Events of July 2005 – MPS response suicide terrorism - update

Report: 8
Date: 23 February 2006
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report outlines the progress made in relation to MPS procedures and resilience in a range of key areas that developed from the response to the unprecedented policing challenges in July 2005. It specifically updates on the role of MPS Management Board sitting as a Crisis Management Team, reassurance and community engagement, command resilience, support to Crisis Management and Investigative teams, the Operation Kratos Review Group and training.

A. Recommendation

That Members note the contents of this report.

B. Supporting information

1. The events of July 2005 were unprecedented in the history of British policing. They created an operating context that had never before been encountered, with huge public concern, risks to community cohesion, challenges to the resilience of command and control, significant demands on family liaison and Casualty Bureau, and the testing to the limits of investigative and other standard operating procedures. The MPS worked throughout this period under the media spotlight and in an environment where continuing risk to life meant that every second counted. Every Directorate was impacted, and every Directorate contributed.

2. With the support of the Police Authority, Management Board has taken forward policy development and action resultant from these unique circumstances. They analysed debriefs and commissioned both short and longer-term reviews (including reviews by DAC Bill Griffiths of command and control and tasking arrangements that were commissioned immediately after 7 July). These reviews were considered and accepted by Management Board in the autumn and passed to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) to inform their investigation into the tragic death of Jean Charles de Menezes. The debriefs, examples of good practice and reviews have led to a number of recommendations and improvements being made. It is not appropriate, due to current judicial processes, to comment on all of these areas at the moment, but where possible this paper sets out the key changes and learning post-7 July.

3. Set out below are the major issues that flowed from these reviews and the action taken thus far.

Management board

4. Management Board members have formalised the procedures that they followed in practice in response to the July atrocities. Each member has been allocated specific responsibilities within the Crisis Management Team (CMT) that will be formed for any relevant major incident in future. This will sit above the existing command structure to ensure that the core functions of the MPS continue whilst supporting and allowing the Gold commander to manage the major incident.

5. A new role of Crisis Management Co-ordinator (at Chief Superintendent level) has been introduced within Central Operations.

6. Meetings have taken place between the Crisis Management Co-ordinator and the Directorate of Public Affairs (DPA), Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate, the Directorate of Strategy, Special Branch (SO12), Anti-Terrorist Branch (SO13) and Public Order Branch (CO11). Agreements are in place that personnel with appropriate skills will be supplied from these Directorates / Operational Command Units (OCUs), when necessary, to form a Knowledge Management Cell (KMC) operating on a 24/7 basis. Specialist Crime Directorate (SCD) personnel or other specialist staff (depending on the nature of the incident) can supplement this team. A member of the KMC will be nominated as ‘lead’ and briefing officer. Officers will be deployed to key areas such as crime scenes to collect and transmit information to the KMC. The information will be graded and assessed into what is confirmed, believed and possible to assist Management Board in decision-making.

Reassurance and community engagement

7. During July 2005, the MPS consolidated its existing community strategy. The Community Reassurance Strategy provides reassurance to address three key areas:

• Concerns amongst those who work, visit or live in London about being kept safe from terrorist attack.
• Concerns amongst black and minority ethnic communities, faith communities in general, and the Muslim community in particular, about being subjected to some kind of backlash or reprisal, and concern that the police may target such communities as being involved in terrorism.
• Concerns amongst some communities who believe they may be specifically targeted by terrorists e.g. the Jewish and LGBT communities and that the police are withholding information about such threats.

8. The MPS Community Reassurance Strategy is supported through:

• Understanding the communities
• Understanding the impact
• Face-to-face engagement
• Key messages
• Visible policing activities
• Recording, reporting and investigation of hate crime

9. Numerous consultations have taken place. In particular, on 11 July 2005, a “Communities Together” event attended by 300+ people was held by the MPS in conjunction with the MPA and Mayor. A multi-agency ‘Communities Together Strategic Group’, chaired by DAC Rose Fitzpatrick, meets fortnightly to oversee and review community reassurance and engagement measures. The Muslim Safety Forum is a key member of the Group.

10. A wide series of community consultation exercises have been commissioned and from these key issues and concerns have been identified. These have formed the basis of a corporate issues paper that was presented to Management Board SMT on 23 January 2006.

11. A Diamond Group facilitates the two-way flow of information between communities and the MPS. A weekly diamond bulletin is circulated to 2,500 people and in addition the website receives 3,500 hits per month.

12. Work has been commissioned to develop a ‘Community Mobilisation Plan’. This will provide a way of referencing good practice and lessons learnt, so that this is not lost, helping to provide support to communities quickly and efficiently in the event of a future major incident.

13. A briefing note was prepared and disseminated to Borough Commanders and Borough Liaison Officers (BLOs) to update appropriate community groups. All Boroughs have entered into an ongoing dialogue with community groups. Particular focus has been placed on Safer Neighbourhood teams gathering more community intelligence and undertaking Rainbow options.

14. The ‘Together Against Terrorism’ Conference was held in December 2005.

Command resilience

15. Central Operations has further developed an MPS tasking and mobilisation plan for responding to crisis incidents. Based on an approach that was in place before July 2005, the plan was tested in December 2005 and will be regularly checked.

16. Major incident Gold, Silver and Bronze commanders are co-ordinated by CO11 on a 24/7 basis. Gold commanders are all of ACPO rank; Silver commanders are all either Superintendents or Chief Superintendents selected from the Advanced Public Order Cadre.

17. There is a different requirement and specification in the command and control of spontaneous incidents as compared with pre-planned operations. Work to examine effective control room procedures is being progressed within Central Operations, Specialist Crimes Directorate and Specialist Operations, with agreement that appropriate command and control staff will be made available in all cases. AC House leads on how and from where Kratos operations will be run under Metcall.

18. Special Operations Room (GT) is available on a 24/7 basis when required. The MPS Service Mobilisation Plan, with three waves of response, provides incremental numbers of staff to deal with any spontaneous incident. CO11 Operational Briefing Teams are in place, as are on-call systems across MPS Directorates. The multi-Agency Strategic Co-ordination Centre is available to support Gold, the CMT and Government.

Support to Crisis Management and Investigative Teams

19. In order to enhance the support provided to the Crisis Management Team and Investigative Teams, developments have taken place within a number of Directorates.

20. IT support to the Designated Senior Officer (DSO) and / or Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) has been developed. This deploys a system that has been extensively used within kidnaps and similar high-risk fast-moving incidents. The Director of Information, Ailsa Beaton is reviewing the functionality of the IT (run on a stand-alone system) to enable it to run on AWARE.

21. Developments within Central Casualty Bureau (CCB) include national mutual aid telephony allowing forces in the UK to have the ability to direct and record live time intelligence and data, provision of ‘casweb’ lap-top computers to take to hospitals to record details of victims and missing persons, linking in to the CCB. New and revised protocols for hospital liaison have been developed.

22. The roles of family liaison officers, co-ordinators and advisers had been developed further in response to learning and good practice arising from MPS involvement in the Tsunami response. The improvements were manifest on 7 July in both family liaison and the functioning of CCB, and led to a timely and enhanced response in both areas.

23. The experience drawn from the response to events of July 2005 demonstrated that the MPS could have made greater use of the skills and expertise available across the organisation; particularly in respect of the capacity of police staff and recuperative / restricted duty colleagues to reinforce and ‘backfill’ for police officers who were deployed operationally. A system is now in place where volunteers can be called forward and co-ordinated in support of any major policing challenge, thereby maximising the capacity of police officer colleagues.

24. The response of Occupational Health had been honed by the MPS Tsunami involvement. Improvements have been made to identify early responders and support the needs of additional groups, for example Coroner’s Officers. Improvements have been made to record keeping, allowing quicker follow-up, and the relationships with the Health Protection Agency, and NHS psychological support services have been strengthened.

25. The Directorate of Public Affairs has identified central London venues and developed outer London venues for media centres. Additionally, work is ongoing to further enhance relationships with Government, Mayoral and MPA press offices.

Operation Kratos Review Group

26. Assistant Commissioner Steve House leads an ‘Operation Kratos Review Group’, which ensures the continual review of relevant policies. This work is being carried out in conjunction with a national review of Operation Kratos led by Deputy Chief Constable Joe Edwards of Sussex Police. The MPS has been consulted in the course of the national review, and both reviews have adopted the same agenda:

• Doctrine and policy
• Command protocols
• Intelligence protocols
• Capabilities and capacity
• Weapons and equipment
• Training
• Community

27. This report does not comment on Operation Kratos in the form in which it was on 22 July 2005 and the days that followed. The IPCC’s initial report is with the Crown Prosecution Service, and has not been made public. Further reports are anticipated. The MPS will work with the IPCC, the MPA, the Home Office and other interested parties to implement recommendations and learning lessons that arise from the IPCC reports.

28. The Kratos Review Group has MPS ACPO representation and operational leads from relevant Specialist Operations, Specialist Crime Directorate and Central Operations Business Groups. The Directorate of Legal Services and the Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate are also represented at senior levels. A senior member of the Muslim Safety Forum and a senior Muslim police officer are both members of the Group.

29. There are three separate plans under the generic title of Operation Kratos:

• Operation Andromeda is designed to deal with the spontaneous sighting by a member of the public of a suspected suicide bomber.
• Operation Beach applies where there is an intelligence-led covert operation to locate and arrest persons suspected of involvement in acts of terrorism.
• Operation Clydesdale is designed for circumstances where there is intelligence or a credible threat of a suicide attack on a pre-planned event.

30. The options for all three operations range from an unarmed stop of the suspect by uniformed officers, through to the deployment of armed police officers.

31. The Kratos Review Group has examined the rank of Designated Senior Officer (DSO), the officer who implements Gold’s strategy in the role of DSO (Silver Firearms). The Group has confirmed that a DSO of ACPO rank will be appointed for Kratos operations. Due to the likelihood of such operations within the MPS, it is felt that an ACPO rank officer is appropriate, but it is acknowledged that outside London lack of resilience at ACPO level may make this difficult. The national model will accommodate this difference. The MPS currently has 15 DSOs.

32. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) have been prepared for Operations Andromeda, Beach and Clydesdale, and extensively consulted on. The roles of Gold, DSO (Silver Firearms), and Silver Incident are explained within the SOPs. The Directorate of Legal Services is reviewing the latest iterations of the SOPs, which are kept under continual review.

33. Intelligence protocols have been developed under the auspices of the Review Group. These give clarity to the process of information sharing between the MPS and intelligence partners, and to what information will be available for the DSO.

34. Members will be aware that the present advice is that there is no known alternative to firearms that will produce immediate incapacitation. However, the MPS is represented on the National Working Group reviewing less lethal options, and is part of the search for alternatives.

35. The MPS is also a leading member of ‘Project ATLAS’, a collaboration of about 38 European Union (EU) countries funded by the EU. This links the Firearms Units of the police forces within these countries, to identify best practice on firearms policy and tactics. The Review Group is also seeking links with suitable Muslim countries with relevant experience of suicide bombers. The MPS has links into best practice from the US through the Police Executive Research Forum, and these are being developed further.

36. In order to promote more general public awareness of the issues surrounding Operation Kratos, the Directorate of Public Affairs (DPA) facilitated a series of media interviews with AC House. AC House has also met with representatives of numerous community groups personally, including Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh groups, and the Muslim Safety Forum is a member of the Kratos Review Group. An explanation of Operation Kratos has been publicised on the MPS Communities Together website (via external website).

37. DCC4, acting on behalf of and as a member of the Kratos Review Group (see further below), developed a Community Contact plan. This included briefings to all Boroughs and a requirement that Borough Commanders and BLOs update appropriate community groups.

38. DCC4 circulated a briefing note to all MPs, members of the House of Lords, GLA and MPA members through the Government Affairs Unit in October 2005.

Training

39. The MPS is supporting the National Counter-Terrorism Investigation (NCTI) programme to deliver training to investigators on a national basis to assist with CT investigations. This provides resilience in terms of capacity and capability in event of a national multiple site terrorist attack.

40. Training in body recovery and the role of the Senior Identification Manager (delivered by Specialist Crime Directorate) is ongoing.

41. Additional training requirements connected with the developments set out above are being incorporated into the critical incident refresher training programme together with additional inputs for colleagues new to the specific role.

42. The MPS has further enhanced a framework for Designated Senior Officer training, which was approved in December 2005. Professor Jonathon Crego (MPS Hydra Operations Training) is working with the MPS Specialist Training Centre to develop a Hydra / Minerva training package with scenarios based on real reports from the public. Training is due to commence in March.

43. The training will include the following elements:

• Briefing
• Relationships (e.g. command structure, intelligence protocols)
• Viability of tactics
• Real-time effect
• Access to intelligence
• Objective decision-making, including the necessity to avoid stereotyping
• Debrief

44. An awareness package relating to Operation Kratos incidents has been delivered to all Operations Superintendents in Territorial Policing. The Superintendents cascaded this input to Inspector level.

45. An awareness / briefing document on Operation Kratos incidents was delivered to all staff in Information Room through training days. Chief Inspectors working in Information Room, and senior investigating officers, will be included in the Hydra / Minerva training delivery for DSOs. The Andromeda standard operating procedures are regularly updated and are available on the ‘Rainbow’ briefing site.

Daily Review of Spontaneous and Pre-Planned Kratos Incidents/Operations

46. The number of calls from the public classified as Operation Andromeda (spontaneous) incidents is reviewed every 24 hours (with, currently, between 0 and 2 occurring every 24 hours). Since August 2005, the monthly total of potential Operation Andromeda calls is as follows:

Over the comparable period there have been no pre-planned Kratos Operations

47. Reported incidents are low from 0000 to 0700. Incidents rise during the morning rush hour, to a peak at 12:00. The incidents then dip slightly at 1600, but there is evidence of a slight afternoon peak from 16:00 to 19:00.

48. Since the peak of calls passed in August, all the calls were delegated to Borough Units to deal, and none required attendance of armed officers. Liaison between Central Operations and Specialist Operations ensures robust follow-up of all the incidents in relation to the assessment, tactics used, lessons to be learned and public reassurance.

49. Recent changes have allowed the MPS to carry out monitoring of relevant calls from the public, and in the past month, 21 such calls were received. A breakdown of the reported ethnicity of the alleged “suspects” is as follows:

(See further below)

C. Race and equality impact

1. As well as the corporate Community Reassurance Strategy described above, the MPS Operation Kratos Review Group examines ‘Community Issues’ (including communication and consultation) at every meeting. Significant briefing and reassurance work was carried out through the Community Contact plan.

2. DCC4 has recently been re-tasked by the Group to conduct a follow-up communication exercise that will focus on informal communication channels and is designed to reach the broadest range of community groups.

3. It is acknowledged that, while there is no profile of a suicide bomber, certain groups feel vulnerable to stereotyping by both the public and the police. The Group is taking advice from the Muslim Safety Forum and others on how to counteract any tendency to stereotype in relation to suicide terrorists, and is ensuring that this is a factor to be explored in training.

D. Financial implications

The work described above is being completed within existing budgets. Work is in progress in partnership with the MPA to identify new funding streams to progress the work further.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Commander Michael Messinger.

For more information contact:

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

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