Home Office 'limited oversight' of accountability of police outsourcing arrangements is 'inadequate', say MPs

Report raises questions over the wisdom of the Met Police's £216m outsourcing deal with SSCL

MPs are concerned that the Home Office only has "limited oversight" of outsourcing arrangements for police forces in England and Wales.

A Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report called Financial Sustainability of Police Forces in England and Wales, looks into the way the Home Office allocates grants to police and crime commissioners, and how it intervenes if chief constables or commissioners fail to carry out their functions effectively.

The PAC said it was concerned that the Home Office lacks all the information it needs to know when it comes to the impact of reductions in funding on police capability at local level. It said that the need to make further savings may encourage forces to make greater use of outsourcing, and added that even given the devolved accountability system for policing, current oversight for these types of arrangements is "inadequate".

The damning verdict comes just weeks after the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Stephen Greenhaigh, approved a mega £216m 10-year deal with private firm Shared Services Connected Limited (SSCL) to outsource three of the Metropolitan Police's back-office departments.

He claimed the deal will generate savings in excess of £100m over the period of the contract, but Computing questioned whether the deal - which goes against the government's own policy in favour of short, flexible contracts - will be the next on the list of government outsourcing disasters.

The Met Police isn't the only force that has outsourced specific functions. Lincolnshire Police have an arrangement with G4S to provide various back-office functions too, and the PAC believes that more forces are likely to make use of outsourcing arrangements in order to meet future cost-saving requirements. However, it lamented the level of oversight that the Home Office had over the accountability of such arrangements.

"We are very concerned that we and government should be able to properly hold private companies to account for their performance, and we welcome the [Home Office's] assurance that oversight arrangements will be examined in the new policing Bill due this year," it said.

PAC recommended that the Home Office should ensure any outsourcing arrangements undertaken by commissioners or forces are subject to "effective scrutiny".

It added that the department should also develop a clearer mechanism for assessing the long-term value for money of outsourcing, and encourage arrangements that enable forces to retain the ability to respond to evolving needs.