Minutes

Minutes of the meeting of the Consultation, Diversity and Outreach Committee held on 27 April at the Chestnuts Community and Arts Centre, 280 St Ann's Road, Haringey, N15 5BN.

Present

Members

• R David Muir (Chair)
• Cindy Butts (Deputy Chair)
• Jennette Arnold
• Jenny Jones
• Nicholas Long
• Cecile Lothian

Also present: Nicky Gavron (link member for Haringey) and Peter Herbert (Deputy Chair, MPA)

MPA staff:

• Catherine Crawford (Clerk)
• Julia Smith

MPS staff:

• Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman
• Commander Roberts
• Chief Superintendent Stephen James (Borough Commander, Haringey). 

In addition, approximately thirty members of the press/public and other MPA/MPS staff were present.

Part 1

93. Apologies

(Agenda item 1)

Apologies for absence were received from Angela Slaven and Abdal Ullah.

94. Minutes: 27 March 2001

(Agenda item 2)

Resolved:
that the minutes of the meeting held on 27 March 2001 be agreed and signed as a correct record.

Arising:

86. MPA Equal Opportunities Statement Noted

That a report on the nominations for members to oversee the preparation of the policy was due to be considered at the May meeting of the Coordination and Urgency Committee.

95. Chair and members' update

(Agenda item 3)

Members received a report which presented a brief overview of current key MPA actions and initiatives that fall within the remit of the committee.

Committee members also spoke of their MPA work. Amongst their other activities, several members reported that they had observed the recent National Front march in Bermondsey and had attended the launch of the MPS Diversity Strategy. Cindy Butts also reported on a visit to the Paedophile Unit at New Scotland Yard.

Resolved:
that the Chair's update be noted.

96. Process for dealing with community questions

(Agenda item 4)

The Committee received a report concerning the arrangements for public participation at its meetings and the process for dealing with community questions raised at the meeting.

Appendix 1 was amended by the insertion of the phrase "if necessary" after the word "request" in the second line of the second paragraph.

Referring to paragraph 1 Cindy Butts suggested that in the light of feedback from members of the public consideration be given to splitting the time for contributions from the floor into two sections. Questions would be taken after the Chair and Members' Update item with a further agenda item for questions and comment at the end of the evening.

Resolved:

1. subject to the amendment detailed above the process in appendix 1 be agreed.
2. copies of the draft process are sent to consultative groups and publicised on the MPA website.
3. agendas for future meetings of the Committee split the time allowed for questions from the public with some time at the beginning of the agenda and the balance of the 30 minutes at the end.

97. Action plan for CDO

(Agenda item 5)

The Committee received a report that proposed the next steps in the action plan which had been adopted at the meeting on 27 February.

Resolved:

1. the progress underway in the development of an action plan be noted;
2. regular reports to be submitted to the Committee on the MPA proposals for consultation to inform the Policing Plan, and the MPS Public Attitude Survey as well as local consultation initiatives by the MPS associated with the crime and disorder partnerships;
3. a workshop be held to consider the MPA's Consultation and Outreach strategy, following initial discussions by officers. This is to be planned by the end of May 2001;
4. it be noted that a Diversity workshop is planned for 11 May 2001 at which the CRE, MPS and representatives from the Black Police Association, Independent Advisory Groups will be represented;
5. members take action to ensure that the staffing implications for the work area are addressed;
6. a further report be considered at the June meeting of the committee.

98. Race hate crimes seminar

(Agenda item 6)

The Committee were presented with a report on the recent seminar attended by Peter Herbert, Deputy Chair of the Authority on Race Hate Crimes.

Peter Herbert attended the meeting for this item and spoke on the recommendations. He requested that recommendation 7 be deleted as the process had already started.

Members felt that a workshop should be held to brief them further on this subject and to consider how the recommendations might be progressed. DAC Hayman said that in the meantime the MPS would address those aspects which needed to be dealt with urgently.

The Committee also requested that work be commissioned into establishing the financial implication of policing marches (such as the recent National Front march) including the economic implications for local communities.

Resolved:

1. recommendations 1 to 6 be agreed in principle (recommendation 7 having been withdrawn);
2. a workshop be held to consider how the recommendations are to be progressed and the financial implications for further work in this area.

99. Consultation review progress report

(Agenda item 7)

The Committee received a report that brought members up to date on the current position in implementing the best value review of consultation.

Resolved:
that the progress be noted.

100. Independent custody visiting - progress report

(Agenda item 8)

The Committee received a report that brought Members up to date with the Authority's work on custody visiting.

The Committee noted that notification had now been received from the Home Office that the Panels would now be known as Independent Custody Visiting Panels.

Resolved:

1. the progress and the draft delivery plan at Appendix 1 be noted;
2. subject to clarification on cost and terms of membership of the National Association for Lay Visitors (NALV) be sought;
3. Cecile Lothian and Floyd Millen represent the Authority on NALV Board and an experienced Custody Visitor be approached to represent the Authority on the NALV training materials review;
4. a full report of the analysis of responses is received at the May CDO committee meeting.

101. Review of performance information provided to MPA committees

(Agenda item 9)

A review of all of the performance information provided to MPA committees has been carried out by the MPA Senior Analyst. The review has taken into account the view of members, current performance information and the recommendations made at a members awayday. Recommendations for performance information management were provided in the report.

Referring to paragraph 2, the Chair asked that it be noted that he and the Deputy Chairs of the Committee had not received invitations to be interviewed by the report author.

Resolved:

1. the lead committees for dealing with performance information topics as shown at Appendix 2 be agreed. In addition to the topics listed in appendix 2 the Committee also to receive information on street crime, rape, drugs, domestic violence, youth crime prevention and anti-social behaviour;
2. the Committee receive a high level summary of performance information for those areas that they are responsible for on a bi-monthly basis, including commentary from the MPS and MPA officers;
3. the relevant management reports produced by the MPS are included as background papers to the summary reports;
4. lead officers be assigned to the committee;
5. topics of on-going high importance are subject to in-depth reports to committees;
6. lead members are assigned to topics of high importance;
7. member workshops are held for areas of emerging importance or where greater understanding is required.

102. Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2001

(Agenda item 10)

Presentation by the Commission for Racial Equality

Martin Meredith from the London and South East region office of the CRE gave a short presentation on the introduction of the Act especially how it relates to police authorities.

It was noted that the target set by the Home Secretary for the police in London was that the percentage of overall staff numbers from ethnic minorities should be 25 per cent ; the existing figure in London was in the order of 4 per cent to 5 per cent which compared well to that in other police authorities. In this connection the Borough Commander outlined a pilot scheme in Haringey whereby potential police recruits from ethnic backgrounds attended a course run by North East London College. It was very much hoped that many of them would go on to join the MPS training programme.

Report by the Clerk

At its the meeting held on 27 March 2001, the Committee considered a report on the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and supported the recommendation for a small working group to be set up to give comments to the Authority's response to the proposals for implementation of the Act as well as for drafting the Authority's Racial Equality Scheme, as proposed by the Act. It was intended that this report should be considered by the Chair's Co-ordination and Urgency Committee (CCU). As the meeting of the CCU has been cancelled, this committee was asked to take the decisions previously remitted to the CCU.

Resolved:

1. R. David Muir, Jenny Jones and Cecile Lothian be nominated to form a working group which will be responsible for preparing the MPA's Racial Equality Scheme as outlined in the Act;
2. regular reports from the working group on its progress be submitted to the Committee in this area to achieve the Home Office deadline of July 2001;
3. the Home Office overall timetable for implementation of the Act at Appendix 3 be noted.

103. Questions and comments from the public

(Agenda item 11)

The comments, questions and replies are contained in Appendix 1 of the minutes.

The meeting closed at 8.40pm.

Appendix 1: Questions and comments from the public

(Agenda item 11)

The Chair, in accordance with Standing Order 33, invited questions from members of the public. The Chair also stressed that members of the public should use the forms provided at the meeting if they wished to receive a written response to their question. The following is a summary of the questions and comments put to the Committee:

(a)
(i)What are the publicity arrangements for the meetings of this Committee?

(ii) Were any special arrangements made for this meeting in particular bearing in mind that there are members of many cultures living in Haringey?

The Director of Communications outlined the arrangements which were made for each meeting of the Committee. Publicity material is sent to a wide variety of local community organisations and local media (print and radio) and these reflect the communities within each borough. In addition, the agenda and reports for the meeting are posted on the web site.

(b) Can you please alter your publicity so that it makes it clearer what the purpose of the meeting is? I was under the impression that it would be about consulting the local community but it turns out that most of the evening is spent on formal business which is of little interest to the rest of us especially as the papers were not available before the meeting.

These points will be borne in mind for future meetings.

(c) Were members of the Sylvester family invited to this meeting?

No individual invitations to attend the Consultation, Diversity and Outreach Committee meetings are made. It would not be appropriate to do so unless there was an item on the agenda which was of direct personal relevance.

(d) What are the arrangements to include Police Community Consultative Groups in the MPA questionnaire on police stops?

So far 5 or 6 PCCGs have submitted comments. There is a freepost reference number to be quoted when returning forms, but it is not necessary to use a special envelope.

(e) Was there consultation with the public at the time the MPA was set up?

The Chair said that any publicity about the formation of the MPA would have been undertaken by the Home Office.

(f)
(i)The provision of facilities for young people has declined drastically in recent year especially at holiday time. Is the MPA aware of the harmful effects this is having in terms of anti social behaviour and drug related crime etc?

(ii) Does the MPA itself have any money to spend on initiatives for young people?

The remit of the MPA does not permit the funding of youth provision. However, members are acutely aware of the problems which have been outlined at this and other meetings. Many members are involved in youth issues and crime diversion initiatives. The Commissioner has established a group to establish a youth crime diversion strategy on which there is MPA representation. Cecile Lothian and Commander Roberts outlined a youth involvement initiative with which members of the MPA were associated which would be launched shortly. The Commander also reported that the Home Office administered a children and young person's fund which could be used to make provision in this area.

The Chair said that members were very conscious of the links between drug- related crime and young people – for example the targeted theft of mobile telephones which had been highlighted by the TELCO report.

Commander Hayman advised the meeting of the success of the Rat on a Rat initiative which had produced a large number of telephone calls from members of the public with information about drug dealers etc.

Nicky Gavron reported on the Mayor's Children's Strategy for London. A large consultation exercise had just been completed with 3000 responses. The main points of concern which children had raised were feeling unsafe on the street, drugs, bullying and racism. A Children's Right Commissioner office had been established in London ahead of the appointment of a Commissioner.

(g) I understood that the borough is due to be allocated some extra police officers and I would like to know when they will be actually in place. We want more officers on the street.

The Borough Commander said that by June Haringey would be some 46 officers under strength. He was due to receive 13 replacement officers at that time. He understood that Haringey's allocation of the extra officers provided in the police budget would be 29. He gave an undertaking that when they were in post they would all be deployed on the street. Retention was also an issue in Haringey as there was a noticeable trend for officers to leave London to work in county police forces.

(h) What role is the MPA playing in Operation Trident?

Nicholas Long explained that the MPA did not have a direct role in Operation Trident although he and other members had been involved in a personal capacity through membership of or links with the Independent Advisory Group. All members of the Authority received regular updates from the Commissioner on this subject at the monthly meetings of the full Authority.

(i) Will the police be consulting with anarchist groups ahead of the May Day demonstrations?

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hayman stated that the police offered to meet representatives of any groups which intelligence sources identified as organising events for May Day with the aim of ensuring that appropriate arrangements could be put in place which reflected the right to protest peacefully. However, there had been reluctance by such groups to meet the police.

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