Home Affairs oversteps boundaries
‘THE operational independence of the police is a fundamental principle of British policing.’*
It is a point deputies should bear in mind when the president of Home Affairs stands in the States today to give her committee’s rebuttal to criticism by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary.
By now we know what the gist of her response will be. Home Affairs should be praised, not pilloried, for opening itself up to a warts and all critique. They can now go away and make everything right – albeit in their own good time.
Deputy Mary Lowe will also deny meddling in police operational affairs. Her team were just acting as a conduit for public feedback.
Deputies have a duty to question that response.
What, for example, were Home Affairs doing in the two years since the election if everything was on hold for the HMIC report?
This self-imposed paralysis extended to setting a budget for Law Enforcement. How did they expect any public body to function without financial planning?
The questions get more serious when it comes to operational interference.
HMIC as a national regulator understands how police forces interact with public bodies.
The UK’s Policing Protocol guidelines* set out how police and crime commissioners (PCC) should approach chief constables.
Rule 17(i) stipulates that the PCC should provide ‘the local link between the police and communities, working to translate the legitimate desire and aspirations of the public into action’.
So the inspectors know how it works. Yet they found here an unacceptable focus on low-level issues and interference in operational policing.
Not one or two isolated incidents. This is not just about flashing bike lights, a parking ticket and a busted wing mirror but frequent intervention where Home Affairs felt ‘exasperated’ because officers did not act fast enough on their requests.
Any further doubts deputies have of the seriousness of these charges should be quashed by today’s letter from a senior civil servant which backs up HMIC’s view that this is a committee that fails to understand the boundaries of office.
Trying to interfere, undermining the chain of command, ambushes…
It is all too familiar. And unacceptable.