Operational Policing Measures

Report: 12
Date: 9 December 2010
By: Director of Resources on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This report describes recent work to improve the accuracy of OPM data, including how it is being used in TP and the MPS. It outlines how OPM data is being used to monitor the effective use of resources and to enable the more effective alignment of resources to demand.

All staff are allocated both a high-level OPM Category (Uniform Operational, Organisational Support, etc.) and a more granular OPM Code (Response Team, CID, etc.). This supports monitoring of resource allocation and usage at both strategic and local levels, e.g. level of single and paired patrolling, levels of abstraction from SNTs.

Correct classification of staff by OPM codes assists in matching resource usage to demand. For example, this is helping CCC to meet and exceed response times for emergency calls.

Analysis of all staff using the high-level OPM Category information shows that

• 97.6% of police officers are engaged in Operational functions.
• 90% of all staff are performing Operational functions

The MPS do not have access to similar deployment information from other forces, however trend information contained in the report appendices demonstrates that

• we have an increasing number of uniformed officers in Operational roles
• uniformed officers in Operational Support roles have decreased over the last two quarters
• non-uniformed officers in both of the above categories have remained steady
• both uniformed and non-uniformed officers in Organisational Support roles remains steady, and below the peak of June 2009.

The recent HMIC report ‘Valuing the Police - Policing in an Age of Austerity’ indicated that only 11% of total MPS police/PCSO strength is visible and available to the public at any one time. However, the report was compiled using a very narrow definition of front line staff available for duties visible to the public, is based on dip-sampling on only three occasions, and takes no account of the need to spread total front line resources across a shift system to allow delivery of 24-hour policing. As a result, the information in the HMIC report is not directly comparable with the information contained in this paper.

A. Recommendation

That

1. Members note the contents of this report.

B. Supporting information

Origin and use of OPM Codes

1. This paper contains an update to an earlier paper submitted in September 2009 to a joint meeting of the HR and Performance and Productivity Committees. It concerns both the work which has been undertaken to improve the accuracy and quality of data in respect of the Operational Policing Measure (OPM) since the last paper and that which is currently in progress. The paper also reports on the uses to which the OPM is put, and future plans for development.

2. The OPM is a management information system that enables the MPS to monitor the distribution, roles and activity of its entire staff. Introduced in 2002, its primary data sources are the Computer Aided Resource Management system (CARM) and MetDuties but further information is also drawn from systems including MetHR, Custody, Mobile Data Terminals (MDT) and Computer Aided Despatch (CAD).

3. Each member of staff is allocated both to a high level OPM Category, which broadly identifies staff by their organisational role, such as Uniform Operational, and also to a more granular OPM Code, which is a numerical code identifying their day-to-day role, i.e. OPM Code 88 = Response Officer. The list of OPM Codes used by all non-TP Business Groups is attached at Appendix 1, and the Role Definitions are attached at Appendix 2.

4. Historically, the system of OPM Categories and Codes is based on a similar coding structure devised by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) and upon which each Force in England & Wales must report annually to HMIC identifying staff strength in certain categories. The OPM system is more granular and has been devised specifically by and for the MPS.

Data quality

5. In early 2010, Territorial Policing (TP) reviewed the definitions and use of OPM codes to ensure that they accurately reflect the current structure and functions of the Business Group. Once this work was completed, the revised codes were circulated and each B/OCU within TP reviewed the OPM codes for its staff. This involved examining the OPM code allocated to each member of staff within the CARM system and ensuring that that code accurately reflected his or her role. This programme of work has significantly enhanced the accuracy of OPM data. It has also ensured that there is an accurate baseline for work aimed at scrutinising the effective allocation and use of resources. The list of TP-specific OPM Codes is attached at Appendix 3.

6. At a similar time Finance Services, in collaboration with all remaining Business Groups, undertook an exercise to examine the OPM Code recorded on MetHR for each member of staff. The aims were to ensure that the allocated OPM Code reflected the role currently being performed by each person, that everyone had an OPM Code allocated, to provide a baseline for further work on the structure of OPM Codes (see paragraph 32 below), and to improve the quality of data used in the corporate reporting of staff deployment.

Current and proposed applications of OPM data

7. OPM data is now being used in a variety of different settings within the MPS to examine the effective use of available resources. For example, research suggests that the most effective and efficient use of patrolling resources will come from a mixed economy of single and paired patrolling officers. OPM data is used by PIB to produce a weekly report that outlines the current level of single patrolling across the MPS but also that breaks this down by BOCU. The weekly reports enable an overview of performance by week, by day and (via a pivot table) by unit/portfolio within a BOCU. This information enables individual BOCU Commanders to assess whether they are delivering the optimum level of single patrolling within their local area and therefore whether they are making best use of their available resources.

8. OPM data can also be used to examine levels of abstraction from core roles. This includes a monthly assessment of the demands placed on BOCUs by training and Aid requirements. Of additional note is a monthly report that identifies the level of abstraction of SNT officers from their visible patrolling function.

9. Work to match resource with demand has, historically, been carried out at BOCU level using data drawn from the CAD system, to provide a demand profile, and OPM data to provide a resource profile. These enquiries have been bespoke to each BOCU and reflected the specific demand/resource issues affecting each BOCU. As part of work to improve the alignment of resource with demand, the MPS has learned from work undertaken in other Constabularies and has acquired software that enables a comprehensive approach to demand management to be taken across TP. Whilst the volume of data involved has proved challenging, this software is enabling a range of assumptions about current and future working patterns to be modelled and tested. A review of Borough shift patterns has been completed to ensure that the MPS is making best use of its available staff and that police resources are aligned as effectively possible with demand

10. Work within the Central Communications Command (CCC) provides one example of how individual B/OCUs are working to ensure that they match resources to demand. CCC manages public telephone contact within the MPS and the subsequent deployment of resources to assist with both urgent and non-urgent public requests for police assistance. The three CCC centres at Hendon, Lambeth and Bow employ 1559 Police Staff, 319 Police Officers - the majority are in 24/7 operational roles.

11. The unique operational environment of these three centres, dealing with a huge volume of 24/7 public demand and police deployments requires the efficient and effective use of staff with a range of skills and shift patterns. All of these demands are subject to some very tight targets on telephone answering, call handling and response times.

12. The detailed level of demand analysis, forecasting and scheduling required to achieve these service levels means that CCC moved from a simple duties system to an industry standard forecasting package called Total View. This was introduced in November 2009 and is now the primary forecasting and scheduling tool in use. Since November CCC has gradually taken advantage of additional functionality such as automated annual leave booking which has significantly increased the speed of processing and administration associated with annual leave. The system is also now used for real time monitoring of demand and dynamic flexing of staff and call routing to meet changes to predicted demand to ensure we meet service levels more consistently.

13. The MPS now consistently answers 90% of emergency calls within 10 seconds and 90% of non-emergency calls within 30 seconds. This is the first time that the MPS has consistently met or exceeded the national target. This level of service and the accurate deployment of CCC staff means that the subsequent responses are more efficiently and effectively managed. This has led to a much wider achievement of performance targets across the organisation. These would not have been met as effectively without a comprehensive, bespoke resource management system.

14. In addition to using OPM information to manage existing levels of demand the TP Development programme is using OPM codes to review the numbers of police officers in operational and organisational support roles with a view to reducing the number of police officers employed in these posts, so as to release more police officers for operational roles.

Targets for increasing the number of officers in Operational Roles

15. Targets for increasing the number of regular police officers in operational roles in line with the current Policing Plan 2011-14 which would also take into consideration the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012 have not been set at this stage. This issue will be considered as the programme progresses and potential savings and opportunities are quantified.

16. It is intended to mount a significant drive to recruit officers to the Metropolitan Special Constabulary (MSC) leading up to the Olympic and Paralympic Games in order to augment the number of full-time officers available. Current recruitment targets for the MSC are to achieve 5,137 officers by 31 March 2011, rising to 6,667 by 31 March 2012.

Front Line Policing Review and improving efficiency

17. In response to the Home Secretary’s speech, in which she acknowledged “….that increasing the visibility and productivity of officers, PCSOs and other staff is a major challenge, but I firmly believe that it is a challenge that chief constables can - and must meet.” TP has initiated research into the issue of the Front Line. The key challenges are to:

• Understand what policing resources are considered to be front line.
• To benchmark where the MPS is in terms of this ‘front line measure’
• To find ways of preserving the front line during the current operating environment where the Service is likely to contract in size.

18. The OPM is our most accurate method of measuring the front line and the information produced is critical to inform the debate on savings that can be achieved in order to preserve the front line.

19. A proposal for a measure of the front line has been developed and is in the process of internal MPS consideration.

TP Development Programme

20. Further to the Home Secretary’s statement, the Policing Minister has further challenged forces to work more efficiently and drive out cost. In response to this challenge the TP Development Programme aims to develop and implement a cost efficient model for policing that will deliver excellent local services where people who live in, work in and visit London are our priority.

21. OPM data is currently being utilised by the TP Development Programme to identify the current roles and locations of all TP staff in order to ensure that there is an accurate organisational baseline for development work within TP in order to identify the scope for efficiencies and reductions.

22. A financial model is being developed for the programme that will summarise the cost/benefit and implementation costs, in order to identify the net benefits for each of the projects within the overall programme.

23. As part of the ongoing review of the deployment of officers to the most appropriate roles OPM data is in the early stages of being used in the development of a productivity based performance management framework for TP. This will provide the ability to more closely monitor and examine workloads on various operational units in order that BOCU and unit level performance is considered in the context of workload in combination with the existing focus on outputs/outcomes.

24. One example of progress in better and more efficient use of existing resources is the emerging findings of the Crime Management and Telephone Investigation project within the TP Development Programme.

25. Approximately one third of all MPS crime does not require the deployment of police officers and is suitable for telephone investigation. This function is currently managed within 31 distinct telephone investigation bureaux (TIBs) across the MPS, using a mix of both police officers and police staff. The MPS Crime Recording Investigation Bureau (CRIB) Project will centralise the entire telephone investigation function, along with specific crime management functions more suited to central line-management. The new CRIB will bring significant cashable efficiency savings year-on-year, increase efficiency and productivity and significantly improve the level of service given to customers who choose to report crime this way.

Breakdown by staff roles and Business Groups

26. The MPS uses the OPM Category to support the understanding of the broad type of function carried out by staff currently working in the Business Groups. It allows a breakdown of all officers and staff into the four OPM Categories as defined below:

27. Those staff identified as working permanently within the MetCall centres (CCC) have been classified as either within Uniform or Non Uniform Operational.

28. In order to allow all MPS employees to be accounted for, i.e. including those seconded to other organisations or engaged in Central Service, a fifth Category is used to identify Secondees.

29. Table 1 below provides an analysis of staff type by OPM category. This demonstrates that 54.9% of police officers are deployed in Uniform Operational roles, 24.0% in Non Uniform Operational roles and 18.8% in Operational Support, giving a total of 97.6% of police officers directly engaged in operational policing. Of the remainder, 2.0% of officers are employed in Organisational Support, while 177 officers are secondees to the MPS (0.3% of the total), of which 118 relate to ACPO(TAM) work with SO.

Table 1

N.B. The figures in this Table exclude MPA staff. Specials are included within Police Officers

30. Using OPM Category information from MetHR as at 31 August 2010, it can be seen from Table 2 below, which analyses all officers and staff, that the MPS has 45.2% of staff in the Uniform Operational group, 17.6% in Non-Uniform Operational, 27.3% in Operational Support and 9.5% in Organisational Support. Secondees account for 0.3% of all staff. The Table also gives a breakdown by the number of Full Time Equivalents (FTEs) by each category and Business Group. Analysing both Police Officers and Police Staff together shows that 90.7% of all employees are engaged in Operational policing.

Table 2

N.B. The figures in this Table exclude MPA staff.

31. The categorisations set out above can help to facilitate inter-force comparisons but they can also mask crucial operational roles played by both police officers and staff that might otherwise appear to be more 'back office' e.g. Forensics, Crime and Incident Management, Mounted and Surveillance units. Many of the roles carried out in support business groups, particularly DoI, involve assisting with the delivery of our balanced policing model, for example by tackling serious and organised crime through technological forms of surveillance.

32. The MPS does not currently have access to data on the deployment of staff within other forces which would allow comparison with metropolitan forces in England and Wales. However, Appendices 4-6 to this paper respectively provide trend information on MPS deployment of police officers in Operational, Operational Support and Organisational Support roles for the last six quarters.

33. Appendix 4 shows a steadily increasing number of uniformed officers in operational roles, while non-uniform officers remain steady around the 5,000 level. In Appendix 5, the number of uniformed officers in Operational Support roles has decreased over the last two quarters, indicating the success of programmes to place officers on the front line, while the number of non-uniform officers in this category has again remained steady. Appendix 6 shows that the numbers of both uniformed and non-uniformed officers in Organisational Support roles has remained steady for a number of consecutive quarters, with the total for uniformed officers falling by 40 posts since the peak at the end of the June 2009 quarter.

HMIC Report - Policing in an Age of Austerity

34. The recent HMIC report ‘Valuing the Police - Policing in an Age of Austerity’ indicated that only 11% of total police/PCSO strength is visible and available to the public at any one time. This statistic was based on data from five forces and the MPS and only three sampling snapshots, as demonstrated by the following illustration taken from the Report. Sampling over a longer, continuous period may provide a more accurate indication of the availability and use of resources, such as the two-week continuous sampling previously undertaken to support the Home Office Activity Based Costing process.

35. The information contained in the HMIC Report is not directly comparable with that set out in Table 1 above, which does not attempt to allocate resources over the four shifts required to deliver a 24/7 policing service, and uses only a limited definition of ‘front-line staff available for publicly visible duties’.

36. The 11% quoted by the HMIC was based on 49.5% of the total officer/PCSO establishment being available for response and neighbourhood policing. Based on the analysis in Table 1 this compares broadly to the MPS’s classification of ‘uniform operational’ of 23,895 officers and PCSOs which represents 59.4% of the total available 40,204 officers and PCSOs.

37. HMIC does not take account of other borough staff that are potentially deployable including:

• Borough Support Units
• Metropolitan Special Constabulary
• Public Protection Units
• Community Safety Units
• Crime Squads

Nor does it include other deployable resources that may be visible on a borough such as the TSG, or corporate resources such as Blunt 2

Future management and governance of the OPM coding structure
38. Finance Services is working with TP, HR and representatives of all other Business Groups to complete a corporate review of the OPM coding structure. This is aimed at ensuring that OPM codes are relevant to the overall current business, and will assist decision making around corporate priorities and future deployment of staff. Completion of this work is scheduled for the end of October 2010.

39. Anticipated results of the review of the OPM coding structure will include:

• More straightforward alignment of OPM Codes with the structure of the Police Objective Analysis (POA),
• Ownership of the coding structure moving to Finance Services,
• A revised MPS Governance Structure of OPM codes, with a formal change process for amending codes,
• Clearer guidance to staff in the application and allocation of OPM Codes,
• Bringing together the completion of the HMIC Annual Data Return on staff numbers and the POA to Finance Services; (OPM is used to support POA which is currently provided to CIPFA and is being investigated by HMIC for VfM benchmarking),
• Proposals for a feasibility study to explore how OPM information on CARM and MetHR can be brought together.

40. Results of the OPM review will be reported in the next update to this paper.

C. Other organisational and community implications

Equality and Diversity Impact

1. The OPM data does not directly impact on Race and Equality matters but can have significant impact indirectly because of how it can be used to change areas such as shift patterns and matching resources with demands.

Consideration of MET Forward

2. OPM data assists the MPS in the ongoing monitoring of the levels of staff resourcing applied to operational policing and supporting functions. Such information supports internal scrutiny of roles and resourcing, and assists in directing the maximum available resource to front-line operational policing.

Financial Implications

3. OPM data is used as part of a toolkit to improve the use of resources against demand; there are no direct financial implications arising from the system itself.

4. There are ongoing revenue costs. The MPS employs two police staff full time on OPM with another member of police staff spending approximately 50% of their time working on OPM. The percentage of their time devoted to this area of work has risen over the last 12 months due to the ever increasing demand for this data. This is managed within existing budget provision.

Legal Implications

5. This is a report for information only, therefore there are no direct legal implications arising.

6. Any indirect employment issues arising from OPM should be referred to Human Resources and/or DLS, as appropriate.

Environmental Implications

7. There are no significant environmental impacts associated with the recent work to improve the accuracy of OPM data.

Risk Implications

8. There are no specific risks identified in connection with the use of OPM codes to categorise staff roles. As referred to above, the major opportunity in the use of OPM codes is the ability to monitor, at a strategic level, the deployment of staff resources, the ability to monitor trends and the tool with which to investigate change.

D. Background papers

None

D. Contact details

Report author: Anne McMeel, Director of Resources, MPS

For information contact:

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

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