I have just spoken at the Counter Terror Expo, an enormous exhibition and conference at Olympia.  I was standing in for Patrick Mercer who was apparently taken by surprise by the fact that there was going to be a General Election campaign going on when he agreed to speak.

My main theme was that we could envisage that we would be living in a much riskier society over the next twenty-five years.  The UK would be in a world:

“in which there will be greater political extremism and conflict and where radicalisers can flourish with a volatile and disaffected population in whose minds their ideas can take root.  This will be an environment in which international crime will be stronger and the restraints on it from the international community will be weaker.  There will be problems in building an international consensus as to what needs to be done as the current international certainties dissolve into a multi-polar future.

This will be a riskier society as state and city authority break down in many places and where international crime and terrorism can flourish and be nurtured in such lawless areas.

At the same time, society itself will become more vulnerable through its increasing reliance on ICT.”

I recognised the success of the Government’s CONTEST strategy with its four strands: Pursue, Prevent, Protect and Prepare.  I pointed out that:

“This has been accompanied by substantial investment.  By next year, there will be £3.5 billion spent on counter-terrorism.  The number of  police engaged in CONTEST has risen by 70% and the Security Service has doubled in size.

The strategy has been effective.  Since 2001, 200 people have been convicted of terrorist related offences and over a dozen significant plots have been disrupted  In addition, in the last four years, some 250 people have been excluded from the country on national security grounds or on the basis of their activities.”

But went on to point out that in the future more will need to be done:

“to ensure that the CONTEST strategy builds in expecting the unexpected.  We must be ready to look beyond al Qaeda, recognising the developing picture of dissident republicans in Northern Ireland, other political and regional struggles elsewhere in the world (certain in the knowledge that the diaspora from those struggles will be here in London) and new challenges such as those holding extreme ecological views who may have come to believe that mankind is so bad for the future of the planet that that future would be improved if mankind’s population was dramatically reduced.

We must be constantly vigilant about symbolic and iconic sites, economic targets, and all places of mass resort.  We must recognise the risks posed by terrorist groups or individuals seeking to have access to CRBRN weapons or materials and the implications of both our greater cyber-dependence and the opportunities that that provides to an increasingly cyber-aware opposition.

And at the same time we must continue to work with all our communities to build support for and trust in the responses that are being made.”

And as I said:

“Whoever is responsible for taking counter-terrorism forward after 6^th May is going to have their hands full.”

Labour Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, speaking in London today was clear:

“Labour will ensure that frontline policing is protected but the Conservatives won’t match this guarantee. The Conservative threat to frontline services is shown here in London where the future of local police teams is at risk from the Conservative mayor Boris Johnson. We are issuing a challenge to every Tory candidate in the capital today to say where they stand on Conservative Boris Johnson’s  failure to protect the neighbourhood police guarantee.”

The message was echoed by Labour’s London Minister, Tessa Jowell, who said:

“Every ward in London currently has a minimum Safer Neighbourhood Team of beat officers comprising one sergeant, two police constables and three PCSOs to patrol local streets. Boris Johnson is cutting police numbers and has quit as chair of the police authority. Londoners are entitled to know from every Conservative candidate in London whether they back our safer neighbourhood police teams. The Mayor refuses to guarantee they will continue to be based on their existing form. The Conservatives would threaten the safety of our streets by refusing to match our commitment to frontline policing.”

So where do the Conservatives stand?

Under questioning from the London Assembly, Mayor Boris Johnson has repeatedly refused to guarantee the future of the minimum deployment of neighbourhood teams, saying ‘I have no intention of imposing a one-size-fits-all model across the whole of London’, and describing it as ‘a pointless piece of top-downery’.

When, as Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, I led the introduction of the Safer Neighbourhood Teams in 2004, I was adamant – as was Mayor Ken Livingstone – that all parts of London should be treated equally and fairly (A future fair for all?) and that the policy should be applied transparently – each local government ward in would have a Safer Neighbourhood Team made up of a Sergeant, two Police Constables and three Police Community Support Officers.

Safer Neighbourhoods Teams are dedicated to the needs of each specific neighbourhood. They are permanent and work at a grass roots level in addition to London’s other policing teams and specialist units.  The programme began its phased roll out in April 2004, and in April 2006 the remaining teams were put in place. All 624 neighbourhood wards across the capital now have their own dedicated Safer Neighbourhoods team – around 20 teams per borough.  

Under Boris Johnson police numbers in London are being cut by a total of 455 officers. Over his four budgets Boris Johnson will oversee a decline in the total number of police officers for London.

Borough commanders are being told to find 5% of savings. The Guardian reported on 3 February: One police borough commander told the Guardian they were trying to limit the cuts to civilian staff: “We are having to lose staff and that is a painful situation.”  But savings are not being used to protect police numbers, which will fall by 455. And At the 2010/11 budget-setting meeting on 10/2/10 he refused to use a council tax windfall of £5.7m to help protect police numbers.

David Cameron and the Conservative Party are still fudging their economic policies and being deliberately misleading over their so-called public sector efficiency savings.  Peter Gershon, who is advising the Tories on their policies, has told the Financial Times that 40,000 jobs would be cut over the next year by a public sector recruitment freeze.  (This is the same Peter Gershon whose firm will benefit from NHS cutbacks.)  This was reiterated by Cameron in the BBC Radio 4′s Today Programme this morning.

But a recruitment freeze is NOT an efficiency saving.  Quite the opposite: it makes services less efficient.  Job vacancies occur all the time – staff move on or retire – and most of them are doing work on which others depend.  Some will be front-line and some will be providing support services that are vital for front-line workers.  When a post is frozen, either the work of that post is not done or others have to cover that role to the detriment of their own work.  You end up with a Swiss cheese effect and services are delivered less efficiently or there are random gaps in the service.

So just imagine what it would mean to a local community where the local health visitor has retired and the neighbourhood police officer has been promoted, the dustbins cannot be emptied because the person who maintains the refuse collection vehicles has gone on long-term sick and cannot be replaced ……

Welcome to a Tory Britain.

Two months ago, I reported that there was a petition brought to the Metropolitan Police Authority asking for an extra 120 police officers for Waltham Forest.  The Police and the DCiC*, Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse AM, were clearly unhappy about the idea of unpicking the Resource Allocation Formula that determines local policing strength just for one Borough, but it was promised that Assistant Commissioner McPherson would visit the Borough to see for himself what the issues were (I am told that in fact he has visited the Borough twice since then).

Today, at a meeting of the MPA’s Strategic and Operational Policing Committee, I spotted some interesting performance statistics about policing in Waltham Forest.  In the year to end-February 2010, total notifiable offences in Waltham Forest have risen by 5.3% compared with the twelve months before – the second highest increase of any Borough in London.  Even more significantly, Waltham Forest features amongst the bottom three Boroughs for sanction detection rates (the standard crime “clear up” measure – the proportion of offences leading to a judicial sanction against the perpetrator) for most areas of crime: burglary (where Waltham Forest’s rate was a quarter of the best-performing Borough); motor vehicle crime (a tenth of the best-performer); robbery (a third of the best performer); knife crime (less than half of the best); and sexual offences (also less than half of the best).

Now, there are plenty of possible reasons for these figures.  It may not be that the Borough necessarily needs more police officers.  The statistics might reflect the poor management of the policing resources available or might be a consequence of poor partnership with the local council or might even just be a temporary statistical blip.  However, the figures do raise real concerns, which is no doubt why Assistant Commissioner McPherson is taking it so seriously and why Waltham Forest’s Labour Greoup was right to raise the issue in the first place.

*DCiC=Dog-Catcher-in-Chief

This week’s House Magazine contains an article from me on the need for public engagement in the development of counter-terrorism policy.  This develops themes I have spoken and written about before: control orders and other anti-terror measures must be sensitively explained and enforced, if they are not to feed grievance.

In the article, I point out that the terrorist threat is a very real one but that the:

“the response …  has to be proportionate and measured. I believe that this balance is appropriately struck in the government’s CONTEST strategy.

The Prevent strand of the strategy – which aims to divert individuals from going down the path towards violent extremism and to reduce the threat from extreme radicalisers – is co-equal with the Pursue, Protect and Prepare strands.”

And go on to stress:

“nobody regards control orders as being ideal. But any government has a paramount responsibility to protect the public. If there is information or intelligence that suggests that particular individuals present an extreme threat, it would be wrong to ignore it. And if that information cannot be used in court (perhaps because it puts at risk other people who have provided that information), then those who oppose measures like control orders have to explain what they would do instead.

All politicians have a role to play in ensuring that there is a sensible debate about these issues, and a genuine engagement with the public about what is being done to combat terrorism. It is important that people understand why particular measures are being taken, and are able to see that those measures are being used in a fair and proportionate way.”

Victoria Borwick AM has had a good day at the Metropolitan Police Authority.  Not only was the report of the Civil Liberties Panel, which she chairs, on public order policing accepted with universal support from Authority members, but she also displayed a note of acid wit ….

Right at the end of the MPA meeting there was an item on appointing a new Independent Member, following the unexpected and sudden resignation of Deborah Regal.  I suggested that it might be a good idea to discuss what skill gaps there were on the Authority that might be filled by a new appointment.  And Victoria Borwick’s instant response?

“Whoever it is needs to know how to do up the buttons on their shirt.”

Now what can she have meant …..?

The DCiC*  needs to watch it – she’ll be the Tory candidate for Mayor when Mayor Boris Johnson stands down (as I suspect he will in the first few months of 2012) before he know it.

*Dog-Catcher-in-Chief  (aka Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse AM)

The Metropolitan Police Authority is in session and the DCiC* (Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse AM) is in the Chair.  The meeting has a comparatively heavy agenda – at least in comparison to recent meetings when the Conservative Party’s policy of trying not to discuss anything but the Commissioner’s Report at full Authority meetings.

On the Bill today (sorry, unintentional pun) is the long-awaited report of the MPA’s Civil Liberties Panel on public order policing (arising from the issues around the G20 protests) and approval of the Policing London Business Plan for the next three years.  What is more the DCiC has told members that he wants to finish promptly at 12 noon, so that there can be a private meeting of Authority members to discuss the MPA’s own priorities.

This means that the DCiC will have to use his (rarely used) powers of patience, courtesy and charm to get through the business expeditiously without cutting off any members in full flow.  So far, he is doing fine.

But everyone is on their best behaviour.  Jenny Jones AM is clearly trying to curry favour and is acting as teacher’s pet – fetching the DCiC’s coffee without being asked (of course, I don’t know whether she has put anything in it to induce a mellow haze in the DCiC).

It is left to Anne McMeel, the Metropolitan Police’s Director of Resources, to introduce the first touch of asperity with her put-down of Dee Doocey AM who asks for more detail on the costs of operations and is told that it is in the report to the Finance and Resources Sub-Committee “admittedly on the last page”, implying that Liberal Democrats don’t read all the way through to the end.

But the clock is ticking and the Commissioner’s Report item hasn’t been finished yet and there is only 50 minutes of normal time left.  And the DCiC has chewed his way through two pen caps and is shuffling backwards and forwards in his chair.

*Dog-Catcher-in-Chief

An obscure Conservative MP, Philip Hollobone, has been referred to the Police follwoing his remarks that a burka  was ‘the religious equivalent of going around with a paper bag over your head with two holes for the eyes’ for allegedly inciting religious hatred.

Now there is a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, who as it happens is also an elected member of the London Assembly, that customarily uses the term “bin bag” instead – I wonder whether they are worried that they might now be investigated?

A few days ago I hosted an interesting seminar in the House of Lords on “Tackling Transmission of Healthcare-Associated Infections”.  The purpose of this was to bring together policy-makers on the subject from within the Department of Health, representatives from the voluntary sector and involved service users, researchers and legal experts, front-line NHS practitioners, and a number of Parliamentary colleagues to discuss what has been achieved and what are likely to be challenges in the future.

There were some interesting points made in the discussion, such as the need to empower patients to challenge doctors and nurses about whether they have washed their hands, and some excellent comments such as “Anyone who doubts Darwin should look at how pathogens respond to antibiotics”.

However, I was particularly pleased to hear a contribution from Sandra Barrow, the leader of the Department of Health’s Healthcare Associated Infection (HCAI) Technology Programme.  She described how the Programme is aiming to speed up the process of identifying useful technological innovations that can help deal with HCAIs, encouraging front-line NHS staff to work with industry to develop innovations, and then fast-tracking the evaluation process so that innovations can be utilised more rapidly.

The Programme recognises that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will often provide the most innovative ideas, but may also face the greatest difficulty in getting their ideas developed and adopted in the NHS.  The Programme has involved workshops involving 500 frontline NHS staff and a road show engaging with a similar number of SMEs to identify the most promising technologies for reducing and preventing HCAIs.  Several hundred ideas and products emerged from this process which have then been assessed by an expert panel to identify a short-list of products that are being evaluated in eight showcase hospitals.

The ideas emerging include innovative air disinfection technology, new infection detection techniques and the use of nano-technology to provide anti-bacterial protection layers for surfaces.

What excited me about this was the way it recognised that SMEs are a key engine for innovation and the way in which emerging innovations were being rapidly appraised and assessed for early adoption.

The approach being taken, like the INSTINCT programme designed to harness new innovative technologies to address challenges in counter-terrorism, demonstrates how Government can work with industry, especially SMEs, to make the best of British scientific ideas.

I spoke at a RUSI Conference yesterday on “Delivering Counter-Terrorism”.  My theme was why good governance (and in particular lay oversight) is an essential and important part of ensuring that counter-terrorism is effective and what needs to be done to strengthen public trust in an area vital for our national security.

I started by saying:

“In this country, policing is built on consent – the police are there to provide a service to the public, they should be responsive to the needs of the community and they are – or should be – accountable to the public they serve.  This is as important when we are speaking about counter-terrorism and protective services as it is when we are dealing with neighbourhood policing.

There are very substantial resources devoted to counter-terrorism in this country – perhaps some £2.5 billion per annum.  These sums have grown rapidly since 9/11 and since the London bombings in 2005.  During the last few years, we have seen the creation of a national network of four counter-terrorist units and a number of counter-terrorist intelligence units around the country – all linked and coordinated by the Counter-Terrorist Command (SO15) in London and under the auspices of ACPO(TAM).  It is only right and proper that there should be arrangements in place whereby the public can be satisfied that the monies spent and the resources deployed are being used efficiently and effectively, and that what is done constitutes value for money.

At the same time, it has to be recognised that counter-terrorism is not simply the responsibility of specialist units.  Although terrorism may not seem to be a day-to-day concern in most local communities, the reality is that it should be.  The threat of Al Qaeda inspired terrorism is what the Americans would no doubt call “a real and present danger” for all of us.

The modern terrorist threat is home-grown as well as international.  Successive Director-Generals of the Security Service have warned that there may well be hundreds of individuals engaged in various ways with terrorist plots.  And – as is well-known – these plots have as an objective the achievement of mass casualties.

There are few areas of the country where there are no potential targets, particularly as those targets might include parts of the critical national infrastructure, iconic sites, places of mass resort – attacks elsewhere in the world  have occurred at night clubs, in markets, at schools – and the UK has its own experience of attacks on the transport system.  In Spain, of course, there was an attack on Madrid’s commuter transport system in the run up to a General Election – a fact we might all want to ponder over the next few weeks, although I should stress that I have not heard any intelligence to support such worries.

Most areas have somewhere that might be a target – and, whilst London may have more than most, as London targets become hardened, then others become more likely.  (This will need to be a particular issue when planning the counter-terrorist response to the London Olympics in 2012.)

Moreover, what is now known or alleged about the location of bomb factories, training grounds and bonding events, often not in the most obvious of places, also demonstrates that effective counter-terrorist work must span the whole country.”

I then went on:

“And carrying the public’s support with counter-terrorist measures is essential.  In fact, I would go further: it is vital that the policing service is a continuum – one service dealing with anti-social behaviour, neighbourhood issues, street crime, burglary, serious and organised criminality and terrorism.  There are synergies between the different aspects of policing work: traffic police who find that those speeding are wanted for other crimes; credit card fraud used to finance people trafficking; the disposal of large quantities of peroxide bottles being spotted by local PCSOs identifying a terrorist plot in the making; and the list could go on and on.

Critically if it is the same police service that has to manage the community consequences of high-profile counter-terrorist operations, then that police service will be mindful of those consequences in the way in which those operations are conducted.

Community engagement also delivers better policing as through that engagement the public can, importantly, give a steer and direction on questions such as what reassures them and what does not, or how to use particular policing tactics in culturally sensitive ways that will command public support.

Building strong relationships with communities is going to be essential for future anti-terrorist work.  Getting it wrong will not only build resentments that will make co-operation with the police more difficult but are also likely to act as another factor influencing a very small minority to listen to the calls of those promoting terrorist violence.”

I then moved on to the issue of trust and the break down of political consensus:

“It used to be the case that the major political parties were careful to move with consensus on matters of national security.  That consensus broke down a few years ago with the debates on the length of time terrorist suspects could be held in police custody before being charged and with some of the rhetoric deployed over control orders and other counter-terrorist powers.

The consequence is that now, when Ministers warn of the dangers, what they say is discounted.  And I do understand that some credibility was inevitably lost over Iraq and the WMD that were never found.  And it is not just about Ministers.  The security service is seen as implicated in the WMD issue and the service, along with the police, is accused of talking up the threat so that more resources will be awarded.

So there is a general issue to be faced: how do those of us who are privy to some of the intelligence picture of the terrorist threat convince the wider public that that threat is real and that the measures being taken are justified and proportionate?  How much can and should be shared?  Is it possible to share enough to convince and at the same time protect the sources on which that intelligence is based (or for that matter convince people that what is being done is sensible but not induce alarm or panic or shut down the UK’s tourist industry)?

Striking the correct balance is even more difficult when we start to look not just at society as a whole but at individual communities and sections of communities whose initial reaction to the authorities of the state will be one of suspicion or hostility.

But this is not something that is new. In the late 1990s the Metropolitan Police through Operation Trident rebuilt its relationship with sections of the black community in London and engaged their support in tackling so-called black-on-black killings.  And all over the country, police authorities have worked with their local police services to consult local communities about the use of stop and search powers, helping to improve practice and reduce community resentment.

To understand the problems that we may face, the police need the co-operation and support of all or virtually all strands of community opinion.  I am not here talking about the recruitment of covert sources – although the environment in which the police are operating will also have an impact here.  I am talking about ensuring that the police understand what is happening within a community, that they are aware of which meeting places are attracting people who may be vulnerable to extremists, and that if there are worries or concerns about particular individuals they are articulated so that the police may monitor them.

None of this can happen without trust and that trust cannot be created overnight.  Moreover, it will require a very high level of trust for an individual to voice suspicions about a friend or family member.  But even the degree of trust necessary for individuals to talk to the police about community sensitivities will require a consistent willingness by the police to address that community’s concerns.  The police cannot be just fair-weather friends; they will need to be there all the time.

It is only when individuals within that community have sufficient confidence in police officers whom they know will they start to confide their fears and concerns.  And they will only acquire that confidence, once the police officers concerned have demonstrated their willingness to act on other issues that worry the people from that community – and these will often be traditional policing issues about burglary, street crime or anti-social behaviour, as well as matters which are directed specifically at that community.  And that confidence will only acquire sufficient strength for more serious matters to be raised when the police officers concerned have shown that they can act appropriately and effectively and, where necessary, with discretion.

In my time as an elected politician, I attended hundreds of community events.  At many of them, there was a police presence.  However, there was no point in that presence when the demeanour of that officer was such as to indicate that he had drawn the short straw to spend his Saturday afternoon at an event he  or she did not understand with people whom he had only limited, if any, contact.  Much more important was the presence – the sort of presence I am pleased to say was becoming much more common – where the police officer is obviously known to those attending the event and where the conversations you would overhear with the officer were of the nature of: “you remember that matter I mentioned to you two weeks ago, well now this has happened ….”

These days there is now a much better idea than there once was of what brings about so-called radicalisation.  It is a gradual process whereby a tiny proportion of individuals within a community are persuaded to see that the only response to the grievances that they perceive as being practised against their people is through terrorism.

Some of those grievances are international: what is happening now in Iraq, or on the West Bank, or in Kashmir, or in Malaysia, or in Chechnya are all given their place as part of a single narrative; as are issues about the distribution of economic power around the world.

In this country, the role of our government in these issues or its failure to help resolve them becomes a factor.  As does the wider sense of discrimination in jobs and wealth against Muslims (even if this is not something that directly affects the individuals concerned).  And, of course, the measures that have had to be taken to combat terrorism create their own mythology of prejudice and discrimination.

Every inappropriate stop under the Terrorism Act, every time there is a fuss about Control Orders and the debates we had about how long terrorist suspects can be held without charge will all feed – disproportionately – into that sense of grievance.

Now please do not get me wrong, I am not criticising the measures that have been taken to combat terrorism – I am a robust defender of their necessity.  I certainly believe that there is abundant evidence that such measures have to be taken given the number of people who have already progressed along a path of radicalisation to a willingness to commit atrocities.

What I am saying is that we must look at all our policies (including those designed specifically to combat those who have already gone down the path of radicalisation to that willingness to commit atrocities) and make sure that we are doing all we can to choke off the flow of young people being persuaded to follow down that path those who have already taken that journey.

However, we all have a role to play in ensuring that there is a strong and deep engagement with communities about what is being done to combat terrorism.  The more that people understand why particular measures are being taken, the more they recognise that those measures are being used in a fair and proportionate way, and the greater is the sense that the police service is there for them and provides support to all communities, the more willing will be people in those communities to support the police and the less likely will credence be given to those who try to argue that it is all part of the single narrative of victimisation of that community.

It is essential, too that the police can demonstrate that they are not fair-weather friends and that they will actively address the wider issues of concern to those communities.  It is essential, so that when things go wrong – as they will – that there can be a dialogue, a debate, and perhaps an understanding.  And it is essential, so that the police will have the support and perhaps the information that they need to take forward their work.”