Thematic Performance Report

Report: 8
Date: 1 July 2010
By: AC Territorial Policing on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This report gives an overview of MPS performance on the objective: “with our partners make neighbourhoods safer by responding to local priorities, tackling crime and ASB and reducing road casualties.”

A. Recommendation

That Members note the contents of this report

B. Supporting information

1. To focus on local policing priorities and crime through a visible presence in our neighbourhoods, business communities and town centres.

2. The MPS is committed to keeping neighbourhoods safe from harm with a visible local policing presence, engaging with local communities, and behaving with professional courtesy and treating people fairly. This report gives an overview of performance on the objective “With our partners make our neighbourhoods safer by responding to local priorities, tackling crime and ASB, and reducing road casualties.”

3. The MPS continues to recognise the importance of neighbourhood policing and problem-solving activity and as such remains committed to the Safer Neighbourhoods programme in London. The ward teams continue to be the main contributors to the MPS effort to achieve this objective. Safer Neighbourhoods teams contribute to this objective by consulting with their communities through their ward panels to identify the issues that those communities would like the teams to tackle.

4. In April 2010 the teams agreed 1770 community based priorities, and of these 948 related to crime issues and 738 related to ASB. The five most common ward priorities across the MPS in April were: burglary, ASB by youths, theft from motor vehicles, ASB (general), and drug dealing and use. All ward teams are required to publicise the details of their current ward priorities on the MPS website and to review them regularly with their ward panels.

5. An examination of the makeup of ward panels in 2009 indicated that of some 8500 members 18% were from BME communities, 2% were described as young people and 3% had disabilities. It is recognised by the MPS that there are gaps in this consultation and work continues to make the ward panels more representative of the communities that they represent.

6. To assist SNTs to widen their consultation an online tool ‘Planweb’ has been rolled out across the MPS. This is an interactive web-based application with a powerful, mapping capability. Users are able to construct a wide variety of maps down to a highly detailed level, and can layer different types of information, including national and ethnic origins, over each other to provide a visually rich picture of a borough or ward. Recent developments allow for “confidence” measures to be mapped and then overlaid with crime and demographic data to explore links between issues such as low confidence and high crime levels and/or deprivation. There are plans to include Planweb in the SN Basic and Inspector SN courses at Central London Training Centre.

7. Ward teams are trained to adopt a problem-solving approach to dealing with their priorities and there is an expectation that, at an early stage, they will link with partners encouraging them to provide resources or, when appropriate, to take the lead. Examples of initiatives that have been led by partner agencies include the “Capital cleanup campaign” which targets the effects of vandalism, fly tipping and other environmental ASB. This campaign has now been led by local authorities for several years with support from local SN teams.

8. The Safer Neighbourhoods abstraction policy is still in place which gives an expectation that ward teams will be visibly working on their wards at least 80% of their time. This presence has been further enhanced with the advent of single patrol as the default patrol position now clearly defined for the MPS.

Metropolitan Special Constabulary

9. MSC officers are an integral part of the uniformed presence in London and by mid-May, 3300 MSC officers are providing around 11,300 additional hours of visible patrolling per week across the MPS. The prime roles performed by MSC officers are in support of the Safer Neighbourhoods Teams in dealing with community priorities and providing additional presence in tackling ASB on Friday and Saturday nights, predominantly in town centres and other commercial locations.

Town centres programme

10. Having identified their primary town centres, since April 2009 all 32 Borough Operational Command Units (BOCUs) have been required to provide four additional patrols per day/seven days a week. This has increased to ten additional daily patrols as the programme has expanded. BOCUs are expected to make effective use of Metropolitan Special Constabulary (MSC) and local Operation Sphere opportunities (operational deployment of office-based staff to undertake proactive foot patrols). The purpose of these patrols is to increase police presence, engage with local communities and businesses, taking account of the associated diverse needs in these areas, and tackle crime and anti-social behaviour through a problem-orientated partnership approach. Policing priorities for a town centre area are established by a Town Centre Panel which is comprised of representatives from local businesses, residents, Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships and other key stakeholders.

11. The Town Centres Initiative commenced on 1 April 2009 and up to 31 March 2010 almost 650,000 patrols hours have been dedicated to patrolling the 35 critical town centre locations across London in support of the Presence strand of the Commissioner’s policing imperative.

12. At the time of publication of this report, 27 boroughs are expected to provide a total of 560 additional patrol hours across their respective town centre areas every week. The remaining five boroughs are deploying 224 additional patrol hours per week across their town centres and increasing to the full 560 hours by 1st July 2010.

13. The Town Centre Programme Board continues to track activity and progress and is now focusing on opportunities to improve engagement and partnership collaboration (with businesses, local authorities, community safety partners and consumers) to embed effective and sustainable problem-solving activities into the work of Permanent Town Centre Teams. A review of the programme is planned for mid-2010 once full roll out has been achieved. This review will include an examination of the composition of town centre ward panels.

14. In addition the MPS is enhancing engagement with the business community across London. The Central TPHQ (SN) business engagement team currently lead or coordinate a number of projects. These include:

• The Safer Town Centres programme;
• Links to the ‘Capital clean up’ programme; and
• The Safer Forecourts project.

Crime prevention

15. The MPS has 77 Crime Prevention Design Advisors (CPDAs) that are actively involved in the “Secure by Design” programme to ensure that crime reduction initiatives are introduced when new developments or improvement works are carried out.

16. The MPS is supporting ACPO intentions to intervene at an earlier stage whereby “Secure by Design” is considered at the pre-planning stage ahead of any formal application. Barnet, Harrow, and Brent boroughs are developing this approach further in a pilot scoping exercise.

17. The CPDAs are briefed on a quarterly basis by staff from TPHQ to reinforce the value of “Secure by Design” and ensure compliance on a local level by all BOCUs.

18. The five day Safer Neighbourhood foundation course includes crime prevention guidance for all neighbourhood policing teams, and staff are now able to offer basic crime prevention advice to householders within their communities.

19. Safer Neighbourhoods PCSOs carry out reassurance visits to victims of crime who reside on their ward. This activity is aimed primarily at vulnerable victims but in many BOCUs the visits are expanded beyond this remit. It is during these reassurance visits that the basic crime prevention training is put into practice and practical solutions offered to residents to help reduce repeat victimisation.

Specialist Crime Directorate (SCD)

20. A Thematic Performance Report on the work of SCD was presented to SOP on 1 April 2010, item 6.

21. SCD investigates the majority of serious crimes that occur in London - including murder, kidnap, shootings, armed robbery, gun supply, child abuse, major fraud and drugs networks and in doing so work closely with borough colleagues, local communities and partners in the statutory and private sectors to ensure activities are reducing harm within communities.

22. SCD also has responsibility for the proactive tasking of serious organised crime and in doing so focuses resources on those groups and individuals causing the most harm to London.

23. SCD1 (Homicide Command) has developed a DVD for presentation in schools explaining the law in relation to ‘joint enterprise’ in order to deter young people from all communities from becoming involved in violent offending and homicide. Other units have developed similar programmes for delivery as part of social education package in schools (e.g. Trident preventing gun crime and SCD7 Flying Squad cash in transit robberies).

24. SCD3 (Specialist Crime Prevention) is working with a number of boroughs and local authorities to encourage take up of the Pathways and Conflict Management programme initiatives that aim to reduce and prevent gang and group related violence.

25. SCD8 (Trident) also has a dedicated Community Engagement Team, which provides crime reduction advice in relation to gun-enabled crime and aims to improve engagement and partnership approach with community based interventions around firearms activity. This has included the recent launch of a Trident minibus, deployed in the event of shootings, anniversary appeals and community events to help increase community confidence. Due to the nature of the ‘black on black’ Trident offences this work is aimed primarily at diverting young black people away from gun crime.

26. The Met Intelligence Bureau focused on eight priority crime areas, and has identified those offenders causing the most harm, hotspot locations where the organisation should be focusing resources as well as supporting those victims most susceptible to repeat offending.

Strategic Development

27. The development of the MPS Crime and Anti-social Behaviour Strategy for 2010-2013 is driving a more co-ordinated partnership response to ASB locally and across the organisation.

28. ASB directly effects perceptions of safety and security and, on nineteen boroughs, 25% or more of local people perceived ASB as a problem or big problem in their area (Place Survey 2008).

29. As a result of the MPS’s continuing investment in activities to tackle ASB, London has seen significant improvements in public perception and the worry of ASB. This has been reflected in the MPS Public Attitude Survey and British Crime Survey reports:

• The percentage of the community who are worried about ASB has decreased from 40% to 25% (June 08- Mar 10); and
• The percentage of the community who has high perceptions of ASB has also reduced from 19% to 13% (June ’08- Mar 10).

30. An examination of the diversity data that is available for analysis indicates that for the most recent quarter, the PAS indicates that 20% of white people are worried about ASB which compares to 31% for Asian/Asian British, and 21% for Black/Black British. The same data also indicates that 34% of disabled people surveyed are worried about ASB.

31. In order to address such concerns to better understand the demographic make up of their ward, Safer Neighbourhood officers are trained in the use of an analytical tool, ‘Plan Web’. This is a computer based application that provides maps overlaid with additional information likely to be of significance to neighbourhood teams, Integrated Borough Operations Offices, analysts, researchers and crime managers. This includes indicative information such as crime data and local confidence statistics as well as physical information such as location of schools or other public buildings.

32. SNT officers work with partners to build a comprehensive ward profile that helps direct problem solving and community engagement activities to where it is most likely to have maximum impact and benefit to those communities.

33. For example, in April 2010 there were 1770 community identified priorities. Of these 948 related to crime issues and 738 related to ASB. Table 1 gives an indication of the top 5 ASB themes and Table 2 the crime priorities tackled by local neighbourhood teams during 2009/2010.

Table 1 - Top ASB priorities 2009/2010

• ASB by youths (e.g. gangs of youths)
• ASB in general
• ASB related to alcohol (e.g. street drinking/drunks)
• ASB by motorists (e.g. dangerous driving, illegal parking, speeding)
• ASB-drugs

Table 2 - Top crime priorities 2009/2010

• Burglary
• Theft from motor vehicles
• Drug dealing and using
• Theft/taking of motor vehicles
• Robbery - personal property

34. Table 1 indicates that priorities relating to street drinking were policed by neighbourhood teams during 2009/2010. During April 2010 neighbourhood teams proactively policed 8 dispersal zones and 14 alcohol free zones within town centre locations. In addition, throughout 2009/10 the MPS conducted 10587 ASB home visits, issued 22155 ASB letters, managed 2354 agreed behaviour contracts and obtained 548 ASBOs.

35. MPS ward teams have support and are involved in a number of other pan-London initiatives targeting ASB including:

• Operations “Winter” and “Autumn “ nights where SN staff provide additional evening patrolling presence during periods that have historically been peaks for ASB and knife crime;
• Back to school initiatives where additional patrolling presence is provided on routes to and from schools at the start and end of terms to help prevent ASB and violence; and
• During school-term time, schools officers operate within schools and colleges and there is a higher police presence on transport routes, interchanges and in town centres after school.

36. Currently all Safer Transport hub teams perform after schools patrols between 3pm and 6pm to identify and tackle those young people involved in youth related ASB.

Oversight and coordination

37. The Commander (Safer Neighbourhoods & Partnerships) chairs the MPS ASB steering group. Its function is to provide a strategic oversight and direction of the ASB agenda and work with key stakeholders and partners in determining the best approach to be taken within London. The board has identified a number of key areas of activity to inform its work. Members (drawn from TP OCUs and across business groups) are actively working towards minimising harm and negating risks relating to the following issues:

• Responding to public expectations including the need to identify and capture data relating to repeat and vulnerable victim/callers;
• Developing corporate action plans in response to ASB;
• Monitoring and examining how MPS effectiveness in tackling ASB impacts on public confidence; and
• Developing the corporate response to HMIC/MPA concerns relating to the management of ASB and ASBOs.

38. The MPS is also currently progressing further areas to address ASB issues including:

• Guidance documents for dealing with ASB (including Toolkits);
• Processes for identification of repeat (or vulnerable) victims of ASB and locations;
• A corporate process map for dealing with ASB issues including capture of community intelligence;
• Identification of performance management frameworks for quality assurance of ASB processes;
• Implementation of a corporate process for capture, recording and review of ASBO information; and
• Identification of minimum standards for dealing with community ASB issues.

ASB - Repeat callers

39. The MPS is adapting and reviewing learning from the Pilkington incident in Leicestershire, to identify the needs of repeat callers and actions to deal with chronic problems.

40. This work is being conducted as part of the significant Command & Control Futures Programme which is scoping the replacement of the MPS call handling and recording infrastructure. A full Equalities Impact Assessment has been completed as part of this programme and will be reviewed as this significant upgrade of a critical MPS public interface progresses.

41. Whilst the initial work will focus on interim solutions to address the area of greatest risk, i.e. ASB, the intention is to bring together various data sets such as incident reports and recorded crime to allow staff to conduct improved risk assessments through easier access to information.

42. Officers and staff within CCC receive training and guidance in dealing with callers who appear to be repeat callers or who may exhibit indications of vulnerability. They use professional judgement to determine if a caller is vulnerable and ensure an appropriate deployment grading. Existing system features will automatically identify repeat callers during the last 30 days using telephone numbers as identifiers.

43. BOCU staff have received guidance on how to search for repeat callers during the previous 24 hour period. This information is then considered at the BOCU daily management meeting for appropriate action to be taken.

44. In responding appropriately to repeat callers it is expected that there will be a positive impact on:

• Public safety;
• Reduced risks to officers and staff;
• Improved levels of confidence and satisfaction;
• Increased long-term problem solving;
• Reduction in demand; and
• Community Intelligence gathering.

45. In order to assist and support BOCUs in reducing the number of 4 repeat callers, TP Performance Unit will incorporate BOCU repeat caller data into all mainstream performance products from June 2010. The data set provided will identify telephone numbers that are subject to repeat calls.

46. The TP Performance Unit will dip-sample CCC/BOCU activity in relation to repeat callers to ensure that the processes and data relied upon to measure performance has the necessary rigour and that any good practice is validated and highlighted.

Community Safety Accreditation Scheme (CSAS)

47. The work of Safer Neighbourhoods teams in tackling ASB and other crime issues in town centres and business communities is further supported by the benefits afforded through the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme.

48. CSAS allows the Chief Officer in each force area to decide whether to accredit persons working in a community safety function to exercise certain powers in cooperation with police officers and PCSOs. It has been piloted in the MPS since December 2008 and now has 130 Accredited Persons (APs) operating on five sites in Croydon, Hillingdon (2), Southwark, and Tower Hamlets.

49. The purpose of the scheme is to empower those authority figures working in communities to contribute to community safety and security and, in co-operation with the police force for the area, to combat crime and disorder, public nuisance and other forms of ASB.

50. The feedback received from communities, police and organisations involved in the pilots has been positive. An evaluation was conducted on the site at Brunel University which identified several benefits for the MPS. These included a significant increase in intelligence coming into MPS systems, an increase in community satisfaction and reassurance and police time being saved at incidents as APs were dealing with situations prior to police arrival (e.g. scene preservation, identification of witnesses and CCTV being prepared for police for evidential purposes). The Brunel University scheme has been included in the Home Office Best Practice Guidance for Employers.

51. The schemes in Southwark, Croydon and Tower Hamlets all involve local authority wardens working in town centre locations being given additional powers, such as power to confiscate alcohol from any person aged under 18 years of age or to request name and address of person acting in an anti-social manner, operating with close support and liaison with their local Safer Neighbourhoods Teams.

52. The MPS scheme is already one of the largest nationally in terms of number of accredited individuals and more private businesses and local authorities have already expressed interest in joining the scheme in London.

53. A position paper outlining options in respect of the scheme, in particular ensuring that implementation and management of the initiative remains cost neutral to the MPS, has been prepared for Management Board for discussion and final decision.

Work to protect vulnerable people, including young people and tackle offenders that cause the most harm

54. The MPS Youth Strategy 2008-2010 is currently being revised to take account of the new policing plan, development of the joint MPA/MPS Community Engagement Strategy and development of the corporate Anti-Violence Strategy that will include youth violence.

55. The existing Youth Strategy was subject to external review and in particular, a number of Youth Engagement interventions were evaluated. This evaluation was reported to MPA Strategic and Operational Policing Committee on 4 February 2010.

56. The MPS has undertaken a multi agency/partnership review of the role of Youth Offending Team (YOT) Police Officers. This work is informing a national review that aims to clarify the role description within the partnerships, with an expected end date later in 2010.

57. Activities being undertaken within the 13 Youth Crime Action Plan (YCAP) boroughs follow 5 strands:

• triage delivery with YOT expertise in custody suites;
• after school patrols;
• operation ‘Staysafe’ which uses protective legislation to take young people into police protection if it is believed they are at risk of coming to significant harm;
• street based teams staffed by local authority and third sector personnel; and
• Community payback schemes to offer reparation to communities affected by crime and disorder.

58. The MPS continues to support both universal and targeted youth engagement activities such as Kickz, Hoopz, Voyage and the MPS Volunteer Cadet Programme.

Operation Blunt 2

59. Operation Blunt 2 continues to provide a highly visible response to tackling knife crime; it also impacts upon the wider impact to communities affected by serious youth violence and most serious violence. The operation is aimed at those connected with groups and gangs intent on causing harm in the community through the use of knives and weapons and was conceived in May 2008 to tackle the rising numbers of young people falling victim to knife crime.

60. The key objective of Blunt 2 is to remove knives and weapons from the streets of London, prevent homicide and to engage actively with the community throughout in order to maintain trust and confidence in police tactics and reduce the fear of crime.

61. The use of stop and search powers is a key preventative tactic and their use in critical locations generates a uniformed police presence to deter offenders and offer protection to potential victims of knife crime. TPHQ Safer Neighbourhoods are engaged specifically in monitoring the views and feelings of local people in order to inform senior command of local feelings from young people, both formal and informal partnerships and the wider community as a whole.

62. All MPS Boroughs fall within the scope of this operation and boroughs are required to engage with local people over and above existing core engagement activity and to submit an assessment of current feelings to augment the monitoring processes.

63 BOCUs are required to regularly review CIAs and EIAs for Blunt 2 and they submit weekly returns indicating what consultation has been carried out on the impact of all aspects of operation Blunt 2 on their particular BOCU. A corporate CIA is regularly reviewed and updated

64. A variety of operations and initiatives are ongoing under the umbrella of Operation Blunt 2. Currently Operation Protect is focussing on supporting young people making their way to and from schools and colleges in order to disrupt any criminal activity that could lead to harm or injury. Working in partnership with other agencies and internally, cross border and cross function is a recurring theme for all operations; Operation Protect is no different, making the most of liaison opportunities between TP Crime, Safer Schools Partnerships and Transport Command.

65. One of the key drivers for reported knife crime has been offences of robbery. Operation VINCO seeks to address this by focussing resources ensuring a fast response to reported incidents and the maintenance of a high standard of investigation to arrest and bring offenders to justice.

66. At the neighbourhood level, Safer Neighbourhoods teams and town centre teams are providing a visible presence. They are focussed on local ward and area priorities and often the policing and partnership activity that ensues will impact upon knife crime. For example, a town centre team focussed on robbery will inevitably have a positive impact on knife crime.

67. Safer Neighbourhoods teams with their local knowledge are also at the forefront of weapons sweep activities, by clearing areas of stored weapons intended to be used by offenders at pre-arranged meetings and confrontations. The MPS has enjoyed considerable success with weapons sweeps with more than two thousand prohibited items found to date. SNTs conduct around 200-250 weapon sweeps a week recovering on average 20-30 weapons as a result of their activity. Local Community Impact Assessments are conducted as part of this operational activity.

68. SNTs play a valuable role gathering information and intelligence through their interaction with young people, either through their daily activity on patrol or through their more informal youth engagement activities. They are vital therefore in helping to identify people and areas of risk. Much of this engagement activity takes place at very local levels and includes young people from many of the diverse communities across the MPS. This is evident when attending many of the Kickz locations across the MPS.

69. Local events such as fairs and fetes, and ‘facebook’ advertised parties can sometimes present a risk. Once again SNTs help to identify these events and bring them to notice for action and, where necessary, an appropriate policing response.

70. Police officers are working in schools and with other community forums, delivering anti-knife crime messages and promoting positive attitudes and behaviour. A further initiative is the ‘Joint Enterprise’ DVD, shown in schools to a range of young people. The film warns of the dangers of becoming involved with high risk groups or gangs and demonstrates how easy it is to become charged with a serious offence just by being present when an associate member of the group commits a serious crime.

71. Working with young people from all communities remains an essential part of operation Blunt to demonstrate that the police are there to support them, not alienate. The engagement activity is not exclusive to Safer Neighbourhoods, a number of commands engage with young people concerning serious violence with a view to promoting positive behaviours and to obtain the mandate from young people for police activity.

To bring more offenders to justice and, with our partners, improve criminal justice outcomes, particularly for persistent priority offenders

72. The Diamond Initiative commenced in January 2009 in six pilot sites selected as areas with high volumes of resident offenders. These are the Boroughs of Newham, Lambeth, Lewisham, Hackney, Croydon and Southwark. The activities are focussed at ward level with 5 boroughs operating across six wards and one borough across four wards. The pilot will extend for 2 years until 1 January 2011. This is an innovative and ambitious scheme intended to break the cycle of re-offending among adults sentenced to less than 12 months. This group have an even higher re-offending rate than longer term prisoners (60% re-offend within 1 year compared to 47.2% for all prisoners) and are not subject to any supervision upon release.

73. The annual cost to London of offenders returning to crime within a year of leaving prison is as high as £120 million. In addition, the teams are working with offenders made subject to community payback sentences to ensure compliance with their order and reduce the instances of breaches, which in some cases lead to a short term prison sentence. The Initiative adopts a multi-agency, case management based approach with teams of Police Officers, PCSOs, Probation Officers and Local Authority Resettlement Officers all co-located. They provide practical resettlement assistance and continuity of support to offenders, such as help accessing benefits, finding work, finding accommodation, accessing education and training, drug treatment etc.

74. The model encompasses an integrated offender management process and extends to providing support to victims of offenders. This activity is delivered by PCSOs on the team providing support and advice whilst signposting affected people to relevant victim services. The teams also have a wider responsibility in that they provide practical support together with other statutory agencies on a referral basis, to case manage offenders in the community (including those offenders on licence), PPOs and persons subject to other community sentences.

75. The emerging picture is positive, and is reflected in the interim evaluation conducted in November 2009:

• 81% of offenders are taking up the “Diamond offer” compared to a predicted take up rate of 50%;
• Diamond teams are working with repeat offenders with an average of 27 previous convictions; and
• Where the Diamond Teams have supported compliance with Community Payback Orders there has been a 31% reduction in breaches.

76. 12 month re-conviction data will be available in October 2010 but the 6 month re-offending data is very positive and shows that re-conviction is over a third lower amongst 418 Diamond offenders (28%) than the comparison group (43%).

77. The London Criminal Justice Partnership is currently developing the business case to extend Diamond to the other areas of London with high levels of resident offenders. In addition the partnership is intending to develop a model to enable those boroughs that do not have high volumes of resident offenders to manage short sentence prisoners by a process referred to as “Diamond lite”. The approach will be to develop the existing PPO team but with enhanced Probation Service and local authority resources

78. Based on the learning from Diamond, it is proposed to develop the role of Safer Neighbourhood teams in supporting offender compliance with Community sentences and providing additional intelligence and information to inform joint offender management actions.

Improving safety on London’s transport network

79. 1 April 2010 saw the launch of the new Safer Transport Command (STC) forming part of the MPS Territorial Policing Directorate.

80. Under a S.25 funding arrangement with Transport for London, the STC brings together what was the Transport OCU and outer borough Safer Transport Teams under the strategic umbrella of one OCU. Safer Transport Command now consists of 32 borough based Safer Transport teams (STTs) some incorporating dedicated hub teams.

81. The role of STC is to provide policing activity in support of three agreed STC / TfL objectives. These are:

• To reduce the fear of crime and ensure the safety and security of staff and the public on and around the London bus and public transport system and its interchanges;
• To maximise people movement and minimise delays and disruption on the London surface transport system; and
• To enforce the law relating to taxis and private hire vehicles to ensure the safety of the public.

82. A new Mayoral priority, cycling will be added as a fourth objective shortly. For STC, this will relate to cycle security and reduction of crime through theft.

83. In order to deliver improved safety on London's transport network, the following activity has been undertaken:

• A year long restructuring programme to provide greater coordination of transport policing assets across the MPS and consistency of approach within each borough;
• Greater investment into problem solving with the recruitment of two Advisors who work closely with the 32 STTs and are supported by TFL counterparts;
• Introduction of a new combined performance management regime. This consists of eight-weekly Joint Transport Action Group (JTAG) meetings where STTs local priorities are discussed and agreed and fortnightly conference calls where STTs are held to account;
• A series of pro-active and ongoing initiatives in response to community issues or in anticipation of recognised crime trends. These include: Safer Travel at Night, Women’s Safety Day (Suzy Lamplugh Trust) and ‘Safe Bus’; and
• Implementation of a bespoke STC Policing Pledge Action Plan ensuring STC contributes to national Pledge promises whilst providing comparable levels of service specific to the transport community.

84. In terms of outcomes, STC delivered over 9% reduction in bus related crime during 2009/10. This builds upon previous 18% and 13% year on year reductions seen in 2008/9 and 2007/8.

To work with partners to reduce road casualties and remove uninsured vehicles

85. Each day over 60 million vehicle miles are travelled over 9,274 miles of London’s roads.

86. In accordance with the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) the MPS strategy for road policing focuses on the following activities:

• Reducing road casualties;
• Denying criminals use of the roads by enforcing the law;
• Tackling the threat of terrorism;
• Reducing anti-social use of roads; and
• Enhancing public confidence and reassurance by patrolling the roads.

87. Research has shown that the 4 biggest killers on the UK’s roads are:

• Not wearing a seat belt;
• Speed;
• Using a hand held mobile phone whilst driving; and
• Drink / Drugs driving.

There are also links to increased danger to other road users caused by those individuals who do not insure or maintain their vehicles. Therefore enforcement of traffic legislation is a major factor in combating these risks.

88. The Mayor has set a stretching target of 50% reduction all people killed or seriously injured (KSI) in the Capital (40% nationally) and a 60% reduction (50% nationally) for children. The MPs is on track to achieve both these ambitious targets and current performance is 53% reduction for all KSI and 72% reduction for child KSI.

89. Significant effort has been afforded to offering appropriate advice and education to motorists and road users, but enforcement is also often necessary to reinforce road safety legislation. Headline performance figures include:

• 3,882 drivers were disqualified from driving. Research and analysis suggests that the majority of these offenders (79%) have criminal records and are likely to be serial traffic offenders (in most cases they will have been prosecuted more than once prior to disqualification);
• Over 30,000 FPNs have been issued for speeding, seat belt and mobile phone offences;
• Over 1,600 people arrests as a result of impaired driving through drink or drugs;
• 10,000 vehicles seized for having no insurance
• 12,000 summary prosecutions for having no insurance or driving whilst disqualified;
• 150 deployments for each of the five Automatic Number plate Reader (ANPR) Intercept Teams;
• 1,100 arrests generated by the ANPR capability of traffic’s patrol vehicles; and
• 100 Large Goods Vehicles (LGV) stopped each month under the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement activity of traffic department’s work.

90. The core business of the Traffic OCU (CO15) is to reduce casualties and to prevent illegal and antisocial road use. The OCU has undertaken activities to address these issues ranging from education to enforcement such as targeting persistent repeat offenders (disqualified or drink drivers), to more extensive intelligence led operations addressing dangerous and illegal driving at identified collision hotspot locations.

Specific examples include:

• The Commercial Vehicle Unit has carried out a number of nationally supported operations since January 2010 including the targeting of carriage of dangerous goods as well as fortnightly operations in the Olympic boroughs;
• Tackling illegal road by challenging unlicensed and uninsured vehicles. A recent modest operation across four NE boroughs resulted in 73 vehicle seizures as well as drink drive arrests;
• An educational approach to casualty reduction through the ongoing “Exchanging Places” scheme aimed at reducing cyclist fatalities from collisions with HGVs. In a one-day operation on 15 April 140 cyclists in Hackney experienced the visual limitations of a HGV cab. This was made possible by the cyclist being invited to sit in the cab of the lorry. By doing this they were able to better understand the risks they take in riding close alongside HGVs. Such work is backed up by enforcement activity carried out in known hotspots. For example, on Clapham Common South Side 42 commercial vehicles were stopped and checked whilst 55 cyclists were also stopped and received verbal warnings or penalty notices for contravening the traffic signals;
• Further initiatives include intelligence gathering on dangerous, illegal and antisocial road use through a web-based reporting forum called “Operation Roadsafe London”. This allows members of the public to report matters that concern them directly to CO15 via the internet and inform tasking decisions; and
• In respect of motorcycle safety the Traffic OCU, with TfL funding offers ‘BikeSafe’ courses where trained Police motorcyclists offer supervised rides to improve the safety of motorcycle riders on London’s roads. In addition the BikeSafe team undertake enforcement activity against those motorcyclists breaking the law in respect of speed, construction and use regulations and riding without insurance.

91. Furthermore, traffic resources have been used extensively this year to impact on crime issues ranging from deployments on Operation Blunt, Operation Bumblebee, and assisting numerous Safer Neighbourhood Teams in local issues where illegal use of vehicles is a key factor.

92. Beyond these safety and crime issues, CO15 is a key partner in Operation Reclaim, a collaboration with approved contractors and insurance companies to seize uninsured or stolen vehicles. Operating across all boroughs in London, in the first four months of this year almost 15,000 uninsured motor vehicles being driven on the streets of London have been seized.

93. These operations disrupt criminal activity, remove illegal vehicles from the road, and play a significant part in the reduction of casualties that has been sustained in recent years.

94. In further support of the work of Traffic OCU there are currently 56 local ward priorities being tackled by Safer Neighbourhoods teams and Safer Transport teams to reduce road casualties (e.g. parking outside schools, cyclists failing to comply with traffic signals, speeding cars.)

C. Race and equality impact

The individual activities highlighted in this report are subject to a specific Equality Impact Assessment.

The report provides an update on activities and operations currently taking place, and in some cases due to be rolled out across additional MPS Boroughs in the future. As with all similar MPS initiatives, individual Equality Impact Assessments are conducted in line with the monitoring and evaluation requirements of each project.

The MPS Diversity Board sets the strategic direction in relation to diversity issues with specific focus on two strands; namely Fair and Responsive Services and Effective Engagement. Performance data and action plans are reviewed at Diversity Board.

In support of this, at a local level each BCU have a specific and bespoke diversity action plan which reflects the needs of their area. Each BCU has a diversity champion and diversity steering group to monitor performance locally.

Work continues within the Safer Neighbourhood programme to enable all communities to access ward panels and contribute to setting local policing priorities. Over 1200 Safer Neighbourhood staff (including the majority of sergeants) have received training in how to analyse demographic data and thereby better understand the profile of their particular ward. This in turn leads to the development of bespoke community engagement plans to ensure that safety messages, newsletters and local advertising can be adapted to allow the greatest reach.

This better understanding of the composition of communities has been extended to town centres and is currently being monitored as part of the work of the Town Centre Programme Board to establish impact.

Data from the most recent PAS quarterly data for the MPS indicates that 63% of white people feel that their local police do a good job. This compares to 69% of Asian/Asian British, and 66% of Black/Black British. The same data indicates that confidence in local policing stands at 64% for white people, 74% for Asian/Asian British, and 66% for Black/Black British.

As mentioned in paragraph 30 above, Safer Neighbourhood teams, analysts and researchers have received specific training in the interpretation of such data in order to assist them to develop strategic and tactical plans and tackle those matters of most concern to communities. Using this information they are now more able to more effectively focus operational activity towards the right people (tackling offenders, supporting victims) in the right places (persistent trouble spots). As a result of taking this approach, recent assessments indicate that confidence appears to be improving. In fact, the MPS is currently on track to meet the national target for ‘confidence in policing’ as expected by March by 2012.

D. Financial implications

The majority of measures discussed above are managed within existing MPS budgets or in the case of Kickz and Hoopz, from a specially created reserve. Any further expansion of Diamond Districts initiative requires a more detailed business case and will be dealt with through the normal MPS business planning and approval process. Any additional investment on this initiative would however, be dependent on either savings in other parts of the Service or/and income from partner agencies. Activity undertaken by the Safer Transport Command is currently funded jointly between TfL and the MPS.

E. Legal implications

There are no direct legal implications arising from this report.

F. Background papers

None

G. Contact details

Report author: Chief Inspector Gareth Morgan, TPHQ

For information contact:

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

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