Examination of Witnesses (Questions 133
- 159)
TUESDAY 11 MARCH 2008
MR LEN
DUVALL AND
MR PAUL
STEPHENSON
Q133 Chairman: Mr Duvall, Mr Stephenson,
we are extremely grateful to you for coming to give evidence to
us today. As you know, we are conducting an inquiry into policing
in the 21st century, and I am very keen to start by asking you
about community engagement and the expectation of the police.
What exercises do you currently undertake in order to engage with
local communities?
Mr Duvall: There are a number
of exercises. The Metropolitan Police Service do a number themselves
at borough level in territorial policing, that is where we work
with London boroughs; jointly with Council they conduct consultation
exercises in producing local policing plans; they have Safer Neighbourhood
Team panels that develop key individuals in neighbourhoods who
they contact and talk to and use as sounding boards, and there
is a panel of individuals that they bring together to talk about
what the local policing plan on the neighbourhood that is developed
over a period of time. They talk to local councillorsthey
are not part of the panels but they do liaise with local councillors
about issues that are occurring within their neighbourhoods. We
have a borough-wide mechanism that the Metropolitan Police Authority
funds called the Legacy of the Scarman Era of Consultative Groups
which we still retain and we are in the process of modernising
in terms of the 21st century recognising not just holding the
police to account but also the executive role of councils. We
run London-wide consultation exercises; we are in the process
of doing one across the 32 London boroughs about our asset property
portfolio, and in the Metropolitan Police Authority itself we
do a number of scrutinies, more recently the one on counter-terrorism
involving every aspect of the community and how they feel about
counter-terrorism, and more recently one about youth engagement,
a very substantial exercise probably involving over a thousand
odd people coming through the doors.
Q134 Chairman: That sounds pretty
extensive. Do you feel you are currently meeting the expectations
of the people of London?
Mr Duvall: I think as a Police
Authority and at the Metropolitan Police Service in terms of all
the survey work and the surveys carried out by others we retain
the general confidence of the people in London about policing
aspects. There are issues in communities where sometimes we have
to regain their confidence, and certain incidences cause that
to happen. We work hard at doing that. We know generally in terms
of protecting Londoners that, much as we are the No 1 agency in
tackling crime in its many forms, from graffiti and everything
in between to counter-terrorism which we do both London-wide,
nationally, and internationally, we do everything in between,
that is what Londoners expect us to do, and basically people on
the whole think that we are doing a pretty good job. We are not
complacent about that and we enjoy very high confidence levels
in doing that, but there are other ways we can check and test
that. We are concerned; that is why I think the emphasis in the
21st century is about citizen focus; we have a mission I am constantly
exhorting, and the senior management team are in agreement, to
explain how we police, without giving the game away, to those
who want to cause misery and mayhem to their communities; we have
a mission to explain what we do and how we do it, if you come
into contact with us, to make sure the public is on side.
Mr Stephenson: Just to set the
context here I will start off by agreeing with my Chair, which
is obviously a good thing to do, that we can do a lot better and
that is our intention, but if you look at what we are doing at
this moment in time and at the very extensive British Crime Survey
work that is taking place, and our own public attitude survey
work, virtually across the board there is an increase in confidence
and satisfaction, and that means we are doing something significantly
different. So it is important to set that in context. But even
where we have got to it does not mean to say it is where we ought
to be in the future. Historically the Metropolitan Police Service
has been seen as being very good at delivering on very big jobs,
and we have a good record on that, but the Commissioner is on
record as saying when we break it down into individual contact
we are not always guaranteed to be quite as good, and that is
the big mission for the Met, to make sure those daily contacts
match the same quality as we deliver on the big jobs. The survey
work would indicate there is a significant improvement but we
have some way to go.
Q135 Mr Streeter: London is obviously
a great capital city; we have the 2012 Olympics coming up; you
are on the front line for the fight against terrorism. Have we
the right structures in place, and is there sufficient capacity
to overcome these particular challenges?
Mr Duvall: The structures are
beginning to take shape. Certainly inside the Metropolitan Police
Service those structures are there. Government is reorganising
their bits so they are interfaced with us. It is not just the
Olympics that year; there are a number of other significant events
that will be considerable challenges. From the policing point
of view and in terms of this period leading up to the events the
planning and testing for different scenarios is very important,
but for us we still need to deliver policing in the capital, in
your neighbourhoods, and in the other policing areas in terms
of it being affected by Olympic events. So we have to chew gum
and walk at the same time, as well as protecting people during
this significant eventing issue. Albeit we are going to have to
shift the resources around, from the policing point of view we
need to do that from a common sense approach. We have learnt many
lessons since 9/11 about responses to tragedies around moving
police officer assets; we have certainly learnt different lessons
in public order, the last one where we were severely tested was
Heathrow Airport where we needed to have the capacity to move
police officers from their local locations to meet potential challenges,
and we think we did that with common sense without ordinary people
suffering from a lack of police response.
Mr Stephenson: I think we have
the right structure for this moment in time but the idea that
structure should last for ever is fallacious, and I am sure you
would agree. We have made recent changes to structure in recent
times; I think the Chair has referred to it. We have made significant
changes to our counter-terrorism command. We used to have an SO12
and SO13 which was the Intelligence and the Executive action separately.
We are now quite clear that that was a structure fit for the past
but not for today and we have moved to SO15, a much more dynamic,
combined structure. So we have amended that to fit with the new
terrorist challenge. We are currently, again with the Police Authority,
looking at the structure of the Met in terms of central support.
I think we can make some significant savings there. We have to
rationalise the way we do business; we have to bring together
our financial planning and organisational planning into a seamless
piece that means we can save some resources and produce a better
product. So we have to constantly look at our structures. The
one thing we are clear on, and if the Commissioner was here today
I think he would want to make this point, is that the structure
that the Met has indicates it is already a regional police service,
and the overlaying of delivery of day-to-day policing in the boroughs
and the greater empowerment of those borough commanders is hugely
important and we are wholly committed to it, but, in the absence
of an overlaying of a wider structure to bring in those extra
specialist departments and requirements to deal with the more
serious end of crime, keeping that together as a cohesive whole
is very important to the policing of London.
Q136 Mr Clappison: On funding, which
you have just touched upon, I have to say the whole subject of
police funding is not one I find readily comprehensively and I
am not sure many others do either, but the Mayor of London has
said that the application of a police funding formula as recommended
by Sir Ronnie Flanagan would have a negative effect on the policing
in London. What is your reaction to that?
Mr Duvall: There are a couple
of issues around funding. My background is in local government
--
Q137 Mr Clappison: You might understand
it better than me, then!
Mr Duvall: It is a bit like SSAs,
no one understood that but it did become more transparent as it
was developed and if you wanted to understand how you got to the
final pounds, shillings and pence, then you could, providing you
had a whole year to do it and got there and you could challenge
or not challenge. The issue for us about formula funding, of course,
is that we will always want more money; there always will be a
cap on that money that we can have. At the moment, if the floor
is taken away from Metropolitan Police Service there would be
severe doubt, it would have to be replaced, and that poses all
sorts of problems to central Government because it would have
to be a London formula, so I am reconciled to the issues that
the protectionism we get is appropriate. The second point I would
make about any funding we receive, because we receive funding
in a number of waysthe core grant and additional grants
for issues like counter terrorismis please give us some
certainty and come in to enable us to plan more effectively, because
I think with those non-specific grants it is a matter of having
some certainty of when you are going to take a decision rather
than delay it, carry it over to the new year, give us it in the
autumn if it is reasonable, let us then plan to the budget, and
that is more important to us at this moment in time.
Q138 Mr Clappison: You know this
well from what you are saying. Do you think within the constraints
of the present system it would be possible for Government to give
you more certainty?
Mr Duvall: Sometimes it is difficult
for Government. They have their own timetable which does not always
fit into a London timetable, either a mayoral or pre-set timetable
that we have to respond to through statutory issues. I think with
a bit of goodwill we could. Nobody gets out of bed to make life
difficult for each other. Sometimes their timetable is obviously
more important than ours. We can get there and get some planning
around that. It is the same with Olympic grants. Paul and his
colleagues need to do the job, they give you their best shots,
but we need some certainty about the money and issues around that
so we can get on and plan, and we are getting there with that
money. We have recently had it; it would have been nice if it
was a bit earlier, but the interface we have with government needs
to be sharpened and more focused if we are going to do a good
job. We always do the best job we can in the time available, but
it is that certainty to be able to get on and plan and take the
decisions they need to take in terms of delivering that response
you require.
Q139 Mrs Dean: The Metropolitan Police
Authority was judged to be performing only adequately by the Audit
Commission in terms of the use of resources. Do you think this
was a fair assessment?
Mr Duvall: Adequately? I think
you have to look at it over a period of time. I have been in the
job for four years and I value the Audit Commission and their
comments and what they measure against. Someone likened it to
an exam, are the right questions being asked and are we giving
the right responses? The Metropolitan Police Service has 175 years
of history; normally it has been always working to the Home Office.
There is anecdotal information of how it received its estimates
at that time. One thing that has been beneficial with the new
governance arrangements in London is that it is much more transparent.
If I told you in the year 2000 what my predecessor Toby Harris
had to deal with, as well as senior colleagues in the Met, I am
used to a local government background in terms of the arrangements
but we never had any accountants, I think we probably only had
one in the entire Met at that time, and we needed to make our
arrangements fit and proper for the 20th century, never mind the
21st century. Over the eight years, year on year, you have seen
some good things also said by the Audit Commission who has said
there has been some good performance. There are still areas I
am not happy with and that the Commissioner and Paul is not happy
with, but I am expecting that to improve and I think we can do
another step change in those issues. I am confident now about
aligning the planning process with the resource process, and confident
that we have some of the structures there that we would recognise
in a local government setting, and the Audit Commission are confident
about some of those structures and procedures. There are problems
but we have identified some of those. The famous Amex exposure
was one that we found rather than was found for us, and we took
the corrective action and still take corrective action around
those issues. So I am confident that we are getting better at
it but I am not complacent, and certainly we are working hard
for it and I hope in the coming year to give a different slant
on some of those issues.
Q140 Mrs Cryer: How does the Met
respond to Sir Ronnie Flanagan's proposal for workforce modernisation,
and can I specifically ask, because it has been drawn to my attention
recently by members of the West Yorkshire force, about better
working options to attract women and ethnic minorities?
Mr Stephenson: Starting with the
specific, whilst again there is much more to be done, if we look
at our current recruiting, particularly for BEM population, in
year we are currently recruiting, I think I am right in saying,
something like 21%, and I think 30% are females, which is a significant
improvement on previous yearsprobably unimaginable improvement
if you turn the clock back maybe three or four years. We are doubling
our rate in numbers of BEM background within the Met. The problem
we have is we are a huge organisation and turning round the supertanker
and getting ratios to hit the high mark is a long road, so I think
the best measure is the in-year rate and the in-year rate is a
significant improvement. So we are doing a huge amount around
that. I would also say that our own HR department within the Met
has been the recipient of numerous awards in terms of innovation
and imagination to try and improve on this critical area. In terms
of the wider question of Sir Ronnie Flanagan's reforms, we have
responded positively and are already doing many things that Sir
Ronnie anticipated we should be doing in terms of looking more
flexibly and imaginatively at how we use our resources. We must
do more in the future because we are facing constrained financial
times, and the growth we have enjoyed in recent years has come
to an end and we are going to have to make much better use of
our resource, so we have to be even more imaginative in the future,
but we are approaching that positively. What we would like to
see, and this is where we share in West Yorkshire's ambition,
is ever more flexibility allowed to us in the way in which we
can employ a workforce that matches London's needs.
Q141 Mrs Cryer: So you think that
the flexible working, et cetera, that you have in place now is
sufficient to keep your officers with you rather than finishing
after a few years?
Mr Stephenson: We have a very
good retention rate, compared with anybody within the industry
and policing outside, and something we are proud of. Of course,
we always want to make it better. If I say it is not a problem,
comparatively it is not a problem at this moment in time. If you
ask me am I satisfied there is nothing more we can do? No, of
course there is more we can do, but we are pushing the boundaries
of the envelope now, and I think we have to keep researching and
being more innovative.
Mr Duvall: I think it is quite
clear that people are changing their attitude towards the police
service as a career of choice, particularly women and BEM communities.
There is a problem with recruitment, slow down is a problem in
some ways, but there are some wider issues here. There is flexibility
and we are a sensitive employer, and I think we are a premier
employer, and I am happy to provide further details in terms of
what we do and do not do, but there are wider issues here and
principles about policing. Warranted police officers are important,
we would all agree, but the shape of policing in the future, and
we need to give some confidence to our community and we need to
explain this, is that also PCSOs are an important part of policing
now, and if I go to the other side most senior officers and borough
commanders will say their support staff are. They are all crime
fighters; they just do different jobs. The issue for the 21st
century is that we all say we want to put policing on the street
and I want to put visibility on our streets, but the front line
in policing may not be on our streets, it may well be behind a
desk, and I think we have to have a bit more of a mature approach
about what we try to do. But the issue is using that resource,
and we are a labour intensive resource which is why policing costs
so much at this moment in time. You have addressed some of these
issues in past meetings, and how people are paid and viewed and
valued about their work is very important, and they are allied
and cannot be separated. In general, we are looking at some of
the efficiencies of how you deploy those resources, but equally,
and we have both been on public platforms and said this, in the
21st century we seek to remain an unarmed police force. I know
it is very difficult in central London to think that is the case,
but only 10% of our police officers are generally armed and even
with trends as they are and despite all the interest from the
press, that is an important principle we should seek to retain,
professionally and from a police officer point of view.
Q142 Chairman: Why did it take Sir
Ronnie to tell us there was too much red tape? Surely this was
something that officers at a local level could have been involved
in at an earlier stage.
Mr Stephenson: I think Sir Ronnie's
addition to the debate has been hugely valuable but I think even
he would turn round and say it did not need him to tell us that
was the case. A number of people in policing already recognised
that, and a number already recognised Sir Ronnie's point concerning
risk aversion. I myself as Chief Constable in Lancashire six years
ago made a series of speeches to my own people saying: "If
you are well-recruited, well-intentioned and well-trained and
you think something should be done, I want you to get on with
it". So I do not think Sir Ronnie necessarily would say that
he came up with it first, but he made a huge addition to that
debate by highlighting it and giving it added impetus.
Q143 Martin Salter: As a Thames Valley
MP a lot of my colleagues have concerns about recruitment, and
we heard from Boris Johnson earlier that he felt there was no
problem with recruitment to the Met and you have just said there
is a problem with the slowing down of recruitment. Can you expand
on that?
Mr Duvall: The trouble is there
is an issue that even with slow down of recruitment you can be
caught out if you have a rush of people leaving, and one of our
issues in the coming years and leading up to the Olympics is retaining
people with experiences and people who have choices. At the moment
it is not a problem but I need to be mindful that some of the
work we have been able to undertake in the Metropolitan Police
Service is because we have been recruiting up to a number. John
Stevens initially said it was 35,000; we have a mix now in the
police service with just over 31,000, which is the highest it
has ever been in its entire history, with the PCSOs at just under
4,000 I think. The question then for us is we are seeing some
results from the ground. Much as we may have doubts there are
trends happening around reductions in crime or increased reporting
where young people have more confidence, and we want to go out
and encourage that and not beat people up if they are coming forward
to report issues. There is something happening in our community
and we need to drive it further down. What is making the difference?
It has to be about some of the investment in Safer Neighbourhood
Teams where we have done survey work and seen that driven down;
it has to be about some of the work that communities are doing
themselves and local councils are helping us do that and other
agencies; there is something going on here. We have not quite
got to the bottom of it but it is going in the right direction.
We can all talk about the flaws in the different recording aspects
but there is a general direction in the right way, so we need
to build on that. On recruitment issues, everyone knows the debate
is can you get more out of police officers used in a certain way
and getnot more for less, I am not suggesting Boris is
saying that, but is there a different way of using them. That
is his argument. My argument is London is slightly special; we
need to make sure we keep the numbers up; we need to see how we
are using those, but certainly I am very mindful of what it means
to boroughs in the outer area. I have had conversations with the
Chief Constable Thames Valley; I have spoken to Police Authority
members, and it makes no sense for us to dilute outer London regions,
but the issue is there always will be choice in the employment
market. We are not offering any major incentives except for the
Inner London allowance and the travel pass, and we have to work
with those police authorities and police services to try and minimise
the impact on any recruitment exercises we undertake.
Mr Stephenson: There is one particular
point I wanted to make in response to Mrs Cryer's previous question
around the issue of how we have responded to Ronnie Flanagan's
workforce modernisation. We are very positive about that but I
think all forces would say, but particularly in London, that we
need to be bearing in mind the resilience of police officers,
because when something happens we need to put fully trained police
officers on the street. So there has to be a balance between modernisation
and the retention of visible, skilled police officers who can
do the business when the business needs to be done.
Q144 Martin Salter: Getting back
to recruitment, you will be aware of the lobby from the forces
surrounding London and of the figures that Sara Thornton, Chief
Constable of the Thames Valley has put forward. Over the last
five years not only have we lost one thousand officers to the
Met but it has cost something like £11 million to recruit
and replace specialist officers. Obviously it is not in the interests
of the Met to displace crime just outside its border because it
still becomes a regional problem, no one is arguing that the Met
should not have the additional cost of the living allowance, but
do you accept that there is clearly a much too stark cliff edge
in remuneration between those officers who are serving just outside
the Metropolitan Police area boundaries and those officers serving
in it?
Mr Duvall: I would not want to
make a Balkanisation case for extending the London policing boundaries,
but I do accept there is a cost to training a specialist that
is there. It is not for me to verify those figures that have been
produced, and I do accept that in terms of our recruitment we
cannot have a Do Not Care policy. Criminals do not need boundaries,
and we need to work hard with each other to understand each other's
needs and see if there are some issues that do not work against
what we are all trying to do, but I think it is ultimately for
Government to look at those funding issues, if there are funding
issues.
Mr Stephenson: There is little
doubt, one has to be fair, that the range of opportunities, particularly
at the high and specialist level, are very attractive to police
officers, but there is also little doubt that there is a two-way
flow and some people do go back, and there is an opportunity for
forces to gain from experience in the fairly unique environment
in the Met. Our advertising will continue in a controlled manner,
through a combination of marketing events, hosted on MPS premises,
and in police publications.
But I do not think we should ignore the fact
that there is a two-way flow and there is no particular campaign
to target a particular constabulary such as Thames Valley, but
I do accept the attractiveness of the Metropolitan Police Service
at the high and specialist level.
Mr Clappison: Chairman, may I say that
Mr Salter speaks for me on this. We are in agreement.
Chairman: Excellent!
Q145 David Davies: I spoke within
the last ten days to a constable in the British Transport Police
who applied to the Met, was told the Met were not recruiting for
a number of years, applied to the British Transport Police and
was told informally by the Inspector in the Met that once he had
done his training he would be very welcome, nudge, nudge, wink,
wink, to reapply to the Met and he could be sure that a place
would be found for him. So there seems to be anecdotal evidence
that the Metropolitan Police are not happy to take on the cost
of training constables, but are very happy to recruit them in
from other forces.
Mr Stephenson: If you look at
the figures in our record we are very heavy initial recruiters
and we do bring in a certain level of experience, but it is not
something that you would anticipate is anything other than proportionate
to the need. I think we have heavily recruited around the counter
terrorism requirement; one would expect us to do that. We have
the lead for counter terrorism along with a number of forces in
this country; therefore you would expect us to make sure we attracted
and gave opportunities to people across the country to give of
their best in a specialised area of work, but that is a special
case. We are heavy recruiters at the initial recruitment phase.
We are also heavy recruiters into policing from our own PCSO base,
because that has been a huge success, particularly when we look
at black and ethnic minority recruitment.
Mr Duvall: On the question of
whether we are moving away from our residential training to do
more flexible training on the job in surrounding areas, can I
just say that we will not ever have a policy of doing it on the
cheap or letting someone else take the responsibility. That is
not in our policy making, and certainly it would never meet our
recruitment needs.
Q146 Chairman: Are you disappointed
that in the last four years you have not appointed a black or
Asian senior officer to the Met? We heard the Mayor earlier on
saying it takes time, but in terms of 21st century policing, surely
we should be appointing more senior police officers who are from
the ethnic minority communities?
Mr Duvall: My background and inclination
is to appoint people if they are of sufficient calibre. There
are men and women in BEM community who I am obviously very willing
to appoint and promote. On ACPO ranks we have had a number of
Commander appointments, which is where the majority are coming
through. Certainly I have appointed senior women in the last four
years to senior positions in the Met; I do not think it is too
far away for us to see an Assistant Commissioner position going
to a woman, there are people coming through the processes: I do
not think it is too far away to see other senior black and ethnic
minority groupings coming into those ACPO ranks. We have in the
Met the most senior Assistant Commissioner in the country with
considerable expertise and we utilise that where we can. We do
engage with the staff representative groups and the Police Association,
and we are working that through.
Q147 Chairman: But is there a shortage
of candidates? Because you have recruited more, have you not?
Are they not applying? What is the reason, Mr Stephenson?
Mr Stephenson: We start from a
much improved base, as we have indicated, and there is a fair
point here, that once you start heavily recruiting at the base
that will take some time to come through, but also it is a fair
challenge. Are we getting the success coming through at the speed
we want? It is starting to happen but we are encouraged by the
Metropolitan Police Authority to be much more active in our talent
management and in our interventions to ensure we get that representation
coming through, and to ensure we have at some stage in the future
a picture that we are proud of right the way through all of the
ranks. It is significantly improving but it will take some time.
Q148 Mr Clappison: Do you have the
feeling that that is something which is going to happen and, given
what you said about appointing people on the basis of calibre,
when it does happen we can all celebrate and say these people
have reached the top on the basis of their calibre and there will
be no question of anything else?
Mr Duvall: A lot of mischief-making
has been done in the past. All people will receive their promotions
on that basis and are very proud of their own achievements. It
is a significant achievement to achieve high office in the Metropolitan
Police Service. I am very much taken when I come across people
newly promoted from the BEM community because it is not just for
them; it has a wider significance in their community, and they
are very proud of that.
Mr Stephenson: Reducing standards
would do no one any favours.
Chairman: Thank you. David Winnick has
questions on counter-terrorism.
Q149 Mr Winnick: The Metropolitan
Police Authority, which, of course, you chair had two reports
which were very critical indeed about Stop and Search. One of
the reports, Counter-terrorism: The London Debate, said
that Stop and Search is doing untold damage to certain communities.
I am not sure if Counter-terrorism: The London Debate is
actually Metropolitan Police Authority, but the Metropolitan Police
Authority report on Stop and Search was very critical as well,
and said it increased the level of distrust in the police and
created deeper racial and ethnic tensions against the police.
What is being done to try and avoid the sort of situations described
in those two reports?
Mr Duvall: Both those reports
are very balanced and are raising issues that have been pointed
out to us in the various scrutinies we have held. Right from the
very beginning, before I had my position, the issues at the forefront
have been around Stop and Search, Stop and Account post-Lawrence,
and the development of that, based on an original scrutiny back
in the first term in 2000. What is the Authority's position, and
what steps can we take? By and large, we should be proud of our
young people. If you read the press you think most of them are
committing crimes; they are not. Most are likely to be victims.
Young people, black and white, say: "We do not mind more
Stop and Search but can you explain to us why you are doing it,
why we are being asked to account and being searched, and also
can you please do it with respect?" And that is the issue.
Stop and Search is a very valuable tool in policing, I am quite
clear about that, and I had that view before I took this position
as a local government leader. If it can save lives in terms of
knife crime it must be important, and young people who were there
before are many of the people questioning the issues. The issue
of counter-terrorism stops has been much more interesting because
the Metropolitan Police Service are not the only ones who carry
out that power in London; there are other agencies like the British
Transport Police, the Ministry of Defence, also doing it. Like
all toolsand I think I represent the views of my Authoritysometimes
we have used the blanket anti-terrorism stop as a way of keeping
public order that has not quite brought the body into disrepute
but has caused it to be significantly questioned. Equally, however,
Stop and Search/Stop and Account is around places which we know
terrorists are looking at and targeting through their surveillance
and preparation issues and has almost certainly saved lives. The
question then is what we need to do, and what we have been doing
is, firstly, telling people their rights, which I think is appropriate
in the circumstances; secondly, that if they feel they have been
unjustly stopped explaining how they can raise these issues, or
if they have a complaint where they can raise that; and we have
highlighted, certainly through the counter-terrorism debate that
we have promoted, the importance of why the police need to do
this activity to ensure that if they feel aggrieved that they
are being persecuted for the fifth, fourth, or tenth time, there
are mechanisms where we can track that and see what the circumstances
were at the time or will be in the future. By and large I think
the training that the Metropolitan Police Service has undertaken
is good but we need to improve on it. Most Stop and Search or
Stop and Accounts at borough level are intelligence-led and not
at someone's discretion, but I do think it is important to stand
up and say that police officers do need to have discretion sometimes
and make a judgment call. But by and large in the boroughs it
is intelligence-led and mostly, on counter-terrorism issues, it
is around areas of activity that we know terrorists are looking
at.
Q150 Mr Winnick: Let's be blunt about
this, Mr Duvall. Just as, when terrorism was being organised by
the IRA and the suspicion was that the people who could possibly
be involved were of Irish origin, the overwhelming majority of
Irish people were against terrorism, terrorism now comes from
that section of the Muslim communitynot even a sectionwhich
is totally unrepresentative of the Muslim community in London
and in the country as a whole, and surely the police have this
dilemma, recognising this is where terrorism is coming from, and
what are they to do but to try and stop what they believe could
possibly be very dangerous people wanting to take as many lives
as possible?
Mr Stephenson: Everything in my
professional background, and I entirely agree with Len on this,
tells me that with Stop and Search the issue is more often how
you do it, not what you do. That is really the key issue and it
has been throughout my entire professional career. Generally around
Section 44, counter-terrorism stops, there is a real need to keep
the way we use it and the need for it under close review. My professional
view at the moment is quite simply that it is a balanced, very
useful, protective tool around certain parts of our environment
to stop aggressive planning, and indications are that that particular
tool adds to our armoury and potentially can save us from attack.
That is a professional view at this moment in time but it does
need to be kept under careful review. At the end of your question
I think you were referring to the possibility of profiling, stopping
people on the basis of terrorism coming from a certain section
of the community and anybody who looks like they come from that
section must be stopped. It is not a very smart tactic to do that
because the enemy will simply turn round and decide to use people
who do not look like that, and it would be a huge mistake to go
down the profiling route. We have to be intelligence-led where
we can be, but we should look at our infrastructure to put in
protective regimes, and that is what we try to do. On balance
professionally it is still worth doing it, but I think we have
to be careful.
Q151 Mr Winnick: Finally, insofar
as those two reports which I quoted were so critical of Stop and
Search, how confident are both of you that progress is being made
which would avoid the very sharp criticism which your own Authority
made?
Mr Duvall: I am very confident
because the processes of keeping it under review are there, rooted
within the Authority; I am confident that senior managers such
as Paul and the rest of the management team are sensitive to these
issues; and if you go into a London borough our senior commanders
are there. It is like all tools given to the police. If they are
used appropriately and properly then they are effective tools
at fighting crime. This goes back to regaining the confidence
of communities, and in that sense I am confident that we can keep
these under review; that we are mature enough to recognise if
it is going adrift; that we can follow the stats and the trends
in those stats, and take corrective action, and I think we are
in a position to do that. Just going back to profiling, anybody
who says they can do a profile of a terrorist only needs to look
within the criminal justice system at those brought to book, either
those who pleaded guilty or those who were found guilty, and it
is very difficult. I keep reminding people of this in public,
and they keep saying to me: "It is that group of people over
there", and actually it is not; it is a reflection of all
our communities. If you look at the number of people brought to
justice we have had white, African, Asianacross the spectrum,
and that is why it is difficult to profile.
Mr Stephenson: There is a really
important issue here that we, Government, all agencies, have to
pick up on, which is this. You asked the question: How confident
can we be that we are getting the message through? We are doing
huge amounts more. The Metropolitan Police Authority-led London
debate actually came up with recommendations around youth boards
and female boards to get the communication system better. What
we have to do to be more effective is communicate much more with
key communities about what counter-terrorism is about, what are
the processes we use, what are the inevitabilities, come and try
it, come and engage in some of our exercises and see for yourself
how the decisions are made. We have to build up confidence in
advance of incidents, because the idea of just sharing intelligence
around incidents is much more difficult. We have to build up confidence
in the systems, processes and people, and that is the challenge
for us all.
Q152 Mr Streeter: Sir Ronnie had
quite a lot to say about governance issues. What would you do
to improve the accountability of local authorities?
Mr Duvall: I think there are some
issues around the visibility of police authorities generally,
although the Metropolitan Police Authority could do with being
out of the limelight after recent months. I think there is a case
for invisibility for them! My own view is about clarity of structure.
Here in London we are specialand I do not say that with
arrogance, or say that we are any different because the challenges
in the rest of the country are just as challengingbut there
are two shareholders who influence policing in London, who are
the Government and the Mayor through his precepts and budgeting.
Any Mayor that takes office will have a great influencing role.
The Metropolitan Police Authority sets the trend and the strategic
direction, and the new power that the Mayor will have when he
takes office will be that he will be able to appoint his own chair
of the Police Authority; I am currently elected by the Police
Authority. If you did away with the Police Authority you would
have to replace it. If the issue is about transparency and about
engagement in a mission, we explain that in public. I think we
have provided added value in London and I do believe police authorities
provide added value to policing outside, but it does need to be
done appropriately. We have got a balance; we are not in each
other's pockets; we can work together, and there are very few
areas where we disagreethere have been some but by and
large it works well in London. We need to be closer to local government,
and I do not wish to take any decisions about fragmentation of
the police service but I do believe that with local democratic
leadership and working crime and disorder partnerships we should
be able to offer a different type of service to them, and we want
them to utilise the existing powers they have in terms of working
closer with us. So that is what we are working on where you will
see some changes in London, and we will be working much more closely
with some agencies on localism, and we will unveil those ideas
post May, and they have broad consensus across the political parties
in London.
Q153 Ms Buck: Mr Livingstone earlier
made reference to Ronnie Flanagan's comments about the police
being risk averse. What do you feel about that particular comment,
and what are the Met doing in response to those comments?
Mr Duvall: You can imagine with
some of the incidents and some of the tragedies we have had to
deal with that issue is uppermost in the minds of police and professionals.
We have had discussions in the Police Authority about risk averse
issues, and we have had also the famous Morris Report talking
about how we deal with HR issues and how black and ethnic minorities
felt about discipline processes, and about what was happening.
It was not so much that people were being racist; they just did
not want to deal with it, so they were not taking the risk and
managing properly the smaller issues that may have been dealt
with lower down. Those were the findings that we all agreed in
the end in terms of responses. We have to set in train some processes
and actions here so that in an operational environment, when they
come to make judgments, they have take those without looking over
their shoulders. That does not mean they should not be held accountable
for their issues or we should be above the law, but there are
certain circumstances where we can send the wrong signals in terms
of operational policing issues and in terms of how we want people
to manage or deal with the media, and increasingly with some of
those issues it is not that police officers are frightened about
circumstances but there is the potential for issues to run and
run if the wrong thing is said in the media, or at different operational
levels, and this means we do not get the best out of policing,
and that is the issue that Ronnie is trying to get across. It
is cultural, it is about leadership and about training. We do
not want people running around thinking they are not accountable
to the people they serve because they are servants of the people,
but equally we need to give back some confidence. Some of the
foundations laid after the Lawrence Inquiry for John Stevens were
important and we made a number of changes in the way the policing
took place then; I think we have seen that in terms of the other
issues we have; but it is something we need to keep uppermost
in our minds.
Mr Stephenson: If I may say so,
I entirely agree with Sir Ronnie. I also agree with his analysis
that sometimes it has come about because of external influence,
but occasionally because of the way we have responded to external
influence and over-egged the pudding sometimes. It seems to me
it is about professional police leadership and we have to internally
redress that; but what Sir Ronnie has usefully done is brought
the debate right out into the open because that debate also has
to be had with the stakeholder groups who hold us to account and
investigate us, to understand there is a wider context here.
Q154 Bob Russell: Mr Stephenson,
it will be four years next month since the first Safer Neighbourhood
Teams based in wards were set up in London, and I understand that
by April 2006 all 630 were up and running with one police sergeant,
two police constables and three Police Community Support Officers.
Now, this has been rolled out across London, what impact has there
been for the benefit of Londoners and those of us visiting London,
and what more needs to be done to embed neighbourhood policing?
Mr Stephenson: There is little
doubt it significantly contributes to what I was referring to
earlier, the real increase in confidence and satisfaction, although
there is more to be done. Safer Neighbourhood Teams have been
key to bringing about that improvement, and I think it is right
to say that in our most similar force grouping, which is the way
we measure this, confidence in local policing is right at the
very top, and that is something we are very proud of but which
could get better. It has also had an impact on the crime figures.
There is huge debate about the crime figures but whichever figures
you look at, British Crime Survey or our police recorded figures,
and you should not take one in isolation from the other, there
are significant reductions, so it has had an impact there as well.
Q155 Bob Russell: And, for a Government
that likes school league tables, have we got league tables for
Safer Neighbourhood Teams? The "Safer Neighbourhood Team
of the Year" award?
Mr Stephenson: I am not keen on
league tables --
Q156 Bob Russell: Nor am I, but I
was just wondering.
Mr Stephenson: -- but what I am
keen on is recognising the fact that there are some places in
London where the Safer Neighbourhood Teams are beyond good; beyond
anything we ever imagined they were going to be. They are so outstanding.
There are some places where they are not quite as good and we
have to be clearer and cleverer at ensuring we bring everywhere
up to higher standards. We are also rolling out Safer Neighbourhood
Teams, and will roll out additional Safer Neighbourhood Teams
where the wards are substantially bigger; there is an experiment
going out about 24/7 in Hammersmith & Fulham Safer Neighbourhood
Teams, and that has been evaluated, and clearly I will be very
keen on something like that but that entirely depends on resourcing.
What we now have to do is ensure we turn this very significant
capacity into real capability. We were talking earlier about counter-terrorism;
we have a potent opportunity in Safer Neighbourhoods now to embed
counter-terrorism right to the level where counter-terrorism should
be, and that is people working with communities who understand
what counter-terrorism policing should be about and understand
the need to support their neighbourhoods, and that is where we
should be developing Safer Neighbourhoods in the future.
Mr Duvall: The important issue
here is policing in that response alone, responding to a 999 call,
is not good enough for police, it is long-term problem solving
that Safer Neighbourhood Teams can do, and one of the tests of
their success is that if there is a critical incident in a neighbourhood
and you need other professionals the first port of call will be
a briefing from the Safe Neighbourhood Team on what is going on
in the area, what is the wider significance. Anyone who knows
policing knows it is very hard to get other professional specialists
to refer back to at an experimental, early development stage,
but it is bedding in, it is working, and the fact that they are
prepared to give credence to it is an important point.
Q157 Chairman: And giving the mobile
numbers of the local police officers is very important.
Mr Duvall: It is new. We know
people want to help. They do not want to spend hours on the phone
if they go through the main switchboard; they do not want to walk
into a police station where there may be other people doing other
things and have to report issues, so if we can separate off people
giving non-emergency information that can be important to solving
other crimes at certain times that is the key, and we have to
work hard at that publicity and make sure it is maintained.
Q158 Tom Brake: Mr Stephenson, could
I tempt you to look into the future again? Obviously you want
Safer Neighbourhood Teams to bed in but I think there is now evidence
from a number of borough commanders that Safer Neighbourhood Teams
have been so effective at reducing crime on their patch that there
is not much crime for them to deal with, and those borough commanders
might like to redeploy those resources in a different way. How
do you reconcile the need to see people on the ground, which is
something that local residents want, with what the borough commanders
are saying about how those resources could be more effectively
deployed to tackle crime on their patch?
Mr Stephenson: There should always
be a healthy tension between borough commanders and the centre,
and that way we can push each other into improvement, but I think
we have to learn from the lessons of history. I have had 33 years
of policing, and I have been party, in various other forces, to
a number of attempts to roll out neighbourhood, community policing,
and had been part of something that has not left me feeling very
proud because we have promised something one day and then taken
it away the next. We have given too much flexibility too quickly.
The success of the Safer Neighbourhood programme is due to the
fact that for once it has an academic base so we can evidence
improvements, and, secondly, there has been a disciplined approach
to keep the Safer Neighbourhood Team to doing what it said on
the tin in the first place.
Q159 Chairman: And where is the best
place for us to visit in London? The best performing area?
Mr Stephenson: I can let you have
a note but I will keep it secret because the rest will be very
annoyed if I say it out loud!
|