HR Community Engagement Strategy

Report: 8
Date: 15 January 2009
By: Director of Human Resources on behalf of the Commissioner

1. Recommendation

Members are asked to endorse the approach adopted by the MPS.

2. Executive summary

2.1 The HR Community Engagement Strategy (CES) focuses upon building trust and confidence within London’s communities through a partnership between HR, Communities Together Strategic Engagement Team (CTSET), Territorial Policing and other community stakeholders, such as community groups and colleges.

2.2 The CES has been scaled so that available resources match priority policing demands and currently focuses upon a range of communities including the Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Somali, Turkish and other emerging communities, such as Poland.

2.3 The CES makes use of outreach workers to gain access to key communities, recruitment events aimed at specific communities and a range of support provisions, including pre-employment courses for people whose first language is not English, to increase life chances and success.

2.4 The initial success of the CES can be seen by the 33% increase in the number of members from the five priority communities within the extended policing family.
2.5 BME officer representation has progressively increased (BME officers now account for 1 in 12 officers compared to 1 in 30 officers ten years ago); in terms of police recruits BME groups now account for around 1 in 5 recruits compared to 1 in 18 recruits ten years ago

2.6 The HR Community Engagement Team has initiated working relations with other pan-London organisations, including Ambulance Service, Fire Brigade and Prison Service to promulgate best practice.

3. Background

3.1. The strategic drivers for a workforce that reflects the people and communities it serves are well rehearsed. The Commissioner and MPA have been unequivocal in stating their ambition to make the MPS an employer of choice for all Londoners, and in so doing, have endorsed both the moral and business case imperatives.

3.2 Our values highlight the key qualities that MPS personnel must demonstrate on a daily basis to meet the diverse needs of their customers. They also emphasise the fundamental need for the MPS to work in partnership with all the communities within London to develop not only solutions to social community problems, but also as an enabler for building community cohesion, public trust and confidence. This has in turn led to community engagement and citizen focus.

3.3 The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry resulted in targets set for black and minority ethnic (BME) representation within the police and wider public service, to ensure that public services are delivered by a workforce that reflects the local population.

3.4 For the MPS, this meant the BME police officer strength needed to increase from approximately 3.5% to 25.9% (London’s BME Economically Active Population). During the intervening period, 1999 to 2008, the level of BME representation within police officer strength has increased from 3.4% to 8.6% (i.e. BME strength increasing from 890 to 2736 officers). This has a real impact for Londoners because it means that BME officers now account for 1 in 12 officers compared to ten years ago when they accounted for only around 1 in 30 officers. The outturn for 2008/09 is likely to be just under 9% (i.e. around 2886 officers). Significantly, the level of BME representation amongst Police Community Support Officers (PCSO) and Special Constables exceeds the London’s BME Economically active population standing at 30.8% (n = 1289) and 32.2%(n = 834), respectively. When these groups are considered collectively, the public is likely to have policing services delivered by an increasing BME workforce (i.e. approximately 1 in 8, compared to around 1 in 29 ten years ago).

3.5 It is now accepted that the MPS cannot achieve a BME police officer strength of 25.9% in any realistic time-frame given our vacancy and turnover rate without a radical change in legislation. Instead, the Home Office now monitors the diversity of those recruited against London’s BME Economically Active Population. In this area there has been a substantial improvement (e.g. since 1998/99 BME representation amongst recruits has increased from 5.6% to 20.0% at the end 2008/09; in other words ten years ago BME accounted for 1 in 18 recruits, but now equals around 1 in 5 recruits).

3.6 Despite attracting BME applications in excess of the economically active population (EAP), their overall success rate is such that the number recruited falls below the 25.9% target even for the beneficial effect of our Positive Action interventions. Our analysis of the recruiting process has highlighted the impact of English as an additional language and levels of academic attainment upon performance, highlighting the need to focus upon these areas. Consequently, a range of programmes, many developed in partnership with outside organisations (e.g. colleges), are available to support applicants, including access courses, pre-employment courses with ESOL focus and pre-assessment workshops (further details of these programmes can be below).

3.7 Even for exceeding our overall Police Officer BME representation target of 8% for 2007/08, a number of communities continue to be under represented namely, Somali, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Turkish and Polish. HR Recruitment recognise the need to address this if it is to become a employer of choice for all London’s communities.

3.8 It is within this context that the Recruitment Directorate has developed its model for community engagement. The Directorate is striving to ensure that it meets the needs of stakeholders by recruiting people with the skills needed to work within the diverse communities comprising London.

3.9 The approach has taken into account the changing face of London (e.g. emerging communities) and the associated policing issues that are likely to arise and also acknowledges the effect of policing relations upon particular groups (e.g. Muslim youth), as well as the barriers that exist for these communities.

3.10 As reported previously, the HR community engagement programme seeks to build upon existing work that has taken place within the Pathfinder project as a process to facilitate a working partnership with communities that will nurture trust and confidence, which in turn will lead to better access and improved recruitment.

4. HR Recruitment Working in partnership with Communities Together Strategic Engagement Team (CTSET)

4.1 The work of the MPS’s Communities Together Strategic Engagement Team (CTSET) draws upon the concept of citizen focus and community engagement to gain an understanding of emerging, often invisible or hard to reach, communities within London.

4.2. As a result of the Pathfinder pilot, which focused upon increasing an understanding within both the police and Pathfinder communities of the issues, needs and priorities facing both groups in relation to safety, crime and policing, CTSET have employed five full time Community Cohesion Outreach workers, focused upon the following five boroughs and communities which were identified as being high risk/low engagement during an earlier strategic assessment:

•  Redbridge (Pakistani)
•  Ealing (Somali)
•  Haringey (Kurdish, Turkish)
•  Newham (Sri Lankan, Tamil)
•  Tower Hamlets (Bangladeshi)

4.3 The Outreach workers are available to be tasked by HR Recruitment and will play a vital role within this model for community engagement as they act as a link between the community with which they work and the police and a conduit for information/intelligence flow with a view to securing target community organisations as gatekeepers and sponsors.

4.4 Pathfinder identified an essential role for a third party during the early stages to interact between the communities and police; this has been highlighted as a key prerequisite in developing trust and confidence. Initially HR Recruitment worked towards the provision of an external supplier but was beset by delays to secure the service. Rather than risk being unable to deliver effective community engagement activity in good time for 2012, an opportunity was identified to work together with CTSET who were in the process of recruiting for the full time roles.

4.5. The outreach workers will assess when communities are recruitment ready, introduce Recruitment and facilitate community-specific events where the MPS will be promoted as an employer of choice for all communities.

4.6 As previously reported, these communities fall within the highest priority group within the operational requirement (OR) developed by the Recruitment Directorate. The OR provides a measurement of demand for languages in London and is clearly a proxy indicator of the need for community specific knowledge, drawing information from a range of sources including Victims’ Crime Survey, Culture Communities Relations Unit (CCRU) and criminal network intelligence.

4.7 The Polish community was not part of the Pathfinder project. However, since 2005 there has been a sharp increase in migrant workers from Poland and other ascension countries across London and other parts of the UK. These emerging communities add a new dimension and challenge to policing. The Polish community fell within the top priority group within the OR, and consultations with stakeholders at borough level have reinforced this priority. Borough Commanders explicitly asked that this particular need be addressed, so acute is their requirement in some parts of London.

5. Candidate Experience

5.1 Additional interventions have now been introduced to provide applicants from target communities with support beyond that which was provided previously. HR Recruitment now monitors individual candidates and prospective candidates from our target communities through the recruitment process, making constructive contact at various points with a view enhancing their ‘candidate journey’.

5.2 A significant development in the candidate process has been the development of community-specific events, held at the MetCareers Office at ESB. These were initially held following the cultural events at Islam Expo and Eid in the Square. Those expressing interest at those events were invited to attend MetCO where a community-specific event was held involving serving Muslim officers and staff and supported by the association of Muslim Police. This was repeated following Vaisakhi in the Square, supported by Hindu and Sikh officers and staff and following Positively Poland, supported by serving Polish officers and staff. Also notable was a Somali-specific event with no large preceding cultural event to drive people to MetCO. Interested people were attracted to the event by either being on the candidate journey having expressed an interest directly or at a focus group and by word-of-mouth from serving officers, community volunteers and contacts.

6. Complementary Activities

6.1 The community engagement programme is supported by other ongoing positive action activities to improve the applicant experience, increase their success rate and reduce the number of applications needed to meet recruitment targets.

7. Access to Policing Courses

7.1. These are continuing in partnership with 5 FE colleges in London and are designed to provide potential applicants with an opportunity to develop key skills (e.g. Numeracy and Literacy) to help improve their chances of competing successfully in the police selection process, including guidance on interview and assessment centre techniques.

7.2. Currently courses are available at colleges in Tower Hamlets, Hounslow, Southwark, Brent and Havering. Of the participants enrolling, 53% are from BME groups.

8. Pre-employment courses

8.1 In addition to the existing PC access courses running at FE colleges, a unique partnership has been developed by HR Recruitment with Hackney Community College to develop and run Access courses aimed specifically at people with English as a second language (ESOL).

8.2 There is an expectation that successful participants will gain an insight into policing within the non-warranted posts before then applying to become police officers. The course draws upon existing funding streams available through Jobcentre Plus and colleges.

8.3 HR Recruitment is concerned about the number of applicants for Police Constable from underrepresented communities that narrowly miss the MPS pass mark. At present no resource exists to deliver any development for those applicants narrowly missing the entrance standard. In particular PCSOs with valuable in depth community and local knowledge, corporate knowledge and valuable language skills.

8.4 Although the ESOL courses were initially aimed at non-warranted-level (PCSO) employment, HR Recruitment is now working in partnership with the Career Management Unit (CMU) and Territorial Policing (TP) to develop a course to attract PCSO to PC applicants with ESOL needs. A pilot is planned for March 2009 for two cohorts of about 15 students abstracted for half a day per week over 24 weeks from the five Olympic boroughs. Some benefits will include: development for individuals allowing them to make an improved contribution as a warranted constable; the retention of community knowledge and language skills, and importantly; the progression of people from underrepresented communities within the MPS. In time, this may serve as a model for promotion and lateral progression in the MPS.

8.5 HR recruitment is also addressing the needs of PCSO to PC ‘near misses’ without ESOL needs to avoid losing strong applicants from underrepresented communities to other forces and encourage them to reapply to the MPS at the next opportunity. An example is a serving MSC officer from a target community who achieved 56% at the PC selection centre. He has been provided with 1:1 diagnostic of his NPIA feedback and networked with other officers to provide development opportunities.

8.6. To widen the capability to deliver this kind of support within existing resources, Action Learning Sets will be brought together and facilitated by MetCareers in partnership with the CMU and formed of people from underrepresented groups that do not traditionally have strong peer support networks established in the MPS. The group will be encouraged to meet regularly with others in order to explore development opportunities and decide on the action they wish to take towards another application. It is hoped that the networks formed may continue throughout their MPS career. Opportunities to join the first such group will be made available in January 2009.

9. Outcomes/Success – Next Steps

9.1. Between 1 January 2008 and 12 December 2008, the MPS has received the following applications from our 5 target communities across all our extended policing family roles: 74 Bangladeshi; 102 Pakistani; 26 Somali; 62 Turkish, and 374 Polish.

9.2 These numbers reflect success in so far as attracting applications from these target communities. Given the length time between attracting interest, and the various stages before appointment, it is too early to conduct a comprehensive evaluation.

9.3 However, even at this early stage of implementation, at the 1st Jan 2008 there were a total of 114 extended policing family members from our 5 target communities in the MPS. That figure now stands at 151, a 33% increase.

9.4 It is anticipated that the recently appointed Outreach Workers will be embedded within the MPS and their respective communities by April 2008. Thereafter a community specific recruitment event is planned each month barring August and December. We will have developed a suite of support courses and activities available through the MPS and our partners to assist individuals in preparing for a successful application and career in the MPS. The Outreach Workers together with the Careers Team will run these events with the sponsorship of the respective communities, directing interested parties according to their individual needs.

10. Other Developments

11. Corporate 10year diversity monitoring pack

11.1. The first issue of a workforce diversity pack is now available. The current issue focuses upon ethnicity and gender within a range of areas of HR, including recruitment, progression and retention, over the last 10 years. The report seeks not only to highlight areas of improvement (e.g. steady increase of black and minority ethnic police officers, and reductions in turnover), but also to reveal areas of concern (e.g. high level of resignations amongst black and minority officers). The report is intended to provide corporate information on diversity and ensure consistency. The next issue of the pack will include other strands of diversity, including age, disability and faith.

12. Promulgation of Good Practice and Benchmarking

12.1 In order to promote and develop good practice and develop benchmarking across the group, the HR Directorate has recently held workshops with Home County Police Forces and other uniformed services within London, including London Fire Brigade, Ambulance Service and Prison Service. The next steps will include a pan-GLA group led by HR Recruitment to further explore issues raised at earlier workshops.

13. Resource implications

13.1 The cost of the current activities are absorbed within existing resources and, as described, opportunities to work together with CMU and TP are maximised. The external delivery of development by FE colleges, ensures that the opportunity to make use of pre-employment funding for Literacy and Numeracy and Train to Gain funding for in-service development is maximised.

13.2 As the benefits of the various support activities become known, some future provision for up-scaling of the activity may be required, in particular with regard to the in-house activities such as the Community Cohesion Outreach Workers and the delivery of Action Learning Sets. It should be noted there are considerable benefits that go beyond recruitment and will add value to the wider vision of policing London, namely improved trust and confidence.

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