It is with the appearance of Sir Hugh Orde, the head of the Association of Chief Constables for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, before the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee in September 2011 that another important piece of information was given which helps to explain why the lawlessness was able to spread. His appearance was on the same morning as the Mayor of London and deputy, reported (2157)and then the Acting Head of the Metropolitan Police and an Assistant Commissioner, reported (2159). Sir Hugh was accompanied by his deputy who is the full time Police Chief for South Yorkshire and Humberside. Sir Hugh’s post is full time.
Until now it has been established that the rioting which destroyed buildings and livelihoods, putting lives at risk, commenced with the death of Mark Duggan and the way it was handled. We learned that although the Tottenham Gold Commander could have used more robust tactics which were available to him he decided against doing so because of the history of rioting in the area, the progress that had been made and the understandable desire not to escalate the situation.
We know that the police was advised well in advance that there would be further trouble of a significant nature in Enfield on the Sunday and possible elsewhere in London arising from the publicity given to what had happened on the Saturday and then we know that on the Monday all hell was let lose across London with more people running or jumping for their lives and the police appearing to stand by while thousands of people appear to have engaged in an orgy of looting without immediate impunity. There was a death in Ealing which was directly related while one in Croydon remains unclear. The question has been put by Politicians, those in the media and by the general public is why the police were not better prepared and take more decisive action to prevent what happened on the Monday.
As is usual in such situations there is no one answer but a combination of factors which those who always see conspiracy fail to appreciate.
Firstly it was a weekend when traditionally Government, politicians and senior officers are on holiday, often abroad, with their families. It is also the same for the operational staff in the police and emergency services in local government and among the population generally, on top of the usual provision of individuals on call for emergencies at weekends. However it is important to remember that the death occurred on the Thursday so there was plenty of time for the local police to have anticipated some form of local protest and to make contingency planning including having an appropriate number of officers available. They had done so on the Saturday for the home game at the Tottenham Premiership Football club.
Secondly the Police service, particular in London was in crisis with many officers angry, frustrated and, disillusioned with some of their colleagues, with politicians and the media and with some of the general public. Fundamental changes are in hand which according to one statement by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee are greater than at anytime since the force was created 200 years ago, involving the creation of a separate National Crime Force working to the Home Office and the Secretary of State and which will include a number of separate units, but not at the moment taking away from the Met is role in Counter Terrorism. It will take away some if not all functions from the Association of Chief Constables and their Management since 1997 and where the creation of a new Professional Body for Police Officers wider than the senior management is also under consideration.
The provision of Elected Police Commissioners will also have significant implication in relation to the existing Police Authorities and Chief Police Officers. There are major changes under way to police pensions, early retirement, overtime, management levels, use of civilian and office staff plus a pay freeze as part of contributing to the share of national expenditure on all income and council tax funded services. In London the police were reeling from the resignation of the Commissioner and an Assistant Commissioner, criticism and allegations involving bribery and misuse of office at various levels and an officer was awaiting trail accused of manslaughter following his individual action during the G20 demonstrations when a news vendor going home was beaten and where the circumstances appeared to have been covered up.
Less well known is the part which the Association of Chief Police Officers plays and has come to play in the effective control of some policing functions, particularly since 1997 coinciding with the new Labour Government. As with similar bodies of Chief Officers in the public sector this is not a trade union or staff association which looks after pay negotiations and conditions of service or provides representation for individual members to get into difficulties with their employers. These services are covered by a separate body.
The Association of Police Chief Officers as with similar Associations is primarily concerned with protecting and furthering the interests of the particular services. Responding to government initiative or initiating changes with government and would be governments, developing media and international relationships and to do this by appointing a secretariat, a national umbrella committee and various committees some standing and some responding to particular developments, appointing or nominating its members to a wide range of other bodies and providing a way of members working in different parts of the UK and keeping in touch with changes and developments.
The Association of Chief Police Officers became a very different kind of body because of substantial funding by Central and Local Government, including contracted services and the decision in 1977 to also become a commercially orientated registered limited liability company with its own board of Directors. I do not know the extent to which the Association therefore maintains two sets of accounts or all income and expenditure and capital (buildings and savings) is kept and published one. As with many similar bodies membership is not restricted to Chief Officers but to deputies and third tier officers and in London the fourth tier Commanders are also expected to become members together with representatives of the police from the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Some 350 officers in total. There is a similar organisation for Scotland.
It is in its functions which make the association different from other of similar nature and which for a time it seems the Association had the look for a national police force in the making. The arguments for some form of national police force are well known because of the development of International Terrorism, International Criminality, particularly in the manufacture and distribution of Drugs and the sex Industry and because of the progress made in digital communication. As mentioned the Home Secretary has announced the creation of a National Crime Agency to tackle an estimated 38000 members of 6000 criminal gangs on varying sizes. It will attack organised crime and defend the security of UK Borders, fight fraud and cyber crime and incorporate work of the Serious Fraud Squad and Child Protection and will come into being in 2013.
It is my understanding that the new Agency will take over ACP0‘s Management of the UK national criminal records index which was created in 2006 with the development of biometric data including DNA, finger prints, facial and eye digital technology data bases. It had amassed a Database of 1 million DNA records of people who have not been convicted of any offence before the Supreme Court ruled that its retention was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The Coalition has introduced restrictions on the DNA database construction. ACPO also issues (for a fee) immigration visas required for Australia, Canada, the USA, New Zealand and South Africa. Recently the Home Affairs Committee concluded that Digital information Collation and Retrieval across the Police force was not fit for purpose.
ACPO manages on contract to the Home Office the Vehicle Crime Intelligence Services and where now all vehicle registration, insurance and MOT information is centrally stored on computer as I assume is also the vehicle number plate recording systems which now operate in London for the congestion charge and many car parks including those used by some Travel Lodges where I stay and where a picture of the parked vehicle comes immediately on line following disclosure of the registration number.
It is ACPO which funds and manages the National Counter Terrorism Security Office to advise the British Government on Counter Intelligence Strategy.
ACPO also runs/ran the National Community Tension Team which monitors religious and racial and other tensions within communities and provides liaison between police forces and community organisations
ACPO also manages. managed the National Extreme Tactical Co ordination Unit and which coordinates police tactics against extreme political groups. In 2009 the Daily Mail disclosed the existence of a confidential Unit engaged in spying on such groups which in reality has always existed going back to my experience in the early 1960’s and which I assume embraced the trade unions as well as the more overt political groupings.
It was arising from the undercover work case PC Mark Kennedy case and the collapse of the trials of six activists, that Hogan Howe, then an Inspector, was asked by the Home Office to lead an investigation into the role of ACPO to determine if its undercover operations had been authorised within the law and were proportionate.
The Local Government Association of Police Authorities ended its £850000 grant to ACPO as a consequence and three undercover units were transferred from ACPO to the control of the Metropolitan Police.
ACPO’s increasing role has been met with a number of other criticisms which appear well founded. Because of its formation into a limited liability company ACPO has been exempt from the Freedom of Information Act although in 2009 Sir Hugh after taking up the appointment as the full time head of the Association the organisation was willing to comply with the Act and that in March 2010 the Ministry of Justice announced that the organisation was now included. However ACPO then claimed it was not in a position to voluntarily comply and according to one report its website stated that the organisation was too small with two few staff to compile responses.
It was revealed that the organisation was selling permitted the information from the national police crime records computer for £70 an enquiry when it is known that the cost is only 60p a time.
It February 2010 it became known that ACPO was using £1.6 million a year from its government grant to rent 80 apartments in central London which were empty most of the time, although it has since been said that the number is being reduced. This is presumably to enable its members to attend meetings in domestic comfort and security rather than use hotels.
It is understood that Sir Hugh has been concerned about its private company status but the Association is obviously concerned about the government plans/intentions/ idea to support the creation of a new professional boy which will present professional views of all levels of police officers rather than just top management,
This is all by way of an introduction to the two other functions of ACPO which were called upon from the Monday morning of weekend of rioting in Tottenham Endfield and other areas London. It provides the Police National Information and Coordination centre. This small unit of three full time individuals was set up in 2003 to assist Police authorities in the coordination of resources in national and local emergencies such as terrorist attacks and civil disorder. This is an internally generated system which helps forces to provide adequate numbers for special events and situations beyond any local arrangements which exist within regions so that London for example has ongoing arrangement with neighbouring police forces to provide officers for ceremonial occasions, sporting and entertainment events as well as political protests and marches which are weekly occurrence in the capital but will also because of the size or sudden and special nature of an event seek help from the ACPO unit.
All that ACPO does is notify the request to other polices forces in the immediate region of the requesting force and then nationally. At the committee it was revealed that the unit works 9 to 5 with a question mark if anyone is on duty or on call at home at weekends. The Government has paid for additional staff at the unit to prepare for the policing of the Olympic Games. From the evidence giving to the Home Affairs Committee it is evident hat the Metropolitan Police contacted the PNICC unit on the Monday morning for the first time after reviewing what happened on the Sunday and concluding that more help was required. To confirm my belief that no one was in fact on duty it was the ACPO deputy who also contacted the unit on the Monday and also spoke to the ACPO chief who was on holiday in Devon and who then decided to go down to London and manage the unit directly. My point is that it is extraordinary that no one at the Home Office appeared to have responsibility to collate and communicate information and place everyone on amber alter if not red. It should not have been left to some ad hoc voluntary arrangement provided by an independent private and commercial company to organise.
The PNICC together with the other functions of ACPO are represented by its head. and other members as appropriate, from time to time on the Government coordinating structure for dealing with a major emergency including a terrorist attack, flooding or prolonged snow as well as civil disorder, and national strikes.
It is only in recent times that Government has institutionalised the management such emergencies using the designated Cabinet Office Briefing Room known as COBR for short, although it is sometimes mistakenly called COBRA. These meeting are chaired by the Prime Minister or a Cabinet Minister designated by him with the purpose of coordinating Government action which involves ensuring that all appropriate public agencies are involved according to the nature of the emergency, and where the ACPO participates along the Military Service chiefs, Fire and Medical services, Local Government, Transportation and Communication. It also assumed that Government Law and Financial Politicians and their officers will be involved to ensure that while any urgently required action is taken, it is either within the existing law and budgets or that steps are put in hand to regularise the position at the earliest opportunity.
This is why I believe there was open disagreement between ACPO, the Police Federation and The Met over who was responsible and did what at and after to Cobra meeting on the Tuesday morning.
It may be correct that on Monday the Metropolitan Police decided that they needed to flood the street with police and seek help from ACPO and via ACPO from its Scottish Counterpart but it could not have done this without Government and Treasury approval for meeting the significant additional costs of bringing back to duty on their rests days and holidays and paying the additional costs of transport, subsistence and overtime. Moreover it was Home Secretary who subsequently initiated the Conference Call with Chief Constables rather than leaving it to ACPO to disseminate the information of the proposed action to its Members.
Similarly the decision of the Ministry of Justice to authorises the Magistrates and court official, the prosecution and defence lawyers to sit throughout the night will have come at a cost re overtime. With all this talk of speedy justice it is noteworthy that the prosecution of the police officer for manslaughter of he news vendor at the G20 protests scheduled for October has not commenced nor has the reappearance of various News International officers following their remands.
It is also anticipated that the full additional costs arising will have eaten to savings which the government had required from the police service during the current financial year although the cost will be met from the Treasury as well as well as Police Authority revenue uncommitted contingency fund.
My comments are not intended as a criticism of Sir Hugh Orde except that he spoke out in Public on matters which should have remained private between his organisation and Ministers. Sir Hugh joined the Metropolitan Police in 1977 and rose rapidly including a spell as Commander for Community Safety and Partnership which led him to take part at the end of Stephen Lawrence murder enquiry and handling by the police.
As Deputy Commissioner he investigated government collusion in sectarian killings in Northern Ireland followed by his appointment as Chief Constable in the Province in 2002 that it after the Good Friday agreement but during the years when the agreement appeared to flounder until the successful power sharing agreement was reached. He became the head of ACPO in 2009 long after its powers and mechanisms had been established and therefore he inherited an establish way of doing things or not doing them although he would have been an important member of ACPO during its years of development. It is not clear if he did put in an application to become the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, given that his position at full time paid head of ACPO is under medium term threat but from his record it is evident he would have been a major candidate especially as the successful candidate had only reached the status of an operational albeit acting Deputy Chief officer.
Sir Hugh, who had listened to what the Metropolitan Acting Commissioner had said, repeated that what happened was not a mistake but the functional outcome of having too few people available to respond to the scale of lawbreaking and that they had to put the preservation of life over that of property. My continuing gripe is that they put the safety of the police first than the safety of the public in places such as Tottenham and Croydon where it was luck rather than police intervention that prevented families from being caught in fires and that in Ealing and Birmingham there was a loss of life (query over the Croydon death) and that in Sutton robust action led by the local near retirement police commander prevented the looting of the High Street.
The Chairman asked if Sir Hugh had been irritated by the political response given his comments on Newsnight and if he thought it would have been better for the politicians to have stayed on holiday and for Parliament not to have been recalled.
I think this was a clever question designed to confirm or not anti democratic and ant political tendencies. Sir Hugh explained that he was simply trying to clarify that that he police would not want to be held responsible for delivering tactics and that he did not get irritated. By that he meant that by law responsibility for delivering tactics rested with the operational police.
In answer to when and who made the decision to flood police officers onto the streets he explained that Tim Hollis his deputy had come from his everyday job to control the PNICC on a daily basis which means that neither Sir Hugh or Tim Hollis were in charge of the Unit on the Saturday or Sunday and where I have said I suspect only one officer would have been on duty if at all.
Sir Hugh was on holiday in Devon and Tim Hollis told the Committee that he contacted the PNICC at 8.40 on Monday morning and then spoke to Sir Hugh 7 mines later and took the decision to travel down to London to take charge of the operation.
The significant aspect is that he had not been contacted by the duty officer at the PNICC but did so on his own initiative having seen the TV broadcasting. This I suggest is a major flaw in the system at Government Home Office, ACPO and PNICC in not having an appropriate command structure for a national emergency immediately available. This is a staggering failure which I am not sure will be put right by the creation of a National Crime Agency
Tim Hollis confirmed that the first call to the PNICC from the Met did not arrive until 9.30 on the Monday as before that they had relied on their existing links with neighbouring police forces(from what the Acting Commissioner said earlier). The Met were also asking about the position on the Tuesday (but this suggest to me they were already concerned about not coping on the Monday). The chair then asked the pointed question that surely the police should have made greater preparations after what happened on Saturday and then over Sunday and not waiting until Monday morning, Sir Hugh intervened and said that of course they did and he defended the tireless work of the small number of PNICC staff on duty.
The matter was further pursued and Sir Hugh disclosed that the unit only operated day time hours although he did not say weekdays only. It was only on the Tuesday it became 24 hours. There is additional staff employed to work exclusively on the build up to the Olympic games and the police that will be required during the event. The chairman said it was extraordinary that so few officers were involved on behalf the sixth largest economy in the world to which Sir Hugh agreed. (There are reported to be 40 Public relations officers employed by the Met half of which worked previously for News International)
In relation to how things development a committee member intervened to make the point that he had heard that in one instance police brought in from outside the area found that the radios in their vehicles did not work in the assigned borough but did in an adjacent one and that having asked the petrol stations to close early some police vehicles and one ambulance ran out of petrol. In response Mr Hollis explained that the problem should not have arisen because there is now a national system and the problem may have arisen over tuning.
This was later challenged by a Committee Member who said he had been with a Gold Commander in the communication centre on a protest day in Cambridgeshire and the failure of the system collapsing at critical times was highlighted to him and that emergency radio’s and mobile phones had to be used. It was mentioned that Chief Constable Sue Sim chairs the ACPO standing public order committee which is looking at the lessons to be learned and that included the issue of the closure of the petrol stations.
On Social Media Control although ACPO is engaged with the initiative of the Home Secretary Sir Hugh shared the Home Office and Met Acting Commissioner’s view that any advantage was outweighed by the downside and difficulties of attempting to close the networks a view subsequently shared by the new Commissioner and Mr Bratton from the USA. On further questioning he said that the problem of disinformation was being looked at as with the greater problem of indigence gathering and collation in advance
Sir Hugh revealed that this was the first time Hone Secretary had engaged in a conference call because of particular circumstances in addition her regular attendance at their planned gatherings of members.
Moving on to the use of Tactics where ACPO had undertaken the task of producing the national manual following the rioting of 1980 and 1981 and which was then used as part of Police training from 1983. The manual is constantly updated and contains the use of all the latest equipment and action measures, advising circumstance use and required authorities. As we heard in relation to the situation in Tottenham the Gold Commander decided against employing some measure because of the sensitive situation in his command area. Sir Hugh reinforced the point made earlier that the issue was how best and when to use the available resources and approaches. This was something which was being reviewed and he reported that this was as much a resorting issue as that of tactics. He admitted that a police commander leading a baton charge as in Sutton was not in the manual. He denied that had the politicians not been on holiday the situation would have been tackled sooner. He then revealed another insight into what happened saying that if the Met had immediately increased the on street resources from 3000 to 24000 instead of 6000 they would to be today discuss why the over reaction and having so many officers standing around doing nothing.
Until now it has been established that the rioting which destroyed buildings and livelihoods, putting lives at risk, commenced with the death of Mark Duggan and the way it was handled. We learned that although the Tottenham Gold Commander could have used more robust tactics which were available to him he decided against doing so because of the history of rioting in the area, the progress that had been made and the understandable desire not to escalate the situation.
We know that the police was advised well in advance that there would be further trouble of a significant nature in Enfield on the Sunday and possible elsewhere in London arising from the publicity given to what had happened on the Saturday and then we know that on the Monday all hell was let lose across London with more people running or jumping for their lives and the police appearing to stand by while thousands of people appear to have engaged in an orgy of looting without immediate impunity. There was a death in Ealing which was directly related while one in Croydon remains unclear. The question has been put by Politicians, those in the media and by the general public is why the police were not better prepared and take more decisive action to prevent what happened on the Monday.
As is usual in such situations there is no one answer but a combination of factors which those who always see conspiracy fail to appreciate.
Firstly it was a weekend when traditionally Government, politicians and senior officers are on holiday, often abroad, with their families. It is also the same for the operational staff in the police and emergency services in local government and among the population generally, on top of the usual provision of individuals on call for emergencies at weekends. However it is important to remember that the death occurred on the Thursday so there was plenty of time for the local police to have anticipated some form of local protest and to make contingency planning including having an appropriate number of officers available. They had done so on the Saturday for the home game at the Tottenham Premiership Football club.
Secondly the Police service, particular in London was in crisis with many officers angry, frustrated and, disillusioned with some of their colleagues, with politicians and the media and with some of the general public. Fundamental changes are in hand which according to one statement by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee are greater than at anytime since the force was created 200 years ago, involving the creation of a separate National Crime Force working to the Home Office and the Secretary of State and which will include a number of separate units, but not at the moment taking away from the Met is role in Counter Terrorism. It will take away some if not all functions from the Association of Chief Constables and their Management since 1997 and where the creation of a new Professional Body for Police Officers wider than the senior management is also under consideration.
The provision of Elected Police Commissioners will also have significant implication in relation to the existing Police Authorities and Chief Police Officers. There are major changes under way to police pensions, early retirement, overtime, management levels, use of civilian and office staff plus a pay freeze as part of contributing to the share of national expenditure on all income and council tax funded services. In London the police were reeling from the resignation of the Commissioner and an Assistant Commissioner, criticism and allegations involving bribery and misuse of office at various levels and an officer was awaiting trail accused of manslaughter following his individual action during the G20 demonstrations when a news vendor going home was beaten and where the circumstances appeared to have been covered up.
Less well known is the part which the Association of Chief Police Officers plays and has come to play in the effective control of some policing functions, particularly since 1997 coinciding with the new Labour Government. As with similar bodies of Chief Officers in the public sector this is not a trade union or staff association which looks after pay negotiations and conditions of service or provides representation for individual members to get into difficulties with their employers. These services are covered by a separate body.
The Association of Police Chief Officers as with similar Associations is primarily concerned with protecting and furthering the interests of the particular services. Responding to government initiative or initiating changes with government and would be governments, developing media and international relationships and to do this by appointing a secretariat, a national umbrella committee and various committees some standing and some responding to particular developments, appointing or nominating its members to a wide range of other bodies and providing a way of members working in different parts of the UK and keeping in touch with changes and developments.
The Association of Chief Police Officers became a very different kind of body because of substantial funding by Central and Local Government, including contracted services and the decision in 1977 to also become a commercially orientated registered limited liability company with its own board of Directors. I do not know the extent to which the Association therefore maintains two sets of accounts or all income and expenditure and capital (buildings and savings) is kept and published one. As with many similar bodies membership is not restricted to Chief Officers but to deputies and third tier officers and in London the fourth tier Commanders are also expected to become members together with representatives of the police from the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Some 350 officers in total. There is a similar organisation for Scotland.
It is in its functions which make the association different from other of similar nature and which for a time it seems the Association had the look for a national police force in the making. The arguments for some form of national police force are well known because of the development of International Terrorism, International Criminality, particularly in the manufacture and distribution of Drugs and the sex Industry and because of the progress made in digital communication. As mentioned the Home Secretary has announced the creation of a National Crime Agency to tackle an estimated 38000 members of 6000 criminal gangs on varying sizes. It will attack organised crime and defend the security of UK Borders, fight fraud and cyber crime and incorporate work of the Serious Fraud Squad and Child Protection and will come into being in 2013.
It is my understanding that the new Agency will take over ACP0‘s Management of the UK national criminal records index which was created in 2006 with the development of biometric data including DNA, finger prints, facial and eye digital technology data bases. It had amassed a Database of 1 million DNA records of people who have not been convicted of any offence before the Supreme Court ruled that its retention was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The Coalition has introduced restrictions on the DNA database construction. ACPO also issues (for a fee) immigration visas required for Australia, Canada, the USA, New Zealand and South Africa. Recently the Home Affairs Committee concluded that Digital information Collation and Retrieval across the Police force was not fit for purpose.
ACPO manages on contract to the Home Office the Vehicle Crime Intelligence Services and where now all vehicle registration, insurance and MOT information is centrally stored on computer as I assume is also the vehicle number plate recording systems which now operate in London for the congestion charge and many car parks including those used by some Travel Lodges where I stay and where a picture of the parked vehicle comes immediately on line following disclosure of the registration number.
It is ACPO which funds and manages the National Counter Terrorism Security Office to advise the British Government on Counter Intelligence Strategy.
ACPO also runs/ran the National Community Tension Team which monitors religious and racial and other tensions within communities and provides liaison between police forces and community organisations
ACPO also manages. managed the National Extreme Tactical Co ordination Unit and which coordinates police tactics against extreme political groups. In 2009 the Daily Mail disclosed the existence of a confidential Unit engaged in spying on such groups which in reality has always existed going back to my experience in the early 1960’s and which I assume embraced the trade unions as well as the more overt political groupings.
It was arising from the undercover work case PC Mark Kennedy case and the collapse of the trials of six activists, that Hogan Howe, then an Inspector, was asked by the Home Office to lead an investigation into the role of ACPO to determine if its undercover operations had been authorised within the law and were proportionate.
The Local Government Association of Police Authorities ended its £850000 grant to ACPO as a consequence and three undercover units were transferred from ACPO to the control of the Metropolitan Police.
ACPO’s increasing role has been met with a number of other criticisms which appear well founded. Because of its formation into a limited liability company ACPO has been exempt from the Freedom of Information Act although in 2009 Sir Hugh after taking up the appointment as the full time head of the Association the organisation was willing to comply with the Act and that in March 2010 the Ministry of Justice announced that the organisation was now included. However ACPO then claimed it was not in a position to voluntarily comply and according to one report its website stated that the organisation was too small with two few staff to compile responses.
It was revealed that the organisation was selling permitted the information from the national police crime records computer for £70 an enquiry when it is known that the cost is only 60p a time.
It February 2010 it became known that ACPO was using £1.6 million a year from its government grant to rent 80 apartments in central London which were empty most of the time, although it has since been said that the number is being reduced. This is presumably to enable its members to attend meetings in domestic comfort and security rather than use hotels.
It is understood that Sir Hugh has been concerned about its private company status but the Association is obviously concerned about the government plans/intentions/ idea to support the creation of a new professional boy which will present professional views of all levels of police officers rather than just top management,
This is all by way of an introduction to the two other functions of ACPO which were called upon from the Monday morning of weekend of rioting in Tottenham Endfield and other areas London. It provides the Police National Information and Coordination centre. This small unit of three full time individuals was set up in 2003 to assist Police authorities in the coordination of resources in national and local emergencies such as terrorist attacks and civil disorder. This is an internally generated system which helps forces to provide adequate numbers for special events and situations beyond any local arrangements which exist within regions so that London for example has ongoing arrangement with neighbouring police forces to provide officers for ceremonial occasions, sporting and entertainment events as well as political protests and marches which are weekly occurrence in the capital but will also because of the size or sudden and special nature of an event seek help from the ACPO unit.
All that ACPO does is notify the request to other polices forces in the immediate region of the requesting force and then nationally. At the committee it was revealed that the unit works 9 to 5 with a question mark if anyone is on duty or on call at home at weekends. The Government has paid for additional staff at the unit to prepare for the policing of the Olympic Games. From the evidence giving to the Home Affairs Committee it is evident hat the Metropolitan Police contacted the PNICC unit on the Monday morning for the first time after reviewing what happened on the Sunday and concluding that more help was required. To confirm my belief that no one was in fact on duty it was the ACPO deputy who also contacted the unit on the Monday and also spoke to the ACPO chief who was on holiday in Devon and who then decided to go down to London and manage the unit directly. My point is that it is extraordinary that no one at the Home Office appeared to have responsibility to collate and communicate information and place everyone on amber alter if not red. It should not have been left to some ad hoc voluntary arrangement provided by an independent private and commercial company to organise.
The PNICC together with the other functions of ACPO are represented by its head. and other members as appropriate, from time to time on the Government coordinating structure for dealing with a major emergency including a terrorist attack, flooding or prolonged snow as well as civil disorder, and national strikes.
It is only in recent times that Government has institutionalised the management such emergencies using the designated Cabinet Office Briefing Room known as COBR for short, although it is sometimes mistakenly called COBRA. These meeting are chaired by the Prime Minister or a Cabinet Minister designated by him with the purpose of coordinating Government action which involves ensuring that all appropriate public agencies are involved according to the nature of the emergency, and where the ACPO participates along the Military Service chiefs, Fire and Medical services, Local Government, Transportation and Communication. It also assumed that Government Law and Financial Politicians and their officers will be involved to ensure that while any urgently required action is taken, it is either within the existing law and budgets or that steps are put in hand to regularise the position at the earliest opportunity.
This is why I believe there was open disagreement between ACPO, the Police Federation and The Met over who was responsible and did what at and after to Cobra meeting on the Tuesday morning.
It may be correct that on Monday the Metropolitan Police decided that they needed to flood the street with police and seek help from ACPO and via ACPO from its Scottish Counterpart but it could not have done this without Government and Treasury approval for meeting the significant additional costs of bringing back to duty on their rests days and holidays and paying the additional costs of transport, subsistence and overtime. Moreover it was Home Secretary who subsequently initiated the Conference Call with Chief Constables rather than leaving it to ACPO to disseminate the information of the proposed action to its Members.
Similarly the decision of the Ministry of Justice to authorises the Magistrates and court official, the prosecution and defence lawyers to sit throughout the night will have come at a cost re overtime. With all this talk of speedy justice it is noteworthy that the prosecution of the police officer for manslaughter of he news vendor at the G20 protests scheduled for October has not commenced nor has the reappearance of various News International officers following their remands.
It is also anticipated that the full additional costs arising will have eaten to savings which the government had required from the police service during the current financial year although the cost will be met from the Treasury as well as well as Police Authority revenue uncommitted contingency fund.
My comments are not intended as a criticism of Sir Hugh Orde except that he spoke out in Public on matters which should have remained private between his organisation and Ministers. Sir Hugh joined the Metropolitan Police in 1977 and rose rapidly including a spell as Commander for Community Safety and Partnership which led him to take part at the end of Stephen Lawrence murder enquiry and handling by the police.
As Deputy Commissioner he investigated government collusion in sectarian killings in Northern Ireland followed by his appointment as Chief Constable in the Province in 2002 that it after the Good Friday agreement but during the years when the agreement appeared to flounder until the successful power sharing agreement was reached. He became the head of ACPO in 2009 long after its powers and mechanisms had been established and therefore he inherited an establish way of doing things or not doing them although he would have been an important member of ACPO during its years of development. It is not clear if he did put in an application to become the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, given that his position at full time paid head of ACPO is under medium term threat but from his record it is evident he would have been a major candidate especially as the successful candidate had only reached the status of an operational albeit acting Deputy Chief officer.
Sir Hugh, who had listened to what the Metropolitan Acting Commissioner had said, repeated that what happened was not a mistake but the functional outcome of having too few people available to respond to the scale of lawbreaking and that they had to put the preservation of life over that of property. My continuing gripe is that they put the safety of the police first than the safety of the public in places such as Tottenham and Croydon where it was luck rather than police intervention that prevented families from being caught in fires and that in Ealing and Birmingham there was a loss of life (query over the Croydon death) and that in Sutton robust action led by the local near retirement police commander prevented the looting of the High Street.
The Chairman asked if Sir Hugh had been irritated by the political response given his comments on Newsnight and if he thought it would have been better for the politicians to have stayed on holiday and for Parliament not to have been recalled.
I think this was a clever question designed to confirm or not anti democratic and ant political tendencies. Sir Hugh explained that he was simply trying to clarify that that he police would not want to be held responsible for delivering tactics and that he did not get irritated. By that he meant that by law responsibility for delivering tactics rested with the operational police.
In answer to when and who made the decision to flood police officers onto the streets he explained that Tim Hollis his deputy had come from his everyday job to control the PNICC on a daily basis which means that neither Sir Hugh or Tim Hollis were in charge of the Unit on the Saturday or Sunday and where I have said I suspect only one officer would have been on duty if at all.
Sir Hugh was on holiday in Devon and Tim Hollis told the Committee that he contacted the PNICC at 8.40 on Monday morning and then spoke to Sir Hugh 7 mines later and took the decision to travel down to London to take charge of the operation.
The significant aspect is that he had not been contacted by the duty officer at the PNICC but did so on his own initiative having seen the TV broadcasting. This I suggest is a major flaw in the system at Government Home Office, ACPO and PNICC in not having an appropriate command structure for a national emergency immediately available. This is a staggering failure which I am not sure will be put right by the creation of a National Crime Agency
Tim Hollis confirmed that the first call to the PNICC from the Met did not arrive until 9.30 on the Monday as before that they had relied on their existing links with neighbouring police forces(from what the Acting Commissioner said earlier). The Met were also asking about the position on the Tuesday (but this suggest to me they were already concerned about not coping on the Monday). The chair then asked the pointed question that surely the police should have made greater preparations after what happened on Saturday and then over Sunday and not waiting until Monday morning, Sir Hugh intervened and said that of course they did and he defended the tireless work of the small number of PNICC staff on duty.
The matter was further pursued and Sir Hugh disclosed that the unit only operated day time hours although he did not say weekdays only. It was only on the Tuesday it became 24 hours. There is additional staff employed to work exclusively on the build up to the Olympic games and the police that will be required during the event. The chairman said it was extraordinary that so few officers were involved on behalf the sixth largest economy in the world to which Sir Hugh agreed. (There are reported to be 40 Public relations officers employed by the Met half of which worked previously for News International)
In relation to how things development a committee member intervened to make the point that he had heard that in one instance police brought in from outside the area found that the radios in their vehicles did not work in the assigned borough but did in an adjacent one and that having asked the petrol stations to close early some police vehicles and one ambulance ran out of petrol. In response Mr Hollis explained that the problem should not have arisen because there is now a national system and the problem may have arisen over tuning.
This was later challenged by a Committee Member who said he had been with a Gold Commander in the communication centre on a protest day in Cambridgeshire and the failure of the system collapsing at critical times was highlighted to him and that emergency radio’s and mobile phones had to be used. It was mentioned that Chief Constable Sue Sim chairs the ACPO standing public order committee which is looking at the lessons to be learned and that included the issue of the closure of the petrol stations.
On Social Media Control although ACPO is engaged with the initiative of the Home Secretary Sir Hugh shared the Home Office and Met Acting Commissioner’s view that any advantage was outweighed by the downside and difficulties of attempting to close the networks a view subsequently shared by the new Commissioner and Mr Bratton from the USA. On further questioning he said that the problem of disinformation was being looked at as with the greater problem of indigence gathering and collation in advance
Sir Hugh revealed that this was the first time Hone Secretary had engaged in a conference call because of particular circumstances in addition her regular attendance at their planned gatherings of members.
Moving on to the use of Tactics where ACPO had undertaken the task of producing the national manual following the rioting of 1980 and 1981 and which was then used as part of Police training from 1983. The manual is constantly updated and contains the use of all the latest equipment and action measures, advising circumstance use and required authorities. As we heard in relation to the situation in Tottenham the Gold Commander decided against employing some measure because of the sensitive situation in his command area. Sir Hugh reinforced the point made earlier that the issue was how best and when to use the available resources and approaches. This was something which was being reviewed and he reported that this was as much a resorting issue as that of tactics. He admitted that a police commander leading a baton charge as in Sutton was not in the manual. He denied that had the politicians not been on holiday the situation would have been tackled sooner. He then revealed another insight into what happened saying that if the Met had immediately increased the on street resources from 3000 to 24000 instead of 6000 they would to be today discuss why the over reaction and having so many officers standing around doing nothing.
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