Memorandum from the Metropolitan Police
1. INTRODUCTION
This submission outlines the policies, procedures
and provisions of The Metropolitan Police Service that enable
the organisation to discharge its "Duty of Care" in
respect of those it trains for certain critical roles. For the
purpose of this submission those roles have been agreed with the
Defence Committee as those involving "Training for Life-Critical"
situations; recruits as they are trained to face a potential range
of life-threatening situations as unarmed first officers at the
scene, all officers trained to perform a responsive Public Order
role, specialist officers selected and trained to carry and use
firearms, drivers of Armed Response Vehicles, officers trained
in hostage release procedures, officers trained in specialist
anti-terrorist procedures and officers trained in the procedures
concerning explosive devices.
This submission does not include any of the
interventions made to students concerning their "Duty of
Care" to the wider public, which has been agreed as falling
outside the parameters of this enquiry.
The submission is produced as a summary of the
policy, procedures and provisions of the departments responsible
for the training of students in the above disciplines. The detail
of each of these appear as appendices, together with a glossary
of terms specific to the Metropolitan Police.
2. DISCHARGING
THE "DUTY
OF CARE"
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) bases
its "Duty of Care" on the legal principles established
over a period of time and can be summarised as principles of reasonableness.
The organisation accepts its responsibilities of "Duty of
Care" in law and takes the issue very seriously both from
an organisational and individual point of view.
There are four principle interventions through
which this responsibility can be said to lay:
Organisational
This includes the setting of policy, which in
itself is based on legal assessment, considerations of "best
practice", the level of current threat both nationally and
internationally and the expressed needs of the individuals faced
with the "life-critical" situations.
Training policy in the discharge of the "Duty
of Care" organisationally is overseen by the Head of Training,
Commander Shabir Hussain. There is a delegated responsibility
for training plans which is discharged by the operational Heads
of Departments—usually but not exclusively Police Superintendents.
Organisational policy allows training managers
to set aims and objectives for their instructional interventions.
Instructional
This includes all training interventions, most
of which are "mandatory" either generally across the
service as in Recruit Training in the defined subjects or as part
of the "qualification and maintenance of standards"
process of specialist officers. "Instructional Interventions"
in the discharge of the "Duty of Care" are legally driven,
based on a combination of the set policy, legislation, Health
and Safety requirements, the identified welfare needs of individuals
and cultural considerations.
Instructional interventions allow students to
learn in a "safe learning environment", to know the
parameters in which both they and their trainers operate, to understand
both their own and the organisational manager's responsibility
of care towards each other.
Managerial
This involves the setting up and maintenance
of supervisory systems whereby compliance with policy and the
standard of instructional interventions is maintained. This is
discharged by "training managers" who are experienced
trainers in the field and usually, but not exclusively, police
officers in the ranks of Chief Inspector, Inspector and Sergeant,
depending on the role. They nearly always carry a specialist qualification
in their own right and have considerable operational experience
of the subject areas they are managing.
Their role includes "case conferences"
on under-performing students, evaluation and monitoring of classroom
and practical delivery and invigilation in the examination processes
pertinent to the department. They ensure adequate welfare provision
is available and that issues surrounding equal opportunity, inclusivity
and cultural understanding are taken into account. They ensure
that an environment of "pastoral care" exists where
instances of, bullying or harassment can be quickly identified
and appropriately dealt with. A recent introduction has been the
setting up of a Welfare Information and Guidance Unit ("Pastoral
Care Unit") (see Appendix A).
Managerial interventions allow the students
to see that the organisational "Duty of Care" is being
discharged, allows the departmental Heads to see that policy is
being applied and ensures that all practices and procedures are
both healthy and safe.
Individual
All policy, instructional and managerial interventions
both encourage and require the individual student to take responsibility
for their own welfare and for their colleagues. The development
of the representative Staff Associations and the use of the Police
Federation (the Police Officer's representative body) are all
set up as bodies seeking to offer help and support to the individual.
The training managers and the trainers themselves actively support
this in both theory and practice. A variety of events such as
"the Marketplace" encourage students to take responsibility
for their own welfare (see Appendix A). Much of the training encourages
officers to adopt "critical thinking" and "problem
solving" techniques by which issues of care are kept prominently
in mind by the individual.
Individual responsibility allows students to
take ownership of the "Duty of Care", making it meaningful
and immediate. By encouraging individuals to seek help at an early
stage problems can be addressed before they become too serious.
3. CONCLUSIONS
Much of the organisational and individual "Duty
of Care" of The Metropolitan Police Service towards its officers
under training is based on keeping them alive in the first instance
against a background of potential violence from any perceived
threat that they may encounter in their day-to-day work. Creating
a training environment in which a disciplined, clear and precise
message is allowed to be absorbed by the student is considered
to be of paramount importance. The success or otherwise of this
policy can best be measured perhaps by the level of serious injury
and cases of "Critical-Incident Stress" that occur to
students both in their training and subsequently. These are felt
to be very low although when they do occur they often have a serious
effect on the organisation as a whole.
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