Councillor Sue Woolley, Emily Spurrell and David Lloyd gave evidence.

We welcome the three witnesses: Councillor Sue Woolley, Conservative lead at the Local Government Association and Safer and Stronger Communities; Emily Spurrell, a Police and Crime Commissioner and justice portfolio lead; and David Lloyd, a PCC and criminal justice portfolio lead. Can you start by introducing yourselves, please? We will start with David.

David Lloyd:

Thanks very much, Sir Robert. Thank you for the courtesy of extending invitations to the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners to attend. You realise that PCCs have a strategic role in setting plans and budgets and holding their chief constable to account. We are not operational, and therefore any remarks we will make will be more about strategy—I suppose budgets, specifically—but we are also proudly victims champions. I suppose that is what we have brought to the criminal justice system—there is bias in favour of criminals. I am David Lloyd, and I am the PCC in Hertfordshire.

Emily Spurrell:

I am the PCC in Merseyside. To echo what David said, scrutiny and partnership working in particular are some of the areas that we are keen to look at.

Councillor Sue Woolley:

I am Councillor Sue Woolley. Today I am representing the Local Government Association. As you have already said, I am a member of the Safer and Stronger Communities Board. As a representative of local government, you will know, and I would suggest, that we are probably the bit of the jam that brings everything together, so that we have the opportunity to work with all those wider partners, including the PCCs, local government and the police force.

Q Thank you for your time and the distances that you have come to be with us today; it is really valuable to us in our consideration. I will start where you finished, Commissioner Spurrell, on partnership. Can you give me your reflections on community safety partnerships and your experience of them? We can go from left to right as I look at the panel.

Councillor Sue Woolley:

The community safety partnerships are absolutely important for partnership working at that local level—I must impress that on you—and provide the opportunity to bring together those other agencies that work particularly in the wider scheme of things. For example, under local government you will have public health, which sits with upper tier authorities; of course, they are responsible for things such as drug and alcohol services. While you may have the sharp end, if you like—the police force and the PCC—working with those who have broken the law, it is then the turn of local government and its wider partners to pick it up and put some restoration into the process.

Emily Spurrell:

As I said, I think partnership is a key part of the work we are trying to do. As police and crime commissioners, it is certainly very much in our job description that we bring partners together, and community safety partnerships are a good tool to do that.

They have probably had some challenges since they were first introduced many years ago, particularly around capacity in some areas—partly because of funding and because they do not sit on a statutory footing. In Merseyside, I fund the five CSPs that sit within the five local authorities. I give them funding to try to help them drive some of the really local issues that we see. It is also important that, as PCCs, we try to bring them together at the Merseyside force footprint level, so we can try to join that up. We want to try to get the balance of giving the local CSPs the powers and funding to do some really local issues while ensuring that we do not lose sight of how we get consistency and a joined-up approach at the force level.

In terms of some of the issues that the Criminal Justice Bill talks about—antisocial behaviour, nuisance begging and those kinds of issues—we absolutely need to use the powers of partners. We cannot rely on the police to do that job, for many reasons. The CSPs are the place where we can try to bring those people together and say, “It does not meet a police threshold, but we have other powers that we can use.” That is the value of the CSPs all coming together to do that work.

David Lloyd:

Emily is quite right: they are very good idea. I think they are variable. In Hertfordshire I have 10, based on the borough council footprint. Some very much want to work alongside policing. They are a very good idea, because community safety is clearly not just a policing issue; that is the most extreme end of it, but most of it is further upstream. But they are variable, and a lot of it is to do with the funding that they choose to put in or not. It is very easy to spend other people’s money on something; it is far more difficult to spend one’s own money on something. Frankly, that can be an issue, so we need to think about that funding and how it happens.

We also have to think about how they can influence the police and crime plan and how we can influence what they are doing. Even though they are fairly mature organisations, things still do not always join up as much as you might expect, especially if there are different political beliefs and different political leaderships.

Q Thank you for all those answers. I want to pick up on that final point. Clause 72 gives PCCs the ability to essentially say to the CSP, “This is what you should be prioritising,” and the CSP has to take that on board and, if it is not acceptable, come back in a formal process to say why not. I am not sure whether that is needed. You have talked about culture, mutual trust and realising that local government tackles the same problems as policing. Is the power necessary? As PCCs, is it one that you would expect to exercise? From a local government point of view, Councillor Woolley, would you be impressed if your PCC or Mayor was to exercise it with you?

Councillor Sue Woolley:

I couldn’t possibly comment!

David Lloyd:

When they were originally brought in under the Labour Government in the ’90s, I think they were missing teeth, if you like. Perhaps there was more accessible funding in those days, but to an extent I think that they do not have the teeth. Clearly, there is now a democratically elected corporation sole: a person who has that very direct role around community—a direct mandate from the public. So being able to sweep up into what the local council is doing would be very helpful, because we need some way of ensuring that, where common persuasion does not work enough, there are some teeth within it.

Q Should that perhaps cut both ways? As you say, the PCC has a democratic mandate. The local authority does as well. It is elected differently, but it is still drawn from the people—of the people. Are you not concerned that it creates a power imbalance, where the PCC can make that mandate, but the other partners cannot?

Emily Spurrell:

From my point of view, if the system was working as it should—again, I am reflecting on my own experience in Merseyside—you should all be talking about the same things anyway. When I look at my CSPs in Merseyside, if they are not all talking about serious organised crime, something has gone wrong. They are all talking about it, because it is an issue in all their areas. There will be some really specific issues that I think CSPs need to be able to look at but, generally speaking, if they are not talking about those issues, something else has gone wrong further upstream. It could be helpful to put this in because then, as David says, there is a reminder that you need that connection. The reality is that if they are not really talking about those things, there are bigger issues at play, in terms of why those same priorities are not being picked up.

Councillor Sue Woolley:

I think that if at all possible, when you have partners around a table and they are equal partners, that is a conducive way to good practice and working. I am quite sure that works really well in some places. In my own area, that works particularly well. All partners are equal around the table; everybody works together. I am quite sure that in other areas, that bond may not be as strong. Rather than just legislating for something, I would suggest that, if at all possible, there could be something around a duty to work together. You will know the language better than me.

Emily Spurrell:

That actually already exists for PCCs. It is within our duty to work in partnership as well.

Q Mr Lloyd, I want to go back to what you were saying at the beginning about your role in relation to the police—in standing up for victims. With the new powers that are extended to chief constables, and particularly the new duty of candour, how do you see the role of PCCs in ensuring that is effective?

David Lloyd:

We of course hold the chief constable to account in a variety of ways and in different places. Realising that there is a duty of candour is another part of the armoury, because it is something that we can push back. I know that this was very much part of the post-Hillsborough legacy. Clearly, that whole lack of candour was one of the things that went wrong. We are good at holding the chiefs to account, and it should happen locally. With this extra duty there, it is something that we will need to be reminded about—it is helpful for us to be reminded that there is a duty of candour—but we can then ask those questions as well.

Q I want to pick up on the repeal of the Vagrancy Act again. It is an ambition of this Bill to fill the gap that would otherwise be left by that Act, by addressing the nuisance element that may exist within those matters. Does this Bill provide a helpful tool for filling the gap that would otherwise be left by the repeal of the Vagrancy Act?

David Lloyd:

Clearly, there are people who are homeless, who are also almost aggressively begging; there are people on the streets who are aggressively begging, and are almost aggressively homeless, if that does not sound like a strange thing to say. However, I think we do need a great deal of care. I suspect that the vast majority of people who are homeless on the streets would not be seen as committing a criminal offence by any court, police officer or PCC. They require care and a way of ensuring that any drug and alcohol addiction or mental health issues are supported. It is a difficult area.

Q To pin you down a bit more—please, any of you jump in—do you think there is a distinction between nuisance begging and nuisance rough sleeping? They are treated differently in the Act, but it sounds as if you are driving at two different things

David Lloyd:

I think there is a distinction. We have heard evidence, and I am sure that you have heard evidence, of people sleeping in doorways who cannot be moved on by the local authority and there is nothing that can be done.

I suppose my real concern within this is that, especially as budgets get tighter and tighter, the duty around homelessness may change from being a duty on the local authority to a police issue. I do not think that that would be overly helpful if it were not structured in the right way—that it is seen that the principal duty is on the local authority rather than it being a policing issue. I think that there is a real danger of getting to the point that the police need to pick this up. Clearly, policing is not going to be able to deal with anything other than the very sharp and focused bit about this moment; there is far more to it than just this moment.

Councillor Woolley, given your role, do you have a view on that?

Councillor Sue Woolley:

I think we have to be very careful that we do not unnecessarily criminalise rough sleeping. As you are probably aware, through their various services, councils work very closely with those people that might be rough sleeping. There is a combination of rough sleeping and begging.

If we go down the road of criminalising something, then we run the risk of not being able to support those people and the one thing that we do want to do as a society is to support those people. I would just play back that, during covid, we got those people off the street. When we got them off the street, we were able to put services in for them and work with them. I would love to see that happen again. However, we do have a cohort of those who engage in nuisance begging, and we also have a situation of organised gangs sitting behind those who are begging. It is not a black and white answer at all.

Q Thank you. That is very helpful. My final question is for Ms Spurrell—I have not asked her anything yet—and is about antisocial behaviour and the new power for a victim who is dissatisfied with the response to ask their local PCC to conduct a review. In the context of the work that you have done and how frequently antisocial behaviour occurs and how it is not always easy to tackle, how do you see that part of your role unfolding? Do you think it would be useful?

Emily Spurrell:

I think it would be useful. We obviously already have the community trigger process in place at the minute, where if someone is dissatisfied with the response from the local authority, they can ask for a review from the PCC’s office to check whether the process was followed sufficiently. I think there are challenges around that in terms of public awareness; I do not think we are seeing huge numbers of that in some areas because much of the public are not aware that that is an option.

It comes back to what we were talking about at the beginning: it is not about the PCC trying to instruct or direct; it is about being able to have the powers to question, challenge and say, “As a partnership, are we doing enough to tackle this issue?” There will be times when actually it will be the police that need to step up in that response, but there will also be times when the local authority have not made a good enough response to that particular incident. It is about having someone who has the power to take another look and say, “Actually, I think we have missed something here. How do we put that right?” and then giving reassurance and saying, “Actually, the local authority or the partnership have done everything possible and there is no more that we can do.” It is a helpful check, and it probably is just an expansion of what we already do at the minute around the community trigger.

Q Do you think it is a meaningful enhancement of victims’ rights?

Emily Spurrell:

It is a step in the right direction, yes. It is useful just to ensure that those victims of ASB are not dismissed as low level and are considered. We do see incidents where, if victims of ASB are not taken seriously at that first stage, things can escalate and become quite serious, so it is important that victims feel as though they have been heard and that everyone is working towards trying to find a solution, which is not always the case.

Thank you. That is all from me.

Q Do either of the Opposition spokesmen want to come back? No. Can each witness give me a couple of minutes on something you have not been asked about that you think ought to be in the Bill, or something you think is good in the Bill? Let us start with you, David.

David Lloyd:

I am broadly supportive of the Bill. I am particularly interested in suspending short custodial sentences. I think that makes a great deal of sense and I would highly recommend that. I have covered the piece on nuisance begging and rough sleeping that I was interested in. As a real victims champion and someone who has pushed hard on violence against women and girls since 2012, the aggravating factor for murder at the end of a relationship and MAPPA for controlling and coercive behaviour is something that, again, I highly commend and think that we need to do.

The other thing I picked up from the earlier session was the question around vetting. We need to just consider whether we need to, in many ways, vet to values. We are clearly doing it more and more in our recruitment process, but it strikes me that there are very few officers who have met the criminal threshold and therefore are likely to have on their file a criminal conviction. That does not mean to say that we do not have misogynists or racists or homophobes within the organisations. We have much to do around that. We need to just think about what else we might be able to do to vet to values, so that we make sure we have police forces that are fit for the public. I think that the very vast majority are fit, by the way—I am not suggesting for one moment that they are anything other than that—but we might want to look at that quite closely.

Emily Spurrell:

I echo some of what David said there about some of those challenges. To go back to the begging point, which is a wider issue and I know that it is linked with what is going through to the Sentencing Bill, there is a real emphasis and a real push to try to reduce the number of short-term sentences and we want more people in the community. I worry whether some of the provisions for the Criminal Justice Bill, such as the aggressive begging provisions, will actually see an increase in that, which is not what we want, and the two will work counter to each other. I would just say to be mindful around that.

As for some of the bits that David alluded to around vetting and some of the work that is under way to try and increase trust and confidence, there is probably scope to go further. I know there is work being done. The Mayor of London has been quite keen to push some of that and I think he has been working with Harriet Harman on an additional level of scrutiny around the ability to dismiss officers who have been convicted of serious criminal offences and more flexibility around pension forfeiture, for example. There is more scope to do more around that building of trust and confidence within policing in terms of that scrutiny.

Around the vetting, there is work under way. I am aware that there is a national project to try and increase vetting. Echoing what the superintendent said in the previous session, trying to make sure that there is that regular touch base, particularly when officers are crossing forces, is really helpful.

The only other thing I will say around that is that the big challenge we face is around how long these things are taking. It would not matter so much that people were going through a process if it was resolved quickly. Instead, we see some of the examples the superintendent was referring to, where officers accused of gross misconduct sit for years waiting for an outcome and then it gets an NFA or gets downgraded. There is a real challenge here around capacity in the system, both internally in professional standards and with the Independent Office for Police Conduct, and how we can speed up those processes so that we have a robust system that is not taking up so much time and taking officers off the streets.

My only other comment would be in relation to the introduction of the express power for the courts to direct prisoners to attend their sentencing hearings. You will obviously be aware that this came up quite strongly after Olivia was murdered on Merseyside and her family have been very clear about the insult to her mum and her family when the offender did not turn up to hear the victim’s personal statement. I really welcome this, notwithstanding some of the logistical challenges, because it is a really welcome change: offenders should be expected to listen to the impact of their crimes on their victims and their families.

Councillor Sue Woolley:

Very briefly, and following on from the point that Emily just made, I would just make a point about the capacity issue, particularly around child sexual abuse reporting. We must be very careful that justice needs to be seen to be swift. What has been shown with various reports on child sexual abuse is that reports have been made but it is taking too long for those individuals—those young people—to be supported when they have then been taken through a process.

Therefore, although it is laudable and the right thing to do to ensure that reports are made in a timely fashion, let us make sure that we have the capacity at the other end to be able to support those young people.

Q I recognise that you are strategic rather than operational, all three of you. However, as you may have heard in the previous session, I am particularly interested in knife crime, as I am sure all of you are, as well. Are you content that the provisions in the Bill and the powers that they confer will make a difference in tackling knife crime? Is there anything else that you would have liked to have seen in the Bill to assist you in representing—well, in the case of the PCC, the people who elect you, and of course you, Sue, although I am sure that all of you are equally concerned about knife crime?

Emily Spurrell:

From my perspective, the way that we tackle knife crime is actually not through the criminal system; I think it has got to be through that early intervention space. I welcome the provisions in the Bill. Again, the comments made by the superintendent about better provision for identifying zombie knives, getting weapons off the streets and strengthening things like the sale of knives, which has been done in recent months, is all very welcome. But for me, it comes down to that early intervention space: the investment in youth services. The work we are doing on violence reduction units, for example, which is being led by PCCs, is very positive. I will say that it needs to come with long-term, stable funding.

The Minister will have heard me say that many times before, but it is something that we really need, because that long-term, public health approach is how you really tackle knife crime, although I think the provisions in the Bill are very welcome, just in terms of giving police that extra ability to seize those weapons and identify those individuals who are likely to pose a threat.

David Lloyd:

I agree entirely. Clearly, I am not operational, so to that extent I do not know. But clearly there is a fear of knife crime among the public. We do need to do something about that. And zombie knives and the work of one of the members of this Bill Committee on them is noted.

However, it strikes me—this relates to Emily’s point—that there was a case some years back, where 80% of the bladed injuries in a hospital in Buckinghamshire were not known of by the police, because there is not the sharing of data between health and the criminal justice system. In many ways, if we want to get up the line, we need to be able to find where some of these problems are happening, and better sharing of data might do a lot more than even some of the provisions in this Bill.

Councillor Sue Woolley:

I suppose that what I would say to you is that I would probably like to take one step back and go a little bit more upstream, and probably not see knives getting on to the street in the first place. That may mean taking out the ability to order one through the post, as it were, etc. I would feel more comfortable if they were not there in the first instance.

From the council’s point of view, we would therefore plead that trading standards is the obvious arena for making sure that that happens. Anything that supports trading standards officers to be able to take those weapons off market stalls, etc. would be very helpful.

Emily Spurrell:

I will just add one other point on the police powers. Again, we always have a balance to strike. We welcome giving the police the tools to do the job better, but this is where our role as scrutineers is really important, so that we make sure that where they are using those additional powers, they are being used in a fair and proportionate way. That is very much something that we would look to focus on as well.

Q Sue, you mentioned trading standards. Are you saying that you do not think they do have the powers? As a constituency MP, I have reported to the police the sale of these knives. They have then got trading standards involved, and trading standards went and seized vanloads of this stuff.

Councillor Sue Woolley:

Sorry, I am not saying trading standards staff do not have the power. I think, again, it is a capacity issue. We could do with 10 times the number, and that would go a long way towards stopping these knives getting on to the streets in the first place.

May I pick up on a point that you made earlier, Councillor Woolley? It was about rough sleeping. You mentioned that this is often about dealing with people with very complex issues; often, having access to addiction services is critical, and progress is made by different agencies working together. I agree very strongly about how making progress and helping those on our streets is most important. Do the provisions in this Bill help or hinder that workQ ?

Councillor Sue Woolley:

It helps, but more could be done. On the duties, it would be good if we could have language that said, “We expect, as members of the public, that you will work together.” It would be good if the language, rather than telling various agencies, “You have to do this and you have to do that,” was, “Our expectation is that as organisations, in the first instance, you will work as a team, as a community safety partnership.” If you work as a partnership, everybody has an equal responsibility, and that is the bit that I would really like to see emphasised.

David Lloyd:

To underline the concern that I had earlier, there is a real danger, if it is seen that the police have the power to do something about homelessness or rough sleeping, that it might be left for only the police to pick that up. In Hertfordshire, we really believe in, and the whole of our policing is based on, prevention first. In many ways, it would be best if we did not have to use the police at all and everything was done further up the line. I think that if we end up at a point where councils can say, “Well, this is not entirely our responsibility; the police have a responsibility for it,” there is a danger, in the same way as with mental health.

We had the issue with mental health authorities not picking up the issue of people who were mentally unwell. It ended up with the police doing far too much and mental health nurses not enough. I fear that, especially in a time of tight budgets, we may well find that this is pushed more towards the police, so we just need to recognise that. It might be that by working even better through community safety partnerships we get over it. But it is better to go in with our eyes open to it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, all three of you, for giving evidence to the Committee. I am sure that the Committee will find it useful when we go into line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill.