Initial performance assessment of the MPA

Report: 13
Date: 27 January 2005
By: Clerk

Summary

This report outlines the initial performance processes and includes the final report, published by the Audit Commission in November 2004. The Clerk will provide an oral update on the progress that has been made in addressing the issues raised in this report.

A. Recommendation

That Members note the conclusions of the report.

B. Supporting information

Initial Performance Assessment

1. On 15 December 2003 the Co-ordination and Policing Committee received a report outlining the process and timescale for the Audit Commission’s Initial Performance Assessment of the GLA Group. At that meeting, Members also received a copy of the Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOE) document as an appendix, setting out the questions the Audit Commission intended to cover during their inspection. As the first step in the IPA process the MPA published a self-assessment document. The final version of the self assessment document was approved by the Authority at its meeting on 26 February 2004.

2. The Audit Commission used the self-assessment and the KLOE during their on-site inspection, which took place over a two week period beginning on 10 May 2004. A draft report was delivered to the Clerk in early October. Extensive comments were made on that draft, resulting in the final version.

3. The Audit Commission published the final judgement, scoring the performance of the MPA, in November 2004. The IPA process was applied to whole GLA ‘family’. The functional body reports were published at the same time as the MPA report. An assessment of the GLA will be published in due course.

The conclusions of the assessment

4. The MPA has been graded “fair” overall, which is the mid point on a scale of poor, weak, fair, good and excellent.

5. The grade is the result of an assessment against ten key themes. These themes were ambition, focus, prioritisation, performance management achievement, improvement, capacity, learning, investment, and future plans. Using the KLOEs, each theme was given a numerical score. Some of these themes have been weighted, to reflect the relative importance of each theme. A summary of the scores can be found on page 7 of the report.

6. The score should be seen in context. Unlike the other functional bodies, the MPA was set up from scratch to oversee the work of one of the country’s biggest organisations and London’s biggest employer. The priority in the first four years was to make the MPS more accountable to London’s diverse communities and that has been achieved, as acknowledged by the Audit Commission in the IPA. However, the Audit Commission also found that the MPA has fallen short with regards to its own development as an organisation. The following paragraphs outline their findings in each of the themes in more detail.

7. Ambition: Strengths outweigh weaknesses. The MPA has a well developed ambition and a shared vision with the MPS. It also has a good understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing London. Mechanisms have been established to provide citizens with the ability to influence the policing and performance plan in 2004/05 for the first time and the MPA has begun to identify strategic partnership opportunities. Productive working relationships have been established with key stakeholders. However, although the MPA is trying to develop its community engagement role, it struggles to assert itself against the higher profiles of the Commissioner and the Mayor. The team also found that internally there is a lack of corporate leadership, weaknesses in people management and corporate planning.

8. Prioritisation: Weaknesses outweigh strengths. The MPA has effectively balanced the competing priorities of the Home Office, the Mayor and other key stakeholders. Although the MPA has established external credibility and effectively prioritised a number of pressing issues with the MPS (e.g. poor financial management and recruitment and retention), the Authority has been slow to define and publish clear long-term objectives for itself. As a result, it tends to be reactive, either to external pressures, MPS prioritisation or to the interests of individual MPA members. Service and financial planning are not well integrated and although the authority is prepared to make difficult financial decisions, it is not always clear whether these are linked to explicit corporate priorities.

9. Focus: Strengths outweigh weaknesses. The MPA has risen to the challenge of providing an effective accountability mechanism for policing in London. It successfully sustains a firm focus on improving the performance of the MPS and has developed appropriate systems and structures to support this. However, in achieving this, it has struggled to sustain the same level of focus on internal arrangements and organisational resilience.

10. Capacity: Weaknesses outweigh strengths. The MPA has high calibre Members and talented and motivated staff who tackle complex and challenging policy areas with skill and enthusiasm. The team also identified that it is building capacity and increasing resources in key areas. However, the organisation is undermined by the lack of a corporate approach in key areas e.g. inconsistent people management weak internal communication. A lack of direction and control of workloads means that staff and Members are stretched. High workloads can mean that decision making is slow, impacting on confidence in the Authority, particularly from external stakeholders. The team found that the MPA’s HR systems do not serve it well.

11. Performance Management: Strengths outweigh weaknesses. The MPA is increasingly effective at fulfilling its strategic role with regard to managing the performance of the police. It is successfully challenging attitudes and behaviours and financial performance is much improved. Scrutiny is good but oversight of the implementation of recommendations could be improved. Internal performance management of the MPA should be improved.

12. Achievement in quality of service: strengths outweigh weaknesses. The MPA has achieved much in its short lifetime and police performance across most areas particularly finance has improved. Areas for improvement include financial monitoring at borough level, community engagement and partnership working.

13. Achievement of Improvement: Strengths outweigh weaknesses. Performance across the range of indicators has improved, including public confidence (albeit from a low level). More could be done to improve the public’s understanding of the MPA and their satisfaction with the policing services they receive.

14. Investment: Weaknesses outweigh strengths. The MPA recognises that in order to build on successes, it needs to build itself as a resilient organisation, and it has begun to do this with the development of new teams and the appointment of new heads of service. The corporate plan has been finalised and changes to HR practices are in train, however, this has yet to deliver improved outcomes. Gaps in community consultation and community participation are being addressed. Joint working across the GLA group is underdeveloped, and the MPA has yet to establish itself as a strong partner at a local level. The Authority is open to external challenge but does not make effective use of the strong internal challenge around policy and strategy provided by its staff.

15. Learning: Weaknesses outweigh strengths. The Authority is self aware, but is unable to demonstrate that learning informs change. The MPA is aware of the internal challenges it faces such as defining organisational ambitions and priorities in order to be clearer about what it is trying to achieve. The Authority reviews activities when the anticipated outcomes are not being achieved, but it is not always clear about the way forward and the action planning to support this. The Authority is good at seeking out good practice, but there is little evidence to show that learning from others in this way has had a significant impact. Internal Audit has a good track record of learning from others,

16. Future Plans: Strengths outweigh weaknesses. In its future planning the MPA is addressing areas where it has underachieved and where its organisational problems are presenting barriers. Clear strategies such as medium term financial and audit strategies, estates strategies and (although untested) a corporate strategy are now in place. The Commission was concerned however, that although there is a real commitment to involve the public and stakeholders in e.g. the corporate plan, a lack of clarity about the role of the MPA may reduce confidence and support. They also highlighted that building productive relationships with minority groups remains a significant challenge.

17. It is important to recognise that the report hasn’t highlighted anything that the MPA was unaware of, and that the organisation has moved on since the team were on-site. We are confident that with the action that has already been taken e.g. in respect of the corporate plan and developing HR policy and procedure, many of the weaknesses are being addressed.

The way forward

18. The IPA process is a means to an end. It informs improvement planning which is a process for bringing about improvement in an organisation's functions for the benefit of local people. The Audit Commission guidance stated that once the reports were published, they would commence the improvement planning process, to move from the findings of the assessment into identifying the priorities for improvement and where relevant a proportionate programme of audit and inspection. This aims to ensure that the improvement planning process is timely and relevant.

19. Improvement planning will be managed by the MPA’s Audit Commission Relationship Manager, Mike Haworth-Maden (Kash Pandya’s replacement), with input (where necessary) from the IPA team, the appointed auditor, relevant government departments, and HMIC.

20. The process will not require the MPA to produce an additional plan. The Audit Commission expects all organisations to implement improvement planning as part of their normal planning processes. The outcomes of improvement planning will be integrated with existing plans, particularly our corporate strategy and the work plans derived from that.

21. The Clerk will provide an oral update at the Authority meeting of the progress being made develop an improvement plan for the MPA, to address the issues raised by the assessment report.

C. Equality and diversity implications

22. The MPA is committed to equality and diversity. The self-assessment process required the MPA to consider its performance on equality and diversity issues and the self-assessment document covers these areas in some detail. The IPA did not identify any weaknesses, and praised our approach to race and diversity in many areas.

D. Financial implications

23. The IPA was carried out at no cost to the MPA.

E. Background papers

• COP papers 15 Dec 03 – summary of the process and key lines of enquiry (kloe)
• Police Authority 26 Feb 05 – MPA self assessment submission

F. Contact details

Report author: Siobhan Coldwell, MPA.

For more information contact:

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

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