Communicating with London’s diverse communities

Report: 4
Date: 22 April 2010
By: Director of Public Affairs on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This report sets out how the MPS Directorate of Public Affairs communicates with London’s diverse communities.

A. Recommendation

That Members are requested to note the report.

B. Supporting information

Background

1. The Directorate of Public Affairs is responsible for providing professional communication services to support the MPS. The DPA do this by:

• raising awareness and understanding about the MPS
• promoting corporate objectives and achievements
• providing a comprehensive media service 24 hours a day
• targeting specific media where appeals and information to individual communities are needed.

2. DPA also works to enhance the way the MPS communicates internally by :

• developing local communication across the organisation
• offering professional communication, leadership, support, co-ordination, advice and expertise to staff.

DPA equality targets and action plans

3. The DPA maintains a Diversity & Equalities Action Plan, with specialist assistance from the DCFD adviser to the Directorate.

4. Our key equality targets are to:

• ensure service delivery is relevant accessible and responsive to the diversity of people living, working, and visiting London
• engage effectively with minority media
• ensure all marketing and publicity campaigns; media; and communications strategies meet statutory equality requirements, such as the Disability Discrimination Act.

5. We aim to do this by:

• Developing solutions to minority media’s needs
• Ensuring our products and events are accessible to all
• Engaging more effectively with young people
• Improving our key encounters with people through respect and understanding of equality and diversity
• Maintaining a working environment where all staff feel confident sharing information relating to all diversity and equality matters

6. DPA has in-place a training matrix for its staff, which includes courses on diversity training and stakeholder engagement. Our research and learning from previous campaigns (see later) is shared with staff through debriefs and seminars, and appears on our intranet site. These resources help staff to better identify audiences and then adapt communications more effectively.

7. DPA line managers use Performance Development Reports (PDRs) to determine areas of good practice and where necessary, development needs, in terms of diversity awareness and delivery. Throughout the reporting year line managers keep PDR objectives under review to monitor progress.

8. The mandatory Equality and Diversity e-learning package, delivered via the NCALT Managed Learning Environment, has been pro-actively pursued by managers at all levels to ensure that staff have completed the exercise before the March 2010 deadline.

9. We are conscious of the under representation of minority groups in the communications profession and we are contributing to the discussion across the industry. We recently discussed this matter with joint members of the professional body Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA), where good practice was shared in relation to recruitment and development. Our discussions will help us to explore why some minority groups are under-represented and to look at ways of addressing it.

How Equality Impact Assessment (EIAs) impact on the DPA work programmes / campaigns

10. Our Media Relations Policy, which forms part of our annual business plan was subject to a formal Equality Impact Assessment (EIA), which is kept under continual review. The process involved consulting with key customers, such as ethnic and specialist media (ESM), staff associations and independent advisory groups about how we best communicate with Londoners through the media.

11. An important part of communications is identifying the audience and then utilising the best channels to reach them. While it is clear that Londoners in general are our primary audience, we are providing bespoke services to reach specific audiences.

12. We are currently developing research which will enable us to better segment our target audiences, so we can better understand the media habits and lifestyle choices of different sections of our target audience. This will ensure that our communication is better focused at raising confidence.

13. An EIA process was used in relation to our creation of the Youth Website to engage young people online, and has been used to explore the potential risks around creating an online dialogue and ensure that the language and issues covered cater for our diverse audience.

14. Over the course of this financial year the DPA has undertaken marketing campaigns around Trident, Safer Neighbourhoods, anti-knife crime and, in conjunction with the Association of Chief Police Officers, a national Counter Terrorism campaign. Campaign strategies are highly researched, engaging internally with specialist units and externally with specialist partner organisations and charities to ensure an in depth understanding of the issues, the intended audience, any cultural/social sensitivities and to highlight any potential risks.

15. The independent research agencies present the findings to both operational, communications staff and agencies who have been involved in the campaigns. This information is further shared across the MPS through evaluation reports, briefing and training sessions so that we are able to inform future MPS campaigns. Evaluation shows that campaigns have a positive effect on public perceptions of the police's ability to deal with the issue being advertised. However, this needs to be balanced with not raising fear of crime. As with our advertising we are bringing the issues to the attention of the public.

DPA approach to communicating with London’s diverse communities and the MPS workforce in order to drive confidence

16. Following the MPA scrutiny of DPA in 2007, a Community Engagement Team was created to engage with and build relationships with key minority media with the aim of promoting the MPS and relay key messages to their audiences about MPS initiatives and practices.

17. There have been a number of activities over the past 12 months to reach audiences that may not be reached via mainstream media, and increase confidence. Examples include:

• Following community concerns arising from demonstrations by right-wing groups, such as EDL, Stop Islamification of Europe, etc we set up special briefings with ethnic and specialist media to allay fears, explain the police role in public demonstrations and to appeal for calm. Sunrise Radio and BBC Asian Network carried features based on the briefings and interviews with the top lines being: ‘police urging communities to stay calm’; ‘to report hate crime’ and ‘to allow the police to facilitate lawful protest’.
• To show how police were helping improve relations with local communities in south London we organised ethnic media to cover a series of ‘faith tours’ where officers visited mosques, synagogues, churches and other places of worship. This demonstrated to the wider community that police are working with all sections of it to improve relationships and confidence. This resulted in very positive coverage in publications including the Muslim Weekly.
• The Commissioner held a special press briefing with key ethnic and specialist media contacts to give them access to the highest level in the Met, while giving them the chance to put forward any questions. It also gave us the opportunity to discuss new processes for handling intelligence, giving them exclusive access in advance of mainstream media. This was very well received and saw a number of positive articles on the back of it.
• We worked with the Jewish Chronicle and other ESM publications about hate crime reporting, again appealing for more victims to report incidents, and to highlight our community safety units and specially trained officers that can support victims.
• We have showcased community engagement events involving police bringing young people from different backgrounds together using sport as a way of diverting them away from crime, and also to help relations with the police. This was featured in Jewish Chronicle.
• In December 2009, the Communities Team led on an internal publicity campaign to promote the Met’s new Diversity and Equality Strategy. Although the majority of communications was internally focused, we facilitated interviews with key ethnic media contacts, resulting in good coverage in Eastern Eye and a positive feature about the Met’s Diversity director in The Voice.

18. The Communities Team can utilise an established network of specialist and BME media contacts. Appeals and messages targeting specific audiences are now being delivered on a regular basis across the London. For example, we were able to deliver crime prevention messages about ‘money mules’ to the Brazilian community in London, via Brazilian media, while Harrow police utilised our contacts in Asian media to provide burglary prevention messages.

19. Communications departments from police forces across the country are now coming to the DPA to access our database of contacts to reach BME communities. This includes Herts police appealing for information about a missing Pakistani man, believed to have been murdered. ACPO press office is also utilising our contacts to reach their target audiences. Our work with ESM under the Prevent strategy has also been recognised as good practice by the cross-govt Prevent comms working group.

20. The DPA is called upon for specialist advice in developing communications material commissioned by other business groups. SO recently produced a youth magazine, the first of its kind, aimed at 11 year olds in London. The content discussed issues such as bullying and keeping safe. DPA were involved in giving constructive feedback on content, style, use of images, branding and DDA compliancy. Over 100,000 copies are currently being distributed across every primary state school in London.

21. In our communications work to support the MPS Policing Pledge we ensured that the leaflet and full document were compliant with DDA. To increase accessibility we arranged for an audio version, featuring the Commissioner, to be recorded and published on our website to accompany other formats of the Pledge. We also helped develop the Easyread version of the Pledge which is now in its final stages.

22. The DPA is involved in a forum of other ESM communications teams in government and the criminal justice system to share good practice and contacts in relation to ESM. Many are beginning to adopt our use of technology in making comms services more accessible.

23. The DPA is currently working with SO and TP to develop a communications strategy and products to encourage people to report more hate crime, including disability hate crime. To ensure as many people can take up the call to action of reporting more hate crime we will be including details of the Met’s textphone service, for people with hearing difficulties, on any publicity material.

24. Over the coming months we will be arranging further proactive media opportunities for ethnic and specialist media, including giving more access to specific MPS departments, such as the public order unit to show how the Met operates.

How the DPA engages with specific communities

25. The DPA regularly consults and engages with a wide range of bodies, including IAGs, staff associations, stakeholders, partners, etc to help develop, evaluate and scrutinise our communications activities, including marketing campaigns, engagement with media and internal communications.

26. Pro-active communications activities are usually targeted at specific audiences and once identified we have sought consultation from groups that represent those audiences. Our Trident marketing campaign is delivered successfully in partnership with members of the Trident IAG who are involved throughout the campaign process, from informing the initial campaign strategy and key messages to the launch of the final campaign. The DPA is currently developing the MPS’s Youth Website for young people making our services and policing information more accessible via a communication channel with which young people are both familiar and comfortable. To develop this service we have undertaken research with young people to ensure that our service will meet their needs.

27. Publicity campaigns give due consideration to the target audience and the channels used to deliver key messages. For example, we have produced an interactive You Tube film to engage young people, particularly boys, and educate them about the consequences of carrying a knife. With our Trident campaign we engaged young black women by ensuring our media placement was in the locations they frequent such as hair and nail salons. We also held focus groups to brief young women representatives of our target audience to distribute information leaflets and engage with young members of London’s black communities about the issues of gun crime.

28. Pan-London marketing campaigns, such as promoting Safer Neighbourhoods and Operation Bumblebee, engage Londoners through radio and posters campaigns where there is more room for detailed messaging about initiatives.

29. As a matter of course we instruct all materials produced by suppliers to be DDA compliant, for example, text is of particular font and size, combinations of colours used are accessible etc. To increase accessibility we have included voiceovers and subtitling on our TV advertising to ensure we communicate to our widest audience.

30. Every effort is made to ensure that the Met's online presence is as accessible as possible for all, including those with sight or hearing impairment or those with language needs. The MPS website is regularly reviewed for accessibility problems which are rectified wherever possible. The use of standard templates across much of the site, which have been pre-tested for accessibility, helps to ensure that content is accessible. Over the last 12 months the DPA has conducted a social media pilot, involving You Tube and Flickr, to look at ways of delivering our messages and information in more contemporary ways, and to reach a wider audience as possible, including people who may not be able access more traditional forms of communications. This work will help inform any further social or digital media activities in the future.

31. Alternative formats are made available wherever possible, for example; transcripts of audio files are published and subtitles added to videos that appear on the MPS YouTube site. Key information about the MPS is also available on the website in 16 different languages. On average (based on last six months) there are approx 830 hits per month to this service. It is not possible to break down the statistics by individual language.

32. The DPA is working with ethnic and specialist media to reach specific communities in London, while making our services more accessible so it’s easier for ESM publications to access our material. We are also targeting ESM media to discuss issues which are of interest to specific communities, including the following activities:

1. We worked with BBC Asian Network on two major features looking at how the MPS was engaging with Muslim and other communities under the PREVENT strategy, resulting in positive coverage across Asian Network and rest of BBC. This involved showcasing many of the activities being carried out across London under the PREVENT strategy.
2. In the run up to Diwali and other festivals we approached Asian media to encourage more vigilance about burglary by offering crime prevention advice. This involved a briefing with officers and top tips about protecting homes. This led to main news items on Sunrise Radio and a feature in Eastern Eye’s special Diwali edition.
3. We worked with Turkish media in relation to the murder of Tulay Goren, the so-called honour killing in North London. We arranged for them to attend a special pre-verdict briefing where they were given access to the investigating team to put forward questions about the case. We also ensured that our community reassurance messages around the time of the increased gang activity and shootings in Hackney and Haringey were sent to out Turkish media contacts.
4. In November 2009 we publicised a safety workshop run by a south London Safer Neighbourhoods team with local Somali community. Knowing our key contacts were unable to attend due to limited resources we arranged for a Met photographer to take images, which together with a statement and quotes, were distributed to Somali media via a special website. This resulted in a very positive article in one of the most popular Somali publications in the UK: Somali Eye.
5. We worked with the LGBT media on a number of occasions about hate crime, including an interview with detective from Violent Crime Directorate to encourage more victims to come forward to report incidents, and also promoting the LGBT liaison officers to increase LGBT confidence in coming forward.
6. We have worked with the Chinese media in relation to a number of events involving the Chinese community, such as murders, court cases and operations. This included promoting the successful conclusion to a kidnap investigation involving a Chinese man being held against his will, and a major film piracy case involving Chinese workers being exploited by a gang of organised criminals. All press notices or announcements from the MPS in relation to their audiences are routinely sent to our Chinese media contacts and reporters have been invited to attend policing operations.
7. The DPA has, and continues to work with Eastern European media in a number of areas. We have supported boroughs in appeals, notably supporting Harrow police in searching for a wanted burglar. Lacking any contacts for Lithuanian media Harrow sought our help and we were able to provide contact details for a popular Lithuanian website in the UK. The appeal was published which generated a number of potential leads about his whereabouts which were passed on to the investigating team.
8. We have worked with Polish media on a number of cases, and are in tentative talks with one of the most popular Polish newspapers about the possibility of having a regular slot. We are currently working with SCD on a targeted campaign with Polish media to encourage more intelligence to help tackle organised and serious crime within that community.
9. During February’s LGBT History month DPA arranged for one of the Met’s LGBT liaison officers to write a regular blog on a popular LGBT website about his daily activities. The officer wrote about his work with the local LGBT community; how he was visiting venues to give crime prevention advice and how he was addressing safety concerns in conjunction with local Safer Neighbourhoods teams. The blog, which formed a part of the DPA’s scoping work on social media, was well received and gave readers an insight into the work of the Met, as well as giving us the chance to discuss some key messages about issues affecting the LGBT community such as homophobic and transphobic hate crime.
10. We arranged for GEO-TV, one of South Asia's largest TV channels to host a special edition of one of their most popular shows from New Scotland Yard. The show, which was fronted by Nadia Khan - known as Asia's Ophrah Winfrey, saw interviews with an MPS Commander and a female MPS constable of Pakistani origin, where they discussed issues such as forced marriage, honour-based violence and domestic violence. The show is watched by many people in London via satellite.

How consistency in communication is maintained across the organisation

33. The Director of Public Affairs holds “Head of Profession” responsibility for all communication resources across the MPS. This also includes non-DPA communication staff working in other business groups in the organisation, or on boroughs. DPA works closely with this wider group of communicators to improve and maintain standards across the business. This relationship also enables the DPA utilise the broad range of skills, including languages that currently exist outside the Directorate.

34. There is also a training programme for DPA staff which includes legal training, press release writing, managing press conferences and an annual major incident training exercise where our emergency planning is tested and our contingency plans reviewed. We have also entered into a partnership with the Public Relations Consultants Association in order to access their training programme at reduced cost. These courses can lead to industry recognised qualifications.

35. The DPA has also played a key role in supporting Territorial Policing in the development of content and presentation of ward level Safer Neighbourhoods newsletters.

36. In terms of internal communication, the DPA employs a variety of communication channels to deliver consistent corporate and local messages within the organisation, including:

• Intranet - links to contextual material
• Intranet - news stories
• Commissioner’s Briefing events
• Commissioner’s video message
• Commissioner’s phone-in
• “Progress on the 5Ps” monthly poster
• The Job
• Job Special
• Key Brief
• Direct Messages from Commissioner/Management Board

Other Met-wide communication channels, managed by individual directorates, also advise on specific issues:

• Human Resources Live Forum
• Directorate of Resources Live Forum
• Directorate of Information Live Forum
• Territorial Policing Live Forum
• Notices

DPA Headline Measures

37. The external and internal headline measures for DPA’s activity are:

Question 133 Public Attitude Survey

38. Below are results from the Public Attitude Survey - Year to December 2009 (Quarter four 2009/10 Rolling 12 months), broken down by each diversity strand, and with accompanying commentary. Figure in brackets denotes percentage point change compared with quarter two; ‘-‘ indicates no change.

Question 133 “How well informed do you feel about what the police in LONDON AS A WHOLE have been doing over the last 12 months.”

39. We are aware of many of the barriers in reaching communities in London, especially in relation to language and culture. We are currently working with other departments such as CCC and VCD to promote the Met’s comprehensive language services to help overcome communication problems and encourage more people to come forward.

40. Over the next few months the DPA will be doing more communications about the Prevent strategy to highlight and promote the work that is going on across London with Muslim and other communities to stop people supporting or becoming violent extremists. We will also:

• be working more with international media (such as GET-TV and ARY-digital) to reach audiences in this country as such stations are watched via satellite in many Asian and other Diaspora communities in London and the UK.
• be working more closely with Chinese media organisations to look at how we can improve communications with them and highlight the work of the Met to their audiences.
• be be setting up special, dedicated webpages on the Met’s site for ethnic and specialist media comprising a forward look of key events coming up so they are more aware of any initiatives that may be taking in place.
• continue to utilise all available communications channels and explore new ones, such as social media, to reach all our communities so they are kept informed about what the Met is doing to keep them safe.

Staff Survey - “Your Views Count”

41. The results of the Q1/Q2, 2009/10 Staff Survey regarding the statement: “I am kept informed of developments” are as follows (Figure in brackets denotes percentage point change compared with data 08-09; ‘-‘ indicates no change).

Statistically significant differences are marked with [SS].

Religion, Faith and Belief

Analysis of difference was conducted against the Christian sample, as this was the majority group to assess impact against.

• Buddhist: 42% (-8) [SS]
• Christian: 57% (+1)
• Hindu: 55% (+6)
• Jewish: 45% (+11) [SS]
• Muslim: 57% (-1)
• Sikh: 60% (+17)
• Other: 45% (-) [SS]
• No Religion: 55% (+3)
• Atheist: 53% (-)
• Agnostic: 56% (-)

Gender

• Male: 55% (-)
• Female: 56% (+3)

Ethnicity

Analysis of difference was conducted against the White sample, as this was identified as the majority group to assess impact against.

• Asian: 54% (+3)
• Black: 63% (+6) [SS]
• Mixed: 58% (+2)
• White: 56% (+1)
• Chinese and Other: 50% (+1) [SS]

Disability

Statistically significant differences are underlined.

• Disabled: 43% (-3)
• Non Disabled: 57% (+2) [SS]

Sexual Orientation

Analysis of difference was conducted against the Heterosexual sample, as this was the majority group to assess impact against.

• Bisexual: 53% (+6)
• Heterosexual: 57% (+2)
• Lesbian / Gay: 58% (+13)

Age

Note: No significance testing performed on this data, as group by which to assess (e.g. majority/minority) responses not identified at this stage.

• 16-24: 62% (+5)
• 25-34: 55% (+1)
• 34-44: 54% (-1)
• 44-54: 56% (+3)
• 55-64: 56% (+1)
• 65+: 64% (+26)

42. The DPA operates the Met’s corporate communications channels that keep staff informed about what the Met is doing to keep London safe. We ensure that communications are compliant with the DDA and use plain English to make sure messages are clear and understood.

43. The DPA works closely with many of the Met’s staff associations by supporting them in promoting their initiatives as well as proving specialist communications advice. We have also worked with Samurai to give media and broadcast training to a number of staff association members to help them communicate more effectively with their members.

Evaluation of marketing campaigns

44. An independent research agency is used to evaluate the effectiveness of DPA marketing campaigns. This information is also used to further inform future communications activity. Evaluation methodology may change depending on the target audience, the subject matter or media channels used. Our main method of evaluation is through independent advertising tracking research which involves face-to-face street interviews with the target audience.

The objectives of this tracking are to:

• measure spontaneous/prompted awareness of the campaign amongst the target audience;
• measure the audiences understanding of key messages;
• measure attitudes towards advertising;
• measure the effectiveness of the various media channels;
• measure public confidence in the MPS’s ability to deal with the subject matter being advertised e.g. knife crime.

45. Campaigns also carry a ‘call to action’ such as a website address or phone number which allows us to measure the number of calls/visitors to the site.

46. Where online channels are used such as You Tube we are able to measure the number of views a film has and with online advertising we can measure the click-through rate.

47. As well as the above we monitor coverage and commentary in mainstream media and industry press, encourage stakeholder feedback and assess our impact on the Public Attitude Survey.

48. Below is some evaluation of some of our campaigns from last year:

1. Anti-Knife Crime ‘Choose a different ending’: 350 face-to-face interviews were conducted with 11-15 year olds, across London. A high percentage (78%) recalled seeing or hearing at least one element of the campaign. The results showed that 14-15 year old and BME respondents in particular, were more likely to recall the campaign. Diagnostically the campaign was well received, with respondents recalling the advertising having a more positive perception of the police.
2. The call to action across all mediums was to search ‘choose a different ending’ or visit a www.differentending.co.uk. The YouTube channel received over 2.1 million video views and 257,000 unique users. An average of 9 videos or 2 routes has been viewed by each user, with an average rating of 4.6 (out of 5). The video has received over 2700 comments posted, of which only 8% are negative (Figures given correct at 21/9/09).
3. Anti-Gun Crime - Trident ‘Hide his gun and you help commit the crime’ campaign: 301 ten-minute street interviews were carried out, with African/African-Caribbean members of the community (60 respondents male and aged 13-19 years; 150 respondents female and aged 13-19 years [as per our primary audience] and 91 respondents [both male and female] aged 20 years plus).
4. 60% of respondents recalled seeing or hearing at least one element of the campaign. There was a substantial differentiation between gender with 62% of females aged 13-19 years (our primary audience) recalling at least one element of the campaign, compared with 50% of 13-19 year old males.
5. These levels of awareness are clear evidence that the campaign successfully reached its core audience, with the print execution performing strongest (53% when looking solely at the primary audience of 13-19 year old females).
6. The campaign was successful in ensuring that there was clear take out of the key message: “Hide his gun and you help commit the crime.”
7. 71% of respondents who were aware of the campaign agreed that the police are working hard to tackle violent crime, compared with 65% (83) of respondents who had not, demonstrating the positive impact of the campaign on public perception.

C. Race and equality impact

1. This report shows the many positive outcomes of the diversity and equality approach that DPA has in-place and continues to develop.

2. The work streams of the Directorate are regularly and systematically reviewed concerning Race and Equality impact. There are no impacts other than those mentioned within the report.

D. Financial implications

Costs associated with the above activities are covered from within existing DPA and MPS budgets.

E. Legal implications

There are no specific legal implications arising from this report other than the need to ensure that advertisements are not discriminatory and that training and recruitment is not discriminatory unless the conditions are satisfied to justify the recruitment of under-represented groups.

F. Background papers

None

G. Contact details

Report author(s): Police Sergeant Amanda Gutierrez-Cooper (DCFD) & Detective Inspector Jim Foley (Violent Crime Directorate), MPS

For information contact:

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

Abbreviations

DPA

Directorate of Public Affairs

DCFD

Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate

PDRs

Performance Development Reports

EIAs

Equality Impact Assessments

ESM

Ethnic and Specialist Media

EDL

English Defence League

BME

Black & Minority Ethnic

SO

Specialist Operations

DDA

Disability Discrimination Act

TP

Territorial Policing

IAG

Independent Advisory Group

LGBT

Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgender

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