Presentation by Adam Crawford - University of Leeds

Building Sustainable Societies
‘PCCs and the
Future of
Public/Private
Policing
Relations’
Adam Crawford
University of Leeds

Phases of Public/Private Relations
240,000
220,000
Total Police Employees
England & Wales
200,000
180,000
160,000
140,000
Phase I –
Expanding
public
provision
Phase II –
Contracting
public
provision
Sworn officers and
CSOs England & Wales
HMIC Projections
120,000
HMIC Projections
100,000
Private
Security
Industry Act
Police
Reform
Act
Banking
crisis
Comprehensive
Spending
Review

1. Expansion up to 2009/10
Ebullient Public Police
• Expanding public provision – police numbers;
• New police ‘commodity’ – PCSO - to compete in
market for visible patrols;
• Private security industry relatively immature
– price over quality;
– short-term security contracts and staff ‘churn’;
– preoccupied with regulation/legitimacy; 2001 Act.
• Lack of coordination, hostility and a deficit of
trust by the police in the private security sector.
• Weak accountability and segmented regulation.

2. Retrenchment from 2009/10
By the time of the Comprehensive Spending Review 2010:
• Britain had a more mature, self-confident and assertive
private security industry – post-SIA.
• Declining police budgets.
• The political shibboleth of officer numbers abandoned by
Coalition Government - police numbers will be allowed to fall.
• The spectre of ‘external’ democratic control – the advent of
Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs).
• Shift in the attitude of police managers:
private sector no longer a ‘threat’ to,
but rather a saviour!

Privatisation
In June 2012, David Taylor-Smith, head of G4S for the UK and
Africa, predicted that private companies would be running large
parts of the British police service within five years driven by a
combination of ‘budgetary pressure and political will’.
He added:
‘We have been long-term optimistic about the police and short-to-mediumterm
pessimistic about the police for many years. Our view was, look, we would
never try to take away core policing functions from the police but for a number
of years it has been absolutely clear as day to us – and to others – that the
configuration of the police in the UK is just simply not as effective and as
efficient as it could be… I have always found it somewhere between patronising
and insulting the notion that the public sector has an exclusive franchise on
some ethos, spirit, morality – it is just nonsense … we employ 675,000 people
and they are primarily motivated by pretty much the same as would motivate
someone in the public sector.’

Business Partnering for Police
=> Train hits the buffers

PCC Elections
APCC Wordle

Electoral Statements
Views on Privatisation in PCC Candidates’ Election Statements
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
Anti-Privatisation
Equivocal
Pro-Privatisation
No Comment
10
5
0
Labour Conservative Liberal
Democrat
UKIP
Independent

PCCs Electoral Statements
Elected PCCs Statements on Privatisation
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
No Comment
Pro-Privatisation
Anti-Privatisation
4
2
0
Conservative Labour Independent

PCC Election Results:
The patchwork
political map -
41 test-beds of
experimentation

West Midlands PCC
• The first act that the successful West Midlands PCC initiated on
taking up the role on 22 November 2012 was to announce his
intention to halt the privatisation of core police services.
Bob Jones announced:
‘It is also significant that what I am about to announce is my first
decision since taking up office. This attests to the importance I attach
to giving clarity to the public and, equally as importantly, to the
officers and staff of the Force on the future of the Programme. My
decision is that the Business Partnering Programme will cease’.

Market Pressures
• The pressure on PCCs to experiment with private sector
involvement/Business partnerships given challenges to cut
millions of pounds from police budgets is likely to be intense.
• Shortly after the elections, it was reported that security firms had
launched a lobbying campaign targeting newly elected PCCs.
• In an interview with the Independent, the Steria UK chief
executive John Torrie, said of the approach taken by security,
technology and outsourcing companies:
‘Some of the people in there at the present moment are new into this
market and they see it as a potentially huge market. They've
recruited big forces of people and they will be all over the police
market like a rash.’ (cited in Peachey 2012)

The Extended Policing Family
• Fragmented relations between plural policing providers. Further
fragmentation with market sub-contracting
• Segmented regimes and forms of regulation and oversight –
proposed reform of private security industry regulation (2012).
• Promiscuous role of PCCs
• Police and Crime Commissioners!
• Possibilities for PCCs to join-up and coordinate policing – not
simply the police Community Safety Budgets.
• Coalition govt narrowing of the police mission – a return to police
priorities dominating policing and community safety

• We stand on the brink of a new dawn for relations between
private security and public police in Britain… and beyond
• The confluence of ‘electoral accountability’ and ‘fiscal restraint’
may be a volatile mix given the insatiable public expectations
and demands for public policing.
• The conceptual parameters for thinking about the public goals
and interests served by private providers of policing and the
private/parochial nature of public policing may be on the table!
• Fundamentally, these issues will (should) engage police
managers and local citizens in essential questions about the
function and purpose of police (and policing) in a modern
society.