Labour’s Zero-Based Review Interim Report Number 1: Policing Labour’s Zero-Based Review: Interim Report No.1 Policing Part One – Exploring efficiencies; prioritising the frontline FOREWORD David Cameron and George Osborne are set to break their promise to balance the books by next year and so it will fall to the next Labour Government to finish the job where the Conservatives have failed. In tough times Labour knows we will have to make tough decisions. We have pledged, and will legislate for, tough fiscal rules to deliver a surplus on the current budget and get the national debt falling as soon as possible in the next Parliament. Our Zero-Based Review project is delving deep into every pound the Government spends in order to throw light on the current Government’s waste and false economies. But the Zero- Based Review will also help the next Labour Government to ruthlessly prioritise public spending and deliver service reform and improvements, rather than just salami-slicing budgets and watching services deteriorate, as has been the practise under the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. This series of publications will set out some of the ways in which a tighter approach to financial management under Labour could free up resources, whilst also maximising the value for money of our public services. In the first of our interim reports from Labour’s Zero-Based Review, we highlight the first phase in Labour’s policing work, and set out how we will make nearly £250 million of savings in the Home Office budget in order to better protect frontline policing. We outline examples of nearly a quarter of a billion pounds where Ministers could make savings immediately or implement efficiencies to hold off their planned future cuts to the frontline, if they chose to do so. Specifically, we detail recommendations on how Home Office and policing structures should be less wasteful, how savings could be made through smarter purchasing and management of the procurement chain, and where the costs of regulation should be recovered in a way which does not disadvantage the taxpayer. Police forces are planning cuts for the next financial year 2015/16 of over 1,000 officers – because Government plans are not helping police forces protect the frontline. Our first priority has been to look at changes and reforms to meet the budget already set for 2015/16, finding savings to protect the frontline, while longer-term work is underway to 1 find future savings. Labour’s Zero-Based Review has identified initial cuts, savings and revenue-raising measures to protect the frontline and help meet the financial constraints on policing budgets. Police forces are attempting to save money through selling estate, and a degree of collaboration, in 2015/16, with little or no support from the Government. However, forces have told us they are also having to cut a further 1,100 frontline police officers in 2015/16 to meet the savings required. Sir Hugh Orde has warned that future cuts could mean “a greater number of officer posts would be involved, and this could potentially have serious implications for statutory responsibilities and the safeguarding of the most vulnerable”. Through scrapping the Police and Crime Commissioner elections, saving £50 million, implementing full-cost recovery for gun licensing to raise £17.2 million and levying increased fees for police DORs (Driver Offender Retraining), raising £9 million – Labour will stop the cut of 1,100 officers we know are already planned under the Theresa May for 2015/16, having found the savings required through making different decisions with different priorities. Furthermore, Labour will support the police in finding additional savings to meet the pressures on police force budgets into the future, to better protect officers on the frontline – including through mandatory national procurement, enhanced collaboration and bearing down on overtime in forces performing below the level of the majority. This document is intended to present an indication of our direction of travel – and only the first party of Labour’s work to reform policing. It is illustrative of the next Labour Government’s plans to bring the deficit down in a fairer way, whilst protecting public services, and delivering big reform, without big spending. Chris Leslie MP, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Yvette Cooper MP, Shadow Home Secretary 2 LABOUR’S ZERO-BASED REVIEW The Zero-Based Review is a root and branch review of every pound the Government spends and will help the next Labour Government to ruthlessly prioritise public spending and deliver service reform and improvements, rather than just salami-slicing budgets and watching services deteriorate, as has been the practise under the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. This process is intended not only to reveal the current Government’s costly errors and skewed priorities but will require the Labour Party to grasp opportunities to deliver reformed public services which are valued and justifiable; which provide value for money and quality services that meet the needs and demands of the public who use them; and which can both make savings, and secure economic growth. Fundamentally reviewing current Government spending is a necessary step in preparing for office. Last year Ed Balls MP, the Shadow Chancellor, announced that Labour would conduct a detailed review of every pound the Government spends, in order to help prepare ourselves for the challenges the next administration will face. We set out the principles of our Zero-Based Review in a Phase 1 discussion document in December. Since the start of 2014 Chris Leslie MP, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has completed the first round of the Zero-Based Review, analysing every departmental budget and exploring public service reform and redesign in detail with each Shadow team. This process has been guided by the following five principles: • We will use public money more efficiently – and seek efficiencies in every area of government spending • We will use all departmental budgets to strengthen the economy – supporting growth, job creation, innovation and exports • We will ensure greater fairness in the impact of spending – and will prioritise spending that prevents future problems • At the same time as increasing efficiency, the quality and experience of public service must improve – offering the speech, simplicity and responsiveness that people now expect • We will strengthen accountability and transparency across government – with clear efficiency incentives for all departments No department has been exempt from this process, including any areas that we may choose to protect or ring-fence, because efficiency will be necessary across all areas of spending. Our work for Phase 1 of our Zero-Based Review has been informed by the wide range of work and reports which have contributed to the Labour Party’s Policy Review: the Armitt 3 Review of long-term infrastructure planning; the Local Government Innovation Taskforce; the Stevens Review of policing and crime; and the Adonis Growth Review, to mention just a few. Labour’s Treasury team will continue to collaborate with Shadow Ministers to expose waste, mismanagement and poor decision making by David Cameron’s Government, as well as increase the scrutiny of each departmental balance sheet over the months to come. We will complete our Zero-Based Review with our first Spending Review in Government, but this early work is crucial to inform the policy choices we will make. As Ed Miliband and Ed Balls have outline the next Labour government will be about big reforms and not big spending. 4 FAILURES OF THE TORY-LED APPROACH TO POLICING The current Government will fail to eradicate the deficit as they promised, leaving behind a £75 billion shortfall which will place an incredible burden on public services for the years ahead. But as the next Labour Government, we are determined that savings can be found in a fairer way, viewed through the values that we hold and our determination to protect the frontline. The Tory-led approach has been wasteful and inefficient, indecisive and characterised by too many costly u-turns, and has undermined economic growth. • Cutting the frontline rather than eliminating waste: Theresa May frontloaded cuts to the frontline in the first two years of the Parliament, making no effort to improve collaboration and regional delivery of specialist functions. Instead forces rushed to cut frontline numbers rather than reforming the services they provide. • Fragmentation of services: The arrival of Police and Crime Commissioners has added to the fragmented approach to police reform – with some forces becoming less collaborative, and PCCs pulling out of arrangements with other forces that could save millions of pounds. In the criminal justice system, and across our public services Ministers are driving fragmentation, reorganisation and competition just at a time when local services need to collaborate more to deliver better services and save money too. • The wrong priorities: The Tories chose to spend £75 million on elections for Police and Crime Commissioners, in November, resulting in record-low turnouts. According to the Home Affairs Select Committee PCCs have also cost more than their predecessors, with expensive deputies appointed in some areas. Meanwhile 16,000 police officers have been cut, with neighbourhood policing all but disappearing in some areas. There have been increases in violent crime, but fewer criminals have been brought to justice. Meanwhile standards in policing have caused understandable public concern, but the Independent Police Complaints Commission remains unreformed and inadequate. • Short-termism: Theresa May’s short-termist approach to bringing down the Home Office’s police and crime budget is putting at risk the Government’s duty to ensure our police service is fit for the 21st Century. Neighbourhood policing faces an existential crisis if Ministers continue with their current approach.