MPS European Commission funding reporting

Report: 07
Date: 21 January 2010
By: Director of Resources on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

The report provides an update regarding completed funding applications made to the European Commission in 2009.

A. Recommendations

That members note the current status of funding applications made by the MPS to the European Commission.

B. Supporting information

1. The purpose of this report is to provide the Finance and Resources Committee with an up to date position statement regarding European Commission funding applications submitted by the MPS during 2009, along with a brief description of each project.

Successful bids

2. The following bids have been successful in obtaining funding from the EU during 2009:

Operations Sherston2 and Westersingel

3. A joint investigation team has been formed with the Dutch police to investigate a cold case from the early 1990s.

4. The project started in February 2009 and funding of €1,301,902 for the MPS has been approved for the 2 year duration.

Community Engagement for Civil Order, Policing and Security (CECOPS)

5. This project is about the involvement of citizens, as volunteers, in maintaining order and in urban security and crime prevention. This can be seen as a natural parallel to situational crime prevention with its focus on the physical environment.

6. This is a 2 year project, for which funding of €195,970 has been agreed.

Project Leonidas

7. The aim of this project is to perform a joint exercise with other EU member states’ officers in Cyprus in order to improve the coordination of Cyprus Police resources in the management of terrorist events.

8. The project is a 5 day project consisting of training due to start in 2012.

9. “Opportunity costs” of £10,721 will be incurred by the MPS as all travel, accommodation and subsistence costs are to be met from the EU funds afforded to Cyprus Police.

Bids submitted to EU but awaiting agreement

Project REFIRE

10. Project REFIRE (Reference Implementation of Interposable indoor location and communication systems for First Responders) addresses the need for effective communication/location systems to work in hard to reach areas and is of critical importance particularly in relation to the 2012 Olympics. Partners will develop, deploy and then test an innovative, low cost communication/location system in indoor and underground locations, such as road tunnels, underground rail and inside public stadiums.

11. The project will have a life span of 3-4 years and will then submit its findings to the EC with a working demonstration based on real world trials for the police Fire Brigade and other Emergency Responders.

12. Funding of €75,126 is being requested by the MPS from the EU.

CO14 Daphne III Project

13. CO14 Daphne III Project - This project was designed to develop and implement best practice in the treatment of victims trafficked for sexual exploitation and formulate an educational programme in conjunction with partners who have mutual interests and common objectives.

14. This is a two year project and funding of €539,000 is being sought.

Operation Golf (2009)

15. This is a joint investigation between the MPS and the Romanian National police into Romanian Roma organised crime networks trafficking and criminally exploiting children from within the Roma Community.

16. The bid is for €1,857,165 for a one year period.

17. This bid is for a continuation of the work which was started in September 2008 and is due to be completed in December 2009. Funding of €1,102,207 has been received for this original exercise.

ACPO ITS projects

18. In November 2008, Chief Superintendent Robert Hammond from Sussex Police transferred over to the MPS on a permanent secondment (5 years until retirement). His role was working in a national capacity through ACPO ITS working group and then with Temporary Deputy Assistant Commissioner Shabir Hussain on a variety of EU funded projects for the last 6.5 years.

19. 3 EU projects were transferred over to the MPS and were submitted to the EU in early March 2009.

20. A further 3 projects were submitted in the name of the MPS on 31st March 2009.

Issues arising

21. The bids for projects Falconer, DOSCOM, IINSECT, Restore, PORTSEC and Sentinel, which have a combined MPS liability of £966k, did not follow corporate routes of approval and guidance within the MPS; they did, however, go through ACPO ITS governance procedures.

22. A meeting was conducted between Chief Superintendent Hammond, and Finance Services to discuss MPS governance process and routes of review and approval. A corporate timetable for submission of EU bids has been agreed and implemented, which includes two weeks prior to the submission deadline to allow for Management Board and MPA review and sign-off of bids. It has also been agreed that where the MPS is the supporting partner in an EU project, the project manager will make the lead partner aware of the MPS’s corporate timetable for EU bid submission including MPA oversight, to ensure that bids are not submitted in the MPS’s name prior to review and approval. The resolutions to the governance issues and routes of review have T/DAC Hussain’s full support.

Rejected bids

23. Those projects which were submitted to the EU for funding but which have been rejected during 2009 are summarised below. The first six projects in the list are those projects brought over to the MPS by ACPO ITS. All projects were submitted under the European Commission Seventh Framework DG Enterprise Security call.

Project Falconer

24. This project aimed to research and develop advanced portable flying and wheeled robot technology, equipped with evidence gathering technology such as sensors, cameras and laser scanners to capture evidence at the scene of the incident whilst the emergency services are conducting the rescue.

25. The bid was €253,500.

26. This project failed to meet the criteria for scientific and technological excellence in that sufficient evidence was not provided to demonstrate how it would meet project objectives.

Project DOSCOM [1]

27. This project aimed to build a GNSS (e.g. GPS Location) Detection technology, which has the capability to detect when it is being jammed or attacked.

28. The bid was €158,299.

29. This project did not demonstrate excellence as the presented solution did not involve any significant innovation.

Project IINSECT [1]

30. The aim of the IINSECT project was to develop an innovative, low cost, low power, reconfigurable, wide dynamic range and high-resolution insect inspired vision-based sensor to function as part of a vehicle collision avoidance system.

31. The bid was €316,900.

32. This project did not meet the required criteria for the quality and efficiency of the implementation and management.

Project Restore [1]

33. This was a research project that will develop and prepare for implementation, Remote Vehicle Immobilisation Technologies to be fitted to high-risk vehicles.

34. The bid was for €880,000.

35. This project failed as the methodology was not clear and the proposal did not demonstrate how it would contribute at European level.

Project PORTSEC [1]

36. This project proposal aims to build a concept for the exchange of data between relevant partners across Europe, to improve the security of cargo in containers or on roll on roll off ferries as it is transported across Europe.

37. The bid was €561,000.

38. This project failed as the work plan lacked detail, the evidence about key persons lacked detail and only limited information was provided about wider dissemination of the system.

Project Sentinel [1]

39. This project will build on the now completed PASR project Petra.Net to improve coordination of road transport security research activities within the teams and identifying new areas for research.

40. The bid was €2,131,540.

41. This project failed as the evaluation found that it did not address the topic well, the distribution of funding among the partners was unbalanced, and sustainability was not properly addressed.

Operation Caiman

42. The aim of this project was to enhance the capacity of law enforcement officers in tackling the online distribution of child abuse images.

43. The bid was €444,741.

44. The MPS submitted an opportunity cost contribution (in terms of staff costs). However, the EU was looking for cash contributions from all partners.

Genesis

45. The aim of this project was to undertake research to create and develop a secure interoperable situation awareness platform for the EU to combat organised crime and terrorism.

46. The bid was €185,000.

47. The reason for rejection is unknown.

Witness and victim protection in honour-based violence investigations

48. This project addresses the need for witness protection practitioners throughout Europe to reconsider their processes for protecting witnesses.

49. The bid was €410,000.

50. The reason for rejection is unknown.

C. Race and equality impact

1. All projects, if successful, would be delivered against an equalities impact assessment by the MPS to ensure compliance to our equalities and diversity strategies.

D. Financial implications

1. The financial implication of each project is shown in Appendix 1. Grant funding is currently managed as part of the overall MPA budget setting process and MPS contributions towards project costs will be met from existing resources, within each business group’s devolved budgets.

2. The main resource for each project is officer time and therefore represents an opportunity cost to the MPA/MPS. The shortfall (usually 25-30% could be deemed as notional as long as there is capacity for officer time to work on projects.

3. There may be occasions when projects have to be included in the budget setting process as bids for growth, if the costs are material or resources are not available..

E. Legal implications

Under European law, funding applications may be made to the European Commission. The applications outlined in this paper were made in accordance with European Law. There are no further legal implications.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author(s): Anne McMeel, Director of Resources, MPS

For more information contact:

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

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