British Transport Police Federation

ANNUAL CONFERENCE
BRITISH TRANSPORT POLICE FEDERATION
SPEECH BY CHAIRMAN: MR ALEX ROBERTSON
ON WEDNESDAY 2 MARCH 2011 AT THE
PARK INN HOTEL, YORK

Minister, guests, colleagues, welcome to a very special conference. I say special because this conference, our ninetieth as a Federation, is also my last as chairman and special because we have for the first time in thirteen years the presence of a Conservative Minister, Mrs Theresa Villiers.

As well as being Transport Minister you have served your time as shadow chief secretary to the Treasury. Whether you were disappointed or relieved not to find yourself in the Treasury when the Conservatives took office, I hesitate to ask. However such shadowing experience must undoubtedly prove valuable when faced with the major economic problems of the UK and more specifically with the financial challenges of the railway industry.

We are not a Home Department force and we are not funded by the Home Office. We rely for our revenue on the Police Service Agreements between the Police Authority and Network Rail, the Train Operating Companies and London Underground. To put it simply, we are a commercially funded police service largely independent of the public purse.

The budget for the BTP was set in December for 2011 at 3.3 per cent less than the previous year. This budget is to be maintained at that level for 2012, the year of the Olympic Games. In absolute terms our net revenue budget will be Ł202.2millions - a not inconsiderable sum. But that figure has to be judged in the context of whether it is sufficient for the operational task ahead and the extent to which the funding will be eroded by an inflation rate, possibly reaching as high as five per cent.

Elsewhere, the budget has been described by our Police Authority as. . . "a difficult settlement that will require an imaginative response from the police force". I have to agree with that. The creativity of this force will indeed be tested by the challenge of delivering the same level of service on a reduced budget.

This Federation has grave concerns that we are facing a shortfall in our financial resources. Last year we achieved all 14 of our national performance targets. This commendable achievement also indicates that there is not a lot of room for further efficiencies while still delivering the level of service that the travelling public and the railway industry have come to expect.

I am well aware of the almost unprecedented pressures on the public finances. We have only to look at our pay cheques to see that we too are sharing in the pay restraints being imposed on the public sector. We are also apprehensive of more swingeing cuts to come. . . but more of that later.

Because of the state of the public exchequer the entire police service of the United Kingdom faces budget cuts which will deplete the ranks of serving officers by as much as 20 per cent. As many as 20,000 officers could lose their jobs. Already over the past year the police service has fallen by 2,500 - the first significant drop in six years. Should that cut be replicated in the BTP we will simply not be able to meet the challenge of policing the railways as we should and we will have serious problems coping with the Olympic Games.

The numbers are staggering. Some 17,000 athletes from 200 countries will compete in 26 sports. They will be reported on by 20,000 journalists and watched by 500,000 spectators. Over 60,000 people are involved in organising the Games. Around nine million tickets will be sold. Competing with the Olympic Games for police attention will be the Notting Hill Carnival, the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, football's Charity Shield and the usual, annual, cultural assortment which so enrich London as a tourist attraction.

And may I remind you Minister, that these Games are being promoted as the public transport games. Wonderful for the nation's green credentials but a nightmare for a police service denied adequate numbers of officers to ensure the security of the transport network.

Normally big events are dealt with through mutual aid arrangements with adjoining police forces. The Metropolitan, City of London and BTP expect to call upon 500 extra officers a day for the Games' duration. But if the mutual aid providers have experienced substantial cuts themselves there will inevitably be an understandable reluctance to release scarce officers. This year and next, cannot be a good time to cut police numbers.

This last three years have seen substantial investment in the railway network and, thankfully, in the BTP. Both the railway network and this force had been shamefully neglected for years. The resulting improvements in performance flowing from the investment have paid off but the ability of the BTP to maintain its excellence as a police service will be jeopardised if the budget provision proves inadequate.

The Federation has long argued that the BTP should be funded by the Department for Transport. In our view the 'user pays' principle is being too narrowly interpreted in that it fails to recognise that the benefits of BTP policing not only fall to the travelling public but are shared by the public as a whole. Safety and wellbeing on the railways are essential for the efficient working of the transport infrastructure. As a refinement of that thinking we have argued that the costs of the BTP should be recovered from the railway industry by the Department for Transport rather than, as at present, the BTP itself chasing after Train Operating Companies. Not all of them are prepared to recognise the contribution that our police officers make to ensure their passengers' travel is a safe and even enjoyable experience.

We have not lost that argument but it certainly has not as yet been accepted by Government. I am therefore going to suggest that if we are to be seen as a commercially funded police service then the Department for Transport should increase our income from the Train Operating Companies to reflect the rising passenger numbers and their increased revenue.

Passenger journeys are running at five million a day. And last year the passenger level hit 1.3billion, the highest since 1928. Furthermore passenger fares have been increased more than inflation would justify.

I believe that the huge public debt burden necessitating extensive cost cutting across the public sector is being used by the railway industry as a cloak to seek cuts in the BTP when the industry itself has never been better placed to reap the rewards of record passenger growth.

My Federation believes that the record growth in rising passenger numbers is not just a matter of many people having no viable travel alternative or that trains run efficiently. No, a major influencing fact is: people feel safe and secure on the trains and in the stations because of the good work of our officers. There is a straight correlation between security on the railways and numbers of passengers travelling. Far from seeking to cut the cost of the BTP the railway industry should be further increasing their investment in this force and the Government should be encouraging them to do so.

The BTP can trace its origins as the specialist railway police back to 1826. We are one of the best performing police forces in the United Kingdom. As well as meeting all our national targets we have seen in the past year recorded notifiable crime fall by 17 per cent, from 67,000 crimes to 56,000. We have also matched our success in preventing crimes with an improvement in our detection rate from 32 to 35 per cent.

The performance can be directly attributed to the quality of the leadership, the professionalism and commitment of officers at all ranks and to the investment there has been in technology and in police numbers. Understanding the commercial imperative of the railway industry is crucial to the BTP making this police service indispensable to the success of the railway industry.

As a police service, we are not standing still. In the light of the growing terrorist threat and particularly the suspicion that Irish Dissident Republicans have a terror cell operating in England the BTP is currently considering the feasibility of creating our own armed response units. Such is the pressure on our colleagues, particularly the Met, we are no longer guaranteed armed support within an adequate timeframe. The decision of the Chief Constable to approve the creation of an armed capability will be fully supported by the Federation.

The current state of the economy with the certainty of a vastly reduced public expenditure needs to take into account the role of a police service which contributes tangibly to the economic and social well being of the country.

There is a danger that austerity measures from Government aimed at the public sector generally will trigger the law of unintended consequences. Cuts in police budgets of the order of 20 per cent as envisaged by Government may save money but the sense of security that the wider public feel will be seriously eroded. In common with all federations I cannot see how crime will fail to rise. There is a clear and undeniable correlation between police numbers and crime statistics.

I note with approval that at the London Metropolitan Police the Mayor of London Boris Johnston wants to replace 526 police community support officers with an additional 537 police officers. This Federation and the general public have not been fooled by the deployment of PCSOs and in times of stringent budgets they have become a luxury that we cannot afford. And Boris Johnson is absolutely right when he declares that money should be moved from buildings, vehicles and equipment to officers on the street.

The police service needs to become more efficient but that drive for increased productivity and improved results is a permanent in-built programme for all police forces. It is not something that a change of Government has suddenly brought to our attention. The instruction to the public sector that we must learn to do more with less is a nice catch-phrase but just as valid is: you only get what you pay for.

Minister, I urge you and your Ministerial colleagues to weigh carefully the implications of substantial cuts in the police budget.

And it is not just the cuts in our corporate budgets which dismay us. Not only will there be fewer police officers to do the job but our terms and conditions are under serious threat.

The October interim report on public pensions from Lord Hutton is the first indication of what we can expect.

In the 1840s most people never reached the age of 60 years. Longevity for pensioners increased in the 70s and now, not only do many more people reach the age of 60 but life expectancy once you reach that age has risen by another 28 years. This extended period of retirement and the expansion in recent years of the public sector is all proving very awkward for Government as it looks at an annual pension bill of Ł32billion and rising. On behalf of my colleagues in the other federations let me make the point that at 11 per cent, no part of the public service makes as much personal financial contribution to their pension.

The officers of the BTP are uniquely members of the British Transport Police Superannuation Fund which comes under the umbrella of the Railway Pensions scheme. We pay 15.8 per cent of Scheme Pay which equates to approximately 13 per cent of gross pay. Although this is two per cent more than our Home Department colleagues there are, thankfully, compensating elements.

This is a standalone fund that benefits from the expertise and economy of scale of the Railway Pension Scheme regarding investments. The Hutton recommendations when finalised may have an indirect impact on the BTP railway pension fund. His recommendations can only help foster Government hostility to public sector pensions: that they are too generous per se and should be reduced through changes to funding and longer working years to the same painfully inadequate level of the private sector.

We can expect a knock-on effect to our own pension scheme. Valuation of our pension fund last year revealed a deficit of approximately Ł200 millions. The law of unintended consequences intervened again with the introduction of the Government's two year police pay freeze immediately reducing the deficit to Ł137 millions.

Then the Government announced a change of benchmark to the Consumer Price Index instead of the Retail Price Index that our pensioners had enjoyed for years. This reduced the deficit to Ł37 million and who knows: if inflation does hit five per cent the deficit may even disappear altogether. Good news for the Police Authority and our Pension Fund Trustees but tough on the retirees who will see their pension increases limited. Given this is my last year you will understand my personal interest in this.

One financial burden which our pension fund could well do without is the annual Ł900,000 contribution made each year to the Pension Protection Fund. This substantial payment is unjustifiable given the nature and security of the BTP Superannuation Fund. There can be exemptions to the requirement to pay this levy whereby the fund can have a Crown guarantee against default.

Minister, my members would welcome this exemption which would cost the Government nothing as a gesture of goodwill from the Department and would be recognition that we are, as BTP officers, part of the wider public service and members of a pension scheme which cannot and could not be allowed to collapse. The granting of exemption would also send a welcome signal to my members that the new Coalition Government clearly supports and is confident about the long term future of the BTP.

And if that were not enough, next week we have the Winsor report. The Home Secretary Theresa May warned us when she announced Tom Winsor's review that there would be nothing off limits. And sadly we are hearing whispers of a radical approach to the remit.

The task set by the Home Secretary was to ensure that police pay and conditions and the structures around them are the best they could be, given the challenges facing the police service, which will see forces being required to achieve more with less, while also being fair to officers and staff. We have been here before but not when the country was in such dire financial circumstances. Sir Patrick Sheehy's report in 1993 was largely rejected but not because of budgetary considerations. It was fatally flawed in its understanding that policing is a very special career path. When the Home Secretary studies the report I advise her not to agree to recommendations that leave officers feeling undervalued or so disillusioned that we cannot recruit or retain when the economic uplift eventually comes.

I mentioned at the beginning that this was my last conference speech. So I do want to reflect on my past 12 years as the chairman of this Federation. It has been an honour to represent the men and women of the BTP. I am proud to be the spokesperson for my members who have performed so heroically over the years. Last night's bravery award showed once again that there is no lack of initiative or courage in this Force.

But I want in my closing remarks to concentrate more on the nature of the challenges facing policing in general and the BTP in particular. Policing is unlike any other career. We are the ultimate emergency service from social worker to public protector, dealing with a seamy side of life that most ordinary citizens only see on television dramas. We work irregular and unsociable hours that disrupt family life, sadly often to the point of divorce. We often face extremely aggressive confrontation from the criminal, the drugged and the drunk and the mentally-ill. We are prepared to, and occasionally have to put our lives on the line.

We face a crisis in the state of public finance. The Government can legitimately claim that it inherited an economic mess not of its making. That is not the substance of my point. My concern, the concern of all whom you see in this room Minister, is that your measures to deal with the financial crisis do not produce a crisis in policing.

You can cut costs by shedding jobs by not recruiting to fill the vacancies left by retiring officers. That stores up trouble for the years ahead as you find yourself with a structural age imbalance.

Worse still, you can simply trigger Regulation 19 to force out officers with 30 years' service. The compulsory redundancy of police officers will mean the loss of officers with invaluable service. That will mean a massive loss in corporate memory. In turn there will be a gradual reduction in police operational effectiveness as younger officers lack access to the experience and, yes the wisdom of older officers. It will take years to rebuild internally the professional and intimate knowledge of those officers and, in the meantime, public dismay with the quality of policing and performance will grow.

The next few months are critical for Government as the effects of a more stringent public expenditure regime are felt in all quarters of everyday life. We have seen the confrontations with the students; you are aware of the rumblings among trade unions. Those whom you rely on to deal with physical confrontation and over-excited public anger have themselves, no right of recourse to industrial action to protest about punitive changes in our terms and conditions or having to work with fewer resources.

Such professionalism should not be taken lightly and it would be better if it were recognised that the police service of the UK is the bedrock of a liberal democracy which is the envy of the world. Please think carefully when you look at the police budget and the Winsor and Hutton reports what changes you will make to policing as a service to the people and as a career for my members.