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EVIDENCE TO THE RICHARDS COMMISSION, DEVOLVING
POLICE RESPONSIBILITY TO THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY FOR WALES.
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Alison Halford. 12th July 2003.
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| My paper concentrates on the reasons why policing should
be devolved to the Welsh Assembly I argue that chief constables
are very powerful and that Police Authorities, (Pas),
are ill equipped to fulfil their function of providing
an effective and efficient force because they know little
about running a multi million pound organisation and they
are usually unwilling to challenge the chief officers.
I base my comments mostly an my time as a North Wales
PA member. |
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A PA forms one point of the tri-partite
agreement shared with Home Office and Chief Constables,
with the Chief HMI in the background to advise Home
Office. This arrangement really allows no one to take
responsibility for shortcomings in policing on the lines
of "pass the parcel". Home Office will not interfere
in any decisions of a PA, even though ample evidence
is given to them that intervention is required. A chief
Constable has total operational control and can with
hold information to his/her Authority or "spin" it.
Albeit occasionally, a chief officer is also allowed
to give verbal reports rather than written ones to PA
committee meetings. This puts the PA at a disadvantage
as it is used when the force has a problem that it would
prefer to despatch with the minimum of fuss and scrutiny.
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Statistical data is not easily available
to the public, if at all, and therefore it is impossible
to determine how the force is handling personnel issues
such as ill health retirements, number of grievances
and industrial actions pursued by officers, gender balance
data and the like. Why officers and civilian support
staff leave a force should be monitored and if comparisons
should be made between forces to determine that management
procedures are sound and fair.
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| Crime commission and detection figures are also unreliable
and it is not easy to access if policing is giving value
for money. |
| The police Auditing function is not geared to openness
and the District Auditor do nothing to intervene in a
long running legal dispute regardless of mounting-cost
to the public. I welcome the Auditor General assuming
responsibility for police audits and I hope a fast track
system to resolve. actions can ;re introduced. My paper
argues that the Welsh Assembly could address this shortcoming. |
| Examples are given to show that a PA will not press
for explanations when the public pays out for large civil
action claims. Police are not called to account or lessons
learned and the chief constable is always supported even
to the extent of taking discipline action against a PA
employee to please the chief officer. |
| The main focus of my paper is with my concern that a
PA, either as a corporate body or as an individual member
is NOT accountable to any authority. Huge settlements
usually confidential are agreed, legal fees run on for
years and even when an Authority shows bias to the public
and employees, neither Home Office of the Office of the
Lord Chancellor will challenge events. Rules applied to
the Ombudsman's sphere of operation again make scrutiny
by that office almost impossible. The Welsh Assembly should
be better placed to exercise more control on these powerful
lay bodies. |
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The other main point made in the paper
is to discuss the damaging conflict of interest that
exists by allowing the PA Clerk, usually legally qualified
who is also the statutory required Monitoring Officer.
The two roles are incompatible as was the position of
the Head of Legal Services in North Wales who wore two
hats. She gave the chief officers legal advice and helped
head off civil action claims against the police. At
the same time, she advised the PA whose role it was
to ensure complaints procedures were being property
conducted. As an employee of the PA, she was in an impossible
situation that worked to the senior officers advantage
for a time and then blew up in her face.
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PA's must be capable of being called
to account and not just part of a cosy Chief Constable's
fan club. Police need support but they also need scrutiny
and that is lacking, as things currently exist.
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Despite protests from the minority in
the North Wales PA, the majority refused to have this
conflict regularised. Such conflict of interest was
unfair to the public whose complaints were never investigated
and dismissed out of hand.
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If the Assembly took responsibility for
policing in Wales the number of Welsh MPs could be reduced.
That would save large sums of public money and curb
the rather messy "battle" for work, as some MPs seem
content to undertake many of the responsibilities that
have been assigned to the Welsh Assembly.
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| An audit is required to assess the respective workloads
of AM' and MPs to determine salary levels more accurately
and to access how much of the caseload devolved to AMs,
is being undertaken by them. The caseload carried by list
and non-list members may be revealing also. I accept that
there is no yardstick as to what Mps may or may not do
when serving their constitiencies but an overview of who
is doing what may be useful for a variety of reasons. |
| I believe that unless Home Office is prepared to intervene
when the circumstances dictate and that mechanisms are
devised to ensure that some meaningful scrutiny of PA's
is put in place and that the conflict of interest situations
detailed in my long paper are not resolved, the NAW should
be given the right to accept responsibility for policing
in Wales. |
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