Central Communications Command

Report: 6
Date: 15 December 2011
By: Assistant Commissioner Territorial Policing, on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This report provides an overview on a range of HR issues at Central Communications Command (CCC).

A. Recommendations

That members note the report.

B. Supporting information

Overview of the role of CCC

1. CCC was formed in January 2008 upon completion of the C3i programme. This saw public telephone contact and control of the deployment of MPS uniform policing assets move from a central Information Room (IR) located at New Scotland Yard; 32 local control rooms (known within the MPS as CAD (Computer Aided Despatch) Rooms); and three independent Telephone Operator Centres (TOC), to three purpose built contact and deployment centres located at Lambeth, Hendon and Bow.

2. CCC now operates within the Public Contact Portfolio of Territorial Policing (TP) as a single Operational Command Unit (OCU). CCC handles all emergency and non emergency telephony for the MPS, co-ordinates the despatch of initial response to incidents for Borough Operational Command Units (BOCUs), provides command and control infrastructure for major incident and event policing through the Special Operations Room (SOR) and command and control for critical incidents. CCC is led by Chief Superintendent BJ Harrington, and strategically overseen by Commander Tony Eastaugh.

Overview of CCC Key Performance Delivery areas

3. There are three key areas of service delivery within CCC:

• Public Contact primarily through the receipt of emergency (999) and non emergency (101 and other direct dial numbers).
• Command and control through the grading, assignment and dispatching of officers across 32 Borough Operational Command Units (BOCUs) to calls for police assistance.
• Specialist operations through command support of major incidents, management of pan London deployments and through major policing operations in the Special Operations Room (SOR).

4. For telephony there are two separate performance measures. The first relates to 999 calls. This is set at answering 90% of calls within 10 seconds through the National Contact Management Principles and Guidelines (NCMPG) agreed by ACPO. The MPS has set a target of answering 80% of non emergency telephone calls within 30 seconds. There is no national target time.

5. The target times for responding to emergency incidents are set within the NCMPG and relate to ‘Immediate’ and ‘Significant’ graded calls. The MPS has chosen a more challenging target. The MPS aims to respond to 75% of ‘Immediate’ graded calls within 12 minutes (national urban standard is 15 minutes) and 75% of Significant graded calls within 60 minutes (in line with national standards).

6. There are no quantitative measures for the specialist operations arena.

7. The size and scale of the workload managed at CCC is immense and to demonstrate this, the volume of calls, incidents and events managed in 2010/11 is summarised as follows:

• 2.03 million 999 calls
• 2.9 million non emergency calls
• 4.03 million calls that required police advice or intervention
• 477,887 Immediate graded calls
• 491, 460 Significant graded calls
• SOR managed over 500 separate policing operations.

Shift Patterns

8. In 2006 CCC implemented a single core shift pattern based upon a fixed 12 hour rotating pattern for staff working in both the telephone answering role (known as First Contact) and the in the assigning and dispatching arena (known as Despatch). This ended on 23 May 2011 when the OCU moved to two variable rosters; one for First Contact and one for Despatch.

9. The 12 hour pattern was popular with staff as it allowed a significant number of days off with the resulting reduction in travel costs and more days away from work. In fact an officer or member of staff would only work on average 182 days a year.

10. This pattern had some advantages for the OCU in that it was simple to administer and also was popular with staff. However it has some significant drawbacks and since 2006 there have been repeated attempts to try and change the pattern to address these concerns.

11. The first and principal limitation was that the 12 hour pattern provided a flat staffing level across a 24 hour period and across the days of the week. The demand for police services are not flat and generally escalate through the afternoon and into the evening tapering off into the early hours. The demand also increases on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. This meant that staffing levels did not meet the demands made and a supporting suite of rosters had to be developed for staff that worked these peak hours and overtime had to be used to meet these peaks in demand.

12. In addition CCC had over 450 members of staff working on personal flexible rosters. Some of these had been inherited through the C3i transition from 2004 to 2006, while others were developed without any corporate assessment of their compatibility with public demand. In many cases they were to negate the impact of a 12 hour working pattern on the staff concerned.

13. The new Despatch shift pattern works on a core eight hour pattern with some shifts lasting 10 hours to allow for support in periods of high telephony demand.

14. The new First Contact shift pattern is a variable pattern with officers and staff working eight, nine and ten hour shifts allowing effective matching of staffing levels to public demand.

15. In both patterns there is a reduction in the numbers of days away from work brought about by the reduction of shift length form twelve hours and the removal of additional accrued hours. Officers still work a total of 40 hours a week and police staff an average of 41 hours a week as per Police Regulations and Police Staff Terms and Conditions.

16. The inefficiencies with the 12 hour pattern had been known by CCC since inception and there had been many attempts to review this. The performance and financial imperatives on the horizon in 2009 meant that this needed to be firmly explored and, with the appointment of a new OCU Commander, a full review was commissioned.

17. A working group was convened, including officers and staff at all levels, chaired by senior management. The chair of the group was vastly experienced in organisational change, having been the one of the senior team in the C3i transition with responsibility for HR people changes. The group included staff and officers from across all three CCC Centers as well as representatives of the Public and Commercial Services Union and Police Federation.

18. One of the key elements of defining a shift pattern was an assessment of business need. In order to ensure objective and independent assessment PA Consulting were appointed to assist and were engaged throughout the process.

19. The process of development took over 18 months and the changes were properly project managed with consultation at every stage through the working group. Three different rosters were proposed for despatch and four for first contact and each was agreed by the OCU senior management as acceptable for implementation. All were equality impact assessed with no significant concerns raised. Staff who would have to work these rosters were balloted and the rosters that received the most votes were implemented.

20. In order to ensure ‘due diligence’ an independent challenge panel was convened comprising of an MPA Officer, the Chair of the CCC Community Consultative Forum (also an MPS Race Independent Advisory Group member), a Diversity Advisor from the MPS Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate, an MPS HR Work/Life balance co-coordinator and a member of the Territorial Policing Development team. The chair of the working group presented the proposed changes and there were no significant concerns raised.

21. Environmental issues were considered and no significant issues were identified.

22. Since implementation there have been concerns identified with the Dispatch roster from staff, PCS Union and Police Federation. These relate specifically to the number of night duties required to be worked in a row, finishing night duties on to a day off and only having two rest days after a stretch of duty days.

23. These issues and their impact on staff and officers have been acknowledged by CCC Senior Management. As a result the consultation and change process was repeated and a new shift pattern has been agreed and voted for in a ballot. This will be introduced on 9 January 2012 and addresses the concerns expressed by officers and staff.

24. There have been no fundamental problems raised with the First Contact shift pattern and no further change is proposed.

Fairness at Work submissions

25. From April 2010 to the end of October 2011 there have been 45 Fairness at Work (FAW) cases registered by current and former police staff at CCC. As at November 2011 ten cases are still being progressed under this process. Six cases are ongoing at the first stage and four at the appeal stage.

26. The FAW submissions for police staff reached the following outcomes:

• 18 did not constitute fairness issues under the policy
• 2 were withdrawn by the originator
• 9 were locally resolved by line management
• 4 cases were migrated to other appeal processes
• 2 were concluded to the satisfaction of the member of staff.

27. In regard to the person who lodged the FAW issues 15 were female and 8 were male, 5 described themselves as from a Black or Minority Ethnic (BME) background and 17 described themselves as not.

28. A breakdown of the FAW cases between 2010/11 and 2011 year to date is set out in table 1.

Table 1

29. From April 2010 to the end of October 2011 there have been 5 FAW cases registered by police officers at CCC. One case was migrated to another appeal process, one matter was locally resolved, one originator was not happy with the outcome but has not chosen to appeal and two are still progressing.

30. Of these cases all five officers described themselves as of BME background; four were female and one male.

31. Two of these cases concerned an issue with second line manager and the others were classified as ‘other’.

32. The CCC OCU commander meets with the Strategic HR advisor and a senior member of the Deputy Commissioner’s Command with responsibility for FAWs to review and discuss cases and matters pertaining to fairness issues. The OCU Commander has to agree all recommendations with the fairness at work advisor and is responsible for ensuring these are implemented.

33. None of the cases raised have progressed to formal misconduct and the majority have been diverted to other processes as they are properly and adequately managed through these.

34. There has been an increase in cases originated. The rise sits within the areas of local policy, tenure and posting and transfer. This has been brought about by the application of policy in relation to tenure, flexible working and attendance management. However, given the size of the CCC establishment of officers and staff this is assessed as a comparatively low number.

Discipline Issues within CCC

35. Police staff and police officer misconduct are subject to different procedures. Police officer misconduct and complaints are governed by the Police Performance and Conduct Regulations 2008 and police staff by the Police Staff Discipline Standard Operating Procedures. Therefore each is outlined separately below.

36. Since April 2010 to April 2011 there have been 50 formal misconduct cases involving police staff at CCC. Of these 29 staff were female, and 21 were male. 24 staff describing themselves as white, 20 from a BME background and 5 did not state their self defined origin. 22 of the cases were White, and 3 where they declined to state their self defined ethnicity.

37. The nature and outcome of these cases is summarised in the table 2.

Table 2

38. Since April 2010 to September 2011 there have been 11 formal misconduct cases finalised, involving police officers at CCC. All 11 of the officers described themselves as white.

39. The nature and outcome of these cases is summarised in the table 3.

Table 3

40. In terms of gender, 3 of the officers were female, 11 of the officers were male, and 2 did not specify gender. In terms of ethnicity 16 were classified as white and 2 do not state ethnicity.

41. The CCC OCU Commander meets with the Strategic HR advisor, a senior member of the Deputy Commissioner’s Command (DCC) with responsibility for police staff misconduct, the Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) and the CCC Professional Standards Champion to review and discuss cases and matters pertaining to misconduct every two months, to monitor cases and identify trends and issues.

42. One key area of learning that has been taken form both police staff and officer misconduct has been the common application of misconduct processes for performance issues. This has been remedied by a training input to supervisors from both DPS and DCC on this subject. This also the subject of specific development training for all team leaders scheduled for Spring 2012.

Employment Tribunal action commenced by CCC Staff

43. From April 2010 to the end of September 2011 there have been 22 Employment Tribunal Cases that have been concluded relating to CCC, involving 19 claimants. There were 8 in 2009/10 and 14 in 2010/11 (up to the end of September).

44. The results of the claims are as follows:

• 13 claims were withdrawn
• 3 claims were settled prior to the Tribunal hearing the case
• 2 cases were struck out by the Tribunal
• 2 claims were contested and won by the MPS
• 2 claims relating to one claimant were lost.

45. The claims that were settled relate to sexual discrimination and flexible working. The claims that were lost related to race and religious/belief discrimination. The cases that were won relate to unfair dismissal and alleged breached of working time directives.
46. The OCU Commander meets every two months with senior HR professionals to discuss issues relating to Employment Tribunals and to assess and implement any learning. There is an agreement with the MPS Employment Tribunals Unit to ensure that the OCU Commander is advised of all new claims lodged so that the appropriate support can be put in place for all members of CCC staff involved.

CCC Sickness

47. Officer and staff sickness is monitored monthly. The tables below outline police officer and staff sickness levels month on month starting in April 2011 up to October 2011. The full year 2010/11 is represented in figure 1 and the period up to October 2011 in figure 2.

Figures 1 and 2 are available as a PDF in appendix 1

48. CCC does not record attendance management information on a gender or ethnicity basis.

49. CCC adheres to the MPS Corporate Attendance Management Policy (ATM). This is used to identify those who are most disruptive to CCC business in the form of frequent short term absence. Furthermore it is used to identify the Centres and teams level of absence and compliance with the policy and to encourage robust and effective management of absence.

50. Absence Management Meetings are held at OCU SMT level monthly and are chaired by the OCU Commander. They include detailed absence management information for the preceding month, and compliance with policy. It focuses on areas of poor performance such as high levels of absence and unauthorised extended periods of recuperative duties. These meetings also seek to identify the cause of attendance management issues.

51. As well as senior managers the OCU meeting is attended by the Strategic HR Advisor, the head of Occupational Health for the MPS, HR Operational Services and the lead representatives for the PCS Union and Police Federation.

52. There has been an increase in overall sickness at CCC. This has been seen to increase since March 2011. The levels of sickness absence increase for both police staff and officers with police staff peaking in August 2011 and Officers in July 2011.

53. It should be noted that during the summer and Christmas periods CCC always sees a rise in sickness absence. In addition the HR data for November 2010 cannot relied upon due to the data accuracy issues during the transformation to central HR processes that took effect in that month.

54. The meeting does not only focus on compliance and enforcement. There are extensive policies and processes to encourage and support good attendance including letters of thanks to all staff members who have not reported sick in 12 months; dedicated Occupational Health Advisors, to provide additional coverage; and a dedicated Consultant Doctor for CCC, both of which are paid for by the OCU.

55. Specific trends of sickness are monitored and appropriate interventions planned. For example influenza vaccinations are again being purchased by the OCU, personal antibacterial hand rub has been personally issued to all staff to guard against infection and the services of a workplace Ergonomist is being procured to help prevent muscular skeletal injuries in the workplace.

56. The OCU Absence Management Meeting is supported by the work of local centre based meetings which are held weekly to review individual cases, seek to identify trends, and support managers in managing staff.

57. It is important to note that the new attendance management meeting process was only set in place in June 2011. There was little impact as a result of the unprecedented challenges faced by CCC during the summer disorder, but since August there has been a significant reduction in police staff sickness absence.

58. The same decrease in sickness has not been seen for police officers. This is as a result of a move from short term to long term sickness brought about by a focused management small number of officers who have particularly poor attendance records.

59. It is recognised that staff sickness has increased considerably since the inception of the new shift pattern, with sickness peaking in the month of July 2011 for police officers (30.56) and August 2011 for police staff (26.99).

Staffing levels

60. CCC has a mixed workforce of police staff and police officers. This allows resilience in times of industrial dispute and also operational policing experience. The current Budgeted Target Strength (BTS) for officers is 315 and police staff is 1500. In 2010/11 the BTS for police officers was 318 and the police staff started the financial year at 1594 and was reduced to 1559 in July 2010. These were reduced again at the start of 2010/2011 as part of overall budget savings.

61. CCC has an agreed uplift of 30 police staff to cover additional demand anticipated through the Olympic period. This will bring the police staff AWT to 1530 until the end of 2011/12 when it is planned to reduce to 1500. Officer BTS will remain unchanged during this period.

62. Figure 3 shows that CCC did not achieve BTS for officers in 2010/11

Figure 3 is available as a PDF in appendix 1

63. CCC has not achieved BTS for police officers in 2011 as indicated by figure 4.

Figure 4 is available as a PDF in appendix 1

64. There has been extensive work to fill shortfalls through internal recruitment, compulsory and voluntary transfer and short term attachments. Figure 5 demonstrates the improved staffing position going forward into 2012.

65. Figure 5 shows that CCC has not reached BTS for police staff since August 2010.

Figure 5 is available as a PDF in appendix 1

66. Since May 2010 the MPS had restricted external recruitment and this has impacted on police staff levels at CCC. CCC loses staff through retirement, resignation and transfer at a rate of 10 people per month. Therefore, despite the continued internal recruitment the vacancies at CCC have grown. This matter is being addressed with an extensive and coordinated recruitment campaign and it is essential that this is allowed to progress to conclusion to provide sufficient staffing for CCC as we move into the new financial year.

67. During this period CCC has sought to recruit internally targeting police staff who have been subject to redeployment.

68. In June 2011 CCC was given permission to recruit externally. This has seen 179 new recruits selected and awaiting vetting. There are an additional 140 training places allocated for the remainder of this financial year. 30 new staff members start training in November 2011 with a further 50 training places in January 2011 and December 2011 and another 50 in late February and March 2011. As a result the staffing position for CCC will improve substantially as seen in figure 6.

Figure 6 is available as a PDF in appendix 1

69. In the interim period 30 police officers are being attached to CCC to mitigate this staffing shortfall.

Performance

70. In 2010/11 CCC exceeded all of its key performance targets.

• 90.1% of 999 Calls answered within 10 seconds
• 90.8% of non emergency calls answered within 30 seconds
• 81.6% of Immediate graded calls attended within 12 minutes
• 88.6% of Significant graded calls attended within 60 minutes.

71. Performance in responding to Immediate and Significant Graded calls remains in excess of target. Up until September 2011 80% of Immediate graded calls and 87% of Significant graded calls were attended within target.

72. Since 2011 CCC has seen an increasing challenge to meet performance targets regarding emergency and non emergency call handling. This is demonstrated in figures 7 and 8.

Figures 7 and 8 are available as a PDF in appendix 1

73. The first reason is an increase in call volumes brought about by an unseasonably warm summer, the launch of the ‘101’ non emergency number with an associated media campaign, and also the unprecedented demand brought about by the summer disorder.

74. The number of vacancies at CCC has also been a factor. Despite the introduction of a new and more efficient shift pattern, the use of overtime and assistance of officers on attachment from across the MPS the staffing gap has been challenging to meet, and until October had been continuing to grow.

75. The extensive business change within CCC through a new shift pattern and the process of review of personal rosters has had an impact on staff morale that has seen a reduction in discretionary effort. Coupled with the staff shortages and the increased work demands there has been an increase in sickness absence.

76. There has been some recent performance improvement brought about by extensive work by management with the Public and Commercial Services Union and Police Federation, as well as the effective management of sickness, the settling in of business change and the activity outline above to improve staffing levels. The prognosis is that this improvement will continue.

C. Other organisational and community implications

Equality and Diversity Impact

1. The development of the proposed shift patterns were all assessed for equality impact. These were carried out by an independent work life balance assessor and with the guidance of the DCFD. There were no significant issues raised with any of the proposed rosters that prevented their implementation. Where there were issues raised locally these were addressed in the implementation phase with the patterns that were chosen.

Consideration of Met Forward

2. The changes that have been introduced in CCC shift patterns and working practices will support Met Streets in ensuring better staff availability at times of peak demand; Met Connect by ensuring increased staffing at times when more of the public need to contact the Met; Met Support by providing resilience for command and control for officers and staff fighting crime; and Met People by reducing the stress on officers and staff who find themselves on duty at the busiest times.

Financial implications

3. Within CCC overtime costs remain similar to previous years, but it is difficult to assess what effect shift pattern changes have had on overtime levels as other issues such as staff vacancy levels, the introduction of the national 101 emergency number, back-filling for staff involved in training in relation to the IBO/CCC transition project within the TP Development Programme and overtime from exceptional events might have had an adverse effect on overtime working. Nevertheless, the use of overtime to manage shortfalls in staffing numbers at CCC is considered to be a cost-effective management tool.

4. Table 1 below is a comparison of police overtime outturn costs for 2010/11 against forecast costs for 2011/12, as at period 7 (October 2011).

Note that the 2011/12 forecast position for police overtime includes £0.23m costs incurred within CCC as a result of additional policing requirements linked to Operation Kirkin.

5. Table 2 below is a comparison of police staff overtime outturn costs (including premium payments) for 2010/11 against forecast costs for 2011/12, as at period 7 (October 2011).

Note that the 2011/12 forecast position for police staff overtime includes £0.46m costs incurred within CCC as a result of additional staffing requirements linked to Operation Kirkin.

6. Table 3 below is a comparison of police staff shift disturbance allowance costs for 2010/11 against forecast costs for 2011/12, as at period 7 (October 2011).

Legal implications

7. There are no direct legal implications arising from this report which is presented for information only.

8. The report highlights a number of work-force related matters such as the number of employment tribunal claims; FAW’s; changing of work shift patterns etc. HR and DLS should continue to be engaged to ensure compliance with any statutory and/or regulatory requirements surrounding any work-force issues that arise, as and when appropriate.

Environmental implications

9. There are no environmental implications arising from this report.

D. Background papers

None

E. Contact details

Report author: Chief Superintendent Ben-Julian Harrington, Central Communications Command, MPS

For more information contact:

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

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