Specialist Crime Directorate - quarterly report

Report: 8
Date: 9 December 2010
By: Assistant Commissioner’s Specialist Crime and Territorial Policing on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

An overview of progress against two corporate objectives from MPA/MPS London Policing Plan 2010/11. They are: reduce serious violence and protect young people; reduce serious and organised crime by disrupting criminal networks.

A. Recommendation

That

1. Members note the report.

B. Supporting information

1. This paper is the first to report on progress against two corporate objectives. They are:

• Reduce serious violence and protect young people and
• Reduce organised crime by disrupting criminal networks

The first objective is shared by Territorial Policing and Specialist Crime, whilst the latter have the organisational lead for the second objective.

All performance data relates to the period 1 April to 31 October 2010 unless otherwise stated.

Reduce serious violence

2. The MPS established the Anti-Violence Board (AVB) to drive forward work to tackle all forms of violence across the organisation. It is chaired by Assistant Commissioners’ Ian McPherson (Territorial Policing) and Cressida Dick (Specialist Crime). Its strategic aims are that:

• Public perception of safety is improved
• Victim care and satisfaction is improved
• The criminal justice outcomes (appropriate to police) are achieved
• The level of violent crime in London is reduced
• The cost of violent crime to London is reduced

3. The MPS anti-violence strategy and delivery plan are focused on ensuring that the MPS will use an intelligence-led approach to target the most dangerous offenders, vulnerable victims and high-risk locations and times. To achieve this aim the victim, offender, location and time (VOLT) model is being adopted across all business groups; addressing all forms of violence, from harassment, anti-social behaviour to domestic violence serious youth violence and homicide. Using this model will allow the MPS to target resources to achieve the greatest impact. The board is also identifying ways to improve coordination within our operational practices.

4. The MPS recognises that it cannot tackle violence and its causes in isolation. Partner agencies, voluntary groups, communities, parents and others all have a vital role to play. On 1 July 2010 AC McPherson presented a report to the MPA Strategic and Operational Policing Committee outlining the delivery plan for the MPS Anti-Violence Board and the proposal for a London Strategic Violence Board. This was accepted and the MPS is now working to make this a reality. On the 14 October 2010 an update on the development of the MPS anti-violence strategy was presented to the MPA.

5. The primary benefits of the anti-violence strategy for the MPS and London are;

• Co-ordination - activity across the MPS and London is coordinated and complementary, minimising duplication and providing operational police with clear common goals
• Person-centric activity - enabling a more holistic and more effective management of vulnerable victims, the most harmful / dangerous offenders, and key locations
• Cost-effectiveness (value for money) - the MPS and all other public services are being asked to do more with less. The strategy is the first to drive forward the shift from crime-type to person-centric activity. Targeting core problem areas and those who cause the most harm to Londoners will reduce the long term costs of violence to all the agencies involved
• The provision of a joint platform with partners for analysis, response and evaluation thereby enabling delivery of sustainable problem solving to meet necessary performance improvements

6. At the start of September the MPS and Professor Sir George Alberti met with strategic partners to engage with them on the subject. This was followed on 1 November by a workshop attended by senior representatives from key partner agencies, as well as the community and voluntary sector to discuss the proposal for a London Strategic Violence Board. Agreement was reached to begin development of an anti-violence partnership. A proposal for the structure and possible delivery plan for this partnership will be taken to the London Crime Reduction Board in January 2011.

7. The MPS undertakes a wide variety of prevention work in educational establishments both locally at BOCU level and across various business groups. To maximise the benefit of this activity for young people and to ensure value for money the AVB will, through the Confidence and Satisfaction Board and Youth Strategy, develop and implement coordinated interventions in schools, colleges and PRUs.

8. The MPS is also engaged with the London Serious Youth Violence Board in their schools focus pilots. The pilots will run in communities where the data indicates they have been persistently affected by serious youth violence. The premise of this work is that schools occupy a unique position in any locality, typically have pivotal links with a range of key partners and a sustainable solution may be difficult to achieve without the active involvement of schools. It is anticipated that the result of these pilots will be that the solutions are locally shaped, owned and maintained by those with a stake in the community.

9. Specialist Crime’s prevention and partnership team continue to develop the delivery of conflict management services across London. Referrals are received from both local boroughs and other operational units. There have been some notable successes, and an independent review completed early in 2010 indicated that of four closed cases it was ‘highly likely’ that the use of mediation had prevented one homicide and an incident of serious violence and ‘probable’ that another homicide and incident had also been prevented.

Protect Young People

10. The new coalition government has recently called on Professor Eileen Munro to conduct a review of child protection procedures nationally, building on the work of Lord Laming and Moira Gibb’s Social Work taskforce.

11. The MPS is continuing to progress relevant recommendations from the Laming reviews via the Child Abuse and Investigation Command (CAIC). As part of the modernisation programme much of the work has been incorporated into the activity of their Continuous Improvement Team. The national statutory target pilot (recommendation 4) being led by the MPS is ongoing. This framework allows the quality of risk management and oversight to be assessed and monitored. The development of effective multi-agency training (recommendation 8) through the MACIE programme is also progressing. All London boroughs have now received the training and a refreshed programme is currently being delivered. The MPS continues to fund this training. It has now expanded the programme to front line practitioners through the development of a tailored one day event. The command also continues to develop an ethos of constructive challenge (recommendation 16), through the delivery of a bespoke confidence in communication course. The development of more effective joint working (recommendation 25) remains a priority for the command. The Haringey co-location pilot is continuing however early indications are of improved communication and delivery.

Progress on MPA action plan

12. The extensive recruitment programme is now complete. Our establishment numbers are consistently at or around 456 police officers and 200 police staff.

13. The Child Risk Assessment Model (CRAM) is now implemented across the command and has received positive feedback from both HMIC and Ofsted. Communication, decision making and risk management within the Child Abuse Investigation Teams and across the partnership have all been enhanced by the new processes which in turn is improving the delivery of successful outcomes for children. A rolling programme of review has been developed by the command to ensure that continuous improvement is at the core of business and it can respond to emerging best practice.

Partnership engagement

14. The CAIC partnership team has recently expanded its remit to provide support to the ongoing rolling quality assurance process for all units. The team will look at internal, external, statutory and voluntary relationships as part of each CAIT inspection over the next twelve months. This will be vital to command’s ongoing input to the Munro Review as it considers models of more effective joint working.

15. Project Azure – The MPS response to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) recently carried out a proactive operation in conjunction with colleagues from Specialist Operations safer airports team, Operation Paladin, British Airports Authority, Social Services, the Home Office and a variety of commercial airlines. The operation engaged with passengers to raise awareness of FGM and the fact that people often use the summer school holidays to remove children from Britain for the purposes of genital mutilation. This was an intelligence led operation based at Heathrow Terminal 4 which focused on flights going to or connecting to destinations known to conduct FGM. The aim of the operation was to raise awareness amongst travellers of the consequences, both in terms of health and the law in condoning this practice. Such was the success of the operation that this will now become a rolling programme of activity undertaken at or around major school holidays.

16. Mapping project - The partnership team’s Project Ocean is currently working with the Safer Neighbourhoods OCU, boroughs and counter-terrorism command and faith communities across London to map supplementary schools across the capital. Supplementary schools offer faith based education over and above formal education and generally sit outside the scope of the oversight mechanisms in place for mainstream schools.

17. Once this survey is complete a mapping exercise will be undertaken by the command’s intelligence unit and a bespoke training and awareness package will be developed and offered to all supplementary schools. A smaller, but similar piece of work was recently carried out in conjunction with the Office of the Chief Rabbi for the benefit of orthodox rabbis’ across London. This resulted in positive feedback and an increased awareness of safeguarding opportunities and responsibilities.

Policy and Practice Developments 2010-2011

18. We are currently fully engaged with the Munro Review into child protection arrangements. The review will undoubtedly provide the context and direction for the future development of child protection procedures and we will continue to ensure it is at the forefront of that process.

19. We are also currently in the process of reviewing the Specialist Child Abuse Investigators Development Programme (SCAIDP) in line with the new learning descriptors produced by the National Policing Improvement Agency. Once complete this training will be offered to new entrants to the OCU. This is to ensure that best practice is at the core of business.

Performance Headlines

20. The Child Abuse Command are dealing or dealt with 5,296 offences FYTD. This is an increase of 2% or 109 offences when compared to the same period last year. If the number of reported offences continues at the present rate, it should reach around 9,000 for the financial year. This OCU accounts for the highest volume of crimes investigated by specialist crime. The sanction detection rate is at 26% (1,354). This is considerable progress, as a few years ago it was nearer to 12%. The improvement is in the context of a sanction detection, which does not necessarily mean it is in the best interest of the child (victim).

21. We are attempting to broaden our performance framework to reflect the emphasis on the delivery of positive outcomes for children. The rolling review programme and feedback from HMIC and Ofsted clearly identifies evidence of improved communication between partners, better management of risk and more consistent decision making.

Serious and organised crime and criminal networks

22. The MPS continues to support a harm-based approach to tackling organised criminal networks. The prioritisation matrix enables identification of those networks causing the most harm to communities in London. It also ensures that resources are allocated appropriately. This process takes into account networks operating at national intelligence model levels one and two, from both territorial policing as well as specialist crime perspective. It aims to ensure that resources are allocated to both those networks involved in violence as well as those that pose a longer-term and more unseen threat to London. This could be facilitated through the importation of drugs, firearms or economic fraud – criminality that also allows violence and gang-related activity to flourish.

23. By coordinating the MPS Prioritisation Matrix with the newly developed Covert Asset Tasking process, we are ensuring that these assets are used to tackle the most harmful networks, where appropriate, as well as delivering on corporate requirements identified through the Strategic Intelligence Assessment.

24. The MPS continues to develop a harm reduction approach to measure the impact policing activity has on organised crime, through work with external experts. Current developments have been presented to SCD’s Command Team and the Home Office with positive feedback. We are currently examining ways of introducing its use in this financial year. Other law enforcement forces / agencies have or are giving serious consideration to adopting the process.

25. The majority of disruptions are still claimed by Specialist Crime units. However engagement of other business groups with the process is increasing all the time. As knowledge and understanding of the process increases across the organisation we intend to develop the process towards assessing harm reduction, the level of evidence and significance of impact required for a disruption to be agreed.

26. A project of SCD’s realignment programme is to create an Organised Crime Command. This will comprise the following OCUs: Specialist and Economic Crime, Serious and Organised Crime, Trident: Shootings Prevention and Investigation and Human Exploitation and Organised Crime. This grouping offers new opportunities to ensure that our activity against organised criminal networks is better coordinated, with greater responsiveness and flexibility. The combined resources can be targeted in tackling those networks and individuals identified as posing the most risk and threats.

27. The MPS continues to engage with national development in mapping and addressing serious and organised crime through Commander Hewitt, the organisational lead.

Performance FYTD

28. There have been 250 criminal network disruptions FYTD, this compares with 277 in the same period last year. The difference is twenty-seven fewer approvals. If we continue with the current monthly average we should reach an end of year total of around 420 disruptions. The claims originate from three operational business groups; Specialist Crime, Specialist Operations and Territorial Policing.

29. Approximately £18.5m of assets have been recovered by confiscation and forfeiture orders from criminals by MPS units. This was generated from 917 confiscation and restraint orders. The end of year forecast on current levels is for a total around £30m. Just over £11m cash has been seized FYTD. It is for the courts to decide in the individual cases whether it’s justifiable and therefore count toward our measure.

Some recent disruption successes include

30. Two men were found guilty at Crown Court for their respective roles in a £1 million cocaine haul, which also resulted in the recovery of a loaded MAC-10 sub machine from a child's bedroom. Two accomplices had pleaded guilty to their roles at an earlier hearing. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs intercepted and seized four parcels coming into the UK from Santa Cruz, Bolivia and informed the Metropolitan Police Service. Officers from the Serious and Organised Crime Command immediately mounted a proactive operation targeting the recipient of the parcels. Each of the four parcels contained approximately one kilo of cocaine at 79 per cent purity, making the total weight of four kilos worth a street value of £1 million. Two parcels were addressed to a pet shop and two to a school. Both addressees were innocent parties, completely unaware of the importation and the packages were returned to the depot. Arrests were made after the use of false details to claim them from the courier company. A search of one of the suspects’ home address found the firearm in a bedroom wardrobe.

31. A 38 year-old man pleaded guilty at Crown Court to money laundering and possession of class A and class B drugs with intent to supply. He was sentenced to over five years’ imprisonment. He was found with over 380,000 euros and a quantity of class A drugs. There followed an intelligence-led investigation by the Proactive Money Laundering Taskforce (PMLT), with assistance from local borough officers. It was discovered that he was part of a larger organised criminal network involved in the supply of class A drugs in London. He was originally stopped by local officers whilst driving a car. A stash of euros, which were unusually in large denominations, were found wrapped in envelopes in his glove box and in his pockets. A search of his home address, revealed drug paraphernalia including weighing scales. heroin with a street value of £5k and a kilo of cannabis were found hidden in a wardrobe. The network lost a trusted and skilled associate as a result of police intervention.

32. Six men were sentenced at Crown Court to a total of 22.5 years imprisonment for their part in planning and executing the robbery of a cash-in-transit guard. The incident occurred as the guard collected cash. Two suspects approached in a car, one ran over and grabbed the cash box before returning to the waiting car. Another vehicle with the other gang members was located nearby. A short time later two suspects were arrested in the vicinity. Flying Squad Officers subsequently forced entry to an address and recovered the open cash box and a small amount of money. Officers believe the group had re-convened at the address following the robbery and divided the money. The others were arrested later on that evening.

C. Other organisational and community implications

Equality and Diversity Implications

1. There are no explicit equalities items addressed. The activities that form this report and the data content are arrived at with a regard to delivering Territorial Policing and Specialist Crime services tailored to the needs of individuals and communities. The contents of this performance report should fully comply with MPA/MPS diversity strategies and associated equal opportunities policies.

Financial Implications

2. All activities supporting these corporate objectives are delivered within the existing budgets of Business Groups.

Legal Implications

3. This report is submitted as part of the governance process and no legal implications arise.

Consideration of MET Forward

4. There are no implications for the delivery of MET Forward. Activity described in this report either directly or indirectly contributes to or is in support of all MET Forward key outcomes.

D. Background papers

None

D. Contact details

Report author: Raymond Marshall, Specialist Crime Directorate, Performance Improvement Unit, MPS

For information contact:

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

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