MPS response to Laming 2

Report: 10
Date: 8 June 2009
By: T/Assistant Commissioner Specialist Crime on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This report, commissioned by the Strategic and Operational Policing Committee, provides

• An MPS initial response to the recommendations in the Lord Laming review; ‘The Protection of Children in England A progress Report, following the death of Baby P’.
• An MPS response to the recommendations in the 2nd Serious Case Review (SCR) of Baby Peter.
• An outline of the MPS oversight of SCRs
• An update on the progress of the MPS action plan outlined in the report provided to the committee on 4 December 2008 and 8 January 2009
• Details of SCD5 officer and staff strength since 2006 and planned growth through 2009/10.

A background summary is provided of the criminal prosecutions and other relevant inspections affecting both MPS and partner agencies to date.

Details are provided of the progress made by the MPS in the seven relevant areas of improvement identified by the HMIC and outlined in the report to the committee of 8 January 2009.

Appendices

• Appendix 1: provides an MPS analysis of each of the 58 Laming 2 recommendations showing the initial MPS assessment and response.
• Appendix 2: is the published extended executive summary of the 2nd SCR on Baby Peter including the 15 recommendations.
• Appendix 3: gives details of SCRs by borough since 2003

A. Recommendation

That

1. members note the contents of this current report; and
2. consider this report alongside the content of the previous reports presented on the 4 December 2008 and 8 January 2009.

B. Supporting information

Criminal investigations and reviews

1. On 3 August 2007 police were informed of the death of 17-month-old Baby Peter, who had been brought to Hospital with a number of visible injuries. Baby Peter and two of his sisters, were on the Haringey Child Protection Register (CPR) at the time of his murder. The child’s mother, her partner, and his brother Jason Owen, were all convicted on 11 November 2008 of Allowing or Causing the Death of a Child.

2. During the investigation, Child E, disclosed to her foster carers that, aged 2½, she had been raped by the same partner of Baby Peter’s mother. Child E was on the CPR at the time of these offences. The allegations were investigated, Baby Peter’s mother charged with Wilful Neglect and her partner with Rape. On 1 May 2009 the partner was convicted of rape and the mother acquitted of neglect. Both, together with Jason Owen, will be sentenced on 22 May 2009.

3. Immediately after Baby Peter’s death, SCD5 undertook an inspection of investigations at Haringey CAIT including a review of all cases by the initial investigating officer, a review of all investigations where a child was on the CPR and introduced additional monitoring for child protection case conferences and supervision. Digital cameras were bought for all CAITs and training sessions were run on evidence gathering and supervision.

4. A Serious Case Review (SCR) was instigated by Haringey Safeguarding Board to identify lessons to be learned. An MPS Internal Management Review (IMR) was completed by the Specialist Crime Review Group and submitted to the independent authors of the SCR. The MPS contribution was deemed ‘Good’ by Ofsted but the whole review was deemed ‘Inadequate’ and immediately following the convictions for the death of Baby Peter, the Secretary of State, Ed Balls, required the Safeguarding Board to undertake a new review into his death. The Safeguarding Board also agreed a new SCR into possible failing by agencies to protect Child E. This is likely to be completed in summer 2009.

5. The second Baby Peter SCR was completed on 29 February 2009 and the MPS contribution has been deemed ‘Excellent’. Publication, originally authorised by the Secretary of State, was postponed to avoid any compromise of the rape trial and an extended executive summary will be published following sentencing on 22 May.

6. A two week Joint Area Review (JAR) of Safeguarding in Haringey was conducted in November 2008 and reported to the Secretary of State, Ed Balls, in December 2008. A detailed action plan has been developed following engagement with all partners. This is being progressed by Haringey Safeguarding Board with the active support of MPS Borough and SCD5 management.

7. The HMIC submitted a more detailed confidential report to the MPS and a detailed action plan was implemented as reported to the committee on 8 January 2009. This has progressed to a SCD5 modernisation project detailed in Section 4 of this report.

8. Lord Laming was asked to review the implementation of his recommendations post Climbié to which all forces contributed. He reported to the Minister in March 2009 and the government has announced its action plan which at this stage primarily focuses on support to Children’s Services and central co-ordination.

9. The Healthcare Commission completed a review of failings by Haringey healthcare services. This was also completed in March 2009. This was published on the 12 May 2009.

10. It should also be noted that an Inspection of the progress in Haringey Safeguarding Services is currently taking place, the basis of which is section 20(1)(b) of the Children's Act 2004. The Inspection commenced on 1st June and will last for two weeks. As in December 2008 the process is a tri-inspectorate inspection which will report to the Minister, Ed Balls, this time by the end of June. It will not be a full inspection, but a report on progress against the inspection at the end of last year. Also, it is not intended that there will be a grading, only a professional judgment on progress towards achieving the areas of improvement highlighted in the first inspection. Ofsted once again will be the lead inspectorate, the main focus will be on Children's Services but the Haringey CAIT will also be subject to a re-visit by the HMIC and the MPS's broader strategic response will also be examined.

MPS response to the Lord laming Review (Laming 2)

11. Lord Laming’s review was published on 12 March 2009. It makes 58 recommendations in seven areas;

• Leadership and Accountability
• Support for Children
• Interagency Working
• Children’s Workforce
• Improvement and Challenge
• Organisation and Finance
• Legal

12. A/DAC Gibson conducted an analysis of the impact on the MPS of each recommendation. This analysis is contained in Appendix 1.

13.The majority of the recommendations are high level, falling to the Home Office, Ministry of justice, DCSF and Dept of Health. Decisions and more specific guidance from central government is awaited. So far, the government response has been; to appoint a Chief Advisor on the Safety of Children, Sir Roger Singleton, to approve a National Safeguarding Delivery Unit and to announce £58m investment in a national social worker recruitment drive. It is the MPS intention to be well positioned and, where appropriate, to lead nationally on improvements relevant to police and partnership working.

14. In some areas progress is possible and is in part covered by recent and ongoing MPS activity detailed later in this report (Section 4). The author has summarised selected recommendations where the MPS is either acting or able to react and members are referred to Appendix 1 for further detail.

15. Recommendation 4 requires new statutory targets for safeguarding and child protection that will require the National Indicator Set to be revised and national indicators included in Local Area Agreements for the next Comprehensive Spending Review. Under ACPO Child Abuse Investigation Committee the MPS has been leading work to develop police safeguarding and protection indicators and agreement on indicators within APACS is close. MPS are progressing a CRIS enhancement project to enable the additional data collection (see also Sec 4.1: Performance and Management Measurement).

16. Recommendation 6 specifies that leading partners at LSCB level should regularly review all points of referral where concerns about a child’s safety are received to ensure quality of risk assessments, decision making, onward referrals and multi-agency working. The MPS has recently re-enforced the need for personal and active engagement by Borough Commanders and CAIT inspectors at LSCBs. The resource increases on CAITs will also benefit this.

17. Recommendation 8 requires DCSF to organise regular training on safeguarding and child protection and on effective leadership for all senior political leaders and managers across frontline services. Whilst there is no parallel recommendation for police the MPS is providing nationally accredited Multi Agency Critical Incident Exercise (MACIE) training for each London LSCB, free of charge, over the next two years. This is a two-day exercise based at the NPIA training centre at Wyboston. In addition, SCD5 delivers to all its officers and frontline staff two weeks of joint training with social workers including joint interview training. This meets the need for joint training of the MPS staff dedicated to child abuse investigation.

18. Recommendation 12 requires the Department of Health and the DCSF to strengthen systems and training in Accident and Emergency departments where a child has recently presented at any Accident and Emergency department and if a child is the subject of a Child Protection Plan. Where appropriate, contacting other professionals, conducting further medical examinations and ensuring no child is discharged whilst concerns for their safety or well-being remain. Whilst not focused on police the HMIC identified a need for a review of SCD5 SOPs in relation to attending medical examinations, some of which may be in A&E departments. New SOPs guidance is being developed and will include the above circumstances (see also Sec 4.1: medical Examinations).

19. Recommendation 13 requires Children’s Trusts to ensure all assessments of need for children and their families include and take account of all relevant information held by agencies and must include direct contact with the child. This focuses on accurate and consistent research, sharing of information and initial and review assessments. These are all issues covered by the MPS action plan on risk assessment, information sharing and case conference attendance.

20. Recommendation 16 requires the DCSF to revise Working Together to Safeguard Children to set out the elements of high quality supervision focused on case planning, constructive challenge and professional development. Again, this is aimed only at social workers. However, the elements of high quality supervision, case planning, constructive challenge and professional development for staff are echoed in the JAR and are evident in the MPS Action Plan.

21. Recommendation 17 relates to the limitations of existing IT systems and requires the DCSF to undertake a feasibility study with a view to rolling out a single national Integrated Children’s System better able to address the concerns identified in this report, or find alternative ways to assert stronger leadership over the local systems and their providers. The report states this study should be completed within six months. Laming notes that there is no single national IT system that enables social services to manage safeguarding cases in an integrated and efficient way. HMIC were also critical of MPS systems in the management of child abuse investigations and concerns. They particularly criticize CRIS for making supervision difficult and MERLIN for its poor search and supervision facilities. Work is in hand to assess the MPS capacity to address these criticisms and DoI are currently preparing a user specification and options paper for improvement of MPS systems in this regard.

22. Recommendation 18 addresses the need for improved use of the existing integrated children’s system used by children’s services regardless of any future national system. It states DCSF should take steps to improve the utility of the Integrated Children’s System, in consultation with social workers and their managers, to be effective in supporting them in their role. Laming remarks: “Irrespective of the methods used for recording and managing casework, local leaders must ensure that children and young people’s information is managed effectively to reduce their risk of harm”. This comment has general applicability across all Safeguarding agencies. The MPS action plan has several actions concerned with the management of case files, supervision and information / intelligence management. These are all focused on responding to Laming’s general point above. Improvements emerging from the DCSF’s actions will be monitored and responded to as appropriate.

23. Recommendation 19 requires a strengthening of ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’, with appropriate action to ensure referrals lead to an initial assessment, direct involvement with the child and their family and feedback to the referring professional, that meetings and reviews involve all safeguarding professionals and that formal procedures exist for managing conflict of opinions. This recommendation will lead to changes to ‘Working Together’ and affects supervisors attending referral and strategy meetings, willingness of, and ability of, staff to challenge other professionals, consistency of initial assessments and training for Referral Desk sergeants. From the MPS perspective these are addressed in the action plan.

24. Recommendation 20 is that: “all police, probation, adult mental health and adult drug and alcohol services should have well understood referral processes which prioritise the protection and well-being of children. These should include automatic referral where domestic violence or drug or alcohol abuse may put a child at risk of abuse or neglect.” This is an area that was not highlighted in the HMIC report and consequently has not featured in the action plan. The MPS will review MPS SOP’s coverage of these areas in the light of this recommendation.

25. Recommendation 25 states: “Children’s Trusts should ensure a named, and preferably co-located, representative from the police service, community paediatric specialist and health visitor are active partners within each children’s social work department”. This is a new recommendation, particularly with respect to co-location of a police representative within each children’s social work department. Any local response needs to reflect local circumstances. Going down this road may create issues of resilience in some CAITs. To address a specific need a ‘task force’ along these lines was temporarily established recently in Haringey and showed some benefits. The Haringey JAR involves a feasibility study for establishing an integrated team that goes beyond the recommendation. Co-location would however have resource implications for local CAITs and/or boroughs. The MPS will seek to undertake an impact / cost / benefit analysis with Children’s Trusts and partners this year.

26. Recommendation 36: “The Home Office should take national action to ensure that police child protection teams are well resourced and have specialist training to support them in their important responsibilities”. Given the current economic climate and the pressure on the public finances, it is unlikely that this recommendation will lead to an increase in the total amount of funding made available through central government for policing in general, and child protection in particular. It is far more likely that scrutiny will be forthcoming, through the HMIC and Ofsted inspection regimes, into the comparative proportion of policing resources dedicated to child protection between forces. The MPS has already identified this as a critical issue and in March 2009 authorised additional investment into SCD5 of £2.4m in 2009/10 increasing to £4.8m per annum from 2010/11 onwards to deliver an increase in staff of 20% in the form of 19 detective constables, 19 detective sergeants and 51 police staff for deployment to CAITs across London. National and local advertising and recruitment campaigns are already well advanced.

2nd Serious Case Review into the death of Baby Peter

27. The second Baby Peter SCR was completed on 29 February 2009 and the MPS contribution has been deemed ‘Excellent’. Publication, originally authorised by the Secretary of State, was postponed to avoid any compromise of the rape trial and publication is expected when the three convicted are sentenced on 22 May 2009.

28. The extended Executive Summary is to be published following sentencing on 22 May (Appendix 2). There are 15 recommendations, none specifically for the Police, but ten for the Safeguarding Board of which we are members.

29. The recommendations, whilst not specific to police, have been considered as part of the MPS action plan and progress will be monitored as part of the SCD5 Modernisation Programme outlined later in this report (Section 4). Haringey LSCB, in addition to the Haringey JAR action plan, have produced a plan specifically addressing each recommendation. The LSCB plan has been agreed with Ofsted.

30. The SCR’s conclusion is best encapsulated in paragraph 5.2 of the executive summary: “The SCR panel is of the view that all staff in every agency involved with Peter and his family were well motivated and concerned to play their part in safeguarding him and supporting Ms A to improve her parenting. They were deemed to be competent in their safeguarding and child protection roles as they understood them to be, based on their experience and qualifications. They had the appropriate qualifications and experience for their roles and were no less qualified and no less experienced than staff in similar roles in other places. However, in this case they did not exercise a strong enough sense of challenge when dealing with Ms A and their practice, both individually and collectively expressed as the culture of safeguarding and child protection at the time, was completely inadequate to meet the challenges presented by the case of Baby Peter”.

31. Of particular note in the body of the summary are the following: In relation to the challenge of the uncooperative and dangerous parent/carer it states: “Practitioners have the difficult job of identifying them among the majority of parents who they encounter, who are merely dysfunctional, anxious and ambivalent. However, in this case the interventions were not sufficiently authoritative by any agency”. It goes on “Those agency roles which are the protectors – doctors, lawyers, police officers and social workers – need to become much more authoritative both in the initial management of every case with child protection concerns, and in the subsequent child protection plan”.

32. The MPS welcome the SCR and embrace the need to learn and to improve. The following paragraphs outline relevant areas of failings raised in the SCR. This detail is included to enable members to consider the MPS involvement and actions in the context of the actions of all agencies.

33. The MPS IMR concentrated on the actions of staff and identified some areas for improvement. On two occasions police received information from Haringey children’s services about Baby Peter, in December 2006 and June 2007. In both cases the Haringey CAIT tried to pursue a conviction against the mother for injuries believed to be non-accidental, but the cases were not proceeded with on CPS advice.

34. In both investigations, doctors considered the child’s injuries indicated non-accidental causes, but there were no independent witnesses, the mother provided potentially plausible accidental explanations and the CPS concluded there was insufficient evidence to support a realistic prospect of successful prosecution.

35. The MPS acknowledge that there was an avoidable delay of some weeks during March-May 2007 in finalising medical evidence, but the medical opinion once secured, did not support further action. Another error was the failure to take quality photographs of the child’s injuries, instead relying on medical notes. These errors were identified in May 2007. The mother was still on bail and active enquiries were then instigated in advance of the second referral being made by Children’s Services in June 2007.

36. It is now apparent the mother concealed relevant facts from agencies and whilst apparently compliant, had been engaged in and was aware of, the abuse the child was suffering. It is also now apparent that relevant information about the mother’s close relationship with a man and information of further injuries suffered by the child were known to other agencies but were not reported to the Police prior to his death. This information may have made a difference as it would have identified new risks and additional suspects for causing injuries to the child.

37. In both January and June 2007, police officers supported the removal of Baby Peter from his mother’s care whilst the Police investigation continued, but finally agreed to a Care Plan for the child, as outlined by Children’s Services. It is now known that these plans, intended to protect the child, were not subsequently delivered in full and this too is subject of criticism within the SCR. Police challenged the failure for local authority legal advice to be secured within the normal period of seven -ten days. This advice was eventually given on 27th July 2007, six weeks later than expected and did not support care proceedings. This delay in securing legal advice and the quality of that legal advice was also criticised in the SCR.

MPS Serious Case Review oversight process

38. Members have requested numbers of previous SCRs pan-London and details of oversight and learning processes. Appendix 3 provides, by borough, the number of SCRs commissioned since 2003. A total of 50 are not yet finalised.

39. The MPS IMR that provide the MPS contribution to SCRs are conducted by the Specialist Crime Review Group (SCD20), a specialist department independent of the Child Abuse Command and of boroughs. This independence has been identified in the recent Laming 2 report as best practice. A routine aspect in compiling and IMR is to consider any relevant issues raised in previous SCRs in the LSCB area to identify recurring themes.

40. On completion, IMRs are circulated internally to relevant SCD and TP OCU commanders and where appropriate recommendations are actioned straight away, prior to completion of the SCR. On receipt of SCRs from LSCBs the recommendations are also circulated to relevant OCU/BOCU commanders for action. In determining what is to be done, a designated SCD5 superintendent will consider whether the recommendation is borough/CAIT specific or is an MPS-wide issue. The superintendent will determine the level of response accordingly, giving consideration to previous recommendations and whether an issue is, or appears to be, a recurring theme. Action will sometimes include additional review and inspection activity in seeking the best solution.

41. All recommendations and actions are recorded electronically on a spreadsheet utilised by SCD20 and SCD5. Commander SCD5 chairs a quarterly meeting of SCD20 and SCD5 to review each recommendation and authorize sign off on completion. TP are currently seeking to establish a similar oversight process for TP relevant recommendations.

42. Joint agency actions and issues are matters led locally by LSCBs. The mechanism for supporting joint agency action beyond LSCBs and, if necessary, for individual agencies to escalate any concerns over progress, is provided by the London SCB structure. The London Board has a Serious Case Review Sub-Group and this provides links to the Training Sub-Group and Executive Group. The groups meet quarterly and the MPS is represented on all three. In addition the LSCB chairs meet quarterly. SCD5 are currently in discussions with the London Board manager, Christine Christie, on the role and format of the SCR Sub-Group meetings and how best to ensure that learning from the Baby Peter case and SCRs in general occurs across London.

Progress of the MPS Action Plan

43. The MPS action plan, borne from the Haringey JAR and the HMIC inspection of the MPS identified 10 areas for improvement, seven relevant to the MPS. This led to the identification of 29 specific Areas for Improvement (AFI). A cross-MPS group led by A/DAC Gibson has made significant progress and the group has subsequently incorporated the recommendations of Laming 2 and the 2nd SCR into its work. An SCD5 Detective Superintendent, Reg Hooke, has been temporarily dedicated full time to leading what has become a SCD5 ‘Modernisation Programme’. Updates on each theme are given below:

• Management of case files:
  • Case files of children on protection plans are manual dockets. These have been fully revised to ensure ease of supervision and management. A ‘model’ case file has been developed and is being implemented on all CAITs as the common standard. SOPs have been amended and DoI have been tasked to assess to what extent a technical solution can support maintenance and supervision in the long term.
  • 19 additional Band E researcher staff are being recruited, a key part of their role being to maintain accurate and well researched case files. Once recruited, this will enable CAITs to ensure provision of minutes of meetings from case conferences, assessments etc.
  • Training on case file management, standards of information in case files and their supervision has been provided to all existing Police Conference Liaison Officers (PCLO) and has been built into new training to be delivered to all referral desk staff and new PCLOs.
• Supervision, capability, capacity and support:
• • Substantial growth was identified as required to address a wide range of issues affecting service delivery. These included absences due to maternity or long-term sickness, reduced supervision capability, detective sergeants’ (DS) caseloads, and general workloads of DSs and DCs. As a result, the MPS approved growth of an additional 89 staff (32 Band D PCLOs, 19 DSs, 19 DCs, 19 Band E researchers) and exempted SCD5 from the need to hold a vacancy factor, amounting to the equivalent of a further 9 officer posts. This is an effective increase of 98 officers and staff. Advertising and recruitment is well under way with external adverts for the DS and DC posts. The focus of the campaign is to attract officers and staff of the highest calibre. A recent ‘open day’ to promote the command and the vacancies attracted just under 400 officers and staff. Selection processes will commence at the end of May immediately following closing dates.
  • Procedures have been reviewed to ensure, save in exceptional and appropriate circumstances, supervisors ensure case hand-over when staff leave or are absent for prolonged periods.
  • A substantial piece of work has developed a staff allocation formula to ensure across the MPS CAIT planned strengths match workloads. This has resulted in some changes and will optimise the efficiency of new staff allocation.
  • A specific theme of the modernization is to ensure staff selection, job descriptions, training and supervision embed a culture of, and skills in, ‘professional challenge’ and escalation where opinions between professionals differ. This will be supported in multi agency training and specific training for individuals where appropriate.
  • Role specific training for Referral Desk Sergeants and staff has been devised and is being delivered in the workplace by the SCD5 training unit.
  • Multi Agency Critical Incident Exercise (MACIE) training is being provided to all LSCBs by the MPS to enhance partnership working at strategic level. The MPS are providing this free to partners but this will need building into future training.
  • A user specification is being compiled by DoI to ascertain if IT systems on crime and intelligence are fit for purpose, particularly whether they enable supervision, consistent intelligence retrieval and minimize data re-keying. This is a substantial piece of work with significant financial implications. Progress to an integrated system is problematic but specific areas to enhance data capture and the management of risk assessment and supervision are being progressed as the priority.
  • The importance of the police in providing accurate and comprehensive information and intelligence to case conferences and in assessing risk is fully recognised. In partnership with MIB, SCD5 are giving additional training in the use of MPS systems to all referral desk staff. All current CAIT researchers are undergoing three-day ‘researcher’ training at Hendon and all will have completed this by September. New researchers will be required to be accredited through similar training.
  • In seeking to reduce risk and improve early intervention a new risk assessment and supervisory model is being piloted on a number of CAITs with the intention of rollout as soon as processes are optimal. Initial assessment is that the model, whilst having some resource implications, is a significantly positive step in identifying, reviewing and reducing risk in a timely manner. Enhancements to CRIS are being proposed to reduce the administrative burden.
• Child protection policy and standard operational procedures:
• • A full review of SOPs affecting frontline CAIT work was conducted in conjunction with SCD15 (Performance Improvement Team) and included focus groups on all SCD5 regions. These groups proved invaluable in informing assessments of current SOPS, their relevance and the ability to deliver against them. The SOPs were generally fit for purpose. However, limitations on capacity informed the case for growth and some SOPs have been refreshed to reflect the changes outlined in this section.
  • SCD5 capacity to ensure compliance through a Quality Assurance (QA) team has been eroded in recent years as resources were increasingly moved to frontline delivery. However, it is essential that governance and compliance are maintained. It is expected that increased capacity for QA will come from a current proposal to combine two single borough CAITs (Camden and Islington). This is reliant on obtaining provision of suitable accommodation and options are currently under consideration with PSD. Notwithstanding this, a QA schedule to support the modernisation programme is being developed and themed inspections of CAITs on a rotational basis will be examined at new bi-monthly CAIT DI meetings, chaired by the OCU commander. This forum is seen as a key vehicle for developing and ensuring corporate standards, best practice and MPS-wide learning within SCD5.
  • SCD5 deliver nationally accredited specialist child abuse training to all SCD5 staff and also support training of borough staff at Hendon. The three-week Specialist Child Abuse Investigation Development Programme (SCAIDP) is constantly revised in line with developments. A recent review has updated the course to place greater emphasis on case management, recording and issues arising from SCRs. Additional training has also been developed for referral staff and for PCLOs, a key recommendation of the HMIC. SCD5 capacity to deliver this additional training, as well as support the planned growth over the next 12 months has been reviewed. It is anticipated that the training team whilst requiring some additional funding for overtime and materials, will be able to manage this within existing SCD5 budgets.
• Information and intelligence management:
• • This issue is relatively complex as it concerns in part the evolving processes involving the recent establishment of the Met Intelligence Bureau (MIB), Violent Crime Directorate (VCD) and Public Protection Desks (PPD). These areas have been subject of previous external inspection and work in this area has included revisiting those recommendations and their progress. The effectiveness of PPDs and previous Protecting Vulnerable People (PVP) recommendations in relation to strategic and operational information sharing across MPS is being examined by MPS Inspectorate and recommendations will be considered when this work is complete. The effectiveness of disclosure of information between Safeguarding agencies is a specific item addressed within the Haringey JAR action plan and learning will be taken to the London SCB.
  • New compliance measures in TP ensure creation of CRIS records and referral to SCD5 where appropriate in cases of domestic violence. A longer-term IT solution linking CRIS and Merlin is also being considered by DoI.
• Medical examinations:
  • The HMIC advised that the MPS consider attendance at all medical examinations of children. This has been fully researched and it is not considered appropriate by MPS or partners, including health professionals, for police to attend all medical examinations. The resource implications would also be considerable. This will remain an issue judged by supervision on the merits of each case. SOPs are being amended to include decision-making guidance. For example, attendance should occur in; serious assault cases, where evidence is likely to be harvested, or other risk factors (such as previous assaults) where a personal briefing to medical practitioners will assist. The additional resources will support decision-making but this will be monitored to ensure non-attendance is appropriate and not driven by a lack of resources.
• Meeting attendance:
  • The need for supervisors to attend strategy meetings has been reviewed. In all referrals a referral desk DS will have strategy discussions with partners in the initial assessment and will supervise the initial response. SOPs are being amended to emphasise the need for a DS to consider personal attendance in serious and complex cases.
  • PCLOs have hitherto attended all initial case conferences but generally sent written reports for review case conferences due to limited resources. The MPS accepts that attending review case conferences should be routine. The doubling of PCLOs (32 new posts) is designed to facilitate this. 100% attendance at review conferences however remains aspirational and attendance will be subject to specific monitoring as the new staff become operational.
• Performance Management and Measurement:
  • SCD5 performance management framework and monthly performance reports will include more qualitative measures in the future. This is a national issue and agreement on PIs under APACS is close. Suitable Joint Partnership PIs will also be considered under the Haringey Action Plan.
  • As previously stated, a QA process will support compliance, best practice sharing and corporate standards.

 Staffing Levels within CAITs

44. On 19 December 2008, SCD5 had 379 police officers against a planned strength of 396. Due to these shortages and increased operational demands on the CAITs since November 2008, SCD prioritized the posting of staff already selected and waiting to join the command. This raised officer numbers to 384 police officers by the end of January 2009. At the time of writing, the strength is up to 398 officers.

45. The approved growth and removal of SCD5 from the ‘vacancy factor’ (amounting to a 20% increase) has taken planned strength of SCD5 to 459 officers and 203 police staff (up from 154). This is a total planned strength of 662, the highest ever level of resourcing of SCD5.

46. As stated earlier a proactive and determined recruitment campaign to attract large numbers of quality officers and staff is progressing well. Selection processes, vetting, psychological assessments and setting start dates mean that each recruitment will take several months. Necessary training and skilling depends on individuals but typically it is a further few months before staff are fully operational. The aim is to achieve full operational strength on all CAITs by March 2010.

SCD5 Officer and staff totals against MPS strength 2005 – 2010

47. The below table shows the SCD5 actual strengths (not establishment) since 2006 as a percentage of MPS police and staff totals and includes the percentage by end 2009/10 assuming SCD5 growth as planned:

C. Race and equality impact

1. The work being progressed under the Children and Vulnerable Young People strand of the MPS Youth Strategy, now supported by the HMIC report on the need to improve supervision of high risk cases, has identified key risk factors which when combined, have a predictably negative impact on children and are strongly associated with physical offences against children. These factors include mental health, drugs, domestic violence, repeat victimisation, deprivation and BME background of the victim.

2. In order to impact on these factors, multi-agency work is progressing through the London Safeguarding Board to influence the provision of and access to services to improve the fate of children in these circumstances. Additional effort will be required to impact upon new communities and BME communities.

D. Financial implications

1. The additional costs to implement these reforms were presented to the MPS Investment Board in March 09. The option approved allowed for the growth in SCD5 of 38 police officer posts and 51 police staff posts at a total cost of £2.4m in Yr 1, rising to £4.8m from Yr 2 onwards.

2. The Yr 1 costs are to be met through a contribution of £1m from centrally held budgets, with the remaining £1.4m being met from a redirection of resources from within SCD reflecting potential budget flexibility identified in the 2008/09 outturn.

3. In Yr 2 the SCD contribution will rise to £1.8m with a growth request for the £2m shortfall being made as part of the 2010 – 13 business planning cycle.

4. The approved additional investment in SCD5 covers staff and additional vehicle costs. There will be additional costs for office and staff equipment that will be met from within existing SCD budgets.

5. Co-location of members of the ‘safeguarding authorities’ (Rec. 25, Laming 2) will affect CAIT resilience and have accommodation, equipment and IT implications. These will be assessed with partners this year.

6. The increased training delivered by SCD5 will require some additional funding of overtime and materials and this will be absorbed by SCD5.

7. Additional costs arise to provide on-going training to new researchers, currently met by SCD20 (Crime Academy) and to build in MACIE training with partners long term. Further developments as recommended by both Laming 2 and 2nd SCR, to improve partnership working at operational and strategic level will also have training, accommodation and equipment costs as well as abstraction/ resilience implications. These costs are expected to be absorbed by SCD.

8. HMIC were also critical of MPS systems in the management of child abuse investigations and concerns. They particularly criticize CRIS for making supervision difficult and MERLIN for its poor search and supervision facilities. User requirements for an IT project to enhance CRIS and/or Merlin are likely to be significant and depending on the scope of the project, costs are estimated to be potentially £500,000. This is capital expenditure, not currently budgeted for and is being scoped by DoI. The proposal will be considered against competing priorities once the business case is complete.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Detective Superintendent Reg Hooke, SCD5, MPS

For information contact:

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

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