Speeches and Statements
Speech to Police Federation Conference 2005
Speech by Charles Clarke, then Home Secretary, in May 2005.
We have just had a general election. We have a new mandate, a general election is a choice but it’s also a recharging, of hearing from the people of the country what they’re looking for. We were re-elected based on our Manifesto for Government.
Today there is less chance of being a victim of crime than for more than twenty years.
That is a tribute to policing, to police officers and to the way we’ve changed to be able to make such a statement. Overall crime as measured by the British Crime Survey is down by thirty per cent, the equivalent of almost five million fewer crimes a year. Another tribute to policing, to the work that police officers do, to the way they work in partnership with their communities. There are record numbers of police, almost thirteen thousand more, than in 1997 working with the new Community Support Officers, with local councils, and the Crown Prosecution Service, all of whom deserve credit for these achievements. But what we said in the Manifesto and what I felt very strongly during the election campaign was that local people want a more visible police presence and a role in setting local police priorities.
So we pledge in our manifesto that we will, by 2008, ensure that there is a neighbourhood policing team for every community. And we will make sure that hardworking police officers are supported by professional and trained support staff. And we will work with representatives of police officers and other police staff to develop a modern career framework for the whole police team.
And it’s that to which I now want to turn because I think there’re two concepts at the heart of what we have to achieve. The first, the Police led policing family in every community. The second, the Police team with police officers at the core. On the policing family first of all, this is founded absolutely fundamentally on the principles set out by the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act which many police officers have said to me has been one of the most important pieces of police legislation in recent time.
The idea behind this Act, the principle which we seek to put into effect is of a working partnership where we say that fighting crime is not a matter only for the Police but for the whole community. Where society can’t simply turn aside, wash their hands and say let the Police get on with it but say how do we work together to fight crime. What partnerships are needed, what relationships are needed, how can we ensure that we have responsive, accessible policing so that every citizen knows how to address the concerns that they have. How do we put the concept of a strong active positive community at the centre of all our policing efforts?
We all know that there are many in any given community who are working together to create the safety of that community. First and foremost, the police officers in every community but also the Community Support Officers, Neighbourhood Wardens, Special Constables, other volunteers, residents and community organisations, Neighbourhood Watch, voluntary community organisations, faith groups. All communities share our ambition to ensure that we have safe and strong communities where ne’er do wells are not able to flourish. All of them share the belief and the view that the Police are at the centre and play the leadership role in that policing family.
Throughout the election campaign I saw in communities up and down the country those families, those communities, those partnerships working well and effectively so that people would come to say to me, we’ve seen a change on our estate, we’ve seen a change in our community, we are getting some of the lawlessness down, while Police have a excellent working relationship with us. It can make a difference, it does make a difference. But, and here’s the but, it is not by any means universal.
It’s happening in some communities but it’s not happening enough. So the first key issue for us is how to build this local neighbourhood policing family, led by the Police, working with the Police, supported by the Police but working in every community to make sure that those who seek to disrupt that community by a variety of means are isolated and unable to do that.
That is a massive challenge, for me it is the central challenge of this Parliament because in my opinion we cannot go into another general election campaign with people feeling as they are and as was clear during the election campaign uncertain, unsafe in certain respects, worried about anti social behaviour. We have to solve this problem. We have to work together to solve this problem. We have to discuss how to do it. I recognise there are some legitimate and valid concerns but we also have to recognise that in getting those policing families in every community some change is needed, some different ways of working are needed which will enable that to happen in the most effective way. And when we talk about how, for example, Community Support Officers and police officers work together all I can say is in every community I’ve been to the professionalism of police officers and of Community Support Officers is of people working together trying to sort out the problems that are needed.
You do have legitimate concerns about Community Support Officers and they have concerns too, but we need to discuss how we take that forward to solve those problems. You have the right to hold me at my word in saying, no change for change’s sake; I hope I have the right to hold you at your word and say, no opposition to change for its own sake. Let’s talk about it, put in process a means of addressing that policing family in a way that respects the partnership idea, the need to strengthen every community in every neighbourhood.
The second key concept which I believe is at the core of what we have to do is genuinely to build the Police team. There are a large number of people who work in policing. Most of course employed by police authorities, whether they’re police officers, warranted police officers, Specials or civilian staff, engaging in a range of different functions. As well as those employed in Police authorities the Police team other agencies increasingly have a role to play. What we have to have is a flexible and mutually supportive approach to the Police team which recognises above all others, training, accreditation, career paths, education absolutely has to be the key.
And we have to find a way of ensuring that all those in the Police team, men and women of integrity working in different ways, can genuinely work in a team way which ensures that we get the best possible results for the people of this country. Again like the policing family in every neighbourhood I think the Police team is a relatively easy slogan but I think it’s a very, very difficult thing to put in practice given the history that exists in a wide variety of different ways. But again, and again I emphasise together we do need to put these two principles, the neighbourhood policing family and the Police team in to effect. If there are issues, talking properly about what has to be done, reaching agreements as appropriate, I hope as flexibly and as positively as possible.
But I say as strongly as I can that we do need a major programme of change if we are to meet the aspirations of the people of this country. And that is not about riding roughshod over anybody it’s about seeking joint commitment to high quality policing in every community in the country.Charles Clarke Speech to Police Federation conference, May 2005
