British Government Plans for Privatised Police

[Zaune]

The Guardian, whose headline provided the thread title.

Private companies could take responsibility for investigating crimes, patrolling neighbourhoods and even detaining suspects under a radical privatisation plan being put forward by two of the largest police forces in the country.

West Midlands and Surrey have invited bids from G4S and other major security companies on behalf of all forces across England and Wales to take over the delivery of a wide range of services previously carried out by the police.

The contract is the largest on police privatisation so far, with a potential value of £1.5bn over seven years, rising to a possible £3.5bn depending on how many other forces get involved.

This scale dwarfs the recent £200m contract between Lincolnshire police and G4S, under which half the force's civilian staff are to join the private security company, which will also build and run a police station for the first time.

The home secretary, Theresa May, who has imposed a 20% cut in Whitehall grants on forces, has said frontline policing can be protected by using the private sector to transform services provided to the public, but this is the first clear indication of what that will mean in practice. May said on Thursday that she hoped the "business partnership" programme would be in place next spring.

A 26-page "commercial in confidence" contract note seen by the Guardian has been sent to potential bidders to run all services that "can be legally delegated to the private sector". They do not include those that involve the power of arrest and the other duties of a sworn constable.

Companies who have applied through the Bluelight emergency services e-tendering website have been invited to a "bidders' conference" on 14 March, with an anticipated contract start date of next February.

The timetable for the programme means it will be subject to final sign-off by the first police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands after their election in November. The existing police authority only gave the go-ahead for the tendering stage last month after a "robust and forthright discussion" which ended with a rare 11-5 split vote.

The joint West Midlands/Surrey "transformation" programme, which has strong backing from the Home Office, looks set to completely redraw the accepted boundaries between public and private and the definition of frontline and back-office policing.

The programme has the potential to become the main vehicle for outsourcing police services in England and Wales. It has been pioneered by the West Midlands chief constable, Chris Sims, and Mark Rowley, who has just moved to the Metropolitan police from the post of Surrey chief constable. The pair lead on these matters for the Association of Chief Police Officers.

The breathtaking list of policing activities up for grabs includes investigating crimes, detaining suspects, developing cases, responding to and investigating incidents, supporting victims and witnesses, managing high-risk individuals, patrolling neighbourhoods, managing intelligence, managing engagement with the public, as well as more traditional back-office functions, such as managing forensics, providing legal services, managing the vehicle fleet, finance and human resources.

A West Midlands police authority spokesman said: "Combining with the business sector is aimed at totally transforming the way the force currently does business – improving the service provided to the public.

"The areas of service listed in this notice are deliberately broad to allow the force to explore the skills, expertise and solutions a partnership could bring." He said not all the activities listed would necessarily be included in the final scope of the contract, but if the force added other activities later a "new and costly procurement exercise" would be needed.

The contract notice does state that "bidders should note that not all these activities will necessarily be included in the final scope, and that each police force will select some activities from these areas where they see the best opportunities for transformation". But the police clearly want to test whether it is possible for new areas of policing to be provided by private companies.

The contract is being offered in two lots, one covering custody services and the second all other services. It envisages that only one company will be awarded the main contract, although a second may run custody services separately.

The West Midlands police are already planning to cut 2,764 police jobs over the next three years and this privatisation programme is not designed to meet the immediate budget gaps. The savings are expected to show after 2014.

Ben Priestley, Unison's national office for police and justice, which covers many police civilian staff, said it was alarmed by the programme: "Bringing the private sector into policing is a dangerous experiment with local safety and taxpayers' money," he said. "We are urging police authorities not to fall into the trap of thinking the private sector is the answer to the coalition's cuts. The fact that the Home Office is refusing to publish its business case – even under FOI [the Freedom of Information Act] – speaks for itself.

"Privatisation means that the police will be less accountable to the public. And people will no longer be able to go to the Independent Police Complaints Commission if they have a problem. When a critical incident happens, a force's ability to respond will be severely compromised. The only winners are private companies and shareholders who make profits at the expense of local services."

A number of other forces, including Cleveland, Avon and Somerset, and Cheshire, have been exploring the services that might be offered to the private sector, albeit on a smaller scale.

Cleveland police have a 10-year contract with IT firm Steria to provide call handling, front desk staffing, and aspects of the criminal justice system on top of computer services, finance and training. Reliance security runs Cleveland's custody suites.

Avon and Somerset had a contract with IBM, called South West One, which suffered problems in its first three years. Some services are to be taken back in-house. Cheshire has a more traditional contract with Capgemini to provide finance, facilities and fleet management.

There is not expected to be any shortage of bidders. When Lincolnshire put its then groundbreaking contract out to tender last March, 12 companies responded with submissions.

Posted without comment, because what the hell do you say to something like this?

[weemadando]

That it's a terrible idea and the result of decades of propaganda about how successful "Public/Private Partnerships" have been?

It'll just be another case of the public subsidising losses, paying exorbitant fees/charges and then the private company keeping the profits.

[evilsoup]

Fucking Tory vermin.
Because privatising the railways went so well.
Because privatising hospital cleaning went so well.
Ugh. If this was just 'back-room' stuff, then I'd at least be able to accept that the tories were well-meaning. But giving private companies actual powers to detain people?

Gods. Is there any EU law that might foil this? Please please please, tell me there is.

[Dartzap]

Considering how they have so far hit a brickwall with the NHS reforms, I honestly cant see this making it any further.

EDIT: I take that back, since this is being done by the local forces, it probably wont be so scrutinised..... which will mean it slips on through.

[Winston Blake]

Obligatory video. There was a time when the mere thought of this constituted comedy.



Imagine this in Stephen Fry's voice:

A West Midlands police authority spokesman said: "Combining with the business sector is aimed at totally transforming the way the force currently does business – improving the service provided to the public."

[PainRack]

Well........ it might NOT be utterly disastrous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certis_CISCO

CISCO has been providing auxillary security for 6 years plus now...... although I do note that they don't have the power of arrest.

[evilsoup]

These guys wouldn't have the power of arrest either... but they might be given everything else, like investigating serious crimes or running police station lockups, or patrolling the streets (like PCSOs, police community support officers).

[OneEyedTeddyMcGrew]

"Welcome to the West Midlands police hotline. Calls cost £5 an hour. Your call is important to us. Please hold", "Okay miss. That'll be £150 for your rape kit test. Can't pay, well I'm sorry but there's nothing we can do", "Well, we could just give Little Timmy a warning for shoplifting, but we're being paid £15,000 for every person we throw in jail so let's give him 5-10 years. That'll pay for the champagne at the shareholder's meeting at least", "Right lads, we've decided that the training budget for new police officers isn't profitable, so let's just take these half-witted thugs we found here and stick a uniform on them. It's all the same, innit?".

I just love reading this after reading a report that said that the breakdown of relations between the police and the local community was one of the causes of the riots in the summer. If this goes through, your "ex-bouncer on minimum wage and unaccountable to any government regulation" type that'll no doubt be recruited en masse will make your average PC Plod look like the bastard lovechild of Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Theresa.

That being said, I just had a brilliant idea...the workfare plan is coming under a bit of scrutiny as well, right? So just sack all the police officers and put anybody on JSAs in a uniform to patrol round dodgy estates or man the barricades when the plebs get too uppity (Unpaid of course, don't you know that a fair day's wage for a fair day's work is a Communist idea?). The police save money on training and recruitment, the private companies save money because they don't have to pay anyone and the poor bastards on police workfare get valuable experience.

IT'S FUCKING GENIUS! SOMEBODY GIVE ME A £100k+ A YEAR JOB AS A CONSULTANT FOR THE TORY PARTY!

[Minischoles]

Everytime I think they can't top themselves, they come out with something like this.

What an utterly retarded plan.
Cut thousands of jobs - but then farm out contracts to private business for an even higher cost (although the actual workers will probably get paid very little). I wonder which higher ups in those police forces have a friend in the security companies, or a family member who stands to gain.

No surprise that Theresa May is behind this plan as well. Pity something like this won't have to go through parliament like the NHS reforms have to.

[Sidewinder]

Is anyone else reminded of RoboCop, particularly Frank Miller's graphic novel? Where the privatized police force hires a bunch of thugs and psychopaths to do what the regular police refuse to do, namely, forcibly evict people from areas OCP wants to develop?

The potential for abuse is absolutely terrifying.

[Zaune]

That being said, I just had a brilliant idea...the workfare plan is coming under a bit of scrutiny as well, right? So just sack all the police officers and put anybody on JSAs in a uniform to patrol round dodgy estates or man the barricades when the plebs get too uppity (Unpaid of course, don't you know that a fair day's wage for a fair day's work is a Communist idea?). The police save money on training and recruitment, the private companies save money because they don't have to pay anyone and the poor bastards on police workfare get valuable experience.

Oh, give 'em ideas why don't you!

[Winston Blake]

"Welcome to the West Midlands police hotline. Calls cost £5 an hour. Your call is important to us. Please hold", "Okay miss. That'll be £150 for your rape kit test. Can't pay, well I'm sorry but there's nothing we can do",

Although I did post the Fry & Laurie comedy sketch, I doubt this would ever actually happen. Private 'public services' will almost certainly draw funding from the population via the large fundraising apparatus known as the government's tax office.

The only way I can see this happening is in a limited form as a result of some kind of future frankenstein-like melding of the private security industry with the privatised police force. E.g. after some kind of massive expansion of the private security industry that results in paid services being offered to the public when private demand happens to fluctuate down, such that the idea of 'paying for police-like services' becomes culturally ingrained. Even then I would expect it to be on a subscription basis or to be run like the insurance industry.

In fact private vs public health insurance is a pretty good analogy for this, I think. Instead of 'health insurance companies' I can imagine a grimdark future filled with 'security insurance companies', to whom citizens pay premiums (in exchange for slightly lower taxes). If you really wanted to make it dystopian you'd try to tie 'security insurance' to employers rather than individuals, like health insurance in the U.S. Rather than 'can't pay, no help', a more realistic scenario is 'no job, no security plan, no help'.

"Well, we could just give Little Timmy a warning for shoplifting, but we're being paid £15,000 for every person we throw in jail so let's give him 5-10 years. That'll pay for the champagne at the shareholder's meeting at least", "Right lads, we've decided that the training budget for new police officers isn't profitable, so let's just take these half-witted thugs we found here and stick a uniform on them. It's all the same, innit?".

Both of these points are more concerning, and are existing potential problems with conventional police forces. It's not actually clear to me whether privatisation would make them worse. However the fact that managers in general are trained from the beginning of their education to be intensely self-interested and seek profits at all costs may cause a harmful cultural shift. In this case, this means persuading the govmt to part with as much funding as possible, and 'doing more with less'.

I can see some potential 'snowballing' effects, such executive salaries rising and rising to supposedly 'attract the best talent' (the finance industry mastered this trick). Or worsening crime being used to show that even more privatisation is 'needed'. You know, I bet I can pull some dystopian short stories out of this.

Ultimately as a non-Brit, I can't say I know much about the greater politics behind this issue. As a non-Brit, though, I do have the luxury of just sitting back and seeing if it turns out to be a really bad idea or not.

[Simon_Jester]

The real difference is that the British people are well aware that they have a choice between private and public police. No one (or almost no one) seriously thinks it's a bad thing for the police to be civil servants. So if (when?) private police turn out to be a bad idea, there really wouldn't be much opposition to any political leader who wanted to reverse the old policy.

Contrast this to, say, health insurance in the US. Here, there are huge numbers of people who simply do not perceive a choice- it's always been private, so it should remain private. People fear the idea of changing the system as long as they're basically content with it, and are easily fooled about what the changes would cost them.

If the private police force really disappoints, they'll probably be discontinued in short order, assuming any competent political leverage at all on the part of the British police or non-Tory politicians.

[OneEyedTeddyMcGrew]

Although I did post the Fry & Laurie comedy sketch, I doubt this would ever actually happen.

Indeed. I'll admit I did succumb to hyperbole a little when I was writing that. Doesn't change the fact that it's a really, really bad idea though.

[SpaceMarine93]

Not going to happen. The people would not stand having corporate crooks patrolling the streets instead of well-respected police officers.

[Raw Shark]

Not going to happen. The people would not stand having corporate crooks patrolling the streets instead of well-respected police officers.

I can think of a fairly substantial demographic in the USA that would be all over this shit if it was pitched here as an initiative to lower taxes and pass the expense on to criminals, and a smaller but mouthy and well-known one that would still support it if it was pitched as an initiative to lower taxes and pass the expense on to crime victims.

[PainRack]

Again, while crime investigation is not part of CISCO job, the privatisation of police services has been successfully done before, so doom and gloom shouldn't be an automatic outcry.

There are probably huge differences between CISCO and the plan presented here though. CISCO was an auxillary police force that became privatised, expanding its portfolio to take on private security job roles such as banking and etc. Here, it appears that private security firms will become an auxillary police force.

[noncredible]

My list of places to never become a permanent resident in has just grown. I swear, learning English may have been a waste of time.

[Simon_Jester]

Not going to happen. The people would not stand having corporate crooks patrolling the streets instead of well-respected police officers.

I can think of a fairly substantial demographic in the USA that would be all over this shit if it was pitched here as an initiative to lower taxes and pass the expense on to criminals, and a smaller but mouthy and well-known one that would still support it if it was pitched as an initiative to lower taxes and pass the expense on to crime victims.

I think it would become very unpopular very fast in most parts of the country.

There are a few places where privatized police, or no law enforcement, might be a viable government policy. But it'd be the equivalent of Obion County, Tennessee's fire department policies: the sign of a deeply dysfunctional locale, not the norm.

Personally, I doubt that this scheme of police privatization will last long on any large scale- it's only happening now because Britain is governed by Tories, and I have a strong suspicion the Tories will not fare well in the next general election.

[Knife]

Not going to happen. The people would not stand having corporate crooks patrolling the streets instead of well-respected police officers.

The 'corporate crooks' I would worry about would not be the guys on the streets. More than likely, the guys on the streets would be people just wanting a job. The corporate crooks to worry about would be the guys up in the office.

[TC27]

It would take an act of Parliament to extend arrest powers to anyone other than bona fide cops (PCSOs dont even have it).

[MKSheppard]

Posted without comment, because what the hell do you say to something like this?

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"

Get worried if they start scoping out flat grey tauruses for your police force, and offering cheap life insurance policies with lots of fine print..

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Police blog;

http://inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/20 ... he-police/-

"Inspector Gadget" is obviously an alias, but the meat of it;

I am a little more concerned about private police street patrols, but I know what all frontline police officers know; in light of the fact that Ruralshire Constabulary have ceased all proactive policing in a desperate attempt to make up for losing 1/3 of the workforce, being as we are virtually banned from chasing criminals who drive off in case we run someone over and because the police cars are so cheap and underpowered, and added to the fact that even if we do catch someone, due to closures, custody is now so far away that you can write off the rest of the shift (and lets face it, under the new guidelines, it’s not like anything meaningful is going to happen to a criminal who is convicted) it really doesn’t matter any more who does what.

As British police officers, we operate in a world where people who repeatedly knife us in the street have their sentences reduced on appeal, even when they plead guilty. We operate in an environment where we have to face criminals and psychopaths armed with knives and machetes holding a tin of pepper and an aluminium stick. We are the only police force in the world without immediate and locally authorised access to baton rounds, water cannon and CS grenades during serious rioting, and then we are blamed for doing nothing.

We are accountable to five different organisations, none of which comprises elected officials, and three of which have no policing experience.

In other words, The Job's Fucked (this is a frequent catchphrase); police bureaucratisation, target culture, performance standards and the routine fiddling of them, pay cuts, job losses, the spinelessness of the Police Federation, the unwillingness of senior officers to give legal top cover to the front line- the system of enforcement's screwed anyway, and as Gadget says, "It really doesn't matter anymore who does what."

Read the comments. Gadget's a bit of a cynic, also quite right wing and anti- PC, but the people who comment there seem to agree with him- and the arguments are often the best part.