Police restructuring
Posted by James Paice, MP for South East Cambridgeshire, at 23:48, Tue 20 December 2005:
I shall be taking part in this afternoon's Adjournment Debate on police restructuring.
The Government's preference appears to be for large regional police forces or county amalgamations such as Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. This is very much in keeping with their wider agenda to draw power up to the regional level and closer to Whitehall control, as we have seen with regional assemblies and regional fire service control rooms.
I am not convinced that such a centrally-driven merger would achieve what pragmatic arrangements between police forces cannot. When I was Shadow Minister for Police I supported the principle of 'memoranda of understanding' between forces to deal effectively and efficiently with types of crime that do not recognise county or national boundaries, such as terrorism, drug smuggling and people-trafficking. I continue to believe that this is the most appropriate way to confront the modern-day threats posed by trans-border crime whilst maintaining the vital relationship between local communities and the police that serve them.
It is eminently sensible for police forces to cooperate, for example, on the purchase and management of helicopters, property, vehicles, pay roll and other activities. But the essence of our system of policing by consent is local connectivity and accountability. Distant, regional forces would undermine that.
People in South East Cambridgeshire want to see a police presence in the town which is locally accessible, knowledgeable, available and responsive 24 hours a day. They recognise that the vast majority of crime is committed by local people against their neighbours and want effective community policing to deal with it. I doubt whether this could be realistically achieved by a remote regional police force or inappropriately amalgamated county forces, however neat and tidy they may look on a civil servant’s map.
Nor can it be guaranteed that they will provide capital, revenue or personnel savings for the Treasury or "service delivery benefits" for the public given the thin and woefully inadequate nature of the assumptions contained in the Government's so-called "financial tool kit" that accompanies their recommendations. So the chances are it will be local taxpayers – who have already seen the police levy on council tax bills in Cambridgeshire more than double since 1997 – foot the bill.
Many key questions about the Government's proposals remain unanswered. Would a regional police force for the East of England, covering 20,000 square miles and well over five million people, make the police more locally accountable? Would it lead to a reduction in crime? Would it make people feel safer? Would it result in more police officers on the beat?
Unless these questions are answered positively it is impossible to justify changes that threaten to break the bonds between communities and their police forces.
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Posted by John Loader, 16:51, Wed 21 December 2005: (Is this post abusive?) #
Where I grew up the Oxford City, Reading Borough, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire police were combined into Thames Valley Police. We never lost touch with local policing in this larger force due to its policy on local policing and the force had significantly more effective resources at its disposal. The argument against the loss of Reading Borough Police seems the same one used against the loss of Cambridgeshire and just as irrelevant. I knew my local copper in Reading despite him being part of a force that stretched from Milton Keynes to Camberley - I don't here.