Schedule 1 - National Policing improvement Agency
Police and Justice Bill
10:15 am
Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)
I am determined that the agency will be police-owned and led, because it will not work otherwise. That is why I was at great pains, in the steering group set up to develop the agency, to ensure that chief constables and police authority representatives were at the heart of it. The APA has been very influential in developing the kind of work that the agency will do and how it will operate.
If hon. Members were to speak to authorities such as ACPO and APA, they would acknowledge the significant contribution that the authorities have made to the development of the agency. It is not a construct made from the centre, with a blueprint being imposed. If hon. Members have the opportunity to discuss the matter with senior members of ACPO and the APA, I hope that they will gain a real sense that there has been intense collaboration between the centre and the locality. That is what is unique about the agency. That is why I believe it will be extremely effective.
One reason that I reject the idea of having separate funding streams, whether through the APA or ACPO, is that I want them to influence 100 per cent. of the agency’s budget, not only a small proportion. Having different funding streams is likely to set up tensions from the outset, with the APA feeling that it could influence only the 15 per cent. that it funded. I want it to be able to work with the police service, chiefs and officers at every level to ensure that it influences the way in which the agency operates, the strategies that it promotes, the improvements in IT that it will be working on, and the new tactics for dealing with new threats.
I see no purpose in setting up an agency that is fractured with internal tensions from the outset. If it has different sets of funding streams and different priorities, it will not have that sense of common and united purpose that will make it effective in the long run. We may take a different view on that, but I feel strongly and passionately that, if the agency is to work, there has to be trust, confidence and collaboration, and a sense that it is a joint and mutual enterprise for the good of the police service as a whole.
The agency will have the opportunity to influence the entire budget through the board, on which it will be represented. People will be able to influence it through committees and various advisory groups. A large part of its work will be about commissioning different solutions for the problems that we face—on neighbourhood policing, the sharing of information and data, how to tackle level 2 serious and organised crime, and other important and fundamental issues. The APA and the chief constables will have a role in commissioning the kind of solutions that we want to take forward. We need to work together on that.
The NPIA is a tremendous step forward for the police service. Like any new organisation, it will doubtless have some bumpy periods as we develop it, but I have a real sense that people want to see the agency be taken forward. I am sorry, but I cannot accept the amendment.