Cameron in the dock over frontline police cuts
The claim
“He’s wrong. ACPO aren’t talking about frontline officers, so he’s simply wrong about that.”
David Cameron MP, Prime Minister’s Questions, March 9, 2011
“Now we hear that companies who have been burgled are going to be sent fingerprint kits in the post.”
Ed Miliband MP, Prime Minister’s Questions, March 9, 2011
Cathy Newman checks it out
When does a Bobby become a bureaucrat? Police forces up and down the country say they’re losing staff because of cost cuts.
But according to the Prime Minister, we can all rest easy in our beds because the posts being axed are back office bean counters, rather than bobbies on the beat.
Questioned by the Labour leader Ed Miliband today, he insisted that frontline officers are protected from the drive to reduce the police budget by 20 per cent over four years.
But does he need to be taken down to the station and brought to book? FactCheck investigates.
The background
The PM battled repeated fire from Ed Miliband over police budget cuts in today’s Prime Minister’s Questions. “We want to see police on the streets fighting crime, not stuck at their desks fighting paper,” Mr Cameron insisted.
He went even further, adding: “The fact is, all of the leadership of the police is engaged in the exercise of keeping costs under control to make sure that we get more officers on the beat.” To FactCheck this sounded very much as if he wants to add frontline jobs.
All this comes hot on the heels of ACPO’s warning that 28,000 police jobs are set to go – 12,000 officers and 16,000 staff – as a result of the government cutting police budgets by 20 per cent over four years.
After flagging ACPO’s figures, Mr Miliband rattled off job losses in the West Midlands, Bedfordshire’s scaling back of gun licence checks – and even mentioned one police force that was sending burgled companies fingerprint kits in the post.
“I know he believes in the Big Society but solving your own crimes is a bit ridiculous,” chided Mr Miliband.
The analysis
FactCheck couldn’t resist checking out Mr Miliband’s final claim, and got a rather tight-lipped response from the supposed culprits: Lincolnshire Police.
A spokeswoman told FactCheck it was a case of some “misquoting” by News of the World, and there are “no plans” to give burgled companies DIY fingerprinting kits.
Lincolnshire’s Chief Constable Richard Crompton had told the NOTW: “We are interested in doing some work with volunteers, training them to assist at very, very low-grade forensic scene”.
Today, Lincolnshire police told us that the kits are given to trained police volunteers, not to the victims of crime.
However, a bit more digging from FactCheck found that actually burgled companies have been given fingerprint kits for decades.
Basically, if a company is burgled the police will give it a kit in order to take its employees’ fingerprints so that they might be elimated from suspicion.
The kits are used to eliminate, rather than recover fingerprints from a crime scene, FactCheck was told.
So not quite the image of vulnerable victims awaiting help by post that Mr Miliband conjured up. Plus as a “given” practice that’s been going on for a number of years, it is by no means the result of the current cuts.
But back to Mr Cameron’s claim that the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) figures didn’t include “frontline” police officers.
FactCheck proved ACPO right yesterday and, worse still, discovered this 28,000 could just be the tip of the iceberg.
Our friends at ACPO reiterated today that they define the 12,000 officers as those with the “powers of arrest” – but this can cover everything from Bobbies on the beat to serious crime squad detectives.
The 16,000 “civilian” police staff include PCSO’s (Police Community Support Officers) and other staff from back room penpushers to forensics investigators.
“Just because a police officer isn’t wearing a high visibility vest and walking the streets, doesn’t mean he is not on the frontline,” an ACPO spokesman told FactCheck. “For example an officer could be a detective working undercover in a child paedophile case.”
Answering Ed Balls’ query on the confusion back in November, Policing Minister Nick Herbert said in the House of Commons: “There is no formally-agreed definition of frontline, middle office and back office services, although these are terms in relatively common use across the police service.”
Mr Herbert added: “Although no fixed definition exists, frontline officers and staff are generally those directly involved in the public crime-fighting face of the force. This includes neighbourhood policing, response policing and criminal investigation.”
This sentiment was echoed by the Home Office today, which told FactCheck there was no specific answer but that the term was “widely understood” by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary.
Yet, given the ongoing debate over police cuts, as the Home Affairs Committee said a fortnight ago: “The current confusion about what constitutes the front line in the police service is unhelpful”.
It went on to add:Â “Although data collection is not yet complete and there is uncertainty about the precise figures, it is expected that there will be significantly fewer police officers, police community support officers and police staff as a result of the savings being required of police forces over the next four years.”
This conclusion, coupled with ACPO’s warning, leaves FactCheck mystified as to how Mr Cameron can continue to claim that the frontline won’t be hit.
Cathy Newman’s verdict
Ed Miliband should have known better than to quote the News of the World without checking his facts first.
But David Cameron committed a far more serious offence by declaring that none of the 12,000 officers ACPO warned would lose their jobs are “frontline” staff.
His own police minister defined frontline jobs as those involved in “public crime-fighting”.
ACPO says the 12,000 officers are those with “powers of arrest”. In other words, every one of those jobs could quite legitimately be described as “frontline”. FactCheck gives David Cameron a formal caution for failing to stick to the facts.
There are 11 comments on this post
[...] at FactCheck reckons David Cameron should get a formal caution for failing to tell the truth on police … Other Results :Alex Reid left devastated as Jordan jets in Argentinian toyboy to mansion India vs [...]
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FactCheck is making a leap of faith to believe that ALL Police Officers, having been trained, sworn an oath to Her Majesty and granted warrant card authorising their role as Police Constables will always be someone who actually works on the coal face dealing with police matters out there in the real world – alas there are and always have been many (far too many!) warranted police officers who achieve cosy billets within Police Stations and Headquarters where they never, ever, exercise their powers of arrest from the day of taking up the back office job to the day they are able to retire aged as young as 44 years of age with 30 years pensionable service.
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Retiring at 44 with 30 years pensionable service means the Officer joined aged 14?
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It’s also a leap of faith to think those 12,000 looking at losing their jobs will be back-room officer with powers-of-arrest. Or that even if they do go the numbers on the front line won’t still suffer to back fill responsibilities.
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12,000 Police Officers is just a tad over 8% of the total number of Police Officer employed in England & Wales (143,000 in 2010). I am quite certain that 8 or 9 ‘Station Cats’ can be found among every 100 warranted Police Officers.
I am also quite sure that all the non-Job posts filled by that 8% will be replenished as soon as the period of austerity the whole of the United Kingdom is going to have to deal with is over but, in the meantime, pleading the Police Services are too special a case to make structural finacial savings is pure cant.
It is contemptible to suggest that there should be no Police job losses when so many other Public Sector workers are going to be losing their jobs in Local Authorities, Defence and the Civil Service to fund the huge hole in Public Finances … unless, of course, the modern-day ‘Station Cats’ think they are too special and too important to lose their cosy jobs?
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Iain I have had to do this in two post due to the character restrictions. I am a currently serving police officer and whilst I appreciate some of the points you are trying to make I have to insists that your facts are wrong. Obviously I don’t know what you work as or what your current pension arrangements are however there are some points you need to consider before making sweeping statements such as “how sugar-coated the Police Pension can be”.
Firstly police officers pay the highest pension contributions in the public sector and if the Hutton Report recommendations are introduced the current contribution rate will rise by 3% bringing the total to 14% of officers pay. I have also yet to come across any other in the private sector with such a high rate.
Furthermore the New Police Pension Scheme was introduced in 2006 which has resulted in all new officers having to complete 35 years service before entitlement to retirement. Given that the average joining age for the police is 24 this would see the majority of officers retiring at nearly 60.
You also make reference to officers retiring with an enhanced pension when they have “nut and gut’ ailments”.
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In my 5 years so far I have I have not know an officer to retire on an ill health pension and can assure you it is a rather rare occurrence. I refer you the current enhanced pension criteria which as you can see is extremely strict.
An enhanced top-up ill-health pension, payable in addition to a standard ill-health
pension if you are disabled for any regular employment (meaning employment for an
annual average of at least 30 hours per week). This is also an immediate payment of
pension benefits, but the top-up has the effect that the pensionable service is enhanced
by up to 50% of your prospective service to age 55. For example, if the officer is aged
35, the enhancement of service is up to 10 years.
You also make numerous references that you believe its unfair that police officers can retire at a younger age than most other workers. But have you considered for a minute both the physically and mentally demanding nature of the work performed by police officers. Do you honestly think that the job can be adequately performed to a level that the public expect by an officer well into their 60’s!
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If you are going to caution this gov everytime it fails to stick to the facts, you’ll be spending a lot of time on it.
Facts don’t matter to Cameron, he’s only ever worked in PR and he thinks the public will swallow whatever line he chooses to spin. And despite being proved wrong time and again he doesn’t seem to have absorbed the lesson yet.
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In reply to Tony. (The blog only allows one response level as far as I can see?)
No, not 14 but, having joined at 19 years of age, retiring with 25 years of service and automatically getting an enhanced pension due to ill-health taking the recipient to 30 years of service pension for accrual purposes.
This is but an example of how sugar-coated the Police Pension can be and an advantage taken by many back-office wallahs (as well as frontline officer who actually do feel people’s collars) who clainm ‘nut and gut’ ailments that ‘force them’ to give up their job to take a full 30 year service, inflation-proofed pension along with a commutated lump sum of several tens of thousands of pounds at the grand old age of 44.
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I wish people would get their facts right ! If you join at 19 and leave on an ill health pension after 25 years service, you would not get a 30 year pension.
have a look at the Police Pension Regulations !
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If a Police Officer retires on grounds of Ill-health from Police Service they will be awarded up to an additional 7 years of pensionable service added to their actual length of service. This is a final salary pension award is compensatory for being unable to complete the normal 30 years of service due to ill-health’.
I am the recipient of such an award but I was a thief-taker not a back office fat cat.
Nevertheless, this misses the original point.
A Police Officer joining at 19 years of age can currently complete 30 years of service and be able to retire on a full 30 years service pension of 2/3rds of final years salary (not an untidy sum when Police salaries are compared to other public sector jobs!).
This means that Police Officers have the quite distinct benefit of being able to retire at 49 years of age and earlier if given an ill-health award.
Everyone else in the Public Sector would have to at least wait until they were 55 years old to get retirement package.
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