138 replies to this topic

[Radman]

Within the depths of the 'miscellaneous forces' section of the forum lies a thread about these chaps:


<a href="http://en.wikipedia....bulary">British Airports Authority Constabulary


This force was a private police service (similar to how BTP is run) who's purpose was to police all BAA operated airports, officers who were sworn into the force enjoyed full powers of a constable on BAA property.


Little else is known about them and the wiki article doesnt really have too much information about them (I believe it was a member of this very forum who may have written the article.)


Now the official reason for the force being disbanded was that they didnt have the authority to carry firearms on duty after some form of unspecified 'terrorist scare' in the early 70's which led to the army being deployed to Heathrow. The Met police did what they do best and took over Heathrow airport from the BAA Police which inturn led to a legislation change disbanding the force nation-wide.


Now this strikes me as very odd...


The airports are a KEY infrastructure within the UK, so having various Home Office police forces policing each individual airports to me doesnt make sense for a number of reasons:


1. Intelligence isnt to a national scale and has to be passed from force to force.
2. Costly to the tax payer (I know the airports/BAA/Airlines contribute to policing)
3. Specialisation and tactics across the country wont be the same for each airport from force to force (infact I know SYP has cut back on its officers based out of Robinhood.)
4. With the budget cuts would HO cops not be better suited to policing their communities/back on response?


Is it just me or would it not make sense to re-establish a national police service for the airports with a national remit (who were authorised to carry firearms) this now seems like a mute point since BTP (a private force) now has a firearms team set up in London, which we never had before.


Would it be worth merging the duties with the MDP (a fully armed service) or even BTP (now that we have a firearms capability.)


Thoughts/Opinions on this?

Figured it'd make a cool little discussion.


((Edit: For some reason everytime I try and link the wiki article it deletes my thread - weird))

Edited by Radman, 03 July 2012 - 11:02 PM.

[support]

Good idea, I am a believer in specialist police forces, such as MDP, BTP, CNC as wells as the many docks and ports police forces and in some areas parks constabularies.

I am sure with suitable legislation a specialist Border and Airport Police Force could be formed to combine policing airports and perhaps borders.

We do though have to remember that BAA is now a very different organisation to 35 years ago and is now commercial rather than government, but if BTP can work then I see no reason why an airport national police force could not exist to police all designated airports.

Could be a similar role to CNC police at power stations.

The force though would have to be able to work at all main airports not just BAA sites, same as BTP policing pan railway locations across the network and UK.

Edited by support, 03 July 2012 - 10:48 PM.

[Dan_05]

A good idea.

A fair amount of finance is given by airlines and airport owners to police the airports, therefore there would at least be financial support to make it possible, it would make sense for airport policing to come under one roof.

Given we have British Transport Police, I could see BTP being a logical step for taking over policing of airports. Even if it was decided BTP wouldn't take it on, we already have the Ports Police, so surely a dedicated airport police force would be easy enough to setup too.

[Radman]

A good idea.

A fair amount of finance is given by airlines and airport owners to police the airports, therefore there would at least be financial support to make it possible, it would make sense for airport policing to come under one roof.

Given we have British Transport Police, I could see BTP being a logical step for taking over policing of airports. Even if it was decided BTP wouldn't take it on, we already have the Ports Police, so surely a dedicated airport police force would be easy enough to setup too.

Good point,

To be honest im surprised the government isnt trying to off-load more of the responsibility/funding onto the Airports/Airlines. Just imagine how many cops would be freed up if all of the HO Specialist Policing Units went back onto normal shift/Beat duties.

I wouldnt mind such a move aslong as the Constabulary was regulated in the exact same way as every other police service is in the country - America seems to manage this fairly well and then of course there is my own force.

Any such force would undoubtedly fall under the banner of the Department for Transport anyway, again much like BTP.

[Dan_05]

Airlines are charged on average around 50p per passenger for policing, so if you think about how many passengers depart UK Airports, plus the finance the airport operators contribute as well, it certainly creates a decent sized budget for it. Obviously the likes of Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester would be bringing in the most money and so would have to subsidize the smaller regional airports, but given they require far less resources anyway, it seems workable,

[JS]

I don't think it makes an awful lot of difference, taking Heathrow as an example, the policing functions there are not funded out of the Met's "normal" budget. As a London tax payer my Council Tax doesn't contribute to the policing of Heathrow over and above the background policing that occurs in the borough. The specialist functions are paid for by the airport operator and probably a Government grant. The same applies to the Palace of Westminster policing, Royalty Protection etc - the people of London don't pay for these national policing functions they come from Central Government.

So the argument that it would free up more cops isn't valid - it just changes their employer, the Met wouldn't get these officers back if they lost the airport, the overal strength of teh Met would have to decrease by these number of officers. There is a reasonably sound argument that says if you integrate a service within an existing large organisation it is cheaper to deliver than doing it independantly because you have lower management overhead costs (Spread more thinly). This applies equally to BTP and local forces. I'd argue that having these functions covered by a local force provides savings to the tax payer, though, because the overheads of running an armed function in a smaller force are partly paid for by the airport operator therefore providing a saving to the tax payer.

I'd say that there is effective intelligence sharing already between forces regarding airport threats, it wouldn't have any additional benefit by being within one force.

James

[Radman]

I don't think it makes an awful lot of difference, taking Heathrow as an example, the policing functions there are not funded out of the Met's "normal" budget. As a London tax payer my Council Tax doesn't contribute to the policing of Heathrow over and above the background policing that occurs in the borough. The specialist functions are paid for by the airport operator and probably a Government grant. The same applies to the Palace of Westminster policing, Royalty Protection etc - the people of London don't pay for these national policing functions they come from Central Government.

Yes but I think the onus would be placed back onto the companies more and less on central government - much like the TOCs with Railway Policing. government provides very little funding to BTP, almost all of our budget comes from the TOCs.

So the argument that it would free up more cops isn't valid - it just changes their employer, the Met wouldn't get these officers back if they lost the airport, the overal strength of teh Met would have to decrease by these number of officers.[

Not every officer would be merged into whatever force took over, the officers would undoubtedly end back up on shift. I doubt the Met would simply sack the officers either but I see your point.

There is a reasonably sound argument that says if you integrate a service within an existing large organisation it is cheaper to deliver than doing it independantly because you have lower management overhead costs (Spread more thinly). This applies equally to BTP and local forces. I'd argue that having these functions covered by a local force provides savings to the tax payer, though, because the overheads of running an armed function in a smaller force are partly paid for by the airport operator therefore providing a saving to the tax payer.

My argument is based on specialisation though, does it make sense to have every airport within the country policed by numerous separate forces or as you've already covered centralise all of this into one, dedicated force?

If the role was merged with say the MDP then you have the support services already in place, centrally in London - if we were just talking about Heathrow I'd take your point but having all of these policing functions spread out amongst all of the HO forces cannot be cost effective.

Imagine how much money is spent on training annually alone - how much would be saved if this was done via one force?

Specialisation again would be more focused and centralised - again If we only had the one airport I'd understand your argument but we don't - we have three HO forces covering three separate major ports of entry into the UK, this to me makes little sense.

As for the smaller airports I don't believe the airlines have to contribute as much money to the policing of them - hence why alot of county forces have lowered the number of officers at the airports (my own local force being on such example)

I'd say that there is effective intelligence sharing already between forces regarding airport threats, it wouldn't have any additional benefit by being within one force.

James

I disagree on this again, it's not effective to have intelligence being passed to separate intelligence teams piece by piece - if one AIB existed that handled all of the information it'd make more sense and save a large amount of cash in the long run.

Of course this is another argument for the roll-out of ONE national intelligence system.

Edited by Radman, 04 July 2012 - 12:34 PM.

[Derf]

I've never understood why BTP only do railways.

Wouldn't it be better for them to do all forms of transport. RPU, ports, airports and trains? Would lessen the work of territorial constabularies and ease their budgets.

[Radman]

I've never understood why BTP only do railways.

Wouldn't it be better for them to do all forms of transport. RPU, ports, airports and trains? Would lessen the work of territorial constabularies and ease their budgets.

A few years ago there was talk of it but its all gone very silent on that front...

The DfT was interested in the idea and tried to push through amendments in he recent 'social responsibility bill' to increase our jurisdiction further but it was knocked back because no governmental review had been done on the matter.

The DfT certainly seems to want transport under one policing umbrella, accountable to their department.

[Owen]

For Manchester Airport, as well as the 10 borough councils who own Manchester Airport, Cheshire also provide some of the cost of the policing for GMP to cover as I believe the end of the runway is actually on Cheshires area.

[MacGregor]

No need in Scotland, we all know what the locals will do when terrorists attack.

Would you have some sort of guarantee that officers won't be redeployed to train stations etc? Some (former but I imagine there will still be people in a similar situation) officers I know wouldn't mind policing an airport but they'd be a bit hacked off if they were redeployed to a train station.

Edited by CharlieJulietMike, 04 July 2012 - 02:38 PM.

[Radman]

No need in Scotland, we all know what the locals will do when terrorists attack.

Would you have some sort of guarantee that officers won't be redeployed to train stations etc? Some (former but I imagine there will still be people in a similar situation) officers I know wouldn't mind policing an airport but they'd be a bit hacked off if they were redeployed to a train station.

Nowt wrong with working on a railway station

The funding would be ring fenced I'd imagine meaning the officers wouldnt be re-deployed.

Again their would be training issues, you couldn't simply stick an officer from the railway at an airport and the same for sticking an airport bobby on the railway.

Unless of course you trained all BTP officers the same but that'd be very costly.

[MacGregor]

Nowt wrong with working on a railway station

Unless you hate trains.

The funding would be ring fenced I'd imagine meaning the officers wouldnt be re-deployed.

Again their would be training issues, you couldn't simply stick an officer from the railway at an airport and the same for sticking an airport bobby on the railway.

Unless of course you trained all BTP officers the same but that'd be very costly.

Thanks for fleshing this out a little.

[Cuddles]

For Manchester Airport, as well as the 10 borough councils who own Manchester Airport, Cheshire also provide some of the cost of the policing for GMP to cover as I believe the end of the runway is actually on Cheshires area.

Not far off with that one. Almost the entire length of rwy 05R/23L is in Cheshire with very, very small sections within Greater Manchester.

[Buck]

Not far off with that one. Almost the entire length of rwy 05R/23L is in Cheshire with very, very small sections within Greater Manchester.

That wasn't my understanding. As far as I am aware the runways and airport itself is the border with the entire airport coming under GMP? Working in Wilmslow, i.e. the border, we get deployed to the gates in emergencies but the actual airport itself is all under GMP. It does look odd on a map though as there are these very thin lines extending into our BU of GMP jurisdiction...

[Cuddles]

Yep, GMP may police the airport in its entirety but a large chunk of it actually falls within the county of Cheshire.

Attached is an extract from the OS map provided by Bing. The black dotted line is the county boundary.

 Untitled.jpg   364.89K   31 downloads

[Buck]

I see your point, thanks for clarifying! But Cheshire County is quite different to Cheshire Constabularly. Quite a bit of southen GMP is actually in the County of Cheshire.

[Shogy1]

But do the Airports not already have their own national police force as it were? UK Border Agency.
The fact that Police Officers patrol in airports is merely from a Security point of view. I'm quite sure that intel where required is shared with other agencies at the moment.
What difference would there be if there was one UK Aiprport police force? They would still have to share information with all the other police forces, this would just lead to more buereacracy.

[Radman]

But do the Airports not already have their own national police force as it were? UK Border Agency.

UKBA isn't a police force but you'd be surprised how limited their powers are in law - very surprised infact. I know I was when I've worked with them in the past.

The fact that Police Officers patrol in airports is merely from a Security point of view. I'm quite sure that intel where required is shared with other agencies at the moment.
What difference would there be if there was one UK Aiprport police force? They would still have to share information with all the other police forces, this would just lead to more buereacracy.

How would it lead to more bureaucracy?

At the moment you've got individual forces all talking to one another passing intel ect with one national force you'd have one intel unit responsible for the airports - it'd be a single point of contact. Currently how much intel do you imagine falls through the cracks and is missed?

Also the cops provide alot more then just 'security' they enforce laws and keep the peace within the airports - it's a highly specialised and dangerous working environment with it's own specialist pieces of legislation in place.

The above is of course excluding the terrorist threat faced by airports on a national scale all in my opinion would benefit from one specialised force.

Going back to my earlier point aswell about the overhead costs such as training, recruitment, HR services ect it'd certainly cost alot less to run on a national scale then the current individual forces.

Edited by Radman, 05 July 2012 - 12:25 PM.

[Shogy1]

How would it lead to more bureaucracy?

At the moment you've got individual forces all talking to one another passing intel ect with one national force you'd have one intel unit responsible for the airports - it'd be a single point of contact. Currently how much intel do you imagine falls through the cracks and is missed?

Single point of contact? I doubt it very much. You would still have the separate intel units for each airport as you have now. As was said somewhere else a national intel database is what is required..

Also the cops provide alot more then just 'security' they enforce laws and keep the peace within the airports - it's a highly specialised and dangerous working environment with it's own specialist pieces of legislation in place.

While they may receive training on Air-side procedures and other relevant airport offences the majority of things they deal with are shoplifters, Immigration and drugs, the same as a normal PC.

The above is of course excluding the terrorist threat faced by airports on a national scale all in my opinion would benefit from one specialised force.

Going back to my earlier point aswell about the overhead costs such as training, recruitment, HR services ect it'd certainly cost alot less to run on a national scale then the current individual forces.

I can't see how you can come to that conclusion. You would need to set up all these departments and the layers of management that go with them.

[Radman]

Single point of contact? I doubt it very much. You would still have the separate intel units for each airport as you have now. As was said somewhere else a national intel database is what is required..

How do you think CNC or BTP Work?

You'd have a single point of contact or a main AIB Unit (probably based in London) and smaller teams up and down the country. But all intel would pass through a designated single point of contact/unit within that force.

There would be no need for every major airport to have its own AIB that'd just be silly - it'd be a regional set up.

While they may receive training on Air-side procedures and other relevant airport offences the majority of things they deal with are shoplifters, Immigration and drugs, the same as a normal PC.

Think of the community you're policing though - its a transient one, not a fixed community - your victims of crime are flying off to far flung places along with your witnesses ect.

Coupled alongside the fact that it is a specialist environment that requires a certain degree/level of training to simply work there, cooperation with BAA and other airport authorities you cannot really compare it to street policing... The offences are similar (well those that arent specific to the airport) but the way you go about dealing with them and the environment you're in means you wouldnt be able to go about it in the same way as street level crime.

As an example the railways, the smallest disruption leads to massive delays and large amounts of fines for both Network Rail and the TOC's - when dealing with fatalities HO police treat the scene very differently to the accepted SOP's simply because they have little experience in dealing with that side of police work.

I can't see how you can come to that conclusion. You would need to set up all these departments and the layers of management that go with them.

Not if you merged it with a force that already exists, say MOD or BTP, then the overhead costs go way down compared with the current set up of it being spread out amongst numerous different forces across the UK.

Bare in mind that some airports arent listed as 'designated' airports so the level of policing they recieve varies significantly to their larger counter-parts. With these airports the county forces recieve little funding from the Authorities as they have no legal obligation to provide a certain level of funding.

HO Police forces have already cut back on the number of officers at these airports, my local force being one of them.

Edited by Radman, 05 July 2012 - 01:46 PM.

[Police Constable 1]

How do you think CNC or BTP Work?

You'd have a single point of contact or a main AIB Unit (probably based in London) and smaller teams up and down the country. But all intel would pass through a single point of contact within that force.

There would be no need for every major airport to have its own AIB that'd just be silly.

Have you worked in AIB? I didnt know all ours went through one AIB to other forces

[Radman]

Have you worked in AIB? I didnt know all ours went through one AIB to other forces

No but the intel coming into us generally goes through our central London AIB - our AIB on area is tiny compared to our unit in London.

Local AIB teams with HO forces (I know West Yorkshire is one) have contacts with our on area AIB and vice versa and does go through them.

My point is you wouldnt need an AIB team based at every single airport as suggested by Shogy - that simply wouldnt be cost effective nor necessary.

Edited by Radman, 05 July 2012 - 01:54 PM.

[Police Constable 1]

No but the intel coming into us generally goes through our central London AIB unit - our AIB on area is tiny compared to our unit in London.

But then again PC1 how often do you end up using the local forces intel unit for checks on addresses/persons?

Quite often! as for AIB, it goes from your local one to the local force, only national stuff comes through London

[Shogy1]

How do you think CNC or BTP Work?

You'd have a single point of contact or a main AIB Unit (probably based in London) and smaller teams up and down the country. But all intel would pass through a designated single point of contact/unit within that force.

There would be no need for every major airport to have its own AIB that'd just be silly - it'd be a regional set up.



Think of the community you're policing though - its a transient one, not a fixed community - your victims of crime are flying off to far flung places along with your witnesses ect.

Coupled alongside the fact that it is a specialist environment that requires a certain degree/level of training to simply work there, cooperation with BAA and other airport authorities you cannot really compare it to street policing... The offences are similar (well those that arent specific to the airport) but the way you go about dealing with them and the environment you're in means you wouldnt be able to go about it in the same way as street level crime.

As an example the railways, the smallest disruption leads to massive delays and large amounts of fines for both Network Rail and the TOC's - when dealing with fatalities HO police treat the scene very differently to the accepted SOP's simply because they have little experience in dealing with that side of police work.



Not if you merged it with a force that already exists, say MOD or BTP, then the overhead costs go way down compared with the current set up of it being spread out amongst numerous different forces across the UK.

Bare in mind that some airports arent listed as 'designated' airports so the level of policing they recieve varies significantly to their larger counter-parts. With these airports the county forces recieve little funding from the Authorities as they have no legal obligation to provide a certain level of funding.

HO Police forces have already cut back on the number of officers at these airports, my local force being one of them.

Merging with BTP or MOD? MOD would be a non starter I would guess. I cannot see the military getting involved in UK Airports. BTP that is paid for separately by train operating companies. I cannot see trains being happy about having their officers police airports and vice versa for starters. This merging blows your single police national police force for airports out of the water straight way.

Can these standard SOP's for dealing with deaths etc on the railways lead to fines? Pressures of private policing sounds like.