Access Annual
Conference
As promised, we’ve recreated
the Belfast annual conference in as much detail as possible
for the benefit of those unable to attend. A small number
of DVDs of the event are available on request from ICVA.
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View key speakers’ presentations
by clicking on the names below:
- Sir Desmond Rea, Chairman, Northern Ireland Policing
Board (NIPB)
- Sir Hugh Orde, Chief Constable, Police Service
for Northern Ireland (PSNI)
- Alan Brown - Head of Police Powers, Home Office
- Bob Jones - Chairman of the Association of Police
Authorities (APA)
- John Bennett - Hampshire ICV and ICVA executive
committee member
- Assistant Chief Constable Roy Toner - Antrim Serious
Crime Suite
- Brian Doherty - Northern Ireland Policing Board
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Click
here to view a summary of the Question & Answer
sessions at the conference.
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ICVA Annual Conference,
Belfast November 2005
Presentations:
Sir Desmond Rea, Chairman, Northern
Ireland Policing Board (NIPB) welcomed delegates from
England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, stressing
that their presence shows an enthusiasm for and dedication
to custody visiting. He went on to explain that the
NIPB is in its fifth year of existence following a report
into independent policing in Northern Ireland chaired
by Chris Patten. The Patten Report was about changing
policing in Northern Ireland and contained 175 recommendations
on bringing about an era in which policing there could
be seen as serving the whole community and equally importantly,
that the whole community could be seen to support policing.
Sir Desmond shared how the NIPB works
and the huge emphasis on human rights in Northern Ireland.
Each officer is required to sign a code of ethics and
reports made by independent custody visitors are an
important part of the framework used to monitor how
well the police service is complying with the Human
Rights Act. The NIPB has statutory responsibilities
with regard to custody visiting which means it is taken
very seriously and 60 volunteers currently operate in
Northern Ireland from all walks of life. Sir Desmond
expressed how independent custody visitors are “an
essential part of helping the NIPB fulfill its statutory
functions”, stating that “particularly as
this is the year of the volunteer I’d like to
say how much the Board appreciates their work.”
Recent significant changes include
visits to detained terrorist suspects and the role of
observing police interviews with them on remote monitor.
Sir Desmond said that “like policing, custody
visiting needs to develop, grow and change” and
he saw the ICVA conference as “a great opportunity
to discuss how best this can happen.”
Sir Hugh Orde, Chief Constable, Police
Service for Northern Ireland (PSNI) elaborated on the
importance of district policing partnerships and the
importance of independent custody visiting as a link
on the accountability chain. He spoke of a professional
investigation programme and how ICVs help that process,
welcoming the changes that extend custody visitors to
terrorist defences.
Sir Hugh stated that human rights
is the cornerstone of how the PSNI police and that all
of its training is human rights based, to the extent
that a human rights lawyer and advisors are in place.
In concluding, he added that “independent
custody visitors can only add value and we can only
learn from what you tell us. It is very impressive that
you give up your time, simply because you think it’s
the right thing to do.”
Alan Brown, Head of Police Powers
for the Home Office stressed the high regard in which
custody visiting is held by the Home Secretary and the
other ministers and a desire to work with ICVA to raise
the profile of independent custody visiting. His presentation
illustrated what the Home Office is doing nationally
and how custody visiting fits into that process.
He shared the Home Office’s
vision for providing a better national perspective on
how custody visiting delivers and identifying how we
can work together in partnerships to develop more successful
outcomes to investigations. This was described as “the
key issue in terms of the rights of the individual and
the ability of the police and other agencies to tackle
crime. We’ve also got to ensure that people in
custody are not subject to exercise of arbitrary powers
or procedures by the police force or by any other agencies.”
Alan emphasised the influential role
of ICVs: “We want to ensure that the custody visitors
who do carry out visits on cold, dark, wet Tuesday nights,
help not only deliver improvements to individual custody
suites, but I think also importantly they’ve got
a role to play in driving change in national policy.”
In the context of a national support
system that is provided by ICVA… in England and
Wales the PACE Codes of Practice deal effectively with
people in a community context where policing is a key
element in helping build community confidence. Equally
importantly, in building safer and more secure communities
and promoting a safer working environment for police,
police staff and all those people who come into custody.
About 100 people each year in England and Wales die
in police custody and police contact; there are about
15,000 adverse incidents.
The police service in England and
Wales has recognised that something has to be done about
how people are dealt with when they come into contact
with the police. That’s why they’ve been
working with the Home Office, the national centres for
policing excellence and a range of stakeholders including
the APA and ICVA to produce guidance on safer detention
of people in custody, based on a public consultation.
Alan Brown stressed:
“The whole area of custodial care is crying out
for minimal standards and direction on how to build
on that baseline by continually raising and improving
on how people are dealt with when they come into custody…
Safer detention guidance is aimed at telling people
how to do things within the statutory framework, not
what to do, but how to do it.
“This focuses very firmly on
ensuring that all police officers and police staff that
come into contact with the public are trained, competent
and able on dealing with visitor rights. For example,
risk assessment, management of risk, welfare and safety
and importantly the medical and wellbeing of those that
come into custody.
“We’ll be working closely
with the Independent Police Complaints Commission, HM
Inspectorate Constabulary and the new Safer Detention
Inspectorate, the Association of Chief Police Officers
and other stakeholders, particularly healthcare professionals
on determining the ability to state National Standards
and how they should be applied and what the impact is
of failure to meet those standards.
“These processes place ICVs
in quite a unique position…at a time when periods
of police detention in England and Wales are subject
to potential increase through terrorism legislation
for up to 90 days; when people may be held in custody
in relation to drug swallowing and packing for up to
192 hours; when there’s pressure to introduce
continuing questioning after charge and when the power
of arrest for any offence will be extended to all offences,
the need for constructive and effective safeguards is
vital, both in the police station and in areas where
people come into contact with the police service.”
Apart from volunteer Appropriate
Adults, custody visitors are like no other people who
come into the custody area in that you are independent
and that you are members of the local community, witnessing
at first hand how the gateway to the criminal justice
system works. You’re there seeing how it works
and on occasions unfortunately how it doesn’t
work.
What happens to all that knowledge,
all that expertise, the information about good local
practice and equally the details of what’s not
working. It’s not there to be critical, it’s
there to be constructively critical. There’s common
agreement that we not only need to harness this but
to ensure that independent custody visitors are themselves,
drivers for change and improvement. We’re not
really at a national level hearing that community voice
as well as we should. You may say we’re not listening
but I think we do listen and the climate for change
has been there for some time. Any legislative changes
that do come in we look to support the case that will
lead to improvements and will lead to change.
We’re well aware that this
is a major period of change both within government and
in other organisations and that people are constantly
bombarded with consultation papers etc and there’s
guidance coming left, right and centre. What we’ve
tried to do in terms of Police Powers, which is the
wider remit of dealing with what happens in custody
and community confidence in the police service and the
way in which the police interact with the community,
is try to establish a working programme called the National
Review Strategy.
The aim of this is to have a document
which sets out what we in central government, together
with the main stakeholders are going to be doing over
the next three years. We intend to sit down with stakeholders
and practitioners and ask them what they want - and
through that informed discussion we’re looking
to put together a strategy which will be agreed by the
Home Secretary. This will set out what we’re looking
to do, how we’re going to do it, who’s going
to actually achieve it, how we’re going to engage
with stakeholders, what resources and capacity are needed,
what training is required and how best to implement
it to ensure it doesn’t catch anyone by surprise
or in terms of resources or training.
That strategy will be supported (already
set up in parts) by a regional and a local structure
and there are regional forums and local groups, for
example on custody and also in relation to stop and
search by community confidence powers. We’re looking
to extend that remit to arrest and detention, to entry
search and seizure powers of the police, to identification
and to the interviewing of suspects. There has been
massive duplication of resources so we want to have
in place a strategy that everyone can buy into and be
aware of what we’re trying to do.
One of the major areas that we’re
trying to engage ICVA in has been part of that process
- and a major part of that delivery will be understanding
what is happening at individual police authority levels;
understanding where police authorities are at and how
best we can facilitate change. Until we do understand
where the gaps and barriers are we can’t really
make a tremendous amount of progress and that’s
why over a year ago we did sit down with ICVA and the
APA and got together funding to help ICVA with all the
police authorities in England and Wales, to find out
exactly what success meant in their area in terms of
custody visiting and where were the gaps and barriers.
We’re going to use that information
collated on a national level to look for frameworks,
in order to look for National Standards on custody visiting
in relation to custody visitors, police authorities
and to central government and to major stakeholders
like the APA and how they drove those areas.
Progress on that activity was disrupted
on events during the summer; we decided it was necessary
to have an independent review of how ICVA works, how
it helps serve its members, how it works with police
authorities and how ICVA helps implement central government
initiatives and policies through the work that they
do.
Equally importantly, how we could
get the voice of practitioners at ground level represented
at a national level and how we could get custody visitors
helping to drive policy and helping to drive change.
The executive committee agreed to this review and we
have now appointed someone to carry out this review.
I think it’s a particularly good time to have
this review and have the strategic direction clear to
ICVA and to visitors.
It’s also very important to
have it clear to police service and police authorities
who as everyone knows are facing continual and major
change. One thing that’s very clear in force restructuring
is that custody visiting remains independent.
There’s not going to be any
amendment to section 51 of the Police Reform Act 2002
which sets up custody visitors on a statutory basis.
What might be amended is the authority that’s
responsible for doing it, but the independence of custody
visiting is something that’s held centrally as
one of the core safeguards at a national level, but
it’s also something which we promote quite heavily
at international level when we have to do reports to
United Nations or to communities on torture or various
EU groups. We do heavily promote the fact that custody
visiting is independent.
I’ve already mentioned the
safer detention guidance which will indeed hopefully
lead to national standards on custody and care of people
who are in police contact – a major thing as it’s
an area which relies heavily on the commitment of individual
police officers, staff and all those who do come into
custody. I really think it’s about time there
was a much more structured support in place for them.
Another major area is what we’re
doing with the Department of Health and it’s something
which again is long overdue. The amount of people that
go into custody with physical, social healthcare problems
is quite phenomenal and extremely distressing. What
we are trying to do is ‘professionalise’
healthcare when people are in detention; we have set
up a healthcare project and will be issuing the strategy
on that soon.
What it basically comes down to is
ensuring the appropriate level of health care by the
right person at the right time and in the right place.
We are working in terms of legislation to ensure that
the police station doesn’t become a hospital or
a diagnosis centre, but if it has to become those things
because it’s part of the community, it must be
properly resourced and staffed and have the right ability
to ensure we can actively investigate crime and at the
same time ensure the protections are there for the individual.
Over the next few months will be
carrying out a fundamental review of the PACE. It’s
around 20 years old; there was a review in 2002 but
it’s now creaking at the seams and it’s
very complicated because there’s been massive
amounts of changes on it and what is a very simple structure
has now been affected by the different activities and
legislation that is going on. We will be working with
academics, lawyers, stakeholders, practitioners on a
fundamental review of what will be a very fundamental
piece of legislation. This is a major thing that is
going to impact on people that are in custody and importantly,
how people actually get to custody as well, so we are
looking for ICVA to be engaged in that process.
The other significant area of work
is around the PACE Codes of Practice themselves and
as you know they are subject to annual review. We want
the Codes to be more practitioner based and focus more
on the people at ground level, so we’ve started
work on slimming down the Codes and simplifying them.
We’re very keen to have guidance produced by practitioners
becoming statutory guidance, and that then enables us
to react and respond quickly to change, and enables
us to use language that matches how most people deliver
rather than parliamentary terms.
Another area Sir Desmond touched
on was the importance of the volunteer. We’ve
had discussions on the volunteer in the Criminal Justice
System, particularly the police service. There is so
much activity happening outside the police station now
– penalty notices, street bail and so on –
where people are being dealt with by the police service.
We need to think where there is a role for the volunteer
in that extended police activity area. ICVA helps bring
together your voice and shout it very loudly in the
area of central government, APA and other stakeholders,
so we will discuss the review and the nature and form
it will take.
We are starting the initial phase
of three year structure planning around evaluation,
monitoring, training, research and administrative practices.
We are very keen on this healthcare provision being
put in place because I think it does give custody visitors
the ability to have much more ownership of what’s
happening in their local area. And ministers are very
keen that people who are at ground level doing the hard
work are actually there, to help us understand what
needs to be done and to ask for those resources to enable
them to do it.
On behalf of the ministers, we do
recognize what volunteers, custody visitors and the
executive of ICVA are doing to contribute to the custody
area and how that’s improved in safety. It is
a major area which is now attracting ministers’
attention, EU and United Nations scrutiny, so it’s
not in isolation. It’s time for change now and
it’s being driven heavily by the safer detention
guidance – I hope people will get engaged in that
process.
Thanks very much for your time today.
Bob Jones, chairman of the Association of Police Authorities
(APA) presented on the role of police authorities in
supporting ICV schemes.
A synopsis of his presentation follows:
My Association was delighted when this key role, and
the oversight role of the police authority, was recognised
by Government in the Police Reform Act.
The APA and ICVA were closely involved
in the production of the statutory Codes of Practice
and the National Standards underpinning it. I believe
both sets of guidance are very helpful in giving clear
advice on how to set up and run custody visiting schemes.
The Codes and guidance have been in place now for a
couple of years and I believe the time is right now
for us to question their success.
As some of you are aware, the APA
has a member liaison network for professional standards.
At its last meeting, authority representatives recognised
that the issue of independent custody visiting did not
receive enough attention from APA and from some police
authorities.
It was agreed that the network should
take on responsibility for custody visiting issues,
while noting also that many authorities have different
lead members for professional standards and custody
visiting.
So this network will give lead members
on custody visiting issues - from police authorities
across the country - the opportunity to bring issues
and concerns, and indeed areas of good practice, and
innovation, to the attention of colleagues and to our
national Association.
This will raise the profile of custody
visiting and emphasise its importance for authorities.
I also recognise that we need to
play a more active role in ICVA itself. I believe that
the links between the two national organisations need
to be strengthened further by the active involvement
of a member of the APA's Executive on the ICVA's Executive
Committee and I am delighted to say that that has now
been agreed.
The Codes of Practice include no
fewer than 65 uses of the word "must", obligations
which authorities have to fulfil.
For those of us from police authorities,
how many of us can honestly say that we meet all of
those obligations? It is not enough simply to have a
scheme and to keep it running, ticking the custody visiting
box.
The National Standards guidance rightly
focuses on the nuts and bolts of running a scheme, organisation,
recruitment and training of visitors and so on. But
one of the most important sections is around feedback
and making a difference. It is not enough to carry out
visits, important though this is.
As well as producing outputs in terms
of written reports from visits, police authorities need
to be able to point to outcomes at the strategic level.
Where has a custody visiting scheme
had a positive impact on force policies and procedures?
How has that been reported back to authorities themselves
and to communities?
It is crucial that authorities put
resources into custody visiting schemes at the right
level. For obvious reasons this is one police authority
statutory responsibility which cannot be delegated to
the force.
To analyse whether schemes are delivering
the outcomes sought we need to consider questions such
as:
- what planning
goes into custody visitors' activities?
- are the aims and objectives clearly
set out and regularly reviewed and revised?
- is performance evaluated using
clear and robust performance indicators and then does
this evaluation feed into new targets for performance
improvement, especially where that performance is
weak?
It is likely that the Home Office
will be doing some checking to see that ICV schemes
are fit for purpose, but this work to bring increased
rigour to ICV schemes is something we should be doing
anyway.
I cannot come and speak to an audience
including police authority members and staff at this
time and not mention restructuring of the police service.
We are all at an early stage in responding
to the Home Secretary's speech on 19 September, although
much progress has already been made by authorities in
identifying options for structural change and looking
at the implications for those options.
As an Association we are naturally
thinking about what a strategic police authority would
look like, assuming Government still accept the need
for some accountability bodies, and how we can maintain
accountability of policing services to communities.
Given the size of new force areas
the new strategic authorities will need to maintain
strategic oversight of ICV activity. There will need
to be proper strategic leadership and management by
the new strategic authorities, there will need to be
proper evaluation and monitoring, and, crucially, proper
resourcing of schemes.
On a positive note any new force
structure would present a brilliant opportunity to increase
joined up working between and across existing ICVA regions.
Alan Brown has set out the national
agenda on custody issues. There is bound to be a sharp
focus on the use of custody in coming months and police
authorities need to be ready for that.
Monitoring force performance is a
key responsibility of police authorities, and of course
custody visiting is one of the ways in which police
authorities monitor force performance, via the impartial
observations and reports on the treatment and welfare
of police detainees provided by independent custody
visitors.
John Bennett, Hampshire ICV and ICVA
executive committee member spoke on the Pompey Trial
and the challenges created by an increasing custody
visit uptake in Portsea Island and Portsmouth Bridewell,
with 12,000 detainees per year and rising and a 98.09%
take up rate. Details of the Pompey Trial have now been
shared force-wide and a number of police authorities
in Cleveland and Merseyside are thinking of adopting
it.
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Download
J Bennett's PowerPoint presentation
Download
The Pompey Trial PowerPoint presentation
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Assistant Chief Constable Roy Toner
of the Operational Support Department at Antrim Serious
Crime Suite provided an insightful presentation ranging
from custody CCTV and monitoring of interviews to crime
investigation rooms and dealing with diversity.
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Download
ACC Toner's PowerPoint presentation
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Brian Doherty of the Northern Ireland
Policing Board spoke on terrorist detainee interviews
and the role of ICVs from a Northern Ireland perspective.
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