Community Police Engagement Groups – annual review

Report: 7
Date: 11 June 2009
By: Chief Executive

Summary

This report provides an overview of the Authority’s current provision for community engagement at borough level, which is delivered through the community police engagement groups (CPEGs). It provides information on the development of those groups in recent years and discusses possible future directions.

A. Recommendations

That

1. members note the report; and
2. agree to engage in further discussions on the future of CPEGs as part of the review of the community engagement strategy.

B. Supporting information

3. The Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) has a statutory obligation to consult with the people of London about policing matters. The relevant duties to this report are:

• Understanding Community Views on Policing - making arrangements, in consultation with the Commissioner, for obtaining the views of people in the area about matters concerning their policing [1].
• Consultation on Police Objectives – ensuring that in the development of annual policing objectives, the MPA has regard to issues raised in local consultative arrangements; that separate consultative arrangements are put in place by the Metropolitan Police Authority for each London Borough in consultation with its respective local authority [2].
• Crime and Disorder Partnerships – ensuring that local people’s views on crime and disorder reduction priorities are included in the development of local crime and disorder Strategic Assessments and in planning and implementing the crime and disorder partnership plan [3].
  Specifically, Section 96 of the Police Act 1996, as amended by the GLA Act 1999 states that:
  1. Arrangements shall be made for each police area for obtaining- (a) the views of people in that area about matters concerning the policing of the area, and (b) their co-operation with the police in preventing crime in that area.
  2. Except as provided by subsection (3) to (6), arrangements for each police area shall be made by the police authority after consulting the chief constable or, in the case of the metropolitan police district, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, as to the arrangements that would be appropriate.

4. The Authority undertakes its consultation duties in the context of the Government's wider public service reform and civil renewal programmes, in which the delivery of citizen focused public services continues to be a central feature. The Authority’s commitment to this is firmly stated in the joint MPA/MPS community engagement strategy (2006-09) and is reiterated in its strategic framework document, Met Forward.

5. The MPA/MPS community engagement strategy is built upon the premise that community engagement produces two main benefits; improved decision-making and enhanced citizenship, and these help to deliver service improvements that better reflect community needs, and greater accountability to the public, which supports the development of higher levels of trust and confidence.

6. The Authority commissioned a position paper on community engagement in 2005 (Hough & Jacobson), which set out the rationale for the community engagement strategy and identified the following short and long-term success criteria:

• Long-term success of community engagement
  • Greater public confidence in police competence
  • Reduced concern about crime and disorder
  • Greater public trust in police fairness and integrity
  • Greater public commitment to the rule of law
• Short-term success (intermediate outcomes)
  • Demonstrable changes in policing priorities
  • Demonstrable changes in policing tactics and styles
  • Consultation ‘products’ of practical value to police/CDRPs

7. This report considers the MPA’s primary arrangement for fulfilling its duties, this being to appoint a Community and Police Engagement Group (CPEGs) [4] in every borough.

8. The CPEGs, which have their origins in Lord Scarman’s Review (1982), are the primary local groups to enable the MPA/MPS community engagement and consultation programme. They are intended to provide the key local co-ordinating structure and forum in which local people can practically achieve the aims of the Community Engagement Strategy and support the development of citizen focused policing.

9. When the Authority was set up in 2000, these arrangements were transferred from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to the MPA and the Authority inherited a system of borough-level consultation that had developed organically and, although funded by the MPS, the groups had remained largely independent of scrutiny and oversight and had received little or no support in developing their role.

10. In 2000/01 the MPA and MPS conducted a Best Value Review of Consultation, which examined the MPA’s duties. Its findings supported the principle of borough level consultation, as opposed to pan-London mechanisms, but also identified concerns about the effectiveness of the CPEGs. The MPA accepted the recommendations to continue with borough consultative groups, giving them opportunity to develop under the MPA and to then review the situation again a sufficient period of time.

11. It is accepted that the initial relationship between the MPA and the groups was strained. The Authority’s attempt to introduce and raise minimum standards was met with suspicion and mistrust and was regarded as interfering with their independence. Over the course of time, the partnership between the MPA and the CPEGs has improved considerably and both parties have put a lot of effort into developing and driving forward the CPEG reform programme as laid out in the community engagement strategy.

12. The main objectives of the reform programme are for the CPEGs to be enabled to:

• deliver consultation and engagement as an integral part of local CDRP activity, providing a forum in which all partners – not just the police – can be accountable to the community
• engage with the emergence of safer neighbourhood policing and the associated ward based panels
• play a full part in the MPA’s strategic consultation at a pan-London level
• test and develop other models of engagement and innovative arrangements to reach out to, and involve, hard to reach communities

13. Paragraphs 17 to 31 outline progress in specific areas of the reform programme. Overall it can be demonstrated that CPEGs have developed through pursuit of the reform programme, that new models have emerged, innovation and good practice examples are available and that groups have improved their links and relevance to local partnership activity. Much of this change has been initiated from within the groups themselves.

14. More recently, the constructive relationship between the MPA and CPEGs, combined with the MPA’s establishment of a borough focused team, has helped to cement new processes, such as the service level agreements, and has promoted regular dialogue both at borough level and through LCP2, and has fostered a joint understanding of key issues, such as inclusive engagement and outreach.

15. The MPA’s community engagement objectives are served by the existing model with the following key features and benefits:

• An MPA funded group in every borough
• A constituted body with an annual work programme including public meetings
• A chair of the group, drawn from the community
• Local administration
• A readily accessible facility to consult on policing priorities and other MPA consultation requirements e.g. Estate Strategy, youth scrutiny, Race and Faith Inquiry
• A forum which facilitates regular exposure of the borough commander and senior management to members of the public
• A borough group available to the MPA and partners for local community engagement advice, problem-solving and able to be called upon at times of critical incident
• A group with a borough-wide focus, which is able to collate neighbourhood interests and respond to service and borough-wide issues and impacts.

16. Features that the groups would highlight include:

• Independence from political, statutory and police structures
• Local determinism i.e. one size doesn’t fit all in London
• Voluntary input

17. The MPA’s budget for these groups is £1.6m per annum. Each group is allocated a budget based on its costs and work programme set out in a funding application form. The amount allocated to groups ranges from approximately £20,000 to a cap of £50,000. The variance in costs reflects differences in professional and administration support costs, projects and facility costs (see paragraph 0).

18. £1.6m is available annually for investment in CPEGs and clearly members would want to be satisfied that this provides best value. The maximum amount allocated to any group is £50,000, but the level of funding awarded is determined through the annual funding process, based on the achievement of the previous year’s objectives and the group’s ability to deliver. This section seeks to provide an assessment of how CPEGs have developed in a number of key areas of interest to members.

Effectiveness

19. The qualitative nature of its benefits can make it very difficult to measure the success of community engagement. For example, very recently a CPEG raised community concerns about the tasking Safer Neighbourhood Teams with the borough commander. At the following meeting the borough commander reported that on the basis of the representations they had made to him previously he had reviewed and revised those arrangements. This is the kind of impact the Authority would wish CPEGs to have at the local lee, but it is impractical to audit and capture all such interventions that have resulted from CPEG meetings and activities.

20. Instead the MPA has set an overarching framework, which allows for the development of locally agreed targets and outcomes for CPEGs. This is achieved through the annual funding process in which CPEGs are required to consult with the borough commander, local authority community safety managers (as representative of the CDRP) and link members on their annual priorities, targets and outcomes. Each bid is then assessed in terms of delivery of the previous year’s targets and in relation to the forthcoming year’s ambitions. This process has enabled the development of more effective relationships, particularly between the CPEG and community safety partners, and has helped drive positive developments and improvements.

21. Delivery against the CPEG reform programme objectives has been underpinned by the development of a commissioning relationship between the MPA and the CPEGs. This has strengthened the relationship between the two bodies and has set out a clear set of expectations and development goals through the implementation of Service Level Agreements (SLAs). This process is supported by a quarterly monitoring framework, which enables officers to identify good and emerging practice but also gives an early indication of potential problems and remedial actions to resolve those issues.

22. It is possible to provide quantitative measures of some aspects of community engagement, such as the number of meetings and targeted events held each year and the number of consultation products that have been produced for the Authority, police and/or CDRP. In 2008/09, CPEGs collectively delivered and attended 177 public meetings and 131 targeted events/conferences and produced 20 specific consultation products (i.e. local surveys).

Staffing impacts

23. One of the key questions members have asked is whether there is any direct relationship between the way in which groups are organised and their overall effectiveness. An examination of the 2009/10 funding allocations reveals that 61% of the total budget is allocated to staffing costs (83% if staff office costs are included). However, this figure masks considerable variations, which range from 24% to 96%. In eight boroughs staffing represents over 75% of their total budget.

24. These variations relate to the way in which their staffing requirements are met:

• Dedicated full-time administrators directly contracted to the CPEG (for example, Camden, Lambeth, Haringey, Bromley and Bexley).
• Part-time administrators employed within a council department (Wandsworth, Greenwich, Richmond and Harrow, Waltham Forest)
• Part-time administrators provided through the voluntary sector (Merton and Barnet)

25. Each model has relative benefits and disbenefits. Where local authority staff are employed under SLA, groups can often receive in kind support, such as subsidised rent for accommodation and meeting rooms and IT support. However, a potential disadvantage of this model is that the group’s work can become an extension of a committee process, which lacks flexibility and ultimately independence. Where the administrators are directly contracted to the CPEG this can present additional challenges in terms of management of staff and administration of employee-related matters, but it provides much greater flexibility than the local authority model, giving the groups control over who they employ and the tasks they undertake. Where this model has been used, CPEGs have been able to develop some very effective engagement activities (Camden, Haringey and Lambeth, Havering). Where CPEG administration is provided through voluntary council services (VCS) this also provides greater flexibility than the local authority model and with the added benefit of the support and development that is available through the VCS.

26. Although it is relatively easy to make generalised judgements, it is not possible to make a direct correlation between directly or indirectly employed staff and the effectiveness of the consultative group. There are a number of groups for example (e.g. Camden and Haringey), which have full-time directly employed staff and some of these are amongst the most effective. There are, however, a number of groups (e.g. Lewisham and Waltham Forest) that have indirectly employed administrators, but are also considered to be amongst the more effective community engagement groups. While it is not possible to draw a direct correlation between the cost of the staffing element and the outcomes, in officers’ experience, the more relevant factors would seem to be the particular skill set of the staff and the nature of the corresponding CPEG executive, as well as the amount of hours the staff are employed. In some cases, where skilled and motivated staff have been available, the CPEG has lacked the necessary leadership and drive to deliver appropriate outcomes. Alternatively a skilled and empowered full-time employee can be expected to achieve far more than a part-time worker.

Integration with local partnerships

27. Over the last year CPEGs have continued to develop mutual links with local partnerships and they are all now represented at the local crime and disorder reduction partnership (CDRP) by an executive member, usually, the Chair.

28. Although CPEGs do not have the statutory authority to hold all partners to account in the way originally envisaged all CPEGs have achieved an improved level of engagement with not only the local authority, but also other statutory partners, who have willingly opened themselves up to greater scrutiny. All CPEGs have representatives of the local CDRP attend their public meetings where they present information about crime reduction and community safety activities in the borough and are answerable to the community for the services they deliver. In this way, many CPEGs have been able to broaden their focus to look at how all of the various partners work together to develop and deliver initiatives and determine priorities. They have also been able to facilitate greater community influence in key areas. For example, the Probation Service has been engaging with communities through CPEGs to identify local areas for the community payback scheme. A further example of the mutual benefits that have been derived from this relationship has been that a number of CPEGs have hosted CDRP ‘Face the People’ events (e.g. Croydon, Havering, Wandsworth) which are a statutory requirement on CDRPs to hold public question and answer sessions focused on the strategic assessment and to feedback on actions taken to address local issues. In this way, the CDRP has been able to benefit from the use of a ready-made community engagement mechanism and the CPEGs have benefited from an increased profile and better integration into the broader local engagement structures.

Links between CPEGs and Safer Neighbourhoods

29. All groups have made good progress in developing positive relationships with the local Safer Neighbourhood Panels (SNPs). Initially, groups were advised to give all SNP chairs automatic membership, and many groups have adopted this model through changes in their constitutions (e.g. Havering and Newham). However, not all SNP chairs are willing or able to play an active role in the CPEGs and engagement through this model is variable. Some groups have therefore adapted to their local circumstances and developed more effective models to meet this requirement. For example, in some boroughs, the SNPs have been clustered, so CPEG membership is bestowed upon the cluster chairs rather every panel chair (e.g. Barnet and Richmond). In other boroughs, the CPEG executive officers have been linked to specific SNPs and they regularly attend those SNP meetings to gather relevant feedback for the strategic CPEG (e.g. Haringey).

Feeding into the MPA consultation processes

30 In relation to the objective of contributing to the MPA’s consultative process at a pan-London level, all CPEGs are expected to take part in the annual London policing plan consultation process. The policing plan survey data indicates that 6 groups responded collectively representing 289 member organisations and 14 individuals who had heard about the consultation through the CPEG responded on their own behalf (there may have been others who did not indicate where they’d heard about the consultation).

31. This year groups were also invited to respond to a survey seeking community views on the use of Stop and Search powers. The stop and search consultation data indicates that 5 CPEGs responded and these collectively represent 170 member organisations.

Membership

32. Groups have been encouraged to continue making serious and sustained efforts to ensure that their memberships are representative of their local communities and to also make efforts to reach out to, and involve, those communities who prefer not to engage through open public meetings. This focus has led many groups to look at how they communicate and engage generally with their local communities and has also encouraged a greater level of sharing of good practice and knowledge between CPEGs. For example, all groups proactively advertise their meetings and activities in the local press and public spaces, such as libraries and town halls, and they also produce quarterly newsletters and annual reports that are widely circulated within their boroughs. In addition, CPEGs are increasingly developing more innovative approaches to engaging with their communities to ensure the widest possible representation. For example, several boroughs have made great efforts to better engage with local young people (see appendix 1).

33. However, in some cases even sustained efforts to engage with the wider community have not been successful. While it is clearly desirable for a CPEG to be obviously and visibly representative, we must accept that there is a limited pool of individuals with the interest, time and capacity to be involved in this type of activity (Hough & Jacobson, 2005; May 2006). Having said that, a piece of research into the diversity of CPEG executive committees commissioned by the Authority in 2006 (Hough 2006) indicated that the groups were performing reasonably well in this respect. There is, of course, no room for complacency as the composition of communities across London is something that is constantly changing and evolving. This would, however, suggest that the Authority might need to develop a more sophisticated view of what it means for a group to be representative i.e. they may not always be as visibly diverse as one would hope, but they can and do develop alternative mechanisms to gather and represent the views of diverse communities. (see appendix 1) For example, several CPEGs have supported sporting activities between the police and young people from BME communities. This has provided the hook of an activity that interests young people and combined this with an opportunity to directly consult young people on specific matters, such as policing priorities and stop and search.

34. Looking to the future, the challenge is to ensure the current engagement model continues to be relevant and meets the needs of Londoners in making the police and more recently the community safety partnerships accountable. This will to a large extent be influenced by the outcome of the community engagement strategy review, which should dictate the nature of the engagement model going forward. However, there are some key factors that should be considered in this process and these are discussed below.

35. It is clear that the requirement for police authorities to effectively engage with their communities continues and this is relevant to the Authority’s role in ensuring a fair and effective service for Londoners.

36. In developing the new community engagement strategy members will need to be clear as to whether they wish to proceed with a consultation or community engagement model, which would inform decisions about the future of CPEGs.

37. Any decision on the future of the CPEG model would required careful consideration. While a number of other police authorities are developing different approaches to community engagement, these might not be appropriate for London, which is a very complex city with a specific history of community-police relations and with greater diversity of population and boroughs. It is worth noting that some other police authorities with similarly complex socio-political histories, such as the Northern Ireland Policing Board, are looking to the MPA for guidance in this area. In addition, the alternative models employed by some other large authorities, such as regular engagement sessions in local shopping centres, would have considerable resource implications for an Authority in such a large and complex geographical area.

38 Additionally, although the MPA is a regional authority we have specific local responsibilities, particularly in relation to our CDRP role and its duty to consult, which the current CPEG structure is well-placed to support as it is co-terminous with London’s borough structure. The current model adds a local dimension to work of this regional authority and any movement away from this to a more centralised approach to engagement, could be at odds with the governments’ current drive for localism. It should also be noted that the Authority previously set up a 3000-member citizens’ panel, which was resource intensive, but was not as successful as perhaps it could have been. There were a number of reasons for this; corporately the Authority did not make as much use of the panel as it could have and also it did not lend itself particularly well to the conduct of quick time consultation, which would have been a useful resource. If the Authority were to move away from the borough-based structure it would lose ready access to a willing and knowledgeable base of consultees and would also have to find alternative ways of maintaining the valuable links into London’s communities that those groups very usefully provide. In addition, other partners who do not have such structures are also benefiting from MPA provision in this area. For example, TfL will be working through our borough-focused CPEG structure in relation to the development of safer transport hubs. While it could be argued that this is not necessarily the MPA’s role to provide these functions, it clearly represents a valuable contribution to partnership working at the borough level and to the development of community capacity. It would also mean the loss of [in most cases] the only borough-wide strategic body through which one can draw together broader policing and community safety themes/issues. Where we have disbanded CPEGs in the past, there has been a degree of consensus amongst local partners and communities that a borough level body is desirable and complementary to SNPs and IAGs, which have a more narrow focus.

39. A further consideration would be the quality and availability of alternative borough-level mechanisms. While local authorities and other agencies are also consulting through various fora at borough level, those mechanisms suffer from some of the same difficulties the Authority has experienced with CPEGs [and this is inevitable] and for this reason it is considered more effective to engage in multi-layered engagement, which offers more opportunities to engage with as wide a range of people as possible.

40. Finally, the Authority would need to take account of the potential risks associated with wholesale change. Past experience suggests that any move away from the current structure would be met with a vociferous response from the community, sometimes with political support, which could carry considerable reputational risk. In addition, having developed better links between the community and CDRP partners, there might also be some risk to that relationship. There has also been an associated loss of goodwill and momentum, which has had a negative impact on the Authority’s ability to develop new mechanisms and these factors would be significantly magnified across the whole of London.

41. This paper has sought to inform members of the CPEGs’ role in delivering the current community engagement strategy and to also assess current progress against the CPEG reform programme. This is clearly an area of significant interest for members, which will require further and more detailed discussions. These will need to take place in the context of the review of the community engagement strategy and will be facilitated by officers through additional meetings and briefings as part of the review process.

C. Race and equality impact

Surveys have shown that the MPA’s priority groups e.g. young people, BME groups, have lower levels of positive engagement and confidence with policing services. The development of a community engagement strategy and objectives set for CPEGs will need to fully take into account the needs of groups with whom there has been a poor record of community engagement.

D. Financial implications

None specifically arising from this report, but the annual budget allocated to CPEGs totals £1.6 million. 

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author(s): Maurice Blades and Natasha Plummer, Engagement & Partnerships Team, MPA

For information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

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