Examination of Witnesses (Questions 564
- 579)
TUESDAY 10 JUNE 2008
CHIEF CONSTABLE
IAN JOHNSTON
AND INSPECTOR
JIM HITCH
Q564 Chairman: Chief Constable Johnston
and Inspector Hitch, thank you very much for coming today to give
evidence to the select committee inquiry into policing. I would
like to start with you, Chief Constable Johnston, your instant
reaction to the very impressive sales pitches we have had from
these three companies. Any instant reactions?
Chief Constable Johnston: I think
the position around Airwave and around mobile data is that there
are still lessons to learn, there are still things to be done,
but both of them are a fantastic facility for the Police Service.
I am supporting their pitch around all the good things that are
happening, but I am saying that there are things that we can do
to make better use of both of those facilities and to address
some of the concerns that the Federation raised so powerfully
when they did.
Q565 Chairman: Presumably you believe
that the new technologies will help the police as far as their
work is concerned.
Chief Constable Johnston: Absolutely.
I think the Airwave radio system has been a revolution for us.
We have got coverage that we never had before, we have got facilities,
in terms of talk groups, that we have never really had before,
so there is flexibility in the system, and in terms of the mobile
data, the ability to search criminal records from the position
on the street, to get information from voters' registers, from
an encounter on the street, is very powerful operationally for
the officers out there and also actually saves us time back in
the control room, because the officer doing the search direct
is not ringing on the radio back to base for somebody to do the
search there and then come back. So there are a lot of efficiencies
there and a lot of really good news for us.
Q566 Chairman: What about the figures
that we have been given that it will cut down on paper work?
Chief Constable Johnston: I think
paper work is always going to be a burden for the Police Service.
As Ronnie Flannagan acknowledges, I think he spoke about good
cholesterol and bad cholesterol, and there is good bureaucracy
and bad bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is essentially around accountability,
and I think we all want a police service that is accountable,
so we are always going to have bureaucracy. What we want to cut
out is things like duplication.
Q567 Chairman: Does it cut down?
Chief Constable Johnston: The
mobile data stuff certainly does. An officer, under the old system,
would write down a stop search in his book, would go back to the
police station, type it into the computer—a very slow process—and
would have to do the same with the intelligence report. Mobile
data does this for him automatically. He taps it out on his mobile
data terminal, John Smith gets typed in once, so every time he
deals with a name John Smith, it will come up automatically on
the key pad, the date of birth will come up automatically, so
there are savings there in terms of paper work and also savings
in terms of transferring the records from his on the street record
back to the records of the organisation. That is done automatically,
and so there are definite savings there.
Q568 Chairman: Before I bring in
Mr Prosser to continue along this line of questioning, can I ask
you about the Mayor of London's ban on alcohol on the transport
system because the inquiry is quite a wide inquiry into policing.
Do you welcome this ban?
Chief Constable Johnston: I think
drunks on any form of transport, drunks anywhere holding bottles
of alcohol and rolling about on other passengers, is a pretty
unseemly, unattractive part of life, and I think doing things
about that is a really good idea. Clearly, it is the drunks who
are the problem rather than people carrying the alcohol, so we
are still going to have a problem with the drunks, but I think
London Underground and the Mayor giving a very clear signal about
what is acceptable behaviour and what is unacceptable behaviour
is a really good move. If the public picks up on the spirit of
this in the way that they have done with the smelly food lessons
that London Underground portrayed, generally getting people to
behave better, I think is a really good thing and I am happy to
play my part in that.
Q569 Chairman: Presumably you were
consulted about it?
Chief Constable Johnston: Yes,
we were.
Q570 Chairman: Did you expect those
little parties at the end of the official drinking period?
Chief Constable Johnston: I think
it is a shame. I think it makes the point very clearly that this
is exactly why we do not want drinking on London Underground.
That was pretty unacceptable behaviour and I think it makes the
point very much about the value of the ban.
Q571 Mr Winnick: That party, as the
Chairman put it, I know he did not quite mean it in that way,
was as good an illustration that one could find of outright, drunken
hooliganism.
Chief Constable Johnston: Absolutely.
Q572 Mr Winnick: There was absolutely
no justification for that sort of conduct.
Chief Constable Johnston: No;
absolutely not.
Q573 Mr Winnick: I want to put this
question to you. It is argued by some that the ban on drinking
is unenforceable; it is not going to be observed by a good number
of people. Do you accept that sort of pessimistic line: that the
large majority of people are not going to be law abiding?
Chief Constable Johnston: No,
I do not. I think the large majority of people who use the tube
are law-abiding. I think there are some that get on it that we
would rather they did not and we would prefer them to behave in
a different manner, but I make the point, again, this is about
giving a signal about what is acceptable behaviour and what is
unacceptable behaviour, and I think it is a very powerful signal.
Q574 Mr Winnick: Those who are not
law-abiding (and I hope they will be very, very few indeed and
that sort of drunken exhibitionism will not be repeated), are
you confident that your force can deal with such people?
Chief Constable Johnston: Yes,
we can. In the first instance what we are looking to do is to
advise people rather than have to enforce the law, but there are
the rules of carriage which enable us to eject people from the
underground system should they not comply with the rules around
drinking and carrying drink.
Q575 Tom Brake: Could I clarify whether
you are saying that this should be self-policing or have you,
in fact, put in a request for extra officers?
Chief Constable Johnston: We are
in negotiations with the Mayor's office about extra officers for
the underground, and he has made an offer that we have yet to
see.
Q576 Chairman: Who is he?
Chief Constable Johnston: The
Mayor in his manifesto pledged to release funding for 50 additional
British Transport Police officers to patrol the worst suburban
stations, and we are in dialogue about that. As yet they are to
materialise but I am confident that they will, and that will be
a help in enforcing it, but I do think the first instance is about
an education programme, and then we are going to get tough on
the people who do not comply.
Q577 Chairman: Have you put in a
request for more officers?
Chief Constable Johnston: We have
accepted his offer of a gift of more officers. If that does not
materialise, we shall clearly be pursuing it with a fairly firm
request.
Chairman: Excellent. Back to new technology.
Q578 Gwyn Prosser: Chief Constable,
we have been told about the funding system for British Transport
Police. It is rather complex, but more than one source. Indeed,
your connection into the new technologies, into the police database,
for instance, there is some confusion perhaps. Can you tell us
a bit more about the barriers to purchasing and implementing this
huge array of new technologies which are out there?
Chief Constable Johnston: The
British Transport Police is funded by the rail industry. We are
occasionally included in wider policing initiatives, like, for
example, mobile data, where we have benefited from some additional
funding. In relation to the Police National Database, which is,
in effect, going to be the major intelligence source for the Police
Service going forward, the major data collection regime, we do
not have access to full funding and support, which seems to me
to be an extraordinary anomaly. I think that is a big issue for
us. We suffer a bit from a serendipity arrangement in terms of
funding, but we are never quite clear whether we are in or whether
we are out. Quite clearly, I think, in terms of the national intelligence
database for the United Kingdom, we should be very much a full
part of that family. We have something to contribute and something
to take from it and I think we should be fully included within
it in funding terms. We are not being banned, we are just being
required to pay for it through the railway companies.
Q579 Gwyn Prosser: Has the Home Office
given any rationale for that, what looks like an omission?
Chief Constable Johnston: The
rationale they give is that the Police Service for the railways
is funded under "the user pays" principle and, therefore,
the railway companies should pay. I can see value in placing at
the railway company's door some specific benefits of policing,
but it seems to me that the BTP's contribution to the national
intelligence database is for the benefit of UK, not just for the
railway companies, and I think on those sorts of grounds there
is a very clear rationale for the scope of the programme to be
widened to include BTP and for it to be fully funded by government.
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