the need to be able to mobilise that gang and shift them to where the need is greatest. We would like the service to be responsive to local needs and to see additional resources brought in, where necessary, to supplement what is available immediately locally. If the service is responsive in that way, that will reassure people much more effectively.
Would anyone else like to comment?
There is a logic to saying that the inability to carry reserves will result in what we used to see in local government for a long time before councils had that ability—come the middle of February onwards, everything started to smell of paint. That might be fine from an estates maintenance point of view, but we all know that it is not the best use of resources.
As commanders, many of us have grown up not only making operational decisions about local service delivery and achieving policing priorities, but making the financial decisions as well. When carrying out policing in any area, we must have a clear focus on service delivery and what we are seeking to achieve; however, in those parts of the country where there has been devolved management and devolved budgets, we have also had to make the financial decisions locally. We will want to know how those devolved budgets will operate in the future, because I sense that the financial decisions will have to be made right up there alongside the policing decisions.
Would Unison like to comment, given that you have specifically mentioned local budgets?
As we state in our written submission, we require more detail on that. My comments follow on from what Davie O’Connor just said about the policing budget having to balance with the financial budget. I have spent 25-plus years in Tayside Police and have worked under different divisional commanders and heads of department who have spent their budgets differently. As Calum Steele said, sometimes you can smell the paint in February and March. There needs to be a balanced and consistent approach across the new force so that the budgets are spent properly.
So, there is a scrutiny angle, too.
Yes. Absolutely.
Let us return to the question of accountability. Mr O’Connor said that the police feel accountable to the courts. Do your members feel accountable to the existing boards, or are they far away from them?
Just now, a number of our members participate in the presentations of the police boards and police authorities across Scotland. A significant number of our members also have greater engagement with local community representatives and local councillors at divisional and sub-divisional level. Indeed, a lot of the issues, the police priorities and the matters that need to be resolved are dealt with through the arrangements that are in place before they come to police boards and police authorities. There is an opportunity to look at good practice in the work that is going on and build that into the new service.
So you are more accountable to communities than you are to police boards. I am sure that that would continue, no matter what.
Absolutely. The new committees, however they look—it depends on what the pathfinders come up with—will certainly have more engagement with local authorities. There will be more democratic accountability and more reporting. There is a lot of good practice out there already. I have been a divisional commander in two divisions, and that work has been going on in the service for some time.
To a large extent, I echo what David O’Connor says. There is a subtle but distinct difference between accountability and governance. Beyond the fact that police officers are accountable to the courts, they are unique in that they are accountable for every single action and inaction. That applies from the moment that they are sworn in until the moment that they retire—it is not as simple as being from when they turn up at their shift. If a member of the public phones, it is expected that an officer or officers will be able to give information back to that member of the public.
Gumption.
Yes. As divisional commander, I operated under a devolved management system in which the budget, by and large, was decentralised and went out to the local commanders to provide a policing service in their communities. The local commanders were held to account for the way in which the finances were spent, but they were also held to account for performance. As I said earlier, we cannot and should not separate our operational decisions from our financial decisions, because everything comes at a cost.
The Scottish Police Federation believes that
I am absolutely clear that the primacy in policing decisions rests with the local commander or, in the event of a dispute, with the chief constable. That is the nature of policing. It always has been and always should be.
So the definition in section 46 should be clarified or made more specific.
Section 46—I am working from memory, which is dangerous to do—
It is the definition of the local authority’s role.
Yes, it would be useful for that to be clarified.
We must remember that the police service is a disciplined service. We operate in an environment of command and control. Ultimately, commanders will be responsible to the chief constable for that discipline and for the command and control.
Do you have any concerns about the variation between areas in the seniority of local commanders and senior officers? Should there be a direct relationship between local authorities and the governing boards of the police and fire services?
I answered that question earlier. The answer is no, we do not have such an arrangement just now, but I am pretty sure that Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, Orkney Islands Council and Shetland Islands Council would not say that they suffered as a consequence. Relationships and the ability to function do not depend on the rank of the individual who happens to be in command of the area.
The important factors are the roles, responsibilities and spans of command within the local areas. It is clear that the 32 local authorities are of different size. Consequently, one size will not fit all in the new structure. Therefore, it would be wholly wrong to focus on the ranks of local commanders. We need to consider the span of command and control within the different local authority areas.
For community safety partnerships, it is important that, whoever the local commander is and regardless of the rank that they hold, they have the delegated authority to make local decisions to satisfy the local plans as they meet local needs and requirements.
I will make a brief comment about rank, roles and responsibilities. Recently, we did a piece of work in Northern Constabulary on policing in remote rural environments. Officers of a relatively low rank there have to develop a striking range of skills because they work in isolated communities.
There are no further questions, so I thank the witnesses.
We now have the final panel of witnesses for today’s lengthy evidence session. I am pleased to welcome Councillor Bob Band from the Scottish fire conveners forum; Alex Clark, chair of the Chief Fire Officers Association Scotland; and John Duffy, Scottish secretary of the Fire Brigades Union.
First, I point out that I am a very late substitute for the witness panel, so I may not give as polished a performance as the committee has had from others.
The arguments about the number of board members being limited to between seven and 11 have been well presented today and I do not intend to revisit them. However, it will be crucial that the make-up of the board brings the right skills to the table to enable proper scrutiny of the fire and rescue service’s activities. The skills can come from lots of sectors, and representation from local elected members who have experience of the fire and rescue service’s activities can add strength to the board’s scrutiny of the new service’s activities.
Do you have thoughts about the balance of councillors and other individuals in the board’s make-up?
I have no particular thoughts. Local authorities must have a good representation, to bring localism to the board’s make-up, but I have no particular percentage in mind.
The key priority is the scrutiny by and democratic accountability of the new board. The current arrangements lack oversight above the local fire board level. In my time in the Fire Brigades Union, I have been involved in preparing submissions and briefing notes for a number of parliamentary debates on the fire service. It is clear that the Parliament has an interest in the fire service operating and functioning properly. A key point that we look for is that the new board should be answerable to the Parliament, which is the right place for ultimate public scrutiny of the fire service.
When I talked to the Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs some time ago, I made the point that I work on a number of committees and boards that include bodies like the FBU. In education, teachers have seats on the board; in housing and health, residents have seats on the board. I see no reason why the fire and rescue service board should not have a representative of the uniformed staff. I know that not all members of the Chief Fire Officers Association Scotland share that view, but I hold it, have expressed it at the conveners forum and have had support for it.
Will the bill restrict or enhance community planning partnerships and engagement? We in Fife have a tremendous record of community engagement in the fire service—it is second to none and is very impressive. How will the bill enhance that?
It is good that Fife has something going for it as far as the service is concerned. In Perth and Kinross, we have the support of Tayside Fire and Rescue service, its convener, its chief officer and his depute and assistant. I cannot see the bill making any difference to our community engagement, because we are heavily engaged already. Our mantra is “prevention, prevention, prevention”, starting with teaching youngsters to drive responsibly and going right through to fitting smoke alarms.
I firmly believe that the bill brings opportunities to enhance community planning. Let us not forget that we are not starting from the beginning; we are already well embedded in community planning partnerships. The fire service is an exemplar of good community engagement and integration, and of trying to make a visible difference in people’s lives. That is already happening across the country. Contrary to what some people might think, I believe that with the local senior officer arrangement the bill brings an opportunity for us to allocate more resource to local authority areas and to improve our contributions at the local level. Key to success, though, will be how we manage the expectations of local authorities and other partners within the community planning environment. There might be a belief, for example, that the 32 local authorities will get their own fire brigade, and that would be a big expectation to manage. As we engage more in the community planning partnerships and start to make a difference, we have to be careful to manage local authorities’ expectations sympathetically and with our eyes open.
We see absolutely nothing in the bill that would restrict, prevent or damage the work that is being done in community planning partnerships. I agree with Alex Clark that a great deal of work is going on around Scotland with the fire service’s involvement in the partnerships, and that can only be enhanced.
I think that the witnesses have partly answered one of my questions. Will the local authorities have sufficient influence over local fire and rescue plans, including budget setting and resource allocation?
The obvious issue there, which has often been mentioned, is that the plan has to be agreed. What will happen when it is not agreed? How do we have an influence at that point?
The ambition is for local authorities to be fully involved in developing the local plan, because there must be that engagement early on if the fire and rescue service is to respond to local needs. Without that, the situation will become one of the fire and rescue service saying that it knows best and telling local authorities how to deliver the local plan to meet local needs, without there having been a dialogue to determine what those needs are.
Notwithstanding the arrangements in the joint boards, our concerns about finance, particularly in relation to the two unitary authorities, have been highlighted. I am going to pick on Fife in particular—I mean no disrespect to our colleagues from there. In general, the question relating to the funding arrangements for the fire service in Fife is how much of a cut in the budget will be made, but that is the wrong way round. We should look at what we are trying to achieve in the service and then try to make arrangements to fund that.
On consistency, have local authorities across the country been best served by the current fire boards, particularly when fire boards have bought equipment that cannot be used in other areas? Will the uniformity of a single fire service resolve some of those difficulties?
We hope so, as fire boards buy equipment that they cannot use even in their own authority areas. I do not want to sound too scathing, but things really cannot be much worse in some areas. One service in Scotland, which is being resourced from outside, is at the point of near meltdown. We must therefore be able to take down the borders—the lines on the map—if we are fully to support and resource areas in which there is the most risk and need.
Councillor Band probably has a slightly different take on that matter.
I hope that, when John Duffy spoke about taking down borders, he meant boundaries and was not referring to Lothian and Borders.
The answer to the question is that having a single service will absolutely resolve some of those difficulties. When the eight services become one, the efficiency that will come from more effective procurement will deliver benefits to the service.
I want to go back to the issue of local connectivity with the national board, which is summed up well in paragraphs 5 and 6 of the Scottish fire conveners forum’s submission. It says:
That is essential. We need more clarity on what the level of delegation of budgetary control will be. I keep harking back to other committees that I deal with. In education, for example, we have the devolved school management budget.
Perhaps you could get someone to take it outside for you.
That should be it now. I am sorry about that.
From an operational command perspective and from a local commander or local senior officer perspective, there has to be clarity on the devolution of financial control. If we are truly to make a difference at local level, the local commander or local senior officer must have the flexibility to deploy resources and to contribute to the community planning agenda.
I reiterate my colleagues’ comments; indeed, I would go one step further and say that, as yet, we do not have any clarity on the national budget. Previously, the fire and rescue service was funded against national response standards. Once the service had put in place the resources that it required to meet those standards, it was inspected by Her Majesty’s chief inspector of fire services for Scotland and the funding was, in effect, signed off at that level.
I will echo some of John Duffy’s points. An opportunity has perhaps been missed in the bill to recognise the broader role that the fire and rescue service plays in the prevention agenda and through our contribution to road safety work and water rescue activity. If the service is currently undertaking additional functions—in the absence of anyone else doing those things—the bill presents an opportunity to make that work part of the role of the fire and rescue service and to bring clarity to its functions. That would allow us to develop into a service that will deliver the functions far more succinctly.
I have two final questions. First, will you comment on the lack of a dispute resolution provision? Secondly, one aspect that we did not touch on with the police witnesses—although we should have—was the timescale for implementing the bill and establishing the national police force and the Scottish fire and rescue service. To clarify, I am not asking you to tell me what the timescale is; I just want you to say whether you have any concerns about it.
I mentioned that we need provision for how to handle disputes between the national and local agendas. I understand from previous evidence that there might be a belief or perception that such disputes will not arise frequently. I have a different view. In the early stages of the new service, disputes might well arise fairly frequently because of the issue of how we balance the expectations of local authorities and those of the national direction and strategic plan. The lack of a mechanism for that will undoubtedly make the job of local commanders and local senior officers particularly challenging. They will be trying to serve two masters, but who will they actually report to?
That is helpful.
If a disputes procedure is put in place between authorities and the service, it will be used. Trust me—I am a trade union official.
I believe you.
It would be better to try to avoid that, but that requires a method by which the local authorities have direct access to the board.
I think that on the due date we will be on the cusp of getting down to the finer detail. As far as the dispute scenario is concerned, if we put it in the small print, no one will know that it is there.
I will ask a question that is similar to the one that I put to the police. I am pleased to say that in Fife, or certainly in west Fife, which is my part of the world, there is a pretty good relationship between the fire and rescue service and the communities, although in recent years the relationship was placed under a bit of stress when the fire station was moved from the west to the south of Dunfermline. I am told that the move worked out well and that response times are just as good if not better—I am subject to correction on that.
I agree with what some of your previous witnesses said. The rank of the local senior officer is not particularly important. However, from the fire and rescue service point of view, there is an additional complexity, in that the service has put in place role maps, which align a person’s responsibilities and activities with a pay grade, for example.
Many senior officers are FBU members and they are feeding back to us that they think that there are opportunities. Some of the services are already trying to organise themselves in a coterminous way with wards and the like. They see it as a huge opportunity to develop ideas from local circumstances and we are keen to explore with the service how that can be speeded up. The more experiments and trials there are of different ways in which to approach the problems, the more opportunities we have to find successful methods of working. We believe that there are opportunities to devolve down to the local level some of the service’s responsibilities and actions. I reiterate that the local senior officer is not the be-all and end-all; what is crucial is their ability to devolve down even further to station managers and station crews, because the crews are the point of contact with communities.
Undoubtedly, it is the crews, who turn up for the gala days and suchlike, who have contact with members of the public. I agree with John Duffy that we are looking for responsibility to go down to ward level and to the local fire station and to local people. I think that we can bring the community together on that.
With any reform or review, there is a tendency to look at the financial resource that is required to deliver the service or look at what efficiencies can be made. However, the other very important element is the human resource, which I think the panel has touched on. Are there any particular areas of concern that require both immediate, short-term solutions and, ultimately, long-term solutions? Should there be a direct relationship between local authorities and the governing boards of police and fire services?
On short-term solutions, there are clearly a number of areas of uncertainty and where there is uncertainty there is generally apprehension. Our approach is to work closely with our management colleagues in the service. Over the past few weeks, we have done a number of joint training courses with them to try to make the process easier. One of the things that we need to do is to separate the idea of the post from the person. I know that there has been some discussion about the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations with regard to terms and conditions, but that deals with the transfer and does not take account of the restructure, which will reduce the number of posts.
I echo John Duffy’s point about the union and the management in the service working closely together to try to resolve some of the issues that arise as we assess how to take things forward. That work has proved to be productive.
As has been said many times, on 1 April we will see no difference on the streets. Perhaps Aberdeen will have red fire engines instead of white ones, but that will be the only difference that we will see.
I will ask one final question, in fairness, because I asked Councillor Whyte to answer the same question from a police perspective. I know that Councillor Band is a late substitute and I do not want to put him on the spot, but I will ask the question anyway.
I do not know about other fire boards. None of the three authorities on my own fire board is represented by senior councillors such as a leader or deputy leader.
The leader of the City of Edinburgh Council and the leader of West Lothian Council are both members of the Lothian and Borders fire board.
It looks as if John Duffy has no idea; he is shaking his head.
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