Clause 1 - The National Crime Agency

Part of Crime and Courts Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:00 am on 22 January 2013.

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Photo of Jeremy Browne Jeremy Browne The Minister of State, Home Department 10:00, 22 January 2013

This is the crux of our deliberations. The model that we are proposing is, essentially, the model that seems to have become more attractive to Opposition Members, which is that there is an elected leadership figure who sets the strategic direction—in police forces that is the PCC, in the new NCA that is the Home Secretary. Then, serving under that strategic direction, there is a crime-fighting leader. In the police force it is the chief constable, and for the NCA it will be Mr Keith Bristow, whom we have just been talking about.

I will come to the provisions for greater oversight. The question is whether the crime-fighting leadership of the NCA reports to a board, or whether—as is our view—it has the cleaner and more accountable reporting structure of reporting to an individual, the Home Secretary, who is an elected Member of Parliament and accounts to Parliament almost daily, either directly or through her ministerial team. The Government strongly believe that the NCA should be led by an operational crime fighter, not a non-executive chair and board, as is the case with SOCA. Police forces are led by chief constables, the Crown Prosecution Service is led by the Director of Public Prosecutions and the National Crime Agency should be led by its director general.

Of course, it is vital that chief constables and other leading crime fighters are held properly to account on behalf of the electorate, but people want to see effective accountability, not bureaucratic accountability. That is why we have ensured that chief constables are directly accountable to a single directly elected police and crime commissioner in their force area, who is visible and can be held to account and removed by local communities if they so wish, in the same way that the Home Secretary is a visible, elected leader who holds her office at the discretion of the electorate. The director general will be accountable to the Home Secretary, who has the democratically elected mandate to ensure that the public are protected from crime at a national level. They will be held to account by the taxpayer, the electorate and Parliament. In our view, this is more straightforward, less bureaucratic and will provide more real democratic accountability.

Naturally, we agree that the NCA should have sensible, transparent internal governance arrangements in place. Although it is right that the director general is ultimately charged with leading the organisation, in doing so he will want advice and challenge from other experienced leaders, both inside and outside the NCA—a point that was raised by the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East. The NCA will have a non-statutory management board—that has been usual practice in government for many years—to advise the director general on the strategic direction of the organisation. It will oversee good governance, for example by ensuring that proper audit and risk arrangements are in place.

To avoid confusion, the director general will not report upwards to a board, but will himself chair a board that will have senior internal members of the NCA on it, as well as outside members who will be able to ensure that proper audit and risk arrangements and good governance are in place. The outline of the NCA framework document clearly provides for such a board to be established under the chairmanship of the director general, rather than above his head. We see no reason for that management board to be set in statute, particularly since other non-ministerial Departments such as the CPS function very well with non-statutory arrangement.