Public Safety Committee on Feb. 14th, 2013

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

In terms of the ratio of police to population, generally in Britain it has been about 50% higher than in Canada. There are various figures. I think it is around 300 police per 100,000 , and in Canada it's somewhere around 200. Would the number for Staffordshire be any different from that kind of ratio in Britain?

[Chief Michael Cunningham]

I don't have those figures to hand, but from experience of going over to Ottawa recently, I think those numbers you've suggested there are accurate.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

It's interesting to me that you're starting from a much higher rate of staffing at the police level than we would be starting from here in Canada with relatively similar crime rates. Would you say that's true? There may be some differences in particular kinds of crime but we have relatively similar crime rates?

[Chief Michael Cunningham]

Yes, my understanding is that crime rates were similar. And the crime patterns appear to be similar in terms of reductions as well, and public confidence figures also.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

You say that you're relying a lot on special constables, who are volunteers. Can you talk about what kind of training they receive?

[Chief Michael Cunningham]

We use two types of volunteers. The first are special constables. They have full police powers. They wear uniforms. They have powers of arrest and all the powers of a constable. They have training in law. They have training in operational activity. They have safety training and the like. So they have the training of a constable.

They're normally deployed alongside regular officers, and they work also within our communities, in our rural areas, and in our town centres, and will police, also, special events—carnivals, parades, those sorts of things.

We do use the special constabulary regularly. We've increased our numbers significantly, but I want to get to a position where we do not rely on them for core delivery. They are an added extra to what we do. I think a reliance upon volunteers is highly risky in the areas we're working in.

The other types of volunteers are non-sworn officers, and these are people who may fulfill functions in support around administration, around some work within police stations and the like. But we are fairly new to the concept of volunteering, and we're working through that at the moment.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

In terms of those who wear a uniform and work alongside police, I have two questions. One, since they are volunteers, who bears the cost of that training? Second is a question of liability: who bears any liability if they're involved in things like arrests?

[Chief Michael Cunningham]

The answer to both questions is that we bear both of those things, the cost of training and equipping. The return on investment, of course, is highly attractive, because whilst the training and equipping of officers does require initial outlay, the amount of hours that some of these special constables work is truly amazing, and the amount of time they give up. There are fantastic examples of the work they do in our communities.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Do they do that work because they see it as a path into professional policing jobs, or why would they put in those long hours as volunteers?

[Chief Michael Cunningham]

Yes, there are broadly two different motivations. For some people, absolutely, they see it as a way to becoming a police officer, although they do recognize that recruitment has dried up and is likely to be very slim for the future. But secondly, also, many of them do it out of a sense of public service. A large number of special constables are very happy in another career but do this because they want to add something to their community.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Could you give us an idea of the gender and age profile of the people who volunteer?

[Chief Michael Cunningham]

There's roughly a 50-50 split in terms of men and women. The age profile is...I couldn't give you that precisely. It kind of mirrors our regular officers. We have people maybe not quite as old as me—in fact, I think some might be as old as me. But we also have many young people working with us as well.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Moving on, then, you talked about how you work with KPMG on the efficiencies. Is that work they have done work that's been published anywhere? Are there reports on the work they've done with you or similar reports that we could get access to?

[Chief Michael Cunningham]

I could certainly give you access to reports on the work they've done here in Staffordshire. I think they have published and showcased work in conferences and the like, and we have contributed to a journal. Again, I'd have to research that and get that to you. The short answer is yes, there are published results, and yes, I could get that to you.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Is your work with them ongoing, or has that work essentially been completed?

[Chief Michael Cunningham]

That's completed now. And the crucial bit, which I would want to emphasize, is that they built capacity. The business process re-engineering that we began with them, that continues, but with our own staff now because KPMG has left us.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

If I have just one minute left, you talked about better collaboration or more collaboration, I think, with other social service agencies. When we hear from police here in Canada, we hear that only about 20% of their calls for service are for what most people regard as crime, and that about 80% of the calls here are for social service, for mental health problems, or addiction problems. Do you have a similar ratio?

[Chief Michael Cunningham]

Absolutely. If I had a group of front-line operational police officers sitting in the room with me now, they would want to tell you about the demands of mental health on policing services.

If you included drug and alcohol addiction, which are mental health issues, it is nearly overwhelming, and we are having discussions at the highest level of government between the Home Office and the Department of Health as to where that burden should properly sit.

We're talking about very vulnerable people who need help, and very often the police force are the agency of first and last resort.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Chief.

We'll now move to the government, to Mr. Hawn, please.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Chair, and thanks so much, Chief, for joining us.

I have just a comment. We compare numbers of police officers per hundred thousand and so on. I think we have to be careful that we're comparing apples and apples because police may be categorized in different ways—your special constables, for example. I think we need to be a little bit careful about making a straight, side-by-side comparison.

I do have a couple of questions on your special constables. You talked about starting with 2,000 regular police officers, and your special constables are in addition to that, or part of that?

[Chief Michael Cunningham]

They are in addition to that.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

About how many special constables would you have?

[Chief Michael Cunningham]

Now I think we have about 500.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Wow. Okay. So they do a lot of work.

How long do you plan to not recruit for? Have you thought ahead?

[Chief Michael Cunningham]

Yes. We've changed our police governance arrangements in the U.K. very recently. I used to be answerable to a police authority of 17 people, some of whom were elected. We've now moved to a single individual, a directly elected police and crown commissioner, to whom I'm accountable, and that person holds the budget.

I have agreed with that individual that we will have very limited recruitment this year, so we're looking at recruiting about 30 officers this year.