REGIONALISATION, DEVOLUTION AND PROPORTIONALITY

As MI5 sets up eight new regional offices and doubles in size – has the Government got it right in spending so much energy and resources fighting terrorism. What of other equally dangerous threats to the UK?

A speech by Margaret Gilmore, Associate Fellow at RUSI, to the Politics and Terrorism Conference, May 28, 2008. 

INTRO

Last Thursday lunchtime a frisson went through MI5’s regional office in the South West. It’s been fully operational for less than two years.  The bomb attack on a restaurant in Exeter was the first on their patch to get to the point of execution, and in the early aftermath there must inevitably have been the fear that that something far bigger could be going on and they had missed it. In the event MI5 officers were quickly on the case and it was  established a man arrested at the scene was Nicky Reilly, a 22 year old Muslim convert with a mental age of 10 who had come across the MI5 radar briefly before, in a low level capacity.   

In the event the crude home-made device made from sodium hydroxide and paraffin surrounded by nails which was found at the scene last week – injured only Reilly. But as police start to question him, it seems timely to be examining whether MI5 have been right to move towards  a more regional – in some ways devolved way of working.

THEMES       

In this speech I am going to examine this drive by MI5 in particular, towards regional counter-terrorism in the UK, and the rationale behind it. I’ll be exploring whether the expansion is justified and proportionate. Has the Government got it right in spending so much energy and resources fighting terrorism – and what of other equally dangerous threats to the UK? I’ll be touching on wider issues of risk and the National Risk Register which Gordon Brown has announced will be published later this year. I will also touch on whether or not the regionalisation of MI5 is part of a wider trend towards devolution in Government.

MI5’s HISTORIC ROOTS IN THE REGIONS

MI5 already has historic roots outside London – in Northern Ireland - so it’s not unusual for staff to be out of the capital .But there’s been nothing in the past like what’s happening now, though MI5’s set-up in Northern Ireland has to an extent been the blueprint for eight other regional offices it’s now established – in Scotland and Wales, and in England in the South-west, the South-east, the East, the Midlands, the North East and the North West. In three years time – one quarter of what will then be 4,100 MI5 staff, will be based out of “Thames House”.

RATIONALE

The RATIONALE behind this regionalisation is twofold. First - the need to be where targets from Al Qaeda and its support groups are. 7/7 made it crystal clear they can come from all over the UK – they are not just London-based – even though London remains a key target.

CO-OPERATION WITH THE POLICE

Secondly, MI5 wants its intelligence officers to work more closely with intelligence gatherers in the police – and many of them are out in the regions. Ever since its birth in 1909, MI5 has worked with Special Branch. There has always been a close relationship. Now of necessity  this relationship has had to be broadened into the wider police family. They are having to engage with different parts of the police and that’s not always been easy.

MI5 isn’t alone in expanding. As well as its  eight new regional offices there are three new Counter Terrorist Units in Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham where the POLICE work with other groups to a very specific remit to oversee investigations into people who according to Gordon Brown “recruit terrorists and promote hate”. The police also have a series of counter-terrorist intelligence hubs – just as MI5 have their regional offices. And all these work together as and when needed,  feeding information back to a new Central Unit which researches, analyses and assesses the intelligence coming in with a view to identifying not just the inner circle of extremist groups but those people who could be at risk of falling under their influence.

So there is an evolving regionalised structure with both MI5 and police counter-terrorist operations expanding in the regions, and co-operating. The traditional relationship with Special Branch has widened to take in the wider police family as intelligence officers need to be closer geographically to the extremist groups they want to penetrate.

This is not a sign MI5 is changing its remit – it is still there to develop intelligence or as one senior security source puts it: “to carry out covert intelligence gathering against the violent extremists who are wanting to commit mass murder.” And as part of the Government’s PREVENT agenda under the CONTEST  counter-terrorism strategy, it will feed any relevant intelligence to other departments.   

The key focus of these regional groups as far as MI5 is concerned is a very narrow extreme end of the Muslim community where there are people they believe who can “inform thinking on how people are radicalising others and on what is being planned”. But MI5 does not believes it’s job is to get involved in community engagement - or in what happens post arrest – it’s focus is the narrow violent end of the extremist business.

The Security Service had already embarked on a programme of regionalisation before the London bomb attacks of July 2005. But as one security source involved in the regionalisation process explains: “July 7 accelerated that – a lot of understanding came from the fact that 7/7 was a North-East based conspiracy”. In other words they saw an urgent need to put the right skills and expertise and increase their breadth of coverage across the UK as quickly as possible.  In the case of 7/7 fast identification work by police forensic teams meant the bombers were traced quickly to the Leeds area and MI5 officers were deployed there almost immediately to work with West Yorkshire police.   

The first public reflection of how the regionalisation programme was working came in Birmingham in February 2007 when a joint intelligence gathering operation led to the arrest of nine people for their alleged involvement in a plot to kidnap a British soldier. It was largely the result of work by Regional MI5 officers and West Midlands and Met Police Officers. The Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee Annual report for 2006/2007 published this January quotes the former Director General of MI5 Eliza Manningham Buller on it. She said: “It is clear to me that having an established station in the West Midlands that is able to work very closely with both the Special Branch and the CT unit in the West Midlands on this case is extremely helpful ……having that sort of co-ordinating function is of real value”.

The Intelligence and Security Committee, which has independent oversight responsibilities over MI5 was “impressed by the speed at which the regionalisation programme has been carried out and the clear benefits it has brought”. 

But let’s face it, it was needed. All the security agencies have been playing Catch-Up ever since 9/11. Then the “enemy” was perceived as foreign. Now we know he’s just as likely to be Home Grown British – even where the attacks are carried out abroad -  take the attack on Mike’s Bar in Tel Aviv,  or the would-be shoe-bombers,  even 9/11 itself. And increasing, those who want to carry out mass murder against British civilians appear to have been radicalised since the Iraq War in 2003. Some teenagers in particular have gone from showing an early interest, to becoming a real threat, in a matter of months. And as a security source put it: “Radicalisation is not a static picture – you can’t make generalisations – it’s not confined to one ethnic group or one specific area of the UK. There are people acting alone – and others who appear to be part of a highly skilled, well educated team of self supporting extremists”. 

The theory is regionalisation will allow MI5 and police to have the finger on the pulse – close to communities they need to watch It’s regarded in government circles as a better way to retain the confidence of local Muslim communities. MI5 and police do what they feel they must and community groups locally then step in behind them to CONCILIATE - rather than have an FBI style national force storming in once an operation becomes public – which could so easily ALIENATE. That’s what happened after the nine arrests last year in Birmingham, and as people were arrested this weekend in Plymouth as part of the investigation into the botched attack in Exeter.   

On the face of it yes. We are already seeing powers in other areas devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – on Food policy for example. And the Government has just published its Green Paper “Preparing Britain for the Future” setting out the government’s plans to get new laws through Parliament in the next year.

It suggests a Transport Security forcing most UK airports to agree a local airport security plan with key stakeholders – thus devolving some of the responsibility for security away from the centre to local groups. It’s a reaction to the attacks in London and at Glasgow Airport last June. But the more cynical critics might surmise it’s a way of getting private stakeholders to bear some of the cost – and  getting LOCAL government and emergency responders to take some of the flak if things go wrong

Of course this devolved approach brings advantages – it should force better inter-agency co-operation in airport security. And if you factor in regional MI5 and police officers, then together they should have a better grip on who’s coming in and out of our airports.  

Ministers are pushing the idea they are handing government back to the people.  In the same Green Paper on next years plans there’s a Constitutional Renewal Bill to decentralise power from the state.  The plan is for stronger civil liberties protections including the right to protest around Parliament. There’ll be more powers for elected MPs - giving them the final say on Treaties for example, while the Prime Minister is to be removed from the process of appointing the most senior judges.  

In a move to encourage empowerment locally Gordon Brown said in November in his Statement on National Security that from now on “Local Authorities will be required as part of their performance framework, to assess the measures they have taken to protect against terrorism”.

So is MI5 devolving power to its regional offices in the same spirit? Yes – but only to a limited extent to encourage flexibility of delivery operationally. It would probably have done this whether or not there was a Government trend towards devolution. It’s  already devolved a lot of work DOWN giving more flexibility for decision making by staff on the ground when needed.   

But the brains if you like, the analysis and the strategic thinking and long term policy making is still done at Thames House. The rule is there must be some one centrally to own and hold information –to ensure it’s passed on and to ensure the organisation does not become fragmented. And Regionalisation doesn’t change the levels of accountability to the Government – it doesn’t change the oversight MI5 gets from Government and from Parliament through the Intelligence and Security Committee.

In a way it’s how MI5 has been working with the Police service of Northern Ireland where both have often been physically together on the ground. Northern Ireland has also reorganised its MI5 presence. This may come as a surprise given that Irish dissident groups are no longer the threat they used to be. But what’s happened is that MI5 has decided to draw on an excellent, skilled work force in Northern Ireland in the fight against international terrorism. It’s built a huge new office block, “Loughside”, on the shores of Belfast Lough which goes way beyond the regional office remit. It’s still keeping an eye on Irish dissident groups. But it has two further, and I’d say bigger functions now. The Security service has beefed up its efforts against the Al Qaeda threat from here and it has effectively built a second headquarters – a place which could take over immediately as a national headquarters if Thames House was to become dysfunctional – if it was attacked for example. In an emergency MI5 HQ would transfer to Belfast along with 400 key staff. The building provides surge capacity and a back-up computer system for the Security Service as a whole.

Already there are staff there serving the whole of the UK – human resources staff, interpreters, linguists and computer experts.  There are people there monitoring calls intercepted elsewhere in the UK.  They can listen live on surveillance operations in Birmingham for example, transcribe them into English, analyse them and then send them back to Thames House to be logged and passed to the relevant outlets). Modern technology means not everyone involved in a specific investigation has to be close to it physically.

But the reduction in the Irish dissident threat has brought another less welcome change for many in the Province. For years PSNI (formerly the RUC) has had supremacy over national security and intelligence gathering in the province. On October 10th 2007, the police relinquished that responsibility, passing it instead to MI5 – in line with the way MI5 works in the rest of the UK.

M15 has historically been regarded with suspicion, in particular by some in the NATIONALIST community. Until now intelligence issues have been challenged through the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland and through other processes governing police in the Province. Now with the transition of power to MI5, that oversight passes to institutions away from the province and many don’t like it – even though MI5 is subject to parliamentary, ministerial and judicial oversight, and has to face an Investigatory Powers Tribunal which handles complaints.  

Finally, I want to explore whether the Government has been PROPORTIONAL in its response to the terrorist threat. Are the massive resources ploughed into this – including the funding to expand MI5 – justified?

Well, we do it seems face an increasingly sophisticated enemy – look at the alleged plot to build a bomb inside an aircraft in a matter of hours with ingredients smuggled on board. Those tracking them surely NEED the best listening devices, probes and other state of the art technology they can get find.

There is a will to commit mass murder – a continuing obsession with aircraft – and a long term, lethal and diverse threat.

The current head of MI5 Jonathan Evans, speaking to the Society of Editors last November warned:

“The violence directed against us is the product of a much wider extremist ideology – although the most visible manifestations of this problem are the attacks and attempted attacks we have suffered in recent years, the root of the problem is ideological”.

He confirmed the number of suspects the Security Service believes pose a direct threat to our national security rose 20% between 2006 to 2007, from 1600 to 2,000 people. This growth he claims, which has “driven the increasingly strong and co-ordinated Government response, is partly because (MI5’s) coverage of the extremist networks is now more thorough”. But there is little doubt there also appears to be a steady flow of new recruits.

In the face of this, the Government’s “Security” budget which is £2.5 billion this year and covers all aspects of security is to rise to £3.5 billion in 2011. MI5 is recruiting like mad – you just have to look on the home page of the website to see that – or the advertisements in regional newspapers.

MI5 believes that the July 2005 attacks showed they were not big enough – they did not have the resources to prevent the attacks – even though they had come across the ringleaders during other investigations. And so they continue to grow – for the time being.

The Service will have doubled in size in a decade – from 2,000 staff at the time of 9/11 to four thousand by 2011. Increasing the   headcount is costing you and me a fortune – but it is justified?

The ISC thinks it is. It blames a lack of resources for the fact that Mohamed Sidique Khan wasn’t followed through when he appeared on the MI5 radar well before he carried out the 7/7 attacks – and  said it understood the decision. But would more staff really make a difference – or is it down to the quality of assessment?

To be honest I don’t know the answer. Probably both. And I don’t blame MI5 for pushing on numbers – because the general assumption is that beyond 2011, and indeed the 2012 Olympics – there will be other security priorities aside from terrorism. 

At the moment it’s top secret. But later in the year much of the National Risk Register – the Government’s own take on the worst risks we face - will lose its “classified” status and for the first time be made public. It is a vast and complex piece of statistical analysis, designed to tell planners which of the many nightmares we face today, they really need to prepare for. 

Statisticians and analysts inside the Cabinet Office have worked out the likelihood of various events occurring and how big a challenge they pose.  Their calculations rank events according to the number of people likely to die, the level of disruption to society and the economy, and the likely psychological effects. The risk is then placed in a graph which currently has four levels – Very High, High, Medium and low.

So what does it say are the biggest threats facing the UK? On the current register there are three in the “Very High” tier. Yes, one of them is a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11. But the other two are a flu pandemic, and sea floods on the East Coast. 

Of the three analysts suggest the flu pandemic could be the most devastating. Those in the Civil Contingencies Secretariat in the Cabinet Office who’ve drawn up the register calculate that if a new pandemic virus spread to the UK, it would take months to develop and produce a vaccine. During that time, their “reasonable worst case” scenario suggests 750,000 UK citizens could die – that’s around 1 per cent of the population or 1 in 100 people. It would become increasingly difficult to keep society and the economy going, and to keep essential services like the NHS running as key workers became infected. The last time there was a global pandemic was in 1918 when upwards of 20 million people died worldwide from a highly virulent form of the ‘flu virus.

The threat of severe sea flooding, specifically to the East coast of England is also in the top level of the Register as a “Very High” risk. That’s because as sea levels rise and England slowly tilts, the coast between East Yorkshire and the East Coast of Kent is increasingly vulnerable. In the case of severe sea flooding it’s estimated 300,000 people could have to be evacuated. And remember how badly things went wrong in New Orleans. Early warning systems would reduce the trauma by getting everyone out of their homes in time. But if there wasn’t time to do that many would still be in their homes when the floods arrived – and that would bring life threatening consequences. As we saw in Gloucestershire last year, it would also pose problems with the delivery of essential services from fresh water to electricity. The last major floods on the East coast were in 1953, when 300 people died, but future floods could be far worse and more frequent. Natural disasters remain a very real threat.     

As climate change goes up the agenda the Register will show that terrorist attacks do not. At present the terrorist threat is spread across the risk levels. It’s estimated that a conventional terrorist attack such as those on July 7th in London could kill several hundred people, so it’s placed on a lower threat level than a pandemic, as fewer lives are likely to be lost, and the wider impact across the whole UK would be less.

After years of terrorism dominating the security agenda, last summer’s floods came as a wake up call about other threats to many in the corridors of Whitehall. The interim report on last summer’s floods by Sir Michael Pitt says the Government has good plans in place for coping with terrorist attacks but not for dealing with severe weather. It concludes:

“In contrast to the co-ordinated, systematic campaign led by the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure to protect critical infrastructure against acts of terrorism….the approach taken to mitigating the risk from natural hazards has largely been uncoordinated and reactive”.

Sir Michael, who spoke in this very room recently, is likely in his final report to call for far more investment in flood prevention. He’s likely to suggest there has not been proportionality when it comes to Government spending or indeed rhetoric on security.  Far more has been spent on terrorism – a threat that however traumatic – and the awful events of July 7th showed just how terrible they can be – could well be on a par with other, diverse but equally dangerous threats.   

MI5 will in future have to cope with threats like cyber attack. Terrorists may try to use the internet to undermine energy supplies for example. Other criminals are already exploiting the worldwide web. Only recently Jonathan Evans, Director-General of MI5 voiced admitted his organisation is spending increasing time and money dealing with cyber spies from Russia, China and elsewhere. Last year Estonia had to shut down key political, media and business website after concerted cyber attacks from outside the country.      

When he announced his first National Security Strategy earlier this year the Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that of all the security challenges to the UK, “the most serious and urgent remains the threat from international terrorism.” The National Risk Register will paint a different, broader, picture, where planning will have to be flexible to deal with a variety of different emergencies. Severe weather conditions and the risk of pandemic will be at the very least equally important.

It’s something that hasn’t passed the scrutiny of the Intelligence and Security Committee. In January it voiced concern “that aspects of key intelligence and security work are suffering as a consequence of the focus on counter-terrorism priorities.  (It) believes consideration may need to be given to separate, additional funding to maintain the Agencies capabilities in these areas”.  In other words it doesn’t want a reduction in spending on MI5 and its partners – but it wants a more proportional amount spent in other high risk areas too.

CONCLUSION

I want to conclude by saying that while such arguments begin to surface MI5’s regionalisation programme will of course continue and it isn’t all straightforward. With a quarter of MI5’s staff due to work outside Thames House within 3 years, there is a concern it could dilute the culture of the organisation. To counter this the organisation will continue to rotate between postings – bringing people back to the centre every few years - and keeping a constant watch to see how the new policy of regionalisation is affecting the ethos of the organisation. Cultures change – out in the field in Northern Ireland for example, consciousness of risk is bound to be very different working than in the in the cosy, secure confines of Thames house. 

But come 2011 when the current agreed expansion to just over 4,000 staff is reached,  and perhaps once the 2012 Olympics are over, I have little doubt we will see spending and expansion on counter-terrorism plateau out. The National Risk Register will give new ammunition to the public to ratchet up pressure on the Government to be better prepared for ALL eventualities. There is likely to be a new debate on whether the amount spent on expanding MI5 and other counter terrorist measures has been fully justified – or whether there has been an element of knee-jerk reaction on the part of politicians  in the raw climate post 9/11 and 7/7.