NYP Chief Officers’ Expenses 2024 (Pt.1)

NYP Chief Officers’ Expenses 2024 (Pt.1)

by TIM HICKS

~~~~~

Introduction

All UK Police Forces now publish the expenses of their Chief Officers. This is to allow public scrutiny of how their money is spent, engender confidence that the conduct of our Chief Police Officers is above reproach and that they do not take advantage of their rank to misuse public funds. They can be accessed using this link: Chief Officer expenses.

Periodically I review the expenses of NYP Chief Officers, so they are held to account by a free press.

The NYE Review of Chief Officers Expenses 2024.

In the past my reviews have all revealed failures in financial control. The 2024 review was no exception. It is the worst yet:

• Chief Constable Tim Forber, Deputy Chief Constable (DCC) Scott Bisset, Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) Catherine Clarke and Assistant Chief Officer Lisa Stitt have routinely claimed for hotel accommodation within North Yorkshire at (variously) Harrogate, Northallerton, Whitby and York. I believe these Officers live in North Yorkshire*, are employed by NYP to work within and all over North Yorkshire – which is why they are provided with an official vehicle. It takes less than an hour and a half by car to travel across the Force area from one end to the other. So there was no need for them to charge expenses for staying in a hotel within North Yorkshire, when they could have just driven home.
• Chief Constable Forber and DCC Bisset have charged for overnight accommodation at Northallerton, which is the location of NYP Force Headquarters and their normal place of work. I can think of no reasonable justification for this. As a result of a previous article, DCC Hussain was forced to repay £11.30 he had claimed for a meal at Northallerton because it was his normal place of work. The same principle would appear to apply here.
• The authorized limit for hotel accommodation in London is £150 per night. Chief Constable Forber has charged £777.15 for three nights in a hotel.
• The authorized allowance for overnight accommodation in North Yorkshire under the force expenses policy is £90.00. However, Chief Constable Forber and Deputy Chief Constable Bisset have claimed and received reimbursement of accommodation expenses above this limit.
• Chief Constable Forber (Salary £154,000 a year with a car, pension contributions etc.) has claimed £3.99 for a car wash. This is not allowable expenditure for reimbursement through expenses. Further, he could have washed his car – which is an official Police vehicle – at the carwash at a Police garage, the same as for every other Police vehicle in NYP.

It also concerns me that the disclosure of expenses on the Force website does not reveal the purpose of the expenditure (e.g. Attendance at Training Course). Consequently, Chief Officers can charge what they like for whatever they like without fear of effective scrutiny by the NYP Finance Department or journalists. Taxpayers are being denied access to information they are entitled to have on how their money is spent.

In the course of my career as a Chartered Accountant since 1980, I have reviewed thousands of expenses claims for multiple organisations in many different sectors of the economy. But never have I come across an organization as consistently hopeless at upholding financial control as NYP. I had hoped that the NYE’s constant exposure of expense abuses would deter Chief Officers from submitting excessive expenses claims and improve the situation.

In fact, the opposite has occurred. All four of the Chief Officers that submitted expenses claims appear to have claimed reimbursement for expenses they were not entitled to and would never have been allowed to claim in the private sector. A new low for NYP.

[*If any of these officers choose to reside outside the NYP force area, them this is a personal lifestyle choice they have made. It is not down to the North Yorkshire taxpayer to subsidise it by routinely providing hotel accommodation.]

The Harrogate Connection

Review of Chief Constable Forber, DCC Bisset, ACC Clark and Assistant Chief Officer Lisa Stitt’s expenses revealed they all charged £70.00 for accommodation at Harrogate on 17th September 2024 to expenses. DCC Bissett’s expenses revealed that his expenses were for staying at the Police Treatment Centre (PTC) there. The implication being that all four Officers had stayed at the PTC for the night.

The Police Treatment Centre (PTC) at Harrogate is a registered Charity and a most commendable organization. It provides treatment and support to Police Officers, including physiotherapy, rehabilitation and psychological support. This support allows them to get back to full health and full duties as quickly as possible.  More information here. It is housed in a beautiful building (lead illustration) with impressive accommodation and a fine swimming pool. The official website invites patients to “take in the fantastic grounds” and “take time to relax in our quiet gardens or enjoy a cup of tea in the fresh air”.

Policing is a stressful occupation. So the news that Chief Constable Forber and more than half of the NYP senior management team had booked into a clinic obviously caused the NYE some considerable concern. It is unclear why these Officers stayed at the PTC, but if this is because they are (or were) receiving treatment there, then everyone at the NYE wishes them all a full and successful recovery.

The accommodation rates for the Harrogate PTC can be read here. The cost of a double occupancy room for two days off season is £70.00. However the expenses claims all state that the officers stayed only on the night of Tuesday 17th September, which is during the peak season. So it is impossible to be certain from the expenses claims and the information provided by the PTC how long the Officers stayed at the PTC and if they were accompanied by wives, husbands, boyfriends or girlfriends.

No explanation has been provided as to why these Officers had to incur this expenditure, what the official purpose of the visit was or the justification of the expenditure.

Commendably, Chief Constable Forber is a Trustee of the PTC, but this is not part of his duties as Chief Constable. He therefore has no right to have the expenses from being a trustee reimbursed by NYP, they should be reimbursed by the PTC.

There is no Police rank of ‘Assistant Chief Officer’, so Assistant Chief Officer Lisa Stitt is, I believe, a civilian. I say “I believe”, because there is no information about her on the NYP website here – in itself a failure to be open and disclose information to the public that they are entitled to know. Her duties are presumably confined to Force Headquarters at Northallerton. The question must then arise why she is charging accommodation for staying at the PTC Harrogate (50 mins drive from Northallerton).

Coming Next

I have written to Deputy Mayor Jo Coles, who is responsible for holding the North Yorkshire Police to account, asking her to investigate these concerns, provide a full explanation and order the Officers concerned to pay back any amounts they have overclaimed.

Chief Constable Forber, DCC Bisset, ACC Clark and Assistant Chief Officer Lisa Stitt have been provided with a draft copy of this article and been asked for a media comment.

In Part 2, I will reveal their response and update on two stories we ran earlier in the year concerning misconduct investigations into two NYP Senior Officers.

Right of Reply

If you are mentioned in this article and do not agree with the views expressed in it, or wish to correct any factual inaccuracy, please let me know using the letters@nyenquirer.uk email address and your views and/or a correction will be published if appropriate.