Operation Safeguard

Report: 4
Date: 2 December 2005
By: Commissioner

Summary

Operation Safeguard is the formal recognition of the use of police cells to hold Home Office prisoners when prisons have reached their operational capacity.

A. Recommendations

That members receive the update on Operation Safeguard.

B. Supporting information

Overview of the current situation

1. This report emanates from a request from the Planning, Performance and Review Committee (13 October 2005) at which members were informed that ACPO were considering the possible enactment of Operation Safeguard.

2. Operation Safeguard is the formal recognition of the use of police cells to hold Home Office prisoners when prisons have reached their operational capacity. The legal authority for the use of police cells comes from the Imprisonment (Temporary Provisions) Act of 1980, which enables prisoners committed into Prison Service custody by the courts to be held by a constable if they cannot be received into a Prison Service establishment.

3. The subject matter to be addressed is Operation Safeguard and associated prison lockouts.

4. The approximate capacity level of the number of detainees held in prison accommodation are; circa 73,000. Media reports in the national press and on the internet have highlighted the rising prison population quoted as rising to 77,600, (77,700 as of Friday 14 October 2005 and 77,683 on Friday 11 November 2005). This apparently has caused some overcrowding within the London Region and other parts of the country.

5. As a result of this overcrowding the Prison Management Unit (PMU) has been unable to house some prisoners from London Courts within prisons in the London area. The knock-on effect is that the Prison Escorts Service has requested that these prisoners are detained within MPS custody suites.

6. Recent Lockout/Redirection figures supplied to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) from the Association of Chief police Officers (ACPO) are as follows.

7. Operation Safeguard will only occur when the Home Office, through the Director General of the prison service, authorises such a course of action to take place. However, the current overcrowding within prisons, has detrimental knock-on-effect in Premier Prison Service (PPS) ability to house the remanded prisoners from the Magistrates/Crown Courts at prisons.

8. As a consequence, there are a number of occasions where PPS are not able to house these remand prisoners (see figures for October and September in paragraph above) and PPS then seek the assistance of the MPS for overnight housing. This type of occurrence is commonly referred to as a Lockout or a Redirection.

9. It is the Custody Directorate’s intention (through Commander Hitchcock) to impose a maximum ceiling limit of 9 Lockout/Redirection prisoners per day. Premier Prisoner Service and the Prison Service have already been informed of this intention and accept this principle. This will enable the MPS to control the flow of additional prisoners on our already overburdened custody facilities and provide continuity and support to MPS custody staff.

10. It has not been possible at this stage to evaluate the impact of these abstractions to MPS custody capacity. However, it is not difficult to foresee that, should this level of lockout continue or even worsen, the reduced capacity within custody suites will significantly impact on the MPS ability to detain/process arrested persons.

11. Boroughs across London are already struggling to meet the demands of investigating and processing arrested persons. The Service Review has influenced this and work is being undertaken by the Custody Directorate with Property Services to progress this issue.

12. Should these circumstances continue to grow and overstretch the prison population capacity, the nationally agreed Operation Safeguard could become a real possibility and be implemented. All indications from sources associated with the Home Office. This will affect our ability to carry out core functions and impact on MPS budgets. A summary of the key points of Operation Safeguard is included below at paragraph 14 onwards.

13. The MPS has made contact with the Association of Chief police Officers, National lead for custody, Assistant Chief Constable Alec Marshall (Thames Valley). Mr. Marshall indicates that the Home Office will instigate Operation Safeguard as a last resort and is exploring alternative methods of dealing with the current prison capacity issue. However, it would be prudent for the MPS to start to consider the implications of Operation Safeguard should the Home office be unable to contain or resolve the current problems.

14. In order to fully prepare the organisation in the event of Operation Safeguard, Detective Chief Superintendent Mark Benbow, (Head of Operational Emerald), has established ’Gold Group’ to put in place some simple forward planning steps. Thereby ensuring the MPS are properly sighted and in a position to respond to safeguard should there be a requirement to do so.

Operation Safeguard - key points

15. The implementation of Operation Safeguard can be authorised only by the Director General of the Prison Service.

16. The initial request to individual police service areas will be made five days before accommodation is needed.

17. Following authority from the Director General of the Prison Service to activate Operation Safeguard, the Prison Service Population Management Unit at Prison Service Headquarters will identify those police service areas that will need to be used.

18. A formal request to use police cells in the selected area will be made to the Commissioner/Chief Constable of that area by the Police Commander at Prison Service headquarters.

19. Once in use, the authority to use a police service area’s cells will be in force for a month.

20. Any extension to the month will be formally requested and negotiated between the individual police service area and the Population Management Unit at Prison Service Headquarters.

21. The Prison Service Population Management Unit will give 5 days notice of the end of use of police cells, to individual police service areas.

22. Operation Safeguard will be used to hold either adult male prisoners who have been newly committed by a magistrates’ court or those prisoners who have been remanded to appear in court and who are unable to return to a prison.

23. Operation Safeguard will not normally be used to hold the following prisoners in police cells:

• Female prisoners.
• Juvenile prisoners, (those under 18).
• Prisoners who are undergoing a Crown Court trial should be returned to prison each night.
• Any prisoner, needing admittance to a prison healthcare centre.
• Prisoners at risk of self-harm being moved with an open self-harm report form.
• Prisoners remanded for serious offences and who are potentially Category A.
• Prisoners who have a history of either escape attempts or disruptive behaviour.

24. Whenever possible prisoners will be held in police cells for no more than one night. In difficult, exceptional or sensitive circumstances and at weekends it may be necessary to hold some prisoners for more than one night. The contractor will prioritise movements to ensure that those prisoners who have had the longest stay in a police cell return to prison first.

25. The responsibility and accountability for prisoners while being held in police cells rests with individual police service areas. This includes:

• The safe and secure custody of prisoners.
• Prisoners’ rights to visits, exercise, reading material and other rights and needs while in police cells.
• The provision of medical care.

The potential impact on the MPS core custody business

26. At present the MPS have no indication of the number of such prisoners we should be expected to detain, look after and cater for, should this operation be enacted. Assistant Chief Constable Marshall has expressed a view that, as the largest police service in the UK, the MPS would be expected to take its fair share. Given the uncertainty around such factors, as to whether Operation Safeguard will be enacted, the number of prisoners anticipated the MPS would be responsible for and the amount of time this operation would be expected to continue. It is impossible to create an accurate impact assessment on core custody related business. However, areas where this would likely impact on day-to-day policing matters are detailed below.

• Loss of core custody facilities for borough prisoners.
• This will lead to transferring detained persons to other outlying boroughs. The inevitable travelling between boroughs will delay the investigative process, result in additional overtime being incurred and further stretch borough resources, impacting on response times.
• Additional strain being placed on the Forensic Medical Examiners (FME’s) service.
• Have an adverse impact on borough and territorial policing operations (Safer streets, football and demonstrations/public order situations etc).
• Have an adverse effect on arrests, thereby impacting on sanctioned detections and offences brought to justice and other government performance indicators.
• Potentially affect Premier Prisoner Services’ (PPS) ability to transfer detained persons from police stations to court. This may also affect/impact on the smooth running of court schedules.
• Impact on the Independent Custody Visitors scheme (managed by the MPA).
• Raise the potential for a death in custody. This would still be defined as a Category 3 death in police custody and as such investigated by the Department of Professional Standards (DPS) and ultimately supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).
• Have a potential adverse effect on public reassurance.
• Lead to adverse comment in the national media.

Conclusion

27. Should Operation Safeguard be invoked, the potential impact on the Metropolitan Police Service could be substantial. This operation (dependant upon its magnitude and length) would have a large daily impact on the ability and resilience of the organisation to carry out its core functions over an extended period. There would be a cost to the organisation both in terms of budget and effect on the workforce, which will have to cover these commitments for duration of the operation. Should this coincide with the approaching Christmas season this again may bring additional stresses upon the MPS.

List of abbreviations

MPA

Metropolitan Police Authority

MPS

Metropolitan Police Service

IPCC

Independent Police Complaints Commission

PPS

Premier Prison Services

PMU

Prison Management Unit

ACPO

Association of Chief Police Officers

FME

Forensic Medical Examiner

C. Race and equality impact

1. The introduction of the Custody Directorate enables the MPS to develop and introduce corporate operating procedures that will ensure fairness and equality across a range of custody services. Should the Home Office approved operation safeguard be implemented the current procedures and training of MPS custody staff will be sufficient to cover race and equality impact.

2. The introduction of an Independent Advisory Group (custody group) and a London Custody Forum will enable the custody directorate, external partners and the public to influence custody policy and practice now and in the future.

3. The Directorate recently published a revised policy around custody risk assessment that provides a clear structure for identifying individual detainee needs. This policy compliments the new Case Disposal Policy that removes the potential for individual bias within the charging or case disposal process.

4. The Directorate has established an internal programme/project management system that ensures that the diversity implications around each and every new piece of work are considered at an early stage and that these are both documented and acted upon.

5. All work undertaken is given consideration as to the impact of the Disability Discrimination Act and members from the Custody Directorate attend the Disability Programme Board to ensure compliance with the Act. Colleagues within Property Services also support this process.

D. Financial implications

1. Should the Home Office invoke this operation there would be potentially a large impact on policing budgets. To ensure correct staffing levels to safely manage these processes, overtime would need to be incurred. Fortunately costs including medical fees, food, laundry and overtime etc are borne by the Prison Service. The cost recovery process is detailed in the Home Office Circular 8 of 1997 (Reimbursement of Costs of Holding Prisoners in Police Cells).

2. This Circular sets out long standing national arrangements and within the scope of the reimbursement, police forces are able to recover:

• The actual staff costs of police officers and police staff working on tasks directly associated with holding of prisoners on behalf of the Prison Service because places are not available in the prisons estate based on formulae set out in the Circular. The formulae enables forces to calculate a plain time rate using the actual salary costs of police officers and police staff;
• Police officer and police staff overtime;
• Police support costs such as travel and subsistence and police officer and police staff meals;
• Prisoner support costs including the costs of meals, laundry etc. and items for prisoners recreation and welfare;
• The cost of cell accommodation; and
• An administration charge of 5% (covering telephone calls, photocopying, stationery etc,) levied upon the total costs of police support costs, prisoner support costs and accommodation to cover the costs of administering the exercise.

3. Representatives from HM Prison Service attended a recent Custody Directorate ‘Gold Group’ Meeting, where Operation Safeguard was an item of discussion. In those discussions, the issue of cost recovery was raised and the Prison Service was advised that full cost recovery was the position the MPS would seek to achieve. It was recognised that this would be undertaken within the framework set out within the Home Office Circular.

4. If there is any increased expectation that Operation Safeguard would initiated, there will be further work with the Prison Service as part of the work of the ‘Gold Group’ in respect of cost recovery to ensure that the Prison Service will agree to the charges that the MPS would pass in respect of financial reimbursement.

5. Initial costings undertaken by MPS Finance Services would indicate a charge of approximately £1,500 per prisoner per 24-hour period based on the methodology set out in the Home Office Circular. This figure excludes at present potential additional costs such as overtime, travel and subsistence. There has been no formal discussion with the Prison Service and the charge may be subject to change.

6. Until Operation Safeguard is initiated, there will be no indication as to the numbers of prisoners the MPS would be expected to accommodate in its cell accommodation. For this reason, it is not possible to place a financial value to the potential impact of this issue.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Chief Inspector Thomas, Emerald Custody Directorate

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

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