This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
The Case Against ACPO - A Critical Look At The Association Of Chief Police Officers National Policing Plans


The National Policing Plans were the clearest expression of the policy of centralisation. Each Plan set out a series of “priorities” for police forces to follow, supported by a greater number of targets, metrics or directives. This proliferation of targeting and central direction inhibits local initiatives and priorities, leaving Chief Constables unable to exercise their prerogative to direct their force.


Wresting more control


The Policing and Crime Bill contains measures that increase central control over forces through new rules on collaboration. The Bill gives the Home Secretary the power not just to sanction and veto collaboration agreements but to give guidance and directions on which forces should collaborate and how.


National funding


The centralised model of police funding is a mess, eroding local accountability and inhibiting police forces from spending money where it would be most useful. It removes the incentive to spend effectively and efficiently, and denies local residents a say in how much they pay for their policing, and what its priorities should be. This disintermediation of the payment and the benefit prevents citizens from understanding what they pay for policing, and discourages them from taking an active part in reducing costs.


The bulk of police resources comes from central government grants, which have increased by 58 per cent in the past decade. The amount allocated to each force is based on a complex formula which in essence tries to predict the level of crime in each force, based on criteria including the number of single parent households, the number of long-term unemployment benefit claimants, the number of bars per 100 hectares, the amount of student housing and the number of residents in terraced accommodation.


The performance of a police force is not taken into account. The value of grants arising from this formula is then changed, multiplied by various scaling factors. An additional grant for various designated purposes is then added. Finally, in the case of the Metropolitan Police, a further arbitrary amount is added “in recognition of the Metropolitan Police’s distinct national and capital city functions”. For 2009-10 that amount is £202.5 million.


A new deal with Chief Constables


Any realistic police reform must attract the support of Chief Constables. Their powerful position and lack of accountability is one of the key defects of the current structure; equally, it gives them what amounts to a veto on reform.


45


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53