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Chapter 7 Governance and accountability

Summary

• Governance arrangements are important in ensuring that public money is spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Decisions about how police resources should be used are made at a local level ( e.g. through CPPs), at a force level, and at a Scotland-wide level. It follows that there should be concomitant governance arrangements at each of these levels.
• We identify gaps in the governance arrangements for policing decisions made locally (through community planning partnerships and their SOAs). At a regional or force level, there are formal governance arrangements through joint police boards and police authorities, but these require further support to work effectively.
• ACPOS makes decisions affecting local, regional and national policing, but does not fall within the normal public sector governance arrangements. Consequently, there is little public scrutiny of these decisions.
• There is no requirement on chief constables or police authorities/boards to consider the national perspective.
• The only people who can clearly be held accountable for policing arrangements above force level and for all national policing arrangements are Scottish Ministers.
• There is no national forum in which to consider how police resources overall should be used to ensure that national risk is managed effectively and Best Value achieved.

Background - what do we mean by governance?

7.1 The police service in Scotland is commonly described as having a tripartite system of governance and accountability. Broadly, Scottish Ministers retain overall responsibility for policing policy, police authorities (and joint boards) are responsible for setting police budgets and ensuring that Best Value is achieved, and chief constables are responsible for operational policing. The background to these arrangements, and what they mean in practice, is described in detail in Appendix A.

7.2 Governance is about making sure that public money is being spent properly and effectively. It is the framework that enables organisations to account to service users, stakeholders and the wider community, for the decisions they make to achieve their objectives.

7.3 As has been highlighted earlier in this report, police forces operate in a highly complex legislative, political and local environment in which they have to make difficult decisions. Well-governed organisations balance their different responsibilities and use information to decide where to allocate people and resources to meet competing demands. Experience shows us that good governance supports effective decision-making, whereas poor governance often results in a culture, structures and processes that lead to poor decisions. ¹³

7.4 There are six core principles of good governance ¹⁴ which have recently been developed by the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives ( SOLACE) and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance Accountants (Cipfa) into a guidance note for Scottish local authorities. ¹⁵ The principles focus on:

• the purpose of the authority, and on outcomes for the community and creating and implementing a vision for the local area;
• members and officers working together to achieve a common purpose with clearly defined functions and roles;
• promoting values for the authority and demonstrating the values of good governance through upholding high standards of conduct and behaviour;
• taking informed and transparent decisions which are subject to effective scrutiny and managing risk;
• developing the capacity and capabilities of members and officers to be effective; and
• engaging with local people and other stakeholders to ensure robust public accountability.

7.5 Basically, the essence is that someone who makes a decision should not be the only one to review or challenge it.

7.6 We have talked elsewhere in this report about the different levels of decision-making and operational policing which currently operate in Scotland. These can be loosely described as local, regional or force level and national. The existing governance arrangements for these different levels are outlined in Table 1.

7.7 In addition, public accountability for the use of police powers is most necessary for those powers that impinge most on the citizen, for example the police use of firearms or intrusive and covert surveillance. It is true that there are checks and balances in place in terms of levels of authorisation for these powers, but police authorities and boards in particular must ensure that the question of accountability is rigorously followed through any collaborative arrangements.

7.8 Across these different levels of policing, we have identified some areas where there is either a lack of governance or there is evidence that existing arrangements do not provide a robust accountability framework to support the six principles.

Local policing

7.9 Since the election in 2007, decisions on local policing have been heavily influenced by the advent of Single Outcome Agreements. From 2009, all SOAs will be agreements between the Scottish Government and community planning partnerships. SOAs have therefore moved on from an agreement between two legal entities (the Scottish Government and an individual council) to one where one party to the agreement is a partnership with no legal standing.

7.10 This raises a number of governance issues for the police, where chief constables and police authorities both have a statutory duty to participate in community planning but also have their own governance arrangements.

7.11 All the current SOAs contain at least some outcomes that require the commitment and direction of police resources in order to be delivered. However, there is a lack of clarity around the role of police authorities in general in relation to these agreements, and in particular around the role of the six joint police boards. For example we found that:

• police boards had little or no direct input into the development of their constituent SOAs, despite (a) the requirement for police resources and (b) the duty imposed by the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 on police authorities and boards (as well as chief constables) to participate in community planning;
• in some areas, the police board had considered ('noted') the SOAs of the councils in their force areas, but these had not been formally approved by the board; in other areas, the board had not even seen the relevant SOAs; and
• there were no clear arrangements between the authority/boards and the relevant councils for sharing performance monitoring information on the SOA outcomes to which the police were contributing.

7.12 We also found little evidence that authorities/boards were informed or consulted on how the force should balance the resources required to achieve the SOAs with demands for other local policing resources not directly linked to SOAs.

7.13 These findings lead us to conclude that there is a serious gap in governance arrangements for policing at this local level.

Force/regional

7.14 All police forces have their own internal governance arrangements and improving these has been a focus of attention in some forces.

7.15 Externally, forces are formally held to account through the joint police boards, or the police authorities in Dumfries and Galloway and in Fife, described in detail in Appendix A.

7.16 While there is universal support from stakeholders and police forces for police to be locally accountable for the services they deliver locally, there is also evidence that the current arrangements are not working as effectively as they should. This is supported by evidence from a review of police authority/board minutes, commentary within the in-service survey (graph 5), and workshops conducted for this review. For example:

• while elected members evidently support their forces, they are often over-reliant on the views of the chief constable on matters brought before them at meetings;
• members typically have very limited involvement in setting the strategic direction of the force, or in Best Value reviews undertaken by the force;
• performance monitoring and reporting tends to be under-developed compared with other services;
• none of the police board/committee conveners is a leader of a council, and councils are increasingly able to make decisions that may affect police resources, with no recourse to the boards.

7.17 One of the reasons for this apparent lack of effectiveness is the limited independent professional support available to police authorities/boards, resulting in a lack of capacity and capability (one of the six principles of good governance). Only Strathclyde Joint Police Board directly employs a small number of specialist staff to support members in fulfilling their duties.

7.18 In addition, in Scotland (in contrast to other parts of the UK), police authorities/boards are comprised entirely of elected members, with membership of joint boards being drawn from the elected members in constituent councils. Thus no police authority members are directly elected or appointed on to the authority. This again raises a number of questions:

• where should the primary loyalty of a police board member lie - with their council or with the board? (Respondents to the in-service survey were not clear on this question, as illustrated in graph 6);
• how can elected members (who come from a range of backgrounds and political affiliation) access impartial independent experts to ensure that the significant decisions they are making about police resources are balanced and informed?; and
• how are elected members held to account by the electorate for their work as members of police authorities?

Graph 6. [Q26 In-service survey]

When acting as members of police authorities and boards, councillors should put the interests of their authority/board above the interests of the local authorities to which they have been elected

7.19 These findings lead us to conclude that, while there are clear statutory arrangements for the governance of individual police forces, these are not fully complying with all the accepted principles of good governance.

National

7.20 As discussed in chapter 4, a number of police services are delivered at a national or regional ( i.e. inter-force) level, primarily through three different mechanisms:

• via force-to-force collaborations;
• through work by ACPOS; and
• by SPSA and SCDEA.

7.21 As decisions about police resources and services are being made through all these routes, there should be clear and robust governance arrangements for those decisions. However, we have serious concerns about the accountability arrangements for the first two.

Force-to-force collaborations

7.22 The extent to which forces collaborate to boost capacity is discussed in more detail in chapter 4. We have two concerns about the governance and accountability for these collaborations: one in relation to overall accountability arrangements, and the other over the potential tension they may create between national as opposed to local requirements.

7.23 While forces are to be commended for their willingness to share their specialist resources and for the extent of goodwill identified across Scotland, we are also particularly concerned about the lines of accountability if something goes wrong. This is not to say that it would necessarily be difficult to devise a common system of accountability, but rather that we have seen no evidence of such a system.

7.24 We found little evidence that police authorities/boards are aware of the full extent of these collaborations. Nor do they appear to have been involved in developing a strategic approach to how the resources for which they are responsible should be used to support policing in other areas of Scotland.

7.25 The perception that collaborations are not subject to the full scrutiny of authorities/boards was borne out by our consultation with conveners, some of whom expressed concern about their remoteness from ACPOS decision-making on national issues.

ACPOS

7.26 Over the last few years ACPOS has taken an increasing lead in developing policies for policing across Scotland. While this has resulted in many improvements in consistency and professionalism, the organisation itself is not statutorily recognised within the current accountability framework for policing in Scotland. This raises a number of issues around governance and accountability which have been identified by other stakeholders, including the Auditor General and the Justice Committee in its report of its inquiry into the effective use of police resources. These issues include the following:

• ACPOS cannot be held to account locally for those decisions that may have significant resource implications for individual forces or may affect local service delivery. There is no direct mechanism through which the local funding body can challenge ACPOS as a national decision-making body, should an individual police authority/board wish to question its chief constable's recommendation that it ratifies an ACPOS agreement.
• Chief constables are ultimately responsible to their authority/board, so ACPOS cannot currently ensure that chief constables comply with decisions that are made collectively through the Association. For example, there is no mechanism or guidance that requires chief constables to consider national policing requirements as well as local ones, or to implement any ACPOS agreed policies or strategies. This latter fact may be a necessary outcome of having independent police forces but it has to be acknowledged, and stakeholders dealing with ACPOS need to be aware, that the Association can only recommend action to its members, not guarantee delivery.

7.27ACPOS recently became incorporated as a company limited by guarantee. However, this does not, nor can it be expected to, introduce any improvements to existing public governance arrangements that would require it to demonstrate that the decisions being made are balanced and informed, or that its use of resources from forces and the Scottish Government is efficient and effective.

7.28 In relation to external scrutiny and inspection, HMICS can only make recommendations to forces. Most thematic recommendations will probably and understandably be co-ordinated by ACPOS, but HMICS cannot hold ACPOS to account for their implementation.

7.29 At a national level ACPOS has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Scottish Government which sets out the conditions and arrangements for the payment of grant-in-aid it receives from Ministers. This clearly identifies the role which the Scottish Government expects ACPOS to fulfil in relation to the policing agenda in Scotland. However, it does not set out how ACPOS should deliver these responsibilities should they conflict with local policing requirements.

Governance for national policing decisions

7.30 A clear view expressed by chief officers during this review, was that they would ultimately have to prioritise their contractual relationship with their authority/board over national collegiate arrangements intended to benefit Scotland as a whole. This difficult balance is echoed to an extent in the results of the in-service survey shown below, where respondents were quite evenly split on this issue.

Graph 7 [Q27 and 28 In-service survey]

Members of police authorities/boards and chief constables should consider the national interests of policing in Scotland, even if this might mean compromising their individual force/service interests

7.31 A separate but similar issue to the above is that police authorities/boards have no mandate to consider the national policing requirement. As a consequence, the only element of the tripartite arrangement having such responsibility is Scottish Ministers.

7.32 The current arrangements can therefore result in a potential conflict of interest for chief constables. On the one hand they are bound by the current legislative framework to give primacy to the decisions of their local authority/board, while on the other they naturally feel obliged to work through ACPOS for the common good of policing in Scotland.

7.33 Therefore, the only people identified by this review as holding overall national responsibility for the effective and efficient delivery of policing in Scotland are Scottish Ministers.

7.34 Given these circumstances we consider that the current legislative arrangements require review. Contemporary examples of dual responsibilities exist elsewhere in the public sector, for example in the health arena. There may be merit in considering a similar approach, where authorities/boards and chief constables would be required to consider national and local interests together. Such a concept is of course not new in policing. Sections 11 and 12 of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967 recognised the potential requirement to compel mutual aid and collaborative arrangements, although this does not appear to have been considered in this particular context before.

SPSA

7.35SPSA is a relatively new entity and is focusing on consolidating its current responsibilities and workload. It occupies a unique position within policing in Scotland. Since its formation in 2006 it has operated solely at a national level. As a non-departmental public body ( NDPB) it has an entirely different governance structure from that of police forces.

7.36 Within the questionnaire responses, workshops and interviews held as part of this review, frequent comment was made about the SPSA, its services and its construction. There are SPSA connections to each of the major themes identified in the review.

7.37 Under chapter 4 we discussed the capacity and capability of Scottish forces to manage risk at a national level. There is little doubt that through the enhanced risk assessment process which we recommend, serious and organised crime will emerge as a very high-risk. The SCDEA, sitting as part of the SPSA, is the only current Scottish national asset to deploy against this risk.

7.38 Discussions with participants identified a need for more connectivity between the work of SPSA and SCDEA in delivering national policing services, and an increasing emphasis on partnership policing at a local level. We also noted that regional force collaborations, as well as national co-ordination of other policing services by ACPOS, continue to be developed at a time when there is already a national option in the form of the SPSA.

7.39 Where we discuss standards in chapter 5, we refer to the role that NPIA has in England and Wales in relation to their development. SPSA could, at least potentially, take on this role in Scotland.

7.40 What is clear from the above and from the conclusions and recommendations in this review, is that a deeper understanding of how these issues relate to the SPSA as a body is fundamental to taking forward the changes that we believe are necessary across Scotland.

7.41 There is a very high level of connection between the SPSA issues identified here and the other recommendations that should fall to the PSSG to progress following this review. Accordingly, we think that it would be most effective to address these SPSA elements as an additional but single stream of work, reporting back to the PSSG.

Conclusion

7.42 All our policing is paid for by taxpayers across Scotland. The different levels at which its services are provided were identified in chapter 4. In subsequent sections we have looked at the importance of standards, the lack of robust information on costs, and matters relating to the effective governance and scrutiny of police services. We have developed a framework as a means of looking at all these issues according to the different levels of policing, by considering the following questions for each service delivery level:

• Who provides governance?
• Who is responsible for gaining an understanding of and thereafter managing risk?
• Who determines how resources are allocated against priorities?
• Who determines how resources are provided and accounted for?
• How is quality assurance managed? (compliance, audit, inspection and self-assessment)
• How is performance managed?

7.43 Within the timescale and remit of this report, undertaking detailed analysis to address all of these levels was not possible. However, we have used a simple traffic light colour coding to reflect our levels of confidence in the current arrangements, based on the evidence we gathered for this review. This is illustrated in Table 1. The red areas indicate the areas which we consider to require the most development. We therefore conclude that the levels of most concern are two of those most concerned with policing arrangements above force level, with the exception of SPSA. Particularly force-to-force agreements and the national role of ACPOS.

Table 1

Illustration of the eight levels of delivery for policing services in Scotland, with HMICS commentary on associated arrangements for governance, risk assessment, resource allocation, inspection and performance monitoring

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