Clause 4 - Standard powers and duties of community support officers
Police and Justice Bill
4:00 pm
Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)
I was speaking before we broke about the proposal to allow the standardisation of the powers of community support officers. I was raising the question of the extent to which it is sensible to divide powers in the way proposed not in the Bill but in the consultation document. The clause will simply allow Ministers to standardise powers by order.
There is general agreement, as there was in the Home Office’s consultation exercise, that some standardisation of powers is desirable. Only 12 per cent. of respondents disagreed with that proposition. However, a range of bodies have expressed concern about whether too much standardisation is being proposed. That is what I wish to explore.
The regulatory impact assessment published by the Home Office concedes that it is intended that the vast majority of CSO powers, including the power to detain, will be made standard, leaving only a small number to be designated at the discretion of chief constables. It is that balance that has raised concerns in some quarters. The Association of Police Authorities has said that giving additional automatic powers to community support officers, particularly the power of detention, is likely to lead to their being taken off the streets and spending more time behind desks completing paperwork; and that the decision about whether or not to vest additional powers in community support officers should be a local one consistent with local policing style and strategy and not imposed from above.
The APA pointed out that its consultation with police authorities found that they supported only a minimum standard set of powers and maximum local flexibility. That view is supported by the Association of Chief Police Officers, which said:
“The standardisation of powers for PCSOs will bring some clarity to the public as to what PCSOs are for. However, we need to guard against them being given powers that lead to abstraction from their major role in providing high visibility contact with the
Against that, it is fair to say that the Police Federation, which was always sceptical about the introduction of community support officers, was not in favour of giving chief officers more discretion over the exercise of their powers. However, the APA and ACPO are, and the Home Affairs Committee also said that any extension of the powers of CSOs that reduced their street presence would be counter-productive. Of course it would be.
The question is whether the balance that the Minister is proposing is sensible. I have difficulty in understanding why it is proposed to standardise some powers, yet others that seem remarkably similar are to be left to the discretion of chief officers. For instance, the power to detain beggars who have refused to stop committing vagrancy offences will be standardised, but the power to use reasonable force to detain a person making off will be discretionary. Both of those powers would require the exercise of force, and I cannot understand why one should be a definite power that all CSOs will have and the other be subject to the exercise of discretion by chief constables. The Minister says that the Bill is not about centralising policing. The right principle, consistent with that, would be to give chief police officers the maximum possible discretion in this matter.