Plans for police privatisation (other privatisation)

[Zingari]

I feel more than a little uneasy about this latest wheeze I

what are your thoughts people ?

http://www.guardian....ity-firms-crime

Private companies could take responsibility for investigating crimes, patrolling neighbourhoods and even detaining suspects under a radicalprivatisation 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.

[Captain...]

No no no, please god no, this is a bad idea, always has been always will be, you can't run public services as a business, just no.

[Libertine Dream]

Why oh why does this government come up with ideas like this? You cannot have frontline policing done privately, it is not a business.

[The People's Hero]

Very bad idea. Probably a smokescreen as the alternative, an inefficient and poorly managed PUBLIC police force seems the lesser of two evils.

[dave the caveman]

Wouldn't like to see frontline services privatised but there are definitely some aspects of the police force that would benefit. Mainly back office work, IT, admin, finance, call handling, logistics etc., things that specialist consultants can do better for a cheaper price. But I think I would have to draw a line somewhere. Although saying that, there is really nothing that says a public police force is necessarily any more efficient or more reliable than a private one. As long as the private compaines are properly regulated there should not be any problem.

[Bellend Sebastian]

Have these c***s never seen Robocop? Look what happened there, it was awful.

I'm sure we don't need to worry, and we'll get a first rate service like we do from the energy and public transport companies

[The People's Hero]

Wouldn't like to see frontline services privatised but there are definitely some aspects of the police force that would benefit. Mainly back office work, IT, admin, finance, call handling, logistics etc., things that specialist consultants can do better for a cheaper price. But I think I would have to draw a line somewhere. Although saying that, there is really nothing that says a public police force is necessarily any more efficient or more reliable than a private one. As long as the private compaines are properly regulated there should not be any problem.

Fine in theory. Thats as far as it goes.

Insufficient interest in getting the contracts and company's not trying hard enough to keep them becomes an issue.

There is always someone creaming off the money as well, which could be better invested elsewhere in the service, having said that, that is human nature and will occur whether its privatised or not.

[Guest Bilo]

We really are governed by idiots aren't we?

Pretty sure even Thatcher's mob weren't this stupid.

[flowwolf]

I'm all for it. As a small time scrap metal thief I am confident that with privatization I can steal the fillings out of old peoples mouths without any fear of getting caught , happy days.

[Jon the Hat]

There are lots of the things our police forces are good at. There also plenty of things which they have failed completely to modernise for decades. We have wasted countless millions on IT, HR, Administration, paperwork and so that could be far better managed by one or two providers. Have to say I don't see why the likes of G4S are top of the list, I would have thought someone like CapGemini (who I just spent quite a lot of time with) or similar would be better placed. For me this is all about focus on core competencies and the improvement of them. If we expect our 40 odd separate forces to all be good at running themselves as well as delivering on the priorities of the public we are deluded. Few major successful companies run all of their operations any more, because it is so difficult to be really good at lots of things.

Suspect the scope of this exercise will be dramatically less than the list the Guardian has published; 1) that is the way outsourcing processes work - you start assuming everything can be outsourced, then work back from there to a realistic and manageable scope. 2) This will inevitably be pretty controversial, because people find it hard I think to understand just how little of the work done by the police is actually frontline policing. Think of the as somewhere between the sales & operations team of a company, with a wide array of support activities from facilities, HR, finance & accounting, procurement & IT, all of which are needed, but none of which the Police forces are now or will ever be very good at.

Now you could argue that the government has the scale to deliver its own shared services environment, and this would certainly be true in some areas, but lets be honest, the public sector has failed time and time again to do anything about it, and as such we still spend way more on people supporting frontline services than we do on the actual delivery of those services. So for me, this is a necessary process, and not just in the police force or the NHS but all across the public sector. If it takes private sector expertise to deliver it then I am in support of that.

[Daggers]

Pretty sure even Thatcher's mob weren't this stupid.

Oh they were - and then some. And she had bigger, nastier balls than Cummerbund.

Have these c***s never seen Robocop? Look what happened there, it was awful.

I'm sure we don't need to worry, and we'll get a first rate service like we do from the energy and public transport companies

I bloody love you. Fancy a gay marriage?

[FoxyPV]

Privatisation solves everything.

[acooling08]

I think that this could be a good thing for saving money. Why pay a trained cop £20 an hour to stand around guarding a crime scene, when you can send in someone from a private agency to do it for minimum wage.

Obviously the police are against it because it means less £££ for the easy menial jobs they do (not saying it is all like that, but some of it is).

And Labour are against it because they oppose anything the coalition come up with. That yvette woman needs a bullet in the head.

[Captain...]

I think that this could be a good thing for saving money. Why pay a trained cop £20 an hour to stand around guarding a crime scene, when you can send in someone from a private agency to do it for minimum wage.

Obviously the police are against it because it means less £££ for the easy menial jobs they do (not saying it is all like that, but some of it is).

And Labour are against it because they oppose anything the coalition come up with. That yvette woman needs a bullet in the head.

It is not as simple as that, I understand what you are saying, why have trained policemen doing the paperwork and donkey work when you could get a temp in to do it, but part of the problem is it is sensitive information. I know from the job I do that as much as I hate doing the paperwork it is part of my job and to get someone else to do it would require me explaining to them exactly what to do, then have to check it is done correctly afterwards because it is still my respoonsibility and by that time I might as well have just done it myself.

In the example you give, why have a trained cop guarding a crime scene, because they know what they are doing, what to look out for, you are basically saying is get someone of the level of steward at a footy ground looking after a crime scene.

It is also not something on the long list of services they are considering outsourcing:

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.

My parents house was recently burgled and I was the one who found it after coming back from Spain, while they were away for the weekend and they immediately sent an officer round, but in reality they didn't really need to, we had already established it had happened the night before when the house was empty and there was no sign of the burglars, but I am so grateful that they did, I was in a bit of shock I had no idea what to do, how to react. They also sent round a forensics team, he knew he wouldn't find anything because it was the same MO as a number of recent burgalries, we knew he wouldn't find anything, of course they will wear gloves, but it was still reassuring that he came round. We also had a PCSO come round. All of these people really helped reassure my parents that everything was ok, it was normal and advise on how to secure the house for the future. I fear that under privatisation and running these kind of things as a business, we wouldn't have got all of them, or it will start to become a charge, if you want forensics to come it will cost you, don't worry you can claim it back on the insurance, but then insurance premiums will go up.

There is also the more worrying idea of this paving the way to privatising the whole police force and that will be, hopefully, why Labour don't support and not for solely political reasons.

[Rincewind]

Security firms have to have licensed officers now. They do not or would not have the same power of arrest of police officers. Similar to specials in a way. They would be used as a supporting roll. Crowd control escorting and suchlike. The Specials do a lot of the admin and logging statements out now which enables more police more time on the beat.

Not sure about it myself. If done properly it would be OK and may make more jobs available. Too late for me I think though. My Security Officer days may be over. License runs out end of month and cannot afford to renew it.

Private companies already do fire/ alarm responses and money transactions transporting.

With the fire alarm responses they are charged by the hour and I know that when they respond and put down the times they are not in the recipients favour. A minute over the hour and its another hourly charge.

All this would have to be looked into to keep things fair.

[Daggers]

Mad Ken' privatisation of the prison service is a glowing model of how successful the Tories plans are.

Savings and a superior service with nothing possible that can go wrong: http://m.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/mar/01/prison-governor-locks-out-probation-staff?cat=society&type=article

Ha.

[Rincewind]

The jobcentre printed off a job for me. It was on the gatehouse at Glen Parva young offenders prison. My duties would include searching, patrolling, booking prisoners in and out, locking outside gates and checking all returned if let out for the day. I do not think I am qualified for this role. I would basically be a prison officer. Officially a lot of that is what privatised security do but I've done little of the hands on stuff. Mainly patrolling and report writing and locking/unlocking buildings.

[Webbo]

People really shouldn't believe everything they read in the Guardian.

[Guest bss9401]

Typically outrageous scam. Save millions on policing, give nothing back to the taxpayer and we will soon be expected pay for private security insurance.

[Daggers]

People really shouldn't believe everything they read in the Guardian.

Do you want to point out where the factual errors are in the article I quoted and the evidence for them being errors?

[Webbo]

Do you want to point out where the factual errors are in the article I quoted and the evidence for them being errors?

There are a lot of "coulds" and "possibles" in that article. I don't doubt that there is some privatisation in the police service but investigating crime? Please?

The Guardian is just the Daily Mail for lefties, massaging their prejudices and feeding their paranoia.

[Zingari]

you don't need to explain Webbo , you're an authority figure now .

[Webbo]

you don't need to explain Webbo , you're an authority figure now .

Just because I'm considerably more important than the rest of you now doesn't mean I've lost my humility.

[Zingari]

Just because I'm considerably more important than the rest of you now doesn't mean I've lost my humility.

benign dictatorships are definitely the way forward , but it doesn't help if you explain too much to the masses

[Finnegan]

The Guardian is just the Daily Mail for lefties, massaging their prejudices and feeding their paranoia.

No. It is not.

The Guardian is the Telegraph for lefties, if anything.