Reform of police misconduct procedures – Taylor Review

Report: 13
Date: 26 April 2007
By: AC Operational Services Directorate on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This report provides the Authority with early notification of the likely changes and impact to the MPS of the new misconduct procedures for Police Officers, intended by the Home Office to be introduced in early 2008.

These proposals seek to bring Police Misconduct in line with an Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) model of management of staff and have a direct effect on staff at a B/OCU level. Changes will also be made to the structure of Misconduct Hearings for officers up to and including the rank of Chief Superintendent. Where however the officer complained of is of ACPO rank then the MPA will be involved at the first stage of hearing with either the Chair or a member nominated by him being part of the panel.

Appeals, which hitherto have been undertaken by Assistant Commissioners, will now have a much greater involvement from the MPA in the appointment of panel members. The MPA did make submissions during the consultation period and are aware of the detail of the changes. To give an indication of frequency there have been 35 appeals heard by the MPS Assistant Commissioners during the past 12 months an average of 3 per month. An appeal from an ACPO officer will be heard by a Police Appeals Tribunal.

The MPS has set up a project team to track the proposed changes and identify and implement necessary training.

A. Recommendation

That

1. Members note the likely changes to the MPS arising from new police misconduct procedures to become mandatory in Spring 2008 (subject to the legislative timetable);
2. the project team established within the Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) that will manage and implement the changes on behalf of the MPS be noted; and
3. note that the MPA role in respect of provision of Panel members for both misconduct hearings and appeals will increase.

B. Supporting information

Background and the case for change

1. A new misconduct procedure has been drawn up by a working party of the Police Advisory Board Disciplinary Group within the Home Office to replace the current police disciplinary process. The procedure applies to all police officers and special constables and underpins the high standards of behaviour that the Police Service expects. Any failure to meet these standards may undermine the important work of the Police Service and public confidence in it. It includes consideration of a new code of ethics and has been worked on for some considerable time.

2. In November 2006, the Police Advisory Board signed off the policy for a new Misconduct Procedure, Unsatisfactory Performance Procedure and Standards of Professional Behaviour. Changes are now required to primary legislation and conditional clearance for inclusion in a new Criminal Justice Bill, which has been granted for provisional Royal Assent at the beginning of 2008. The next stage of activity will focus on the new regulations to be circulated for consultation in early March 2007, with parliamentary approval to be granted in January 2008, for the new procedures to become mandatory for the Police Service in May 2008.

3. There were many drivers behind these changes, the Morris enquiry being one which collectively led to the Home Office commissioning a review by Mr William Taylor. In essence, the ‘Taylor Review – Reform of Police Misconduct Procedures’ as it is known, advocates that the Police Service must manage disciplinary arrangements dynamically. Part of this was desire to have misconduct dealt with quickly and at a local level rather than using central misconduct hearings for more minor matters. This should be demonstrated by actively engaging with all stakeholders to drive through the change to the internal culture of the organisation and promote the acceptance of responsibility at all levels of management. The procedures are intended to encourage a move from blame and sanction, to a culture of learning and development for both individuals and the organisation.

4. To prepare the MPS for the significant changes ahead, a project team and governance structure has been established within the Directorate of Professional Standards to deliver the necessary change programme with effect from June 2007 through to expected delivery and conclusion in June 2008. It should be noted that the DPS has already fundamentally shifted its resources to put prevention and learning at the heart of what it did and so had, with one eye on the future, created a flexible directorate that could accommodate the changes.

A summary of changes to the misconduct process derived from the proposed new regulations

5. The following bullet points provide a very brief summary only. The project scope will take into account fully what changes need to be implemented and consulted upon, pending the final regulations being formalised. Essentially, the primary focus is expected to be around the local Borough / Operational Command Unit (B/OCU) ownership of misconduct cases and the extensive training programme required to prepare staff for the new legislative process.

• The new Police Officer Misconduct Procedure is based on the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) principles.
• There will be two defined levels of misconduct – misconduct and gross misconduct.
• Level 1 (misconduct) defines cases that are potentially misconduct and where the maximum outcome would be a final written warning. The new process envisages that Level 1 cases will be dealt with on (B)OCUs.
• Level 2 (gross misconduct) defines cases where the police officer has committed a case of gross misconduct where the maximum outcome would be dismissal from the police service. DPS will continue to manage Level 2 cases.
• There are proposed changes to the way misconduct boards will be held, impacting on ACPO and superintending ranks - now moving away from formal adversarial courtroom style proceedings to where the panel chair (ACPO member) will determine the witnesses. This is similar in concept to an ‘Examining Magistrate’ type of role. This new role for ACPO officers could impact significantly on their time and availability.
• Assistant Commissioners will undertake level 2 appeals as part of a panel together with a person from the ACAS panel of arbitrators who will be the chair, a member of the police authority and a member of the officers staff association. This is a significant change to the current process.

Major MPS stakeholders

Territorial Policing (TP)

6. Territorial Policing involvement in the project at the outset has been crucial as Borough Operational Command Units (BOCUs) are the public face of the MPS, where most MPS staff work and where the greatest interaction with the public occurs. As a consequence, boroughs are where most opportunities for complaints and misconduct are likely to be found and where greater support and guidance will need to be provided from DPS staff.

Human Resources (HR)

7. The Transforming HR Programme, implemented to consider how HR services can be improved across the MPS, and the HR practitioners managing Police Staff disciplinary processes within HR Directorate, will need to be engaged to ensure that the new DPS procedures and practices complement the Police Staff disciplinary processes to ensure consistency where possible, particularly around the management of PCSOs and Police Officer misconduct.

Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS)

8. The DPS have historically been the primary investigators of complaints and conduct matters and have the expertise and resources to do so. Whilst there will be a move to level one misconduct being dealt with at a B/OCU the investigation will still need to be thorough and proportionate across the MPS. In order to reduce the resource impact on B/OCUs the DPS will continue to provide an investigative capacity for level 1 matters where necessary. For this reason the DPS Reception desk, established in April 2006, will provide the central point of contact and ensure consistency and fairness within the process.

9. The Professional Standards Support Programme (PSSP), launched by the Deputy Commissioner on 27 November 2006, has already started the move towards local ownership and accountability by:

• Raising the profile of professional standards on boroughs, encouraging ownership by staff and letting them know what they can do to improve professional standards.
• Providing (B)OCU staff with information they need to be able to identify risks and act to manage them effectively. Encouraging them to ‘own’ the behaviour of their staff and deal with it as ‘their issue’ rather than just reporting.
• Through analysis, identifying changes in performance of service delivery to enable positive feedback, support and encouragement during visits with (B)OCU staff, thus recognising where staff take pride in professional high quality service delivery and encouraging this behaviour.

Taylor Project

10. In order to ensure that the MPS is ready when changes are imposed by the Home Office a project team has been established within the DPS. It is led by T/DCS Campbell from the Prevention and Organisational Learning Command and has a project manager and a project board. Whilst precise details cannot be set out until the final draft of the proposals is delivered by the Home Office, early sight of the proposals has enabled the project team to map the changes, project the resource implications and identify in broad terms who will require training. The following points give an idea of the project scope:

• Project to commence June 2007 and conclude by June 2008 (subject to the legislative timetable). A review of the project is expected to be conducted in January 2009.
• It is highly likely that corporate resources will be required to assist with the training implications, both in terms of cost and delivery of training. A Business Case will be prepared for Management Board prior to the project commencement in June 2007 outlining the financial implications to deliver the project. It is anticipated that funds will be required from the 2008/9 financial year.
• Project Plan with identified milestones, management stages, timescales and a communication and marketing strategy.
• Consultation Strategy. This will be undertaken in two phases; 1) National consultation phase (early indications from the Home Office is that the MPS is considerably ahead of other forces in its planning for these changes) and 2) Implementation phase for MPS. Key stakeholder analysis and management will be undertaken.

Next steps

11. To fully scope the project, once the national consultation process has been completed and the new regulations have been issued - expected in March 2007.

12. To provide the MPS Management Board with a full Business Case in June 2007.

13. To provide regular project highlight reports to the MPA Professional Standards Complaints Committee from June 2007.

C. Race and equality impact

As part of the review of the Directorate of Professional Standards that led to the move towards prevention and learning, extensive consultation and engagement with key stakeholders has already been undertaken and regularly reported upon at the MPA Professional Standards Complaints Committee. This process continues and, whilst the changes will be Home Office driven – implementation will be with consultation of staff associations. This will impact on all Police Officers and will be monitored on a quarterly basis.

D. Financial implications

The overall anticipated cost of training and project development to implement the Taylor Project has been ‘red circled’ within the DPS overall budget for 2007/08, providing the current timescales are maintained, the training will be delivered. If there is additional significant slippage then there may need to be a resource request to Management Board for the 2008/9 DPS budget allocation. A current estimate is that the cost of training will be in the region of £100k. Full scoping will be conducted by June 2007 to determine if additional resources are required.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Andrew Campbell T/DCS Project Director and Nadia Musallam, Project Manager, MPS

For more information contact:

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

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