London Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse was in robust form at a Westminster Council 'Ideas Exchange' event this week. He made a strong case that local authorities must be much more pro-active in scrutinising the performance of their police forces while reforms and financial necessity can deliver more effective partnerships. Malthouse argued that communities don’t particularly want to be involved in setting priorities; they want action and for particular streets to be free of crime – which is often the top priority when asked what they want their local council to do. He said that: “People are thirsting for someone to take responsibility for crime” and said that when the post of deputy mayor with responsibility for policing was created the GLA’s postbag became overwhelmed with spontaneous correspondence from the public – illustrating how long people have been looking for someone to take on this role. Not to be involved in the detail of the decisions, but to ensure that someone is listening to their views and can be held responsible for delivery. He went on to say that the police, and other public bodies, have a habit of creating a language about what they do that disempowers people. The analogy used was taking your car to a garage. You trust the mechanic to mend the car, but you have no idea really what they have done or whether it was genuinely needed, plus you will probably get a larger bill at the end without understanding why. Just as the mechanic can’t be questioned, it is difficult to question the police. This means that decisions on priorities cannot be properly scrutinised and even local councils can feel excluded from the process. He mounted a strong defence of proposals for Police Commissioners, pointing out that only 8% of the population knows about Police Authorities so they won’t be missed. Malthouse argued that this will help ensure a “democratic alignment of priorities” and “give local authorities the chance to assert themselves”. In particular anyone who is elected needs friends to support them in their work, so they will need to work with local authorities and other partners. Budgets are as for everyone else an issue. Senior officers have grown up in a time of plenty and will have to deal with change. In London this has meant, a shift in how police cars respond to calls. Previously any car near any incident would turn up, so you might get a dozen cars responding to a small incident. Now a central system allocates proportional to the incident. This sort of streamlining will be required across the service to allow resources to be focused on the frontline. If Malthouse’s analysis is right this creates opportunities for local authorities in terms of co-location of services, greater partnership working and asserting themselves in the alignment of priorities. The police will not have the resource to go it alone anymore, or the hiding place to avoid scrutiny. It also creates opportunities for residents in ensuring that they can clearly understand who is responsible for policing priorities, can participate if they want, and be assured that their most important issues are being dealt with. The police themselves have to respond by being more transparent and by accepting new ways of working, on the basis that the front line must be protected and be able to respond effectively to genuine local priorities. In a previous role, as Deputy Leader of Westminster Council Mr Malthouse looked at the case for a Westminster Police Force, to match the City of London force. While this was never likely to happen it is an interesting argument - large cities with their own dedicated local forces with larger city region units focusing on crime that crosses boundaries.There is plenty of scepticism and indeed outright opposition outside of London to the idea of elected commissioners. The potential for conflict between council leaders and commissioners is clear. But no one can argue against greater openness and accountability of the police. Perhaps there is an argument just give greater police powers to local leaders - to use the present democratic mandate and work out a system? This is a healthy debate that needs to happen and local government needs to ensure its voice is heard – policing is hugely important area to influence.
