CSOs are a ‘win-win’ says HMIC chief

Giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee, Sir Keith told MPs that while there was still “quite a way to travel” on some issues surrounding CSOs, there were also some “real positives”.

“Having travelled around the country certainly over the last 12 months and sat in on focus groups, Community Support Officers are a real win-win, both from their point of view and from the police constables` point of view,” said Sir Keith. “I have sat in on numerous groups where patrol constables have sung the praises of CSOs.”

Sir Keith said that, alongside CSOs and the overall increases in police numbers, one of the major benefits of the police reform process had been the changes in performance culture – particularly through the introduction of ‘real-time’ information through the iQuanta system.
He also told MPs that, following the success of the baseline assessments, he estimated that out of the 43 forces in England and Wales, “six or seven would be so good that we could withdraw inspection activity from them in recognition of that.”

“At the bottom end of the scale there would be perhaps three, four or five that are so poor that they would be subject to substantial Inspectorate activity, and then you have got the raft in the middle,” added Sir Keith.

But while some individual forces where recording substantial improvements in performance, Sir Keith told MPs that the idea of moving to a national police force would not make the service more effective.

“If you were starting from scratch, I am sure you would not have 43 forces, and you would not have forces the size of Bedfordshire, Dorset, Cleveland, Gloucestershire,” said Sir Keith. “So you could make a case for a force being of an optimum size of 3,000-5,000, but all the evidence that we have gathered shows there is no correlation between size and performance and outcomes in relation particularly to volume of crime.”

Sir Keith added that, as part of HMIC`s current remit from the Home Secretary to look at the structure of the 43 forces, he was approaching the problem from a different perspective by trying to determine what the aim of each force was.

“The aim of a force is to protect the community, so how good are they, do they have the capability and the capacity to protect that community from serious and organised crime, from terrorism, from the major, level 2 criminality?

“If they do not, how can they get that capacity? Would it require mergers or would it require greater collaboration? That piece of work is currently being undertaken, and I am not too sure what the outcome will be.”