39. Third supplementary memorandum
submitted by the Metropolitan Police Service
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) is pleased
to be offered this further opportunity to comment on the development
of Police Reform, following the publication of the White Paper,
"Building Communities, Beating Crime. A Better Police Service
for the 21st Century." The has made extensive reference in
its written submissions and oral evidence to the Committee on
the majority of the issues in the White Paper, and the observations
below are largely limited to those that have not already been
covered. The MPS is still in the process of wide consultation
both internally and externally on the White Paper, and has yet
to finalise a view on many of the issues contained within it.
For ease of reference, observations have been
ordered in the sequence in which they appear in the White Paper.
CHAPTER 3—COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
The chapter titled, "A new relationship
between the police and the public" contains many of the key
messages that the MPS was keen to give at the oral evidence session
on 14 of September. The MPS considers that active collaboration
with citizens is the only way to create both shared ownership
of local problems and also build long term sustainable success.
The development of Safer Neighbourhoods teams will be key to ensuring
that Londoners have a real say in how they are policed.
The MPS agrees that customer satisfaction with
the police should be an integral part of the policing. Personal
experience of policing shapes the public view of the police. A
stronger emphasis on customer service will lead to increased satisfaction
levels and greater support for the service. There are also operational
benefits to be reaped in terms of increased intelligence and better
understanding of local issues as a consequence of greater and
more effective engagement with the communities of London.
The MPS believes that performance targets should
reflect not only national concerns but also ones that are within
the remit of local police commanders to address in consultation
with local communities. On that basis, the inclusion within PPAF
of inspection and measurement around local priorities and public
satisfaction is welcome.
The MPS is fully committed to effective engagement
with communities. It already has a developed understanding of
the interests, main concerns and wishes of the majority of the
community and is engaged at every level in meaningful and productive
discussions in order to improve the service it provides. The White
Paper offers an opportunity to examine, in consultation with other
agencies and government, how that process can be refined and improved.
CHAPTER 4—BUILDING
A NEW
WORKFORCE
The MPS agrees that effective leadership will
be crucial to the success of the majority of the reforms outlined
in the White paper. The pressure for modernisation brought about
by the increasing complexity of tasks and roles is evident throughout
police service leadership. Leaders are selected not only for their
command abilities, but also for their management skills. The MPS
needs leaders at every level who can understand and operate within
complex frameworks of political and community accountability,
who can handle media pressure, and who have both financial planning
skills and the ability to negotiate and influence public opinion.
The mechanisms outlined in the White Paper will assist in the
identification and development of suitably talented individuals
who will drive these reforms forward.
The MPS believes that there is scope for converging
the terms and conditions of employment of police staff and police
officers in the Service. Modernisation of the employment framework
should tackle the issue of equalising workforce conditions between
warranted officers and other staff. The service is currently required
to operate separate human resource systems for police officers
and police staff, which do not assist a culture of integration
and shared effort.
The MPS supports the principle of direct entry
to the service at various levels and the removal of requirements
that minimum amounts of time have to be served in any given rank.
The recruitment of flexible, able leaders who have been attracted
to the service through different points of entry, appropriate
to the nature of the challenges they will face, provided they
have the requisite skills, is supported. However, the MPS firmly
believes that this proposal must be accompanied by reform of the
police pension system, allowing pension portability to encourage
able officers to leave, gain experience in other sectors and return.
CHAPTER 5—ENSURING
EFFECTIVENESS
The MPS thinks that the National Policing Plan
should be an enabling framework that provides for as much room
as possible for creative local solutions rather than a prescriptive
list of activities which does not necessarily place due emphasis
on the issues that are of importance to local communities. Over-emphasis
of the national dimension at the cost of the confidence of local
communities in the willingness or ability of local police commanders
to commit resources to what matters to them is likely to be counterproductive
in terms of community engagement.
The key to the introduction of earned autonomy
in policing is in the target-setting regime under which the police
service operates. The concept is unlikely to be successful without
a reduction in the number of centrally-applied targets. Only then
can effective floor standards be set for national performance,
which in turn leave room for the local target setting which characterises
real community engagement.
The MPS sees a lighter touch inspection regime
as complementary to the introduction of earned autonomy. This
concept is entirely consistent with the introduction of local
accountability mechanisms, reducing the requirement for more general
inspections. Autonomy will not be something worth achieving if
it is accompanied by an accountability regime which is bureaucratic
and backward-looking.
The MPS views on powers of inspection and intervention,
the proposed National Policing Improvement Agency, the Police
Standards Unit and the HMIC have been fully set out in previous
submissions to the Committee.
The proposed review of the partnership provisions
of the Crime and Disorder Act is an activity to which the MPS
will wish to make a full contribution in due time. Joint inspection
processes and accountability mechanisms that cut across organisational
boundaries and promote true partnership working are crucial to
success in the future.
The MPS is seeking clarification from the Home
Office over the provisions relating to membership of police authorities
and the powers of the police authority with a view to establishing
which of the proposals are intended to apply to the MPA.
CONCLUSION
Once again, the MPS is grateful for the opportunity
to contribute to the Home Affairs Committee's consideration of
the modernisation process. In due course it will make a full response
to the Home Office, including detailed observations on the contents
of the White Paper.
29 November 2004
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