I Predict A Row!
Former Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, thinks this Government confuses interference with police accountability.
12 Aug 2011, 14:30
Are the government taking the right approach with the police?
Technically Sir Hugh is, of course, right that the Home Secretary can’t order Chief Constables to cancel police leave. What is surprising is that she – or her spinners – thought it was a good idea to brief that she’d issued the ‘order’. I’m sure we can all understand the frustration of Ministers flying home from holidays to be confronted by the scenes on our streets on Monday and Tuesday. There have also been some strong criticisms of police response outlined by scared and angry local residents. Questions do need to be answered about the decisions made during the heat of the troubles. Ed Miliband is right to call for an enquiry into what happened and why? But proper accountability does not extend to politicians trying to take over the responsibility for staffing and tactical decisions from the police in the middle of the operation. Public order policing and the detecting of the offenders is specialist police work. Even if police chiefs were caught off guard, there isn’t a Cabinet Minister who could have done a better job. Inserting themselves into operational decision making and criticising the police whilst they struggled to bring order to our streets has laid big problems down the line for Ministers and the Prime Minister.
Firstly, the short term opportunity to appear tough on the policing of the looting will surely be outweighed for Ministers by the long term impact on their arguments for changes to police accountability. One of the biggest criticisms of the policy of elected Police and Crime Commissioners is that they will compromise the operational independence of Chief Constables. The Government has tried to argue that this danger is covered off by a ‘protocol’ on the relationship which makes clear that the role of the PCC is to set the strategic priorities for the Force and to determine the level of the precept. What Chief Constables fear is that single ‘big beast’ PCCs will actually want to go much further than this – as the elected figure head, there will be a big temptation for them to step into operations when something happens in their area which hits the headlines. They will want to prove that they are doing something more immediate and tangible than the strategic leadership and community representation envisaged by the role. This week, Theresa May and the Prime Minister have proved that this fear is completely well founded.
But they have created even more problems for themselves as well. Cuts to police funding and changes to pay and conditions have already created a sense of unrest amongst police officers. Chief Officers have generally kept their unhappiness hidden and got on with implementing the changes. However, they have every right to feel pretty cheesed off that the Government was so quick to criticise their tactics earlier this week. My view as Home Secretary was that the role is to support the police in public – particularly when they are on the streets doing their best to keep people and property safe in the face of an unprecedented and unpredicted event like the riot and lootings; to raise concerns, if necessary, behind the scenes and to review lessons learned with the benefit of a cool assessment rather than in the heat of the moment for political impact.
The Government have the right analysis about the need for stronger police accountability, but the wrong policy response and the wrong relationship with the police. I demanded that the police should be held to account for their ability to build confidence in local communities. I set this as the only national target for police forces. It required police to ask people what they cared about, to focus their resources on making a real difference and to report back on their progress. But how they did that, what they focussed on and how they set about cutting crime and disorder was up to them working with local partners. This meant that the police could be held to account for the impact of their work, not for the detail of how they carry it out.
None of us may have predicted the riots that struck this week, but it doesn’t take much to see a major police/government row coming down the tracks now. The Prime Minister only has himself and his Ministers to blame.
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Jacqui Smith
Jacqui Smith was a Labour MP from 1997 to 2010 and served as Home Secretary in the Brown administration.
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Has Smiff paid back the £100K she took for living in her sisters bathroom yet?
Her and Blears should shut the F**K up, what they and many other Labour MP's (some are in jail) did is no different to the scum last week.
12/08/2011 15:36If the Police are palpably getting it wrong with an on-going situation such as the riots this week, what is a Home Secretary, who has a responsibility to promote and protect law and order in the land, supposed to do?
Would you, as Home Secretary in the same position, have stayed mute while the Met singularly failed to recognised the gravity of the situation? Would you have chosen not to mention it in your political capacity when asked about the performance of the police subsequently? Had you done so, you would have been castigated for avoiding acknowledging the enormous elephant in the room: that is that the Police failed, to start with, to deal with the riots correctly. They bungled it. And our politicians have a duty to tell us how it is. If the Police don't like the truth of the matter, then that's a matter for their internal policies to ensure that things don't get to such a position again in the future. If the Police are to be operationally independent, then they should expect to be criticised publicly by the politicians who are perceived to be responsible.
We can't treat the Police as some sort of untouchable un-criticisable delicate flower. They have their faults and they have to learn by them and change as appropriate. Institutional inertia will prevent that from happening unless there's a distinct push to to do so, and that push has to come from Government.
12/08/2011 15:43So what is it - have theresa May and the PM 'interfered' in tactical police decisions, and is Sir Hugh Orde therefore wrong when he says the police did this (sending more officers in) on their own?
Or is Sir Hugh Orde right, and neither May nor Cameron interfered?
Which is it, Ms Smith?
Above all, does Ms Smith not overlook the small but rather important fact that there's this beast called COBRA, and that this was the place where decisions were made? She must remember that the acting and other Police Commissioners are actually present at these meeting, and not just as listeners and receivers of orders, mustn't she?
Finally - why should Chief Constables be 'afraid' of something which isn't even on the statute books, but is trundling its way through the legislative process? Do they really think their apprehensions will find no ear?
The only 'row' seems to be coming from the Labour-appointed Top Brass of the police, who may feel uncomfortable now their cosy relationship with the previous government is coming under scrutiny.
12/08/2011 16:47If there is a row, then it is about time.
The Police Chiefs have taken their eyes off the ball and spend too much time playing politics through APCO and not enough time policing.
Cameron wants to have elected police chiefs, and this would severely diminish the power of APCO, and hence their total opposition to the idea and this endeavour to assert their power. However, the reduction or abolition of APCO is something that apparently large numbers of serving officers in the lower and middle ranks would welcome.
The Met needs to explain why it was so slow off the mark getting control of the situation and other forces need to explain why they didn't foresee the looting spreading. It seems that the criminals have better communications than the police which APCO have left in the last century.
And the government should stop all financial support for APCO, it is a trade union and its members should pay for it and attend its meetings in their own time and at their own expense.
Yes lets have a row, my money's on Theresa May!
13/08/2011 12:30Jacqui Smith should be in prison for theft and then lying to try and cover it up. Any member of the public caught stealing over £100,000 from the public purse would have received a lengthy sentence of porridge. Nothing she says has any relevance ever again.
14/08/2011 11:43She commands zero respect.