‘When will we really start trusting our teams to do their job?’

11 November 2022

The chair of West Midlands Police Federation is calling on the Chief Constable to start ‘trusting and empowering’ officers, as he reacts to the recent changes that have been made to the Section 60 policy.

Rich Cooke says ‘it boils down to trusting our officers and empowering our inspectors’ after it was recently announced that, while West Midlands Police has made changes to its Section 60 policy, it remains that senior officers (Assistant Chief Constable) will continue to authorise Section 60. 

And, although inspectors will be able to authorise Section 60 operations spontaneously after having received information or in response to a dynamic threat, they will need to seek confirmation from the Assistant Chief Constable to use this power, which will usually involve phone call correspondence. This is something the law does not require.

“Nobody wants to be calling the ACC at 2am to justify themselves as to why they need to put a Section 60 in place, do they?” Rich asked.

“So, while inspectors can make an initial decision to enforce a Section 60, there remains the added bureaucracy and need to get further permission which, in my opinion, undermines them and sets a much higher bar, deterring them from using the powers in a proactive way, crucially, before serious violence happens.

“It sends the message that we do not trust our inspectors or superintendents to make such decisions and, bizarrely, think they are better made by senior colleagues who are well away from the frontline with no direct local knowledge.”

Rich says that when he worked on the frontline having joined the police in 2000, officers were “far more empowered”.

He continued: “We were encouraged to use our powers, so we could prevent crime and protect the public. Unfortunately, over time, we've gradually become far more risk-averse, demand-focused, sensitive to fringe criticism and therefore less effective at preventing crime.”

The latest changes to the policy also states that the threshold for Section 60 authorisation will be reduced from reasonably believing serious violence “will occur” to “may occur”.

“The change to ‘may occur’ is very welcome, it should never have been any different. But Parliament passed the legislation envisaging dynamic use by an on-the-ground commander, not one on the 11th floor of HQ. I still feel like we’re being predominantly reactive, not proactive enough, and that’s bad given the level of youth violence and knife crime my colleagues are seeing daily,” said Rich.

“The obvious concern is that those relatively few authorisations that are made will continue to be, for the most part, pre-planned following another awful crime, rather than spontaneous and intelligence-led where the tactic is best utilised to prevent serious violence following a dynamic incident or information. It really is one of the most powerful tools we have to suppress the violence and knife crime currently taking the lives of too many people, and I don’t think we use it enough, partly because of these policies.”

Changes to the Force’s Section 60 policy come after the Government decided to this year relax The Best Use of Stop and Search Scheme which was initially put into place in 2014.

The scheme, which stated that only the ACC could authorise Section 60, aimed to achieve greater transparency and community involvement in the use of stop and search powers and to support a more intelligence-led approach. 

However, earlier this year, the Government decided to relax this scheme, allowing forces to make their own policies surrounding Section 60. 

“Sadly, West Midlands Police has continued to pretty much adhere to Theresa May’s scheme and, sadly, this will continue to limit our use of this valuable power in economically deprived communities most vulnerable to serious violence. It will continue to be seen as a relatively extreme measure, when in fact, it’s often a very proportionate, measured, targeted way of protecting the public. To get the most out of our officers, they need the trust and confidence of their leaders and this does not provide them with that.

“I’ve challenged the PCC recently to look at this again as well as having several conversations with the Chief Constable on this subject over several years. While we are always listened to, and while the emphasis has gradually changed, we still have this final hurdle to get over.”