26/02/2012 Sunday Politics Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

Coming up in half-an-hour on the the Sunday politics, we look at the

deal that will see a private security firm takeover a big chunk

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2032 seconds

Good afternoon. You are watching the Sunday Politics before

Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the Midlands. We will find out why some

councils are put in their bills up despite being offered extra money

from the Government. We are asking if this is the future of policing

as a private security firm is given the job of building and operating a

new police station. Lincolnshire police have just signed �200

million contract for many of the 4th's functions to be outsourced to

private company G4 Security. Backroom tasks like personnel and

IT management will be taken over by the firm. The deal also includes

custody services and the partnership expected to last for 10

years. Is it revolutionary forward- thinking or a scramble to save cash

which could hit Policing. These officers in a prison in Wales

are just two of the 575,000 people who work for G4 Security worldwide.

They are the second largest private company in the world. In time most

of the staff answering 999 calls at Lincolnshire police headquarters

will go on to their books. G4 Security gets the �200 million over

10 years to run civilian departments.

Four unions protecting staff terms and conditions is paramount. This

is a multi-million-pound police station which G4 Security plans to

build and operate. They will also take charge of the civilian workers.

There is no guarantee of job security.

Changes to job descriptions may mean a pay and conditions change.

Meanwhile G4 Security has given an assurance that pensions with

Lincolnshire police will continue. In the long term it would be a

money spinner for the company but unions have basic concerns.

Not the changes will be, for example role changes. And the way

people are expected to do the job. Are you happy with having G4

Security staff handling people in custody? Completely comfortable.

They have been doing that for some years now. They provide transport

to and from prisons. They are highly competent and highly skilled

people and their performance proves that. This is one of the most

radical steps in policing in 100 years. He it is born out of a cut

in government funding and the contract took nine months to put

together. Whether it lasts a full 10 years with all of its promises

intact, the bookies have yet to put odds-on.

Our guests today are Gerry Sutcliffe, Julian Sturdy and in our

London studio, we have Simon Reed, the vice-chairman of the Police

Federation. Gerry Sutcliffe. You are a former Home Office minister.

We are told that privatising back- office staff were put more uniform

officers back on the beat, isn't that a good thing? That is not what

will happen. Where we have to be concerned is if the line moves,

that people are covering job that frontline officers would do. There

is an issue of public confidence. Are they having to do this because

they are facing cuts, which means cuts in public -- frontline police

numbers. We are seeing this all over. I worry about the motivation

of why they are doing it. The principle of back copies and IT, I

can understand. Let us address the issue of public confidence. Will

the public have confidence in a partly privatised police service?

There will be proper checks and balances in place and that is very

important. You have got to realise that we are in a difficult economic

climate and we have to make spending cuts. We need innovative

ways of making those cuts but at the same time protecting frontline

services. This shows innovative thinking to try and make sure that

we keep frontline officers on the beat and get officers away from the

desks and on the streets, where they want to be and serving the

community. At the same time we have to drive deficiencies. There are

difficulties in the custodial part of it and that is where the line

gets blurred. When you start getting into custody of situations

where there officers entitlements are blurred, that is difficult and

it affects public confidence. is why we must make sure we have

checks and balances in place. It is very important. The motivation is

not finding something new but it is the police cuts. While we accept

there have to be some cuts, this 20% I think is having a dramatic

effect on morale. But us bring Simon Reed in. According to the

authority, this deal will free up 97% of the uniformed officers to

return to frontline duty. This is where the public wants them to be.

Indeed it does. We have to look more closely at the figures and

what they actually mean. As an organisation, we do not have any

ideological opposition to this. What we must bear in mind is that

police staff do a vital role. It is a vital role in providing support

to police officers and answering phones and forensics and we rely on

them. We have two concerns. First of all the resilience to continue

to do this when demand get high and we have unexpected incidents and

disorder, can police officers and the public still rely on the

support staff to be there when we need them? Equally, we have heard

this week from colleagues and police officers that this is a

private company who need to make a profit and you have shareholders to

satisfy. This is always a concern with public services are privatised.

Will the company put the bottom line before the Thin Blue Line?

Ultimately it has to put services burst. If it does not then it will

not achieve what it has set out to achieve and that is what I said at

the beginning. We have to make sure with anything like this that the

proper checks and balances are in place to make sure that it is

delivering the services that need to be delivered. We have to keep

public confidence because that is absolutely vital in such an

important sector as the police force. We must maintain public

combatants. Ultimately we have to deliver the savings. This is a way

of doing that and delivering the services and keeping frontline so -

- officers on the streets. When Labour were in power, if you

brought -- you brought public companies -- private companies in

to run many services. Some of these have had to go back into public

sector hands. We are all for the organisation but when it is issues

around the public safety and confidence, particularly with the

police at this time, it is very difficult it. The worry for me is

that there has been no consultation and the company have put forward

the proposal and the police authority had accepted it because

they need to find these cuts. They have not been enough discussion

about the future of the police in relation to public confidence. As

has been said, there are issues around the chain of command and

extreme accidents or supports the - - sports events where you need to

have the police there and then and you wonder whether line blurs.

Simon Reed, your body represents rank-and-file officers, were you a

pose any further privatisation of the police force? We would work

with -- we have worked with private companies for quite some time now.

They run custody suites up and down the country as well as IT projects.

We are used to working with them. But it all goes back to what has

said originally. It is about them providing a service and our concern

is primarily, whether it is a private company or whether it

remains directly employed, whether it has the resilience. We need to

provide the service to the police officers and the public and that is

our concern. It is about service to the public. Thank you for joining

us from London. Our two MPs will stay with us because it is time now

to catch up with the week's political news. Here is our round-

up in 60 seconds. Labour MP Eric Joyce is facing an

assault charge following a disturbance in the House of Commons

bar. The Conservative MP for Pudsey, steward Andrew was allegedly head-

butted. A number of MPs witnessed the incident and gave evidence to

the police. Meanwhile the Speaker of the House of Commons has called

for MPs to set a better example to young people. John Bercow was in

Hull to mark the 50th anniversary of the University's politics

department. York MP Hugh Bayley once Parliament to discuss why the

Yorkshire Air Ambulance has to pay VAT on its sizable fuel bill. There

is a legal anomaly which allows lifeboats to avoid paying VAT on

fuel. More than 10,000 people have signed the petition and it is going

up by 1,000 signatures every day. We cannot discuss the Eric Joyce

allegations for legal reasons but John Bercow suggests that behaviour

amongst members in general is getting worse. What do you say to

that? I see hard-working MPs from all parties doing the best for

their constituents but at times they are incidents that the press

want to blow into even bigger incidents and we get a lot of bad

press when a lot of good work goes on for our constituents. It is an

issue that we have to address and I'm sure we will do it in the

coming months. Let us see what the speaker had to say.

The negative is when we spray-paint our own shop window by behaviour

that is excessive, far too noisy, S Arab League -- apparently

disrespectful of each other. We have to move away from that. Julian

Sturdy, you are a relatively and relatively young MP, do you think

the behaviour of some MPs is putting young people off politics?

I agree with what Gerry said, MPs work very hard down in the House of

Commons and there was a lot of good work and a lot of cross-party work

that is not really seen. We get the theatre of Prime Minister's

Questions time which can be very noisy but in select committees

there is a lot of good cross-party working going on. I think

ultimately these incidents will tarnish the represent -- reputation

of all MPs sadly but it is up to asked to get the message out that

there is a lot of good hard work and cross-party, MPs working

together on the issues that matter. I'll be going to get a debate on

whether the Yorkshire Air arm bidders should pay Bat? I think we

have to see some flexibility here. I absolutely agree. As a

Conservative MP I support this so it is cross-party working and a

support we really do need it. catch up with the political news

from the past week. Here's our round-up in 60 seconds.

It's the time of year when our local councils get on the annual

blood-letting that is officially called "setting the budget". In

many places hundreds of jobs have been cut and many services reduced

or abolished altogether.The Government is a attempting to

soften the blow by offering a substantial grant as compensation

to every authority agreeing not to put up its council tax. Most have

taken the money but there are a few places where that will not happen.

Len Tingle's been to three of them. This Government talks about below

Cork things so they have to respect when a local decision is made

democratically. The leader of York City Council has turned down a

government offer of a �1.8 million grant aimed at enabling him to

freeze local council tax this year. Instead he is making local people

pay more. Can we actually afford to keep libraries, leisure centres and

children's services open? If we took this money this year it would

mean a further increase in council tax next year of about 5%. They are

not being realistic about what is actually happening out in people's

homes and how difficult it is. Just a two other councils in this

area are expected to refuse the government money to end the tax

freeze. Richmond council here in North Yorkshire is one of them. It

is led by independence and wants to add 3% to everybody's council bills.

Pressure groups are so angry they have organised petitions against

the move. They will be voted on by councillors next month. Take the

money this year and you spend a year working on the figures and the

services and the delivery and management and you find the cut in

the cost. It does not mean you're going to have to put the costs up

to the residents. I think it is disgusting. I pay enough as it is

now. By bins only get tempted once a fortnight. I would like some

justification as to why they want to put it up. Chesterfield in north

Derbyshire. It is expected to confirm it is the third council to

defy the government and put up its local taxes at the budget meeting

next week. Council bills up 3.5%. In the long run the ruling Labour

group says that as the government grant is just for one year, bills

would have to go up even higher next year. It is probably to pay

for their wages, that is what it is. They do things for themselves,

don't they? They do nothing about the public they are serving. A load

of rubbish. People cannot afford to pay it can make. We pay enough as

it is. It is going to be more money. Wages are not going up but food is

going up and petrol is going up, where will we find the extra money?

That is the difficulty for the councils like Chesterfield's

claiming increased local taxes now will be better in the long run.

Time is not on their side. The argument there from the Labour

run York is that if they take the money this year they will only have

to put council tax bills up more next year. Have they got a point?

No I do not think they have a point. I'm angry they have turned his

money down. You have got to look at it economic people stop it is

difficult up there. There are pay freezes in the public and private

sectors and the cost of living is going up. For Labour to turn down

this money, this grant from the Government, to put a council tax

freeze in place is morally irresponsible in my mind. The money

would have given the council another 12 months to find the

efficiency savings that it needs to find. They have thrown that away

and I am really disappointed. Councils are offered this money to

freeze the bills so surely they could take it? They were initially

offered for years money and now it has been reduced to one year. The

problem is the Bill will go up next year because of the cuts in the

services. This goes back to my old sparring partner Eric Pickles

because he promised those councils there would be the money for four

years and that money has now gone. Many cities are looking at their

prospects and dealing with it the way it that they see fit. It is not

just the other councils. In Scarborough they have had a U-turn

because of pressure put on them by Eric Pickles. At think it is wrong.

Local government needs to plan services over a period of time and

they cannot do it year on year. I think the decision to take it down

from four years was fundamentally wrong. Are they playing politics?

Actually it is the people you cause the squeeze Middle who will suffer

by paying higher bills. I do not think so. In Bradford we have been

able to take the money because we have been able to plan other things

but the difficulty for each council is they have different ways of

looking at their budgets and I think the position in your is that

they obviously say that if a freeze the council tax this year will lead

to bigger problems next year. were having local elections in York

in May, would they have taken the money or not? There is a question

mark about whether they would have done that if there were local

elections going on. There is politics going on. Eric Pickles has

cut the money so why do it? We know the economic situation facing the

country but the important thing is that local authorities have to find

the efficiency savings that they need to make in the long term. That

is not just salami-slicing. The city council have cut money into

the voluntary services. They have to think about it carefully because

that is a waste of money. The money that can go to voluntary services,

if they cut it they will have to pick up the pieces. You as well as

I have been a councillor and you know that councils need time to

look at their budgets and they cannot do year-on-year. If you do

not know where the money will come from, you have to look at the next

two or three years. That is the problem. The government should give

the council's a certainty for three-year funding. We have to

leave that debate now. Thank you for your time here, please do not

fight in the bar afterwards! That's about it from us. You can

keep up to date with all latest political news and views in our