MPA response to HMIC report on policing public protest

26 November 2009

The MPA welcomed the publication of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary’s (HMIC) report ‘Adapting to Protest’ on 25 November 2009. At its core lies the issue of how we expect the British police to respond to the legitimate right of the public to protest.

The British public has the inalienable right to protest peacefully, while the police need to balance this against the important duty to maintain public order and safety. The work undertaken by HMIC has made recommendations that provided a clear direction for change. The detailed implications for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) will need to be embedded into operational police practice and the MPA will expect the Commissioner and his senior management team to report progress to members at future full Authority meetings.

In response to genuine public concern raised by events at the London G20 protests, the MPA has already established a Civil Liberties Panel as part of Met Forward, the Authority’s mission statement for the MPS. The panel is conducting a review of public order policing and has already gathered evidence from members of the public, civil liberties and campaigning groups to seek a balanced view of how the police need to adapt to accommodate legitimate protest.

HMIC’s endorsement of police authority oversight of policing protest is a welcome recognition of the real value of independent scrutiny administered in the name of local communities.

MPA Vice Chair Kit Malthouse, speaking next week at the MPS’s ‘International Public Order Conference’, will reiterate the fundamental concept that the police should facilitate peaceful protest, and outline the MPA’s determination to ensure that public order policing evolves in the light of the public and media scrutiny that followed the G20 summit in April.

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