Michelle writes:
Jim and I recently met with Ciaran McGuigan, Head of
Centre at the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) Harrogate
on Yew Tree Lane
to be briefed on the future of the NPIA and its 145 permanent staff and 31
contracted facilities management staff.
 |
| The NPIA on Yew Tree Lane |
The
NPIA will be phased out and will no longer exist in its current form after
December 2012. However, many of the functions currently based at the site are
critical to support policing nationally and cannot simply be disbanded. Therefore, many
of these functions are likely to transfer into a number of newly created
organisations that were announced by the Home Secretary earlier in the year and as recently as December. These include;
the National Crime Agency, a Police Professional Body and an Information and
Communications Technology Company.
As
part of the transition into the different bodies, NPIA needs to reduce the
spending on their national estate by 50%, so it has accepted the need to move away from its
Harrogate site. The agency is now exploring
the possibility of disposing of the site. It is also looking into the
feasibility of moving the training activities to other NPIA sites and finding
alternative locations in the area for the other national police work currently
done there.
The main reason for the decision to relocate the existing functions is
specific to NPIA needing to rationalise and make savings on its estate rather
than the functions and services it provides to policing or the number of staff
needed to deliver these. No decisions have been made about staff currently
working at Harrogate but as the NPIA is due to be phased out by the end of
2012, it is impossible to give guarantees about the future of any of its staff
but they will be doing everything possible to minimise redundancies.
Although no definite decisions
have been made about the future of the site, the NPIA have applied to Harrogate
Borough Council for a change of use, so it may be that part of the existing
developed brownfield site could be used for housing while retaining the green
surrounding spaces of the college too.
Councillor Michelle Woolley
says, “It’s very good news that redundancies will be kept to a minimum and that
a part of the site may be considered for housing, relieving some of the
pressure to build on Special Landscape Area beyond Cardale Park. “
Councillor Jim Clark says,
“Local residents will be sorry to see the NPIA leave as they have been very
good neighbours. Residents must be consulted on how the site will be used
next.”
Formerly Pannal Ash College, the NPIA premises were
purchased by West Riding County Council in 1945 for use as a training college
for police recruits. Staff located at NPIA Harrogate is responsible for
providing a range of national products and services, for example: national
police recruitment, examinations and promotion processes, design of
national learning and development programmes, delivery of training programmes,
accreditation and quality assurance services, Police Forensic 21 Programme and
the Information Technology Helpdesk team.
