Speeches by Osborne.

“If I can follow up on that, of the £123 million that you are giving in additional support, is there a parallel with those forces that are borrowing as a proportion of net revenue expenditure? For instance, are the bottom 10 of those forces, which borrowed in excess of 1.88%, the ones that are coming to you to ask for a…”

“A few of my areas of inquiry have already been covered by others, including procurement. If we go to paragraph 2.13 of the Report, it says, “The policing productivity review was published in 2023” and identified that it would “save 38 million hours of police time over five years”. If we fast forward to 2024, you said t…”

“I appreciate that. In my area, Kent police has trialled one of those initiatives and has said very positive things about it. However, in the paragraph it says the Home Office “has taken forward parts of the review but has not tracked overall progress and the potential benefits have not yet been realised”. You are givin…”

“Just lastly, you spoke earlier about the new tool that you are implementing looking at burglary, robbery and shoplifting. Paragraph 2.14 says that it will be ready by December, as in next month. Is that still on track?”

“Mr Chairman, this just serves to highlight that, when we look at efficiencies and productivity, dates slip and things occur. That is absolutely fine, but, again, in light of this Report and where we are today, things have already moved.”

“I am talking about the financial resilience of the organisation. Is all the data shared with you? When the inspector goes in, do they share redacted and unredacted information with you on the financial position of the organisation?”

“When they go in and do a financial review, is that shared with the Home Office?”

“When His Majesty’s inspectorate goes in to police forces, it conducts financial reviews of those organisations. They are not in the public domain. Are they shared with you? Is the data that His Majesty’s inspector engages with in their financial review shared with the Home Office?”

“The Report indicates that we have a significant number of forces in the UK. If we take specifically figure 5 on page 24, a number of forces are borrowing significant amounts versus their net revenue expenditure. The question that I have relates to the financial pressures in the bottom 10 of those forces. Should we be w…”

“My next questions will be on alternative dispute resolution. Looking specifically at figure 13 and paragraphs 3.12 and 3.13 of the Report, alternative resolution is being applied in parts of the United Kingdom already, specifically Wales, where we have an alternative redress scheme as part of the NHS Redress Act 2006. …”

“I have one further follow-up. Other jurisdictions have an ombudsman-style approach to redress schemes for lower value claims—a dual-track approach. Wales does not have that approach but other nations in Europe do. Is it being considered? It would seem sensible to consider it, given the legal fees that we have been talk…”

“You mentioned the tort legal system that we have. Without getting into the realms of policy decisions, do you think that is a financially sustainable model at this lower end, sub-£25,000?”

“Thank you.”

“Permanent secretary, you said that this is part of an ongoing process and that there is stuff to do with the Minister here, but is there engagement around making that transparency much clearer? These cases have increased significantly over the last couple of years. They represent an increasing proportion of volume case…”

“Thank you very much. It would be helpful. On transparency, on these low-volume cases, we know that there is a lack of transparency around claimant compensation—the NAO reports that. But we also know that the legal costs are 3.7 times higher than the damages awarded—that is in the table on the back. There is a question …”

“I have a number of follow-ups. As you have correctly stated, 10 years is a long time. On the modelling, where are we predicting the numbers to be? Obviously, it has gone up from a smaller number—you would expect that when a scheme is implemented, but it has gone up by almost 100% in some cases. That is a significant in…”

“I am going to talk specifically about the general practice schemes, looking at paragraph 1.15. My colleagues have dealt with the medium to the top end; I will be looking specifically at GPs. The new CNSGP scheme was introduced in 2019. There has been an indication that the numbers have significantly risen from 273 to 2…”

“As part of phase 2, you are announcing the potential restructures and new boundaries from April 2027. Can I just get some clarity? You are going through the redundancy rounds now, but in some cases, you will not know the new boundaries for some of these organisations until two years in the future, because there might b…”

“How long will the non-specific pathway take?”

“So we will not be seeing people waiting 18 months.”