Conference 2002 - Speeches

Speech by Paul Trickey Chairman of the Defence Police Federation

Minister, I welcome you to our 31st Annual Conference. Last year, for very understandable reasons in the wake of the 11th September atrocities, you were obliged to cry off in order to attend to more urgent matters of national security. This then is the first opportunity that we have had to engage in dialogue before the elected representatives who look after the interests of the 3,000 strong membership of the DPF

Those difficulties which required your attention last year have not, unfortunately either receded or gone away. I think it is fair to say that the threat to international peace has never been greater than for some years. The risk of a war on some scale is extremely high. The results of the outbreak of hostilities between countries will also see national armies engage overseas and fresh terrorism probably right here on our own doorstep. In matters of national security the MDP has a vital role, possibly to some extent a little understated one, in protecting the defence assets of the United Kingdom. We will be ready to play our part.

It is against that nervous and deteriorating background that we meet today. Your attendance Minister gives us the very much appreciated opportunity for direct dialogue. That is always useful for promoting understanding. We may not always be in agreement but that is the stuff of relations between employee representative bodies and their management. What is essential… is access to Government at its highest level… hence our warm welcome to you today.

The MDP is a force under pressure. Some of that pressure is a result, as I have indicated, of the dynamic of world politics and events. But many of the pressures which exercise us as a Federation are home grown, unnecessary and could be considerably eased, if not ended.

You will be aware Minister that in a huge Department such as the MoD inevitably the sums are vast. Mistakes in correctly assessing the financial requirements for the year will occasionally occur. It shouldn't happen but it still does. Towards the end of last year we had to find £2.1m of a saving as the MDP's contribution to bailing out the Department. This year, to compound the difficulty, a black hole of £6m appeared in our funding because of further financial miscalculation in the overall MoD budget. I am making no point about the errors in the sense of trying to apportion blame. I am concerned solely with the consequences of civil servants getting their sums wrong. The MDP had to find substantial savings in order to relieve the financial burden and through good negotiation and commonsense, the final cut was limited to £2.7m. These cuts, unplanned as they, are tend to impact most where they shouldn't… on operational policing. The quality of policing at the sharp end, where it most matters, at the point of delivery of service to the customers suffers and so does our reputation.

The problem of MDP funding is that the present arrangements are fundamentally flawed.

Our Chief Constable does not have a pre-set budget. He, of course knows what he spent last year and the year before, but this can only be an indicator of what the Force will need in the coming year. Under the current system of the principle that the user pays our customers are expected to pay for our services. This might be applauded by some as an example of a commercial ethos informing how we operate - an ethos which encourages prudence, efficiency and effectiveness in buying in services. But from my perspective as a Federation representative a commercial ethos is unconvincing for the public service generally and totally inappropriate for informing security judgements at defence establishments.

For a commercial ethos to work in the private sector, both parties have to honour the contract. We provide the service, you pay the bill. Too many of our customers do not or pretend not to understand this. As a result Force Management is obliged to chase after the respective paying authorities trying to get paid. In a normal commercial arrangement failure to pay usually results in the institution of debt recovery procedures and loss of services.

The MDP cannot withdraw policing services without having regard to the loss of security and heightened risk to the defence estate. We are in a moral catch-22. We are obliged to protect but our offending customers do not feel obliged to pay.

This issue is of growing concern because of costs which will flow to the MDP following the agreement on new pay and conditions for the Home Department Police Service. We welcome the agreement at PNB and had shared the disgust with other police federations at the Home Secretary's original proposals. We had therefore joined with them in making our views very plain about the injustice that would be done to the police. Commonsense by Mr Blunkett and common purpose from the federations saw the proposals rejected and we are content in what has now been agreed as it sets the template for the MDP.

The Home Secretary has promised that new money will be available to the other police forces to meet the extra costs of the agreement. As yet we have received no similar assurance from the MoD. This is an unreasonable stance by the Department which goes to the heart of parity. I urge you Minister to take this need for additional money into account in reviewing how this Force is funded. We need to put an end to the unseemly haggling that goes on with a succession of customers who try to address budget shortfalls by axing MDP officers. Panic measures make a mockery of agreements to provide policing services. They make a nonsense of risk assessments of threat to specific targets. But I have to conclude: if we have a system of funding the MDP through a series of accumulated piece-meal arrangements, then the Force is always going to be vulnerable to sudden cost-cutting.

We need a stable financial agreement between the Force and a single point in the MoD. That agreement should insist that our budget is pre-set, preferably ring-fenced, and that it will be funded on time by our customers.

The damage of sudden cost cutbacks to the Force is more than just financial. For the past six years the Force has been operating Area Policing Teams. They have been a success for officers, management and for the defence community. But without warning they were scrubbed towards the end of last year in Merseyside and Mill Hill and then, more recently at Woolwich and Corsham. You will hardly be surprised to learn that every APT officer is looking over their shoulder to see where next the financial axe will fall. In this second case the damage was also to our faith in the consultation process. As a Federation without the right to take industrial action we are totally dependent upon all parties acting in good faith and that the consultative protocols are observed. It was only as a result of vigorous representations by the Federation was any account taken of the needs of the redeployed officers. I am pleased to say that this point was graciously acknowledged by the Chief Constable and we believe that normal consultation procedures are being restored.

Our faith in the consultative process was also severely challenged at another level by the decision of the MoD to withdraw MDP officers from Pendine, West Freugh and Shoeburyness without proper research of the issues. And again this was an example where the Federation had to press its case with you personally Minister before any real appreciation was made of our concern.

QuinetiQ may be a private company but hiving off an MoD related activity into a List X company does not absolve the Department from its responsibility to fully explore the ramifications for future security arrangements. If firing ranges and associated property require police before they were given to QuinetiQ, they also need our services afterwards - perhaps more so because the MDP takes its decisions without the pressures for profit clouding our judgement.

It remains our view that there is an overeagerness to dispose of our responsibility for policing the defence estate. Whether it's through privatisations or optimistic risk assessments, the MoD does not hesitate to hand responsibility over to private sector companies. In the new and worsening security context in which we now operate, I believe that we need to hasten more slowly in how the Department weighs the vulnerability of the defence estate.

For example there is every indication that the MDP will be severely reduced in numbers from the Royal Mint in Wales. Who can fathom the mind of terrorists when they decide on targets? But among their considerations one must list vulnerability and symbolism as strongly influencing the choice. The Royal Mint, which represents the financial lifeblood of the United Kingdom is a very powerful symbol of this country. Yet, as a result of economic pressures on the Royal Mint and the need to find savings in costs, we do not hesitate to allow a serious downgrading of its security status.

One area which has not lost its security priority is Aldermaston. Officers are required round the clock securing the perimeter from regular incursions. But you know we make life difficult for ourselves at Aldermaston, more so than anywhere else, more so than it needs to be.

In other areas there are MoD bye-laws which enable us to take court action against persistent offenders. For some peculiar reasons there are no effective bye-laws to protect Aldermaston. So we have this kind of game where the same people repeatedly breach its security. When they are restrained, they immediately make a complaint of assault and of unlawful arrest. We have about a dozen such cases against our officers as I speak. The right of protest must be protected but it does come at a price.

I can understand that for various reasons bye-laws have lapsed or have become ineffective but I cannot accept that a problem which has been known about for two years yet remains to be properly addressed. It is unacceptable that officers who are trying to protect sensitive defence establishments are unable to do their job efficiently because of official failure and lack of support. The problem appears to be one of Departmental inertia rather than active assistance to our officers; it needs action and I invite you to make your disquiet known in the right quarters.

Over the past four years the Federation has come to accept that we have the dubious honour of being the most reviewed police service in the whole police family. In the past ten years we have had a series of reports challenging our existence, our systems, our establishment level. Yet all reports come out acknowledging the necessity for the Defence Police and its professionalism. The Quinquenial Review has been no exception nor has the very recent Report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Defence.

I note with particular satisfaction that the members of the Select Committee said that they had "a high opinion of the professionalism of the MDP." The ability to maximise our professionalism and service was usefully improved by the passage of the Anti-terrorism and Crime Act. MDP officers have at long last the proper protection of the office of constable through the extension of jurisdiction. This modest measure ends a long term campaign by the DPF to persuade the Government that the benefits of an extended jurisdiction outweighed any possible downside. I congratulate the government in rescuing this measure following its unfortunate sacrifice in the Armed Forces Bill earlier.

There are other improvements in the pipeline. The Police Reform Act at last made provision for our complaints and discipline procedures to be brought into line with England and Wales on a statutory basis. We have hopes of the implementation of the new regulations by next April. We welcome this progress both for its own sake and as a reminder that the MDP has a clear "readacross" in its professional standards as the rest of the police service.

The Select Committee also noted the debate about a reserve capacity and the need for public accountability. I am not convinced that the two issues are related in the way that the Select Committee seemed to imply. Our view as a Federation is that a fully effective MDP needs a reserve if it is to meet unforeseen obligations. The purpose of contingency planning is to anticipate worse case scenarios and as 9/11 demonstrated the sky is quite literally the limit in the degree of outrage that a terrorist might contemplate. In these circumstances our Force should be expanding to combat the threat of international terrorism. And as we meet today the prospects of stability in Northern Ireland and terrorist overspill operations are not looking too bright either. It is indicative of the difficulties facing this Force in discharging its remit that the Select Committee concluded that there is a risk in government of complacency and of failing to face up to the scale of the threat from terrorism.

The QQR is to publish its conclusions on these issues of reserve capability and accountability in their next report. My Federation, with some minor quibbles, were generally happy with the first report which accepted that we need to exist. The next report must be realistic and positive about the need to give the MDP the vibrancy and resources it needs to do its job. And we are doing a good job. Last week Minister when we were in Kosovo we met MDP colleagues performing very professionally in difficult circumstances. I think we both can share a tremendous sense of pride in the work of those 70 officers.

What I find exasperating Minister is that here in the MDP we have a fine police service doing an essential job. We have 3,300 officers committed to protecting the defence estate with the utmost professionalism. Yet what you have heard from me, on behalf of my membership is a series of concerns which continue to undermine our collective and individual confidence that more should be done to build the strength and morale of the Force.

That great general Napoleon once said a good soldier needs more than courage; he also needs endurance. The members of my Federation feel that they have courage in abundance but their ability to endure is being eroded. As a result many of them, trained as MDP officers can readily transfer to Home Department Forces… and they do so. They are prepared to endure no longer.

Thank you.