Policing and Crime Bill

Part of the debate – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:57 am on 27 January 2009.

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Sir Norman Bettison: No, that is not a fair characterisation. Chief constables and police authorities often see the benefit of collaboration. The problems are threefold. The first problem is that the current 43 police forces have differential and variable costs, so collaborating on an issue is rarely a fair and equitable discussion, because different authorities and police forces have different costs sunk in operations, equipment or plant. The second problem is that there is variability in the vision of priorities. For example, I am the chief constable of a large metropolitan police force that is prepared to stand up and say that it has a problem with serious and organised crime. When engaging with colleagues in neighbouring forces and police authorities in more rural areas, we often have different priorities. It might be for the general good to collaborate on serious and organised crime, but there are different views on the priorities.

The third problem, which is probably driven by the first two, is something that I refer to as the net donor syndrome. Every individual force and authority imagines that they will contribute to a collaboration and that they will be a net donor. If I were chief or chair of a big force, I might consider that my current assets would be diluted. If I were chief or chair of a smaller force, I might consider that my contribution would be sucked into the bigger metropolitan forces.

Along with a tendency towards local sovereignty, those three problems are barriers to the voluntary end of collaboration. For the greater good, there must be some nudges, pushes and pulls within the process.