General Policing Issues

Chairman's Address to Annual Conference 2005

Welcome Minister to your first ‘live' appearance at our Annual Conference here in Peebles. We are delighted that you are able to join us in person this year. Welcome too, are Robert Gordon, Head of the Justice Department and Legal and Parliamentary Services, and his colleagues Bridget Campbell, Alistair Merrill, Dr Claire Monaghan and Neil MacLennan, Mr Pat Watters, President of COSLA, Mr Andrew Brown, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Mr David Strang, President of the Association of Chief Police Officers, Mr Tom Buchan and Ms Carol Forfar from the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents, Mr David Garbutt, Director of the Scottish Police College, and Mr Graham Pearson, Director of the Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency.

 

Minister, I intend to cover a number of issues relative to policing in Scotland, all of importance to the police officers of Scotland whose elected representatives are sitting before you today, They are all keen to hear what you have to say in response, so let me get started.

 

There is a great deal on the policing Agenda at the moment. We have the Executive's consultation paper on Supporting the Police, Building Communities, which deals with a number of new proposals impacting on policing and the criminal justice system. Together with a number of other ongoing reviews, studies and examinations, the Agenda is full and hopefully it will all lead to improvements for us all.

 

From our perspective, the issue which we would most like to see covered in the Bill, is some protection for police officers in relation to blood borne diseases. The consultation on Blood Testing Following Criminal Incidents is something which started at this Conference a few years ago, and we are pleased that this has received a great deal of support from you and your Ministerial colleagues and is now being considered for legislation.

 

What we initially asked the Scottish Parliament Petition Committee for, was legislation that would make it compulsory for anyone who assaulted the police, to submit to a blood test where they had caused a police officer to be exposed to the risk of contracting an infectious disease.

 

Unfortunately, assaults on the police are increasing, and spitting, biting, the use of knives or needles all carry with them the risk of infectious disease. To know whether or not the person who has committed the assault is carrying an infectious disease, would make a significant difference to the type of treatment that would be necessary, and a tremendous difference to the stress that is involved for victims and their families.

 

As you know, we said at the time that this could be beneficial not just to the police, but to other workers and we were delighted to see that the Executive had included in the proposals, other groups of workers and indeed any victim of a physical or sexual assault.

 

In relation to the police, we have to deal with violence on a daily basis. Society expects the police to put themselves between the public and the most violent people and rightly so, but while it is part of the job, we need protection through the criminal justice system and these proposals would give us some protection.

 

The proposals do not address all of the requests we made in our Petition and we have raised these again in the reply we have sent you, but discussion on these issues is for another day.

 

Today Minister, we would like to thank you and your officials for the support you have all given this matter so far, it could really make a difference as I have said. It would be a victory for the victim for once, something I am sure we would all support.

 

Next week is the deadline for responses to the Executive's consultation, Supporting Police; Building Communities, which contains a number of proposals that might feature in the Bill later this year. We have submitted our views, but I want to mention one or two of the issues now.

 

We all agree that in Scotland , knife crime is a real problem. The Executive has proposed strengthened police powers and tighter regulation on the selling of knives and we strongly support this. We also strongly support increased penalties for possession of a knife from 2 years to 4 years imprisonment. We support these proposals, but we don't think they go far enough.

 

Very few people would argue about the misery knife crime causes. In fact they must wonder why, after so many government announcements about crackdowns, special police initiatives, amnesties and all the rest of it, why we still have such a significant problem.

 

Well Minister, I think I can tell you. Leaving aside certain domestic knife crimes where a knife is taken to hand in the heat of the moment, the young men, and they are generally young men, who go out armed with a knife, will think about two things first. One - What are the chances of me being caught? And Two – What is the punishment likely to be? The answer to the question, Why do people carry and use knives?, is simple. It's because they can get away with it.

 

Political announcements, legislative change and short-term police initiatives all have a role to play, but we cannot rely on them alone to bring about an improvement. We need to increase the chances of knife carriers being caught, and increase not just the potential penalties, but the actual sentences passed. If that is done effectively enough, the problem will be greatly reduced.

 

Another two aspects of the consultation paper we welcomed, were the proposals on Marches and Parades, and football banning orders. The suggestions in Sir John Orr's Report are fully supported by us and we hope these can be made law in the near future. They seem to us to strike the right balance between people's legitimate right to march, and other people's right to a peaceful existence.

 

We also hope that Football banning orders will be a useful addition to our ability to control anti-social behaviour. It saddens me to see that Scotland's national game can still be spoiled by the actions of a small minority of people who don't understand the first thing about sport. It is even sadder when Scotland 's football supporters rightly enjoy a fantastic Europe wide reputation, that domestically, we still have a small number of hard core trouble makers.

 

There is little doubt in our minds that banning orders could make a difference, and providing the increase in our workload is taken into account, we look forward to having the orders on the statute books.

 

On the question of new law impacting on our resources, the one thing in the consultation paper that caused us to be wary, was the proposal on mandatory drug testing. This would be new in Scotland but we understand it is having some success in England and Wales .

 

As you know, the proposals are that the police be given powers to require people arrested for certain trigger offences to undergo a drug test. Where a person tests positive for a class A drug, the police would have the power to require them to attend an assessment of their drugs use. The idea is to get people to engage in treatment services.

 

It is clearly in everyone's interest to try and reduce drug misuse and the police clearly have a role towards that aim, but I think there is a real resources question here.

 

Depending on how many trigger offences there are going to be, we could be speaking about thousands of tests a year and potentially thousands of referrals.

 

Who exactly would carry out the tests? What happens if someone refuses or does not attend at the treatment services. No matter how we look at this, there is time, personnel and equipment costs to be considered here and you must keep this in mind Minister when you are making your decisions about the way forward.

 

Also in the paper, there is a section about incentives for providing evidence against major criminals. Properly controlled and administered, this could be a useful tool in the crime fighting armoury and we will be interested to see how this develops.

 

There are also some developments on the thinking for an independent Police Complaints Commission, and as you know, this is something the Scottish Police Federation has welcomed. Not because we believe there is anything drastically wrong with the current system, but some changes are required and greater openness, accountability and scrutiny has our support.

 

We also think that our conduct regulations need to be modernised to take account of a new Commission and to resolve one or two problems we have with the arrangements.

 

We also have one or two problems with the way some Chief Constables and police authorities deal with requests for legal advice and assistance where officers require assistance in relation to on duty incidents and we will be raising this at the Police Advisory Board for Scotland .

 

We are pleased that the Executive has recognised that we need to move away from the blame culture and that we should try to move to a system that provides continuous improvement and proportionate action where officers fail to meet the required high standards. Let us get on with establishing the Commission and demonstrate to one and all that we have a fair system for those who complain and for those who are complained about.

 

Finally, there are some changes proposed to the governance structure of Common Police Services such as the SDEA, Scottish Police College and the Scottish Criminal Records Office. Change is required here and in our view we should keep these services together. We support the creation of a Service Authority and in simple terms we would like to see this reflecting the tripartite structure that exists for police forces.

 

We do not support the notion of lay members on the Service Authority. We are not convinced that lay people, no matter how well informed or skilled, could bring anything of real value to the table. Convenors of Police Authorities or Boards, Chief Constables, and of course the Executive, are best placed to oversee Common Police Services.

 

Neither do we see the need to appoint a Senior Strategic Officer who would oversee the Directors of the College, the Scottish Criminal Records Office etc. We think this would be an unnecessary tier in the structure and believe that the Directors of the individual services should have a direct and uninterrupted link to the Service Authority.

 

A lot of good work has been done to ensure that our police service is properly structured to meet the challenges of the present day and the future. Common police services play a valuable role in ensuring that police forces are supported in an effective and efficient way. They are a vital part of the police service and appropriate governance arrangements will ensure that they remain so.

 

Minister, I want to turn now to an issue which affects the whole of the United Kingdom .

 

The Serious organised Crime and Police Act received Royal Assent just a few days ago. In relation to serious and organised crime, we all hope that this Act will prove to be at least as effective as current arrangements. Serious and organised crime creates thousands of victims, wreaks havoc and brings misery to our communities and destroys families and individuals lives. No right thinking body or organisation could blame politicians for critically examining our arrangements for dealing with serious and organised crime

 

But Minister, I think everyone has the right to know that that political consideration has been taken on a thorough examination of the issue. There should have been a thorough examination of the current arrangements, and, in the course of that examination, the experience and views of the people actually delivering the service should have been taken.

 

But we were never aware that the mechanisms for dealing with serious and organised crime were being examined. We were never asked for our views.

 

Now we don't blame you for this Minister, David Blunkett the ex-Home Secretary was in position at the time and we are in no doubt that the Serious Organised Crime Agency is his baby.

 

But Minister, this is serious, the most significant of the proposed changes are that SOCA be staffed by agents and not police officers. When the press dubbed the new Agency a UK FBI, we thought that was stretching it a bit, but its not so far from the truth. We could hardly believe that serious and organised crime would be dealt with by politically controlled and directed Agents rather than politically impartial and publicly accountable police officers.

 

Bad enough that this was proposed for England and Wales , but it was also proposed for Scotland . We give you great credit Minister for taking a different line on this. You made sure that the SDEA would continue to be staffed by police officers and would continue to be primarily responsible for serious and organised crime. You and your officials also made sure through amendments to the original Bill, that the Home Secretary couldn't direct chief constables in Scotland and that was a significant improvement.

 

Now I know that we will never agree about those directive powers being in your hands. I know that your officials have told us the powers will probably never be used, but we think that misses the point. For extremely good reasons, there should be a clear separation of roles, responsibilities and powers between politicians and the police. It is vital that Chief Constables' independence and their operational autonomy must remain sacrosanct.

 

No one should be in any doubt. The creation of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Agency, with agents not police officers, with cross-border responsibilities, is the biggest constitutional change in policing terms the United Kingdom has ever seen. We will continue to monitor developments, and you can be sure we will continue to let you know of our concerns.

 

Minister, we look forward to the Police Bill, we have high hopes that it will make a real difference. We are hopeful that it will reinvigorate the criminal justice system and make it fit to cope with the problems we face in Scotland today. Yes, many of its features will increase our workload, but provided we have the people to take on the new work, then we are more than willing to do that. There simply has to be a realisation that we cannot continue to take on new duty after new duty without new resources to cater for it.

 

And new duties for the police come from many different directions. Take the Management of Offenders Bill for instance. As you know there is a proposal in there for Home Detention Curfews and it is estimated that annually, at least three hundred people will need to be tracked down, apprehended and brought back to prison.

 

In the Financial Memorandum to the Bill, it states that police costs in relation to this will be “absorbable”. We simply do not agree with this. There is no unused capacity in the police service and all new or additional work should be costed and expressly catered for in police budgets. We acknowledge there is some difficulty in forecasting costs for these extra duties, but it will be possible and it is essential, that the costs are counted and expressly provided for in future budgets.

 

The same goes for the Sentencing Commission's report into bail and remand. Again we have proposals for greater use of electronic tagging and again we will have increased workload in relation to breaches. We are not opposed to this and like you, we hope this will tighten up the supervision of those on bail. We need tougher sanctions on those who breach bail because frankly, the situation currently is farcical.

 

With over 9,000 people offending while on bail each year, about 4,000 committing more than one offence while on bail and over half of the 9,000 not receiving any additional penalty for the bail offences, it is obvious that the whole system has fallen into disrepute. We welcome the Commission's Report, and are currently studying the detail.

 

Minister, for a number of years now, each time a new duty is taken on, experienced officers are utilised and less experienced officers are left on the frontline. The result has been that frontline response duties, arguably at least as onerous as any specialism, is left in the hands of young officers who are not receiving the guidance and on-the-job training experienced officers once delivered.

 

These young officers undergo a baptism of fire and it is to their great credit that they manage so well. But it is not ideal, sometimes it can be very risky indeed, and with the high number of retirals due over the next five or six years, the situation will get even worse. The Scottish Police Federation is in no doubt, that we need to address this, and we need to address this now.

 

2005 sees police officers working harder than ever before. The calls on our services have never been greater. Arguably, the police forces in Scotland have never been better at answering telephone calls from people requiring the assistance of the police, or at least we are answering a far higher proportion of them than ever before. But our resources still restrict the number of calls we can actually attend to within a reasonable period of time, or indeed attend to at all.

 

We are not attending their calls quickly enough. Often, by the time we get there, the housebreaker has gone, the mugger has fled, or simply we have been too late to make a difference.

 

Understandably, this annoys the victim or the witness and it annoys us too. Despite what some people cynically think to the contrary, we still like nothing better than arresting criminals and locking them up. That's what we are for, that's what we want to do, but we are often hindered by a lack of police officers where and when it matters. It is an undisputable fact that the quicker we can attend an incident, the better chance we have of apprehending the person or persons responsible. Give us the officers Minister, and that is exactly what we will do.

 

Earlier this year, the First Minister announced a £1 million confidential crime helpline, where calls could be made from members of the public reporting the activities of drug dealers. We supported that initiative because the police need that type of information.

 

Like the knife problem, which I mentioned earlier, no one would give you an argument that the illegal use of drugs is a serious issue which badly affects many places in Scotland . The Executive is absolutely right to focus on it and try to achieve improvements. But there will be no improvements unless we have the human resources to deal with it.

 

Increase the chances of offenders being caught, and more of them will try to avoid becoming involved in the first place. Those that do become involved and are caught and are appropriately dealt with, will think twice about being caught again. That is the solution we need.

 

Now Minister, you know that we have been knocking on your door since you took office about increased police officer numbers. The latest figures show that at the end of last year we had 15,907, an increase of about 500 or 3.25% since you took office. We acknowledge that this is a significant number and we are grateful for it, but we still have the situation I described, already not enough police officers answering calls for assistance from the public, and all of these new duties being lined up for us.

 

And on top of all of that, we have to be ready and prepared for the unexpected or the unusual. In the unusual category Minister, is G8, which will turn out to be the largest single policing operation Scotland has ever seen. We would like nothing more than for this event to pass off successfully and peacefully.

 

We would like to be able to police this event and all of it's associated events in the normal Scottish police service fashion with public safety uppermost in our minds, efficiently, friendly and fairly. But we know from previous G8 meetings that not all have passed off peacefully. There has been significant disorder and violence at some, and we would be in dereliction of our duty if we did not prepare properly.

 

For anyone to think otherwise, for them to think that we are gearing up to provoke confrontation, is perverse in the extreme. Some people who should know better apparently hold this view. They think that by ensuring we are equipped to deal with any and all eventualities is in some way inflammatory. What utter rubbish.

 

They are the self-same people who would be among the first of our critics should something go wrong and it was found that we had not prepared for it.

 

Minister, none of us have a crystal ball, we don't know for sure how this event will play out, but I repeat, we hope it is a successful meeting for the participants, that those who want to protest can do so peacefully, and that those who have to go about their daily business in the areas affected can do so with the minimum of disruption.

 

Our members are going to be seriously disrupted, whether they are policing the event in any way, or they are left at home attending to our usual business. This is simply part of our job, not an easy part, not a part that will be done in anything like normal hours or circumstances, but one which I am totally confident will be done with the usual professionalism shown by Scottish police officers day in and day out.

 

I am sure you will join me in the hope that we can both be here next year patting each other on the back for a job well done.

 

Minister, I have covered a wide range of issues today. Your Ministerial brief and our area of interest is very wide and very busy and of great interest and importance to everyone in our country.

 

Our remit, the welfare and efficiency of police officers, permeates each of the matters I have covered today.

 

A good police service is only possible with your full backing and support. That is what we are looking for today and in the year ahead. Thank you.