Hustings number eight: Reading 31/5/12

Reading CLPs have organised the eighth hustings - thank you!

Thursday 31st May, 2012 8pm

UNISON South East, St. Giles House, 10 Church Street, Reading.

I hope to see you there.

Hustings number six: Buckingham 23/5/12

Buckingham CLP have organised the sixth hustings - thank you!

The Council Chamber, Cornwalls Meadow, Buckingham MK18 1RP (opposite Waitrose and adjoining the Community Centre) 8:00 p.m. Wednesday 23 May 2012

I hope to see you there.

Hustings number five: Milton Keynes 19/5/12

Milton Keynes (N&S) CLP have organised the fifth hustings - thank you!

The hustings slot will happen towards the end of the Milton Keynes CLP AGM on Saturday 19 May, 10.30am to 12.30pm. The Cross & Stable Community Centre, Downs Barn Boulevard, Downs Barn, Milton Keynes, MK14 7RZ

I hope to see you there.

Hustings number four: Wokingham 15/5/12

Wokingham CLP have organised the fourth hustings - thank you!

Jubilee Room,Town Hall Market Place, Wokingham, RG40 1AS - 7.30pm - Tuesday 15 May.

I hope to see you there.

Hustings number three: Oxford 11/5/12

Oxford E with Oxford West & Abingdon CLPs have organised the third hustings - thank you!

Bishops Mews Campaign Centre, Oxford, OX4 6HD - 7.30pm - Friday 11 May.

I hope to see you there.

Hustings number seven: Slough 24/5/12

Slough CLP have organised the seventh hustings - thank you!

Thursday 24th May, 2012 7.30pm

Chalvey Working Mens club, 52 Chalvey High Street, Slough.

I hope to see you there.

Hustings number two: Banbury 5/5/12

Banbury CLP have organised this second hustings - thank you!

The Mill Arts Centre, Banbury OX16 5QE - 10.30am - Saturday 5 May.

I hope to see you there.

Manifesto ideas to be discussed & developed…

• Yes to innovation, efficiency and value for money, no to rampant, ideological and ‘chummy’ privatisation 
• Yes to high visibility and resilient local policing, no to any unfair distribution of scarce police & community safety resources 
• Yes to policing that works (evidence based), no to policing that does not
• Yes to human rights, no to any attempts to water down our historic and proud commitment to freedom & fairness 
• Yes to real and respectful community engagement, no to consultations that just go through the motions 
• Yes to policing that focuses on tackling harm and hate, no to policing that overlooks people who already feel ignored 
• Yes to prevention, no to endless quick fix responses
• Yes to restorative justice that reduces offending, no to retributional justice that increases it 
• Yes to proper funding, no to draconian cuts 
• Yes to fair working conditions and pay for police officers and staff, no to imposing new working arrangements in a way that would make a Victorian mill owner blush 
• Yes to carefully blended neighbourhood policing teams with a suitable range of skills and powers, no to beat policing on the cheap as stage one in outsourcing local patrol
• Yes to imaginative and slim procurement that (for example) develops local apprenticeship schemes and boosts our economy, no to bureaucratic and inefficient procurement that reduces value for money for local tax payers
• Yes to making sure that victims are supported with dignity and respect, no to cuts in services available to help victims of crime rebuild their lives
• Yes to tackling anti social behaviour robustly (especially where vulnerable people are being victimised), no to action that criminalises people who are not criminals
• Yes to local partnerships making a difference through empowering communities to improve community safety, no to dry and dusty talking shops that fail to represent the diversity of society
• Yes to tackling disproportionate stop & search tactics, no to all forms of racism (and other 'ism's) getting in the way of effective community engagement

These are just my early ideas and I am very keen to hear from party members and supporters what you want to say Yes and no to... please post your ideas below.

Thank you.

Hustings number one: Amersham 26/4/12

All party members welcome from across Thames Valley to this first hustings organised by Chesham and Amersham CLP (thanks!) 

8pm in the lounge room of Amersham Community Centre (Chiltern Avenue, Amersham, HP6 5AH) - Thursday 26 April 2012.

I hope to see you there.

In a nutshell...

I have my first hustings on Thursday. So I have been thinking about how to explain who I am, why I want to be the Labour candidate and why I think I am the best person for the task. So in a POLICE nut shell:

Passionate: very committed to policing and serving the community through this position – planning to spend most of the next six months actively campaigning

Occupation: been working with police on strategy & leadership since 1988 – with Thames Valley, other forces and wider national justice agencies. Issues: knife crime, collaboration & governance etc.

Labour: campaigning for Labour since 1974 as activist, party official & trade unionist, currently one of eight Labour councillors in Buckingham & CLP agent.

Insight: studied, lived and worked in Reading, Oxford & Buckingham – no satnav for Thames Valley needed. Looking forward to listening to people from across Bucks, Oxon & Berks

Campaigning: committed to win through good organisation, reaching out to diverse communities and focusing on concerns about policing cuts and privatisation

Egg: works directly with Chief Police Officers (with ‘scrambled egg’ braid on their collars) – knows what questions to ask to make them wriggle but not squirm

A worrying prelude or just an operational response to the circumstances?

"Former Home Secretary David Blunkett has criticised plans to replace traditional beat bobbies with police community support officers (PCSOs)."

Full BBC news story here

Could we see this happening in Thames Valley?

Is such a move a prelude to outsourcing PCSOs to a private sector supplier...?

You can replay my live microblogging of the South Yorkshire Police Authority meeting by using the hashtag #sypameeting on twitter. Some tweets from SYPA there too. 

My answers to my ten (Guardian) questions

Some weeks ago the Guardian posted an article of mine on the “Ten questions for potential police and crime commissioners”. (You can read the article here.) Several PCC contenders, including Tory and Independent ones, have referenced my article and given their answers. I must now, of course, answer my own questions…

1. This year, a number of police authorities have taken a one-off grant from the government in order to reduce their precept and the impact of the cuts. There is no guarantee that this money will continue which means that next year, the new PCCs may have to make even bigger cuts or seek higher precepts. If you had been elected last year, what would you have done and why? Would you have chosen to take the one-off grant or not?

The short answer is yes. The state of police finances are so tight, I could not have justified refusing this money this year. The other option, of course, would have been to raise the precept but I would probably not have risked the battle with the Police Crime Panel over this matter when this money was on offer. I suspect the debate would have gone down to the wire with the consequent instability for the Chief Constable and her team in planning budgets being no good to anyone. I describe myself as being on the pragmatic left which includes knowing which battles are worth fighting and which are not.

And yes, I am very aware that by not increasing the precept this year this could damage future budgets (lower base from which to work) and therefore the independence of Thames Valley Police Service. TVP and the TVPA have in the past focused on the long game of shifting much of their funding to local precept which has given the service a good deal of resilience from being bounced by central government grants. By accepting the grant this year, Thames Valley Police Authority has gone in the other direction and so the worry is: what happens next year? 

But it will be a different matter next year. It will be interesting to see what the candidates put in their manifestos. If I am the candidate, as I hope to be, then please watch this space. (But do know that the long term budget signed off by the Police Authority a few weeks ago does include precept rises for coming years…)

2. The new Act gives PCCs the power to "commission policing services from the chief constable (or other providers)". How do you envisage using this power and what risks do you foresee?

The short answer is very, very carefully! I am not opposed to all outsourcing and commissioning of other agencies – how could I be since I have spent most of my career being one of those agencies. See below*

But… and this is a big ‘but’ – there are huge dangers in commissioning outside agencies for commissioning’s sake. I have been around long enough in the business of strategy and management to spot a fashion when I see one. And I can also spot bad deals as well. For example I have always been very sceptical about the benefits of PFI. And now we are seeing examples such as A4E as well. I could go on. Payment by results sounds like a good idea but will it be?

One of the biggest risks to all this is that the police service will increasingly fragment into a series of contracted parts where coordinated action on crime & community safety will become more and more difficult to achieve. Moreover I fear that if (say) police community support officers are contracted out, street patrol will become the preserve of private companies where members of the public will only see police constables in times of stress. This is hardly a recipe for boosting policing by consent.

So I am resolutely an arch commissioning sceptic as opposed to enthusiast. (Some of my concerns can be found in my Guardian article of a few weeks ago here.)

And I think this will become a bigger issue as time proceeds as the public become more aware of what is happening and the risks & downsides that are emerging. As evidence of this my tweet of a few days ago where I said "Please RT if you feel even just a tad concerned about police privatisation.. RT lots if you're really worried! Ta" was retweeted over a 50 times in the next few days.

*When Thames Valley commissioned me and the firm I used to work for back in 1992 to develop and run a cascaded Leadership development programme (called Leadership in Action) for the force, I grabbed the opportunity with gusto. I spent several weeks in Sulhampstead with some great police officers as I ‘trained the trainers’. (I still have the certificate for winning the Karaoke competition in the bar one night with my rendition of ‘Michelle’!) This was the beginning of my work as a leadership & strategy adviser / facilitator with not just Thames Valley but many other police services and partner justice agencies since then.

3. How do you plan to forge a constructive relationship with the chief constable, and what will you be doing to avoid or handle conflicting views and priorities?

I have the hugest respect for Chief Constable Sarah Thornton. She is doing a very tough job in a very tough climate with great professionalism, élan and good humour. If I am elected, that will be my starting point. I don’t know what Sarah thinks of me (we have met and corresponded several times) but I would expect that she will to engage in building a positive, productive and professional relationship. 

My aim will be to listen and seek to build a solid partnership. I will absolutely avoid even thinking about telling her what to do in her professional practice. That is not my style nor indeed what the legislation allows. I will instead ask lots of questions and seek to represent the views and concerns of the Thames Valley electorate. 

I plan on talking with her about priorities in great detail and examining the various scenarios where one matter is given precedence over another. And I also plan to keep talking about the talking as well. Trust will be key.

4. On the basis that limited police resources need to be deployed in proportion to where and when there is greatest risk of harm to members of the public, as PCC what action will you take to ensure your police force is doing this optimally?

My first action will be take a close look at how resources are deployed around Thames Valley. The force already has a formula for deciding on the level of resource given to Slough vs. Witney (for example) based upon need and incidence of crime etc. Notwithstanding the need to have a resilient spread of resources across all areas of Thames Valley, I will be seeking reassurance that the ‘thin blue line’ in (say) Reading is not being stretched even thinner because it is slightly ‘fatter’ than the risk of harm suggests than it needs to be in (say) Chipping Norton. 

There could be a problem and there could not be a problem at all. I don’t know, but it is a matter I would wish to investigate on the basis that I believe in the fair and proportionate (to the risk of harm) deployment of scarce policing resources. Policing for the many not the few, as it were.

5. Given the focus on the relationship between the police and the news media, what would you hope to achieve in your first 100 days of office in this respect?

Some years ago I read a piece in the Oxford Star which reported on a public meeting where a well-respected and experienced police inspector addressed a public meeting about the (reducing) rates of crime in their area. So far, so good. Except then the journalist went on to spend a half of the article to reporting on a single resident who wanted to say that things were so much worse in his opinion. This was not the general feeling of the meeting, but one person alone giving his view, without any evidence to back it up. I was left feeling angry so I phoned the journalist up and asked him why he gave equal space to this single individual. He muttered something about ‘balanced journalism’ and I said it was imbalanced to give equal status to a single person with a gripe. 

I also recall working with Watford Council and Police on a large strategic planning event (lots of diverse people and agencies working together sharing ideas – it is one of my professional specialities) to assemble ideas on what more could be done in the town to tackle crime and the fear of crime. (I have always loved the title we came up with which was ‘Fearless in Watford’ as it neatly summarised what the whole conference was about.) 

We wanted to invite the local media (newspaper editors especially) to engage in a dialogue but they only wanted to report on the event rather than examine their role in fostering or reducing the fear of crime in the town. They never showed up.

So in my first 100 days, I would plan to have dialogues with all the main media in the Thames Valley and find out what more they are prepared to do to tackle the fear of crime and maybe even crime itself. I hope we can explore some imaginative ways in which their contribution to the health and well-being of the Thames Valley public can be enhanced. This is my aim.

6. How much do you worry that a large proportion of police resources spent on devising partnership protocols, emergency plans and interagency strategies etc, are broadly equivalent to all the effort that went into Year 2000 compatibility?

I don’t worry a lot because I trust that people to use their time wisely. But I do worry a little that a great deal of effort is often expended on producing what I call ‘strutegies’ where most of the time is spent on talking to the printers and making the document look pretty. I am more interested in ‘stractegies’ where the effort is spent on devising actions that will make a difference. 

In my role as PCC, I would want to explore how to create more ‘stractegies’ and fewer ‘strutegies’. 

7. It would seem that the fear of crime continues to rise despite the reductions in actual crime. What electoral promises will you make regarding this worrying trend?

This is a big problem in my view. Fear blights people’s lives. I don’t want that.

Despite the fact that the Labour Government was the only government in history to leave office with less crime than when it came to power in 1997, the level of fear of crime had increased. (Indeed I lobbied hard, but unsuccessfully, to get the fear of crime included in the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act). 

Tackling fear of crime is a tricky problem as well. At this stage (and this may change) all that I can promise is that I will make fear a priority for my attention and I will spend time researching where it has been tackled successfully. There may be international and national examples of where good and significant progress has been made. This is not a promise (as I do not think I can honestly give such an undertaking) but I will commit to doing all that I can do so that there is less fear of crime at the end of four years than there will be at the start. 

8. As PCC you will be elected by the people of your area. However the police often work in other force areas (as happened with the riots last year) and maintain resources to tackle national (often organised) crime. What tensions do you foresee there and how will you resolve them?

If elected as PCC for Thames Valley I will be parochial: my focus will be on what needs to happen so that Thames Valley people are and feel safer in their homes, on their streets and in their study & workplaces. I make no apologies for that. 

However, ‘never say for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee’. We are all connected in an intricate web of relationships and consequences. Therefore if there is an organised gang based in Banbury but committing most of their crime in Solihull (say) I would have no problems that TVP resources are dedicated to supporting the West Midlands Police Service in their efforts to bring the gang to justice. If another riot happens in London in the Summer of 2013, then I can foresee supporting the Chief Constable sending some of her resources to assist.

Why? Firstly, because it is the right thing to do. The world is not a spread sheet where we can fraction out one cost centre (aka community) from another. Some things just have to be done because they are right, regardless of the cost. Secondly, there are national agreements and agreements (or memoranda of understanding) between police services that should be honoured. The last thing I want to see happen on my watch is the Balkanisation of a coherent British police service. And thirdly, we may need help too sometimes. I believe in collaboration. 

Indeed, I believe that far more has been achieved in the world through people working together that has been achieved by people competing. I think humans are naturally collaborative. My style as the PCC will be harness such spirit and make not just Thames Valley a safer place to live, work, study and play but also the rest of the UK as well (if not the World…)

9. Is policing a complex business or a complicated one?

It is, of course, both. 

Policing includes a rich and complicated mix of different functions not just the ones that feature on TV programmes. The range is wide. I look forward to appreciating even more just how wide.

And the police have to respond to the messiness and unpredictability of the world. They have to stay one step ahead of criminals who are becoming ever more sophisticated in their attempts to exploit the rest of us. Our lives are becoming more fragmented as regular work is harder to come by, alcohol and drugs are more available, internet transactions are becoming more common and so forth. The world is complex: a butterfly flaps a wing in South America and we have a hosepipe ban in southern England... Rodney King is beaten up in Los Angeles and people protest outside Brixton police station. (That second event happened, by the way.) We need police leaders who manage within complexity.

10. Police authorities have been criticised for being too invisible. How will you visibly connect with all the diverse communities of your area and bring democratic accountability to life?

The short answer is that I do not know yet. I do know that I want to have a debate with fellow Party members and beyond to everyone working in and with communities around Thames Valley as to how to do this. But I will make these three points:

My style is to listen not tell and I plan on doing a great deal of listening over coming months in the run up to the election and then beyond. I promise to listen lots – and lots.

I am a believer in big meetings where people with diverse interests and ideas come together to agree a common way forward. I plan on hosting many of these kinds of meetings around Thames Valley if I am elected. I promise I will make such meetings happen and that there will be more opportunities than ever before for the people of Thames Valley to comment on and influence the kind of policing delivered to them.

And thirdly, I promise not a week will go by in my 3½ years (the subsequent election will be in May 2016) when I am not out somewhere by a school gate, at a council meeting, in a café, in a shopping centre listening to people about not just about their concerns about local policing but their ambitions and dreams too. 

I believe that policing done well, removes the fear of and the consequences of crime & antisocial behaviour, so that people get more of a chance to achieve what they want for themselves, their families and their communities. This will be the belief that will drive me forwards as the Thames Valley Police & Crime Commissioner.

My articles about the role of PCC and wider policing matters

I have been mixed up with policing, justice and community safety matters for a nearly 25 years. And I have been writing & thinking about the Police & Crime Commissioner positions since they were first being mooted by the Conservative Party in the run up to the 2010 General Election.

To add to your understanding of the implications of these new political positions, here is a selected list of some of my contributions over the last few months. (From newest to oldest)

• PCC election purdah: Many questions to be resolved (Policing Insight 16/6/15)
• Future of PCCs: Scenarios for change (Policing Insight 3/6/15)
• 'Light touch' police and crime panels must shift scrutiny powers up a gear (Guardian 24/7/13)
• PCCs: time for a pit stop? (Policing Today 25/4/13)
• Police and crime commissioners: six pre-election questions (Guardian 23/10/12)
• Police & Crime Commissioner campaigns – it’s all to play for (LabourList 29/8/12)
• What the Tories have in mind for Police and Crime Commissioners…(LabourList 4/7/12)
• PCC Elections: Pulling out all the stops (LabourList 25/6/12)
• Police and crime commissioners: 13 more questions (Guardian 13/6/12)
• Building a campaign for real politics (Labour List 27/5/12)
• Police & Crime Commissioner elections: connecting with the margin and mainstream (Labour List 4/4/12)
• Outsourcing: where do you draw the line? (Labour List 18/3/12)
• Is increasing public sector commissioning a good thing? (Guardian 16/3/12)
• Policing is political already – why should police commissioners hide their allegiance? (Left Foot Forward 7/3/12)
• Police and Crime Commissioners: 7 questions for ‘independent’ candidates (Labour List 19/2/12)
• The Trade Union role in Police and Crime Commissioner elections in November (Labour List 13/2/12) 
• Is there a thin blue line for the new Police and Crime Commissioners? (Labour List 9/2/12)
• Ten questions for potential police and crime commissioners (Guardian 30/1/12)
• My blog link to the Guardian article where people could post comments and discussions (My professional blog 30/1/12)
• We need to start campaigning now for the Police Crime Commissioners (Labour List 17/10/11)
• Police Crime Commissioners – what might be in their manifestos? (Labour List 31/8/11)
• 13 questions to help you believe in the government's NHS listening exercise (Guardian 7/4/11) (an article about good... and bad consultation processes - and we know what happened in the end!)
• Police: who will be the leader? (My blog 14/1/11)
• Ten ways to keep the peace (Guardian 13/9/10)

Why select me as the Labour Party Candidate

Please consider these three reasons

> Community understanding

> Campaigning passion, flair, experience and creativity

> Extensive knowledge of and a deep commitment to good policing

I have lived, worked & studied across the Thames Valley area for the last 35 years. I went to University in Reading. I then worked in housing for the Borough Council and social care research for the Berkshire County. I moved to live in Oxford in 1985 where I worked in Health Education across the county. I lived there until 2008. I now live in Buckingham where I am one of eight Labour Town Councillors. I have also recently joined the membership committee of the Milton Keynes and North Bucks Chamber of Commerce.

I first tasted the excitement of campaigning in 1974 when I remember being bused around Portsmouth North, knocking up for Frank Judd in the closing hours of that February election night. I have been through the highs and lows of the intervening local and national elections since then. Currently I am the Agent for the Buckingham Constituency and last year we managed to get our first Labour District Councillor elected in a long while. I am excited about how we will create a dynamic & inclusive campaign for the PCC elections that will reach out and listen to all the communities of Thames Valley and harness social media to connect with people.

Since 1988 I have been working as a leadership and strategic adviser, facilitator and coach with Thames Valley Police and many other forces around the country. For example I coached Peter Neyroud through all his time as Chief Constable for Thames Valley Police and then during his time as CC of the National Policing Improvement Agency. I designed and facilitated two large conferences on gun & knife crime for the Home Office involving young people, community activists, senior police officers and civil servants. The first conference was held in Birmingham (with Caroline Flint as Home Office Minister in attendance) and the second in Oxford. I carried out a best value review of Thames Valley Police Authority some years ago. I am an independent assessor of Chief Superintendents wishing to become Assistant Chief Constables. I work across the criminal justice system and have worked on leadership, strategy and change with senior probation managers, youth offending team managers, prison governors, senior managers from local authorities and senior civil servants. I am also a trained mentor and spent time with three young men during my latter years in Oxford.

Not only am I an ardent supporter of focused police and community safety practice that tackles and prevents crime effectively, I know what questions to ask and where to look to obtain even better practice and results.