New West Midlands PCC scraps force business partnering plans

Bob Jones, the new police and crime commissioner (PCC) for West Midlands, has torn up previous plans for private sector partnerships.

The Business Partnership for Policing (BPP) programme was instigated after West Midlands Police (WMP) proposed plans to find private sector partners in September 2011, but Mr Jones had stated his opposition to the proposals during his election campaign, a commitment he reaffirmed in an interview with Police Professional (see edition 331, page 16).

Mr Jones announced a new technology task force to look into ways to overhaul WMP’s IT system, which will report its findings in January. All previous consultancy agreements with private companies have also been cancelled and Mr Jones will work closely with Chief Constable Chris Sims on new plans.

In a statement Mr Jones praised the work undertaken under the programme and that its findings would inform the work of the task force, but his commitment to maintain police-run services necessitated its termination.

He said: “Chris and I share a vision for the force which will see technology deliver innovation and new ways of working which I hope will result in radical improvement in the services delivered to those that live and work in the West Midlands. Our intention is to do so even against the backdrop of the financial challenges that we face.”

Outlining the role of the task force, he added: “The taskforce will undertake its work knowing that I wish to see core policing services remain within the police service.

“Staff and officers exercising police powers and the staff who support them in fulfilling those powers must remain under the direction and control of and accountable to the chief constable.”

Mr Sims welcomed Mr Jones’ announcement, adding that “it’s all still to play for” in deciding on the level of private sector involvement.

“I’ve spent most of the last 12 months repeatedly explaining to people this was never an outsourcing project and was always based on technology and innovation,” he said.

“The commissioner’s comments were not too dissimilar to what I was saying all along.”

He added: “The plan is that the task force will report back to him in mid-January with some options as to how to take forwards all these issues. These options may involve the public or private sector and with the procurement process that we’ve been through, we’ve kept open possibilities with those companies.”

Mr Sims felt there was a “subtle difference” between Mr Jones’ ideas and the BPP over the role of police staff, and the need for outside advice to overhaul the IT system was the main agreed issue.

“There are pockets of good stuff in this force and other forces, but we both want it systematically built into the programme,” he said.

“Private companies bring access to technology and knowhow from other areas – much of these ideas aren’t new, but they aren’t used in policing. Even a force as big as ours doesn’t really have the capabilities to deal with such a large change to infrastructure.”

An area which would be the focus of the task force would be how WMP uses social media.

Mr Sims said: “There’s a big transparency issue, as there is with all forms of internet usage, but bringing it all together has a participatory aspect too – we want to get more public involvement in what we’re doing.”