Lincolnshire outsourcing exceeds savings expectation

The outsourcing of police support services by Lincolnshire Police to private security company G4S has saved the force over £5 million, and £1.4 million more than projected, a report released today has claimed.

As part of the largest outsourcing contract of police support service in the UK, G4S had set itself a target of shaving £3.6 million a year from Lincolnshire Police’s budget as part of it running 18 operational and organisational services in April 2012, which saw 575 civilian staff transfer from the force under the company’s aegis.

In the joint report by G4S, Lincolnshire Police and the police and crime commissioner (PCC), Alan Hardwick, which examines the results from the first year of the ten-year contract, the outsourcing is found to have exceeded its 13.6 per cent savings target, achieving an 18 per cent reduction in costs. The surplus saved is equivalent to the cost of hiring 35 additional police officers.

Among other findings outlined in the report, the 999 emergency response rate was reported to have increased, with 93 per cent of 80,896 calls in 2012/13 answered in under ten seconds, compared to 89 per cent of 78,996 the previous year, while “customer satisfaction” rates from such calls recorded as 94 per cent. The force’s four-month backlog in dealing with firearms licences has also been cleared and it is now working two months in advance.

The report outlines some areas which have not improved sufficiently, such as the IT provisions, but describes an overall “positive” impact from the contract.

Mr Hardwick welcomed the findings, describing the “innovative partnership” as an example to other forces looking to make further cuts. He claimed if forces across England and Wales achieved similar savings, this could remove £1 billion of costs for the police service.

“For police forces, whose budgets are already nearly 20 per cent leaner than in 2010, the challenge – to improve quality while finding savings – is about to get bigger,” he said.

“We have not only managed to reduce crime by over 14 per cent, but we have done so while putting more officers on the beat, improving public confidence and delivering a better service to our communities.”

Mr Hardwick acknowledged not everyone would seek private sector involvement in the same manner as Lincolnshire, but pointed to the arrangement’s role in bolstering police visibility, which he said impacted on public trust and confidence in the wider service.

“I think any force could benefit from looking at what we’re doing here,” he said.

Neil Rhodes, chief constable of Lincolnshire Police said he was “pleasantly surprised at how smoothly G4S has become part of the Lincolnshire Police family”, highlighting the ‘Street to Suite’ project, which transports arrested people from crime scenes to police stations to free up officer time, as having a “positive” impact on operational capabilities.

Claiming that public sector organisations sometimes “just aren’t as good as the private sector at doing some things”, Mr Rhodes said “significant redundancies” would have been made had the force sought to revise services without the partnership agreement with G4S.

“Against the odds we have managed to balance the books for the next two years,” he said.

“A real contributor has been the performance of our contract with G4S.”

Mr Rhodes added elements that could save other forces money, such as the Street to Suite programme, did not need private sector involvement and could be implemented nationally.

Ben Priestley, Unison’s national officer for policing and justice, labelled the report “a puff piece” and criticised it for lacking detail on how the savings were made, adding the decision by Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire collaboration not to take up a similar privatisation project raised questions.

“It’s not so much a report as an advert – it’s not very detailed, it doesn’t contain any figures you can verify,” he said.

Mr Priestley also pointed to concerns over the secrecy of the commercial contract, which is currently exempt