Minutes

Minutes of the meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority held on 30 October 2003 at 10 Dean Farrar Street, London, SW1H 0NY.

Present

Members

• Toby Harris (Chair);
• Richard Barnes (Deputy Chair)
• R David Muir (Deputy Chair)
• Tony Arbour
• Reshard Auladin
• Cindy Butts
• Lynne Featherstone
• Nicky Gavron
• Kirsten Hearn
• Peter Herbert
• Diana Johnson
• Jenny Jones
• Nicholas Long
• Noel Lynch
• Eric Ollerenshaw
• Sir John Quinton
• Richard Sumray
• Graham Tope
• Abdal Ullah
• Rachel Whittaker
• Cecile Wright

MPA officers

• Catherine Crawford (Clerk)
• Peter Martin (Treasurer)
• David Riddle (Deputy Clerk)
• Simon Vile (Head of Secretariat)

MPS officers

• Sir John Stevens (Commissioner)
• Sir Ian Blair (Deputy Commissioner)
• Keith Luck (Director of Resources)
• Bernard Hogan-Howe (Assistant Commissioner)
• Steve House (Deputy Assistant Commissioner)

Part 1

At the appointed start time for the meeting it was agreed to adjourn the meeting for 15 minutes to enable the Chair to arrive.

44. Apologies for absence

(Agenda item 1)

An apology for absence was received from Elizabeth Howlett.

45. The ‘Secret Policemen’ programme

Before the start of formal business, members raised the urgent issue of the recent programme exposing racism at the Police National Training Centre. Reshard Auladin read a statement on behalf of the Authority. Overall, members felt that the programme’s revelations would not come as a surprise to the black and minority ethnic community. It was important that everything possible was done to ensure that racism was tackled in the MPS and that recruitment processes were rigorous and sophisticated enough to identify those with racist attitudes. However, the progress made by the MPS should be acknowledged.

The Commissioner commented that he welcomed the programme and was personally taking up the initiative. Every aspect of MPS practices should be continually reviewed and the integrity testing programme reinforced so that the MPS was an exemplar of behaviour. A task force had been set up under Assistant Commissioner Ghaffur to take this work forward. The Chair asked that this task force look, amongst other things, at the nature of the training, the trainers themselves, how existing integrity testing processes can be applied and the introduction of more sophisticated screening exercises. The Authority would want to play a direct role in the issues to be addressed.

46. Declarations of interest

(Agenda item 2)

No declarations made.

47. Minutes

(Agenda item 3)

Resolved – That the minutes of the meeting of the Authority held on 25 September 2003 be confirmed and signed as a correct record.

48. Minutes of committees

(Agenda item 4)

The Authority received the draft or approved minutes of the following committees:

• Co-ordination & Policing Committee, 3 and 20 October
• Planning, Performance & Review Committee, 9 October
• Finance Committee, 13 October

49. Chair’s, Members’ and Clerk’s updates

(Agenda item 5)

The Authority noted updates from the Chair and other members.

50. Commissioner’s update

(Agenda item 9)

The Commissioner gave an oral update on a number of issues, as follows:

Settlement reached with Superintendent Dizaei

The Commissioner read out a joint statement released that morning by the MPS and Supt Dizaei following the settlement reached with the assistance of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service and others involved in the negotiations, including HMIC and the MPA’s Clerk.

A conflicting announcement from the Police Complaints Authority was reported at the meeting. However, despite this, the Clerk stated that all parties were content that the agreement still stood.

The Clerk updated members on the progress of the Authority’s Independent Inquiry. She hoped to be able to announce shortly who would chair the inquiry. The MPA had required the MPS to set up an independent case study review of lessons to be learned from this case and these would be fed into the Independent Inquiry.

MPS crime performance

The Commissioner reported that the MPS was sustaining the reductions in gun crime, burglary and autocrime.

Visit of George W Bush

The Commissioner said that the demonstrations against this visit were likely to be substantial and all police leave had been cancelled.

Anti-terrorism

The alert still continued at its highest level. The Commissioner confirmed that Section 44 powers were still in operation whilst the High Court judgement was awaited.

51. Budget submission to the Mayor for 2004/05

(Agenda item 7 & 7add)

The Authority considered a report by the Treasurer introducing the 2004/05 budget submission, together with the documents that comprised the submission.

The Treasurer also reported that when it had considered the submission at its meeting on 23 October, the Finance Committee had agreed that it was not prepared to accept at this stage that no further reductions could be made in the police overtime budget for 2004/05. Members had also been concerned to ensure that the implications of any one-off savings in 2004/05 were clearly presented in the final submission.

After discussion it was

Resolved –

1. That the budget submission be approved, including the further budget reductions considered by the Finance Committee on 23 October;
2. that the Finance Committee’s views on reductions to overtime and the implications of one-off savings be noted and addressed.

The meeting ended at 12.35 p.m.

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