Richard Taylor Speaking After Cambridgeshire Police Authority Vote to Work Up G4S Business Plan
Channel: RTaylorUK
Date: 30/06/2012

Article: http://www.rtaylor.co.uk/g4s-cambs-police-back-office.html


On the 28th of June 2012 I observed a Cambridgeshire Police Authority meeting. Usually when I observe Police Authority meetings there's only me, and on rare occasion at most one or two others, present. At this meeting there were over fifty people in the public seating, many were wearing unison "stop police cuts" t-shirts, others were wearing police staff IDs, there were also one or two police officers in uniform and a smattering of other members of the public.

The reason the meeting attracted such interest was that it was considering a paper from the Chief Constable and Chief Executive of the Police Authority recommending they should approve the working up of a business case for handing over the running of the "operational support" element of the police force to private company G4S. Effectively under the proposal most elements of policing not carried out by constables or PCSOs, or not already handled by private companies, would be contracted to G4S.

Members of the authority present, with the exception of Liberal Democrat Cllr Wilkins who abstained, voted in favour of working up the business plan. They also though asked the Chief Constable to work on a "plan B". What "plan B" might amount to was left very open and undefined, it may even be a range of options.

Cllr Wilkins sought a number of times to formally propose that "plan B" ought be a three-force collaboration, however the chair of the police authority refused to accept his proposal, ruling it "impossible". I think this action by the chair was absolutely wrong, it ought to have been up to the authority members, not the chair acting unilaterally, what position they took. The chair's reasoning for rejecting Cllr Wilkins' proposal was that Hertfordshire Police Authority had recently decided to only consider the privatisation to G4S and not any other option. However the chair has not considered that following the decisions of Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire's police authorities Hertfordshire might reconsider their decision, a decision they made without the benefit of knowing the views of the other authorities.

Cllr Matthew Lee (Conservative, Peterborough City Council) expressed a preference for only considering the G4S option, saying that any other option would result in cuts to police officer numbers which he would not support.