Temporary promotion arrangements for (ACPO) ranks

Report: 7
Date: 30 June 2009
By: Chief Executive

Summary

For a number of years, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) have arranged for informal temporary promotion ‘panels’ where opportunities exist for short-term appointments. This report sets out a framework within which a more formalised process should operate.

A. Recommendations

1. That Members are invited to consider the paper and agree the approach set out in paragraphs 4-6.

B. Supporting information

1. The HR and Remuneration Sub Committee is responsible for holding the MPS to account for all human resource issues in respect of senior staff and carrying out, on behalf of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), the Authority’s statutory responsibilities in this regard. The terms of reference for the Sub Committee have been agreed by the Full Authority and include:

“To consider and agree the terms, conditions and benefits, including early retirement and redundancy, to be offered to ACPO ranks up to and including Commissioner.”

2. For a number of years, the MPS and the MPA have arranged for temporary promotion ‘panels’ where opportunities exist for short-term appointments. The purpose of this paper is to set out a formal framework within which a more formalised process should operate. (At present, all proposals for temporary promotion arrangements have to be agreed by the Senior Appointments Panel (SAP), but other than that there is no prescribed approach to filling such vacancies.)

3. However, the MPA must ensure that their selection procedures:

• are fair and non-discriminatory;
• allow candidates to be assessed fully for the rank and role or roles (if known and/or available) for which they are applying;
• are transparent and understood by the candidates and the selection panel; and reflect good practice in selection.

4. Given the temporary nature of such arrangements it would be sensible to restrict advertising these posts to those staff already in the MPS. However, before doing so it would also be sensible to agree the panel membership and the dates and times of the short-listing and interviews. These can then be included in any ‘mailshot’ to eligible officers, together with a closing date.

5. Because this is a temporary appoint there can be a more explicit involvement of the Commissioner or his or her representative, particularly where the location of the vacancy or vacancies is known, e.g. if the vacancy is in Territorial Policing the appropriate Assistant Commissioner should participate. In any event, the number of Members of the Authority should always exceed the number of non Members. For example, if an Assistant Commissioner and the MPS Director of Human Resources are proposed as the Commissioner’s representatives on the selection panel, there should be three Members of the Authority on the selection panel – all of whom should have received training in the ACPO selection process.

6. The candidates should be asked to complete a short competence based application form, with the competences derived from the post or posts to be filled. The selection panel, chaired by a Member of the MPA or the Chief Executive, should short-list candidates against the competences tested and invite the best qualified candidates to a competence based interview. At the interview, the decision of the selection panel will be final.

C. Race and equality impact

There are no direct equality and/or diversity implications as this paper is concerned primarily with setting out an approach to the temporary promotion process.

D. Financial implications

There are some direct financial implications arising from this report.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Alan Johnson, Oversight and Review Team, Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA)

For more information contact:

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

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