Facilitating pan London Community and Police Consultative Groups

Report: 12
Date: 26 June 2001
By: Clerk

Summary

The MPA gave an undertaking to support and provide training for Consultative Groups in order to raise the general standard of consultation across London to ensure the objectives of the Consultation Strategy are delivered. This report contains three proposals for members' consideration in relation to facilitating Pan London Consultative Groups and enhancing the MPA's responsibility to consult on the policing priorities for 2002/2003. This Report contains three proposals for members' consideration in relation to facilitating Pan London Consultative Groups. The MPA gave an undertaking to support and provide training for Consultative Groups in order to raise the general standard of consultation across London to ensure that the objectives of the Authority's Consultation Strategy are delivered. The report outlines the requirement for further development and seeks members' approval.

A. Recommendations

1. Members endorse the proposal in paragraph 5 for the appointment of a part-time administrator for the London-wide consultative group forum and Executive.
2. Members endorse the proposals in paragraph 8 to hold annual meetings with Community and Policing Consultative Groups (CPCGs).
3. Members note the intention to fully involve CPCG in the Authority's consultation on the annual policing priorities for 2002/03.

B. Supporting information

1. This report invites the members to consider the following proposals:

• to appoint a part-time secretary to service the Community and Police Consultative Group (CPCG) London-wide Chairs Forum and Secretaries' Committee;
• to meet with the Community & Police Consultative Groups Chairs at least twice yearly, with one of these meetings to be a one day seminar for CPCG Chairs and Administrators and other consultation stakeholders;
• that the consultative groups become a core consultation mechanism in the Authority's consultation on its annual policing priorities.

Appointment of part-time secretary for London-wide

2. For many years Chairs and/or Vice-Chairs of Consultative Groups from across London meet quarterly to share information and discuss matters of mutual interest. Historically the Chair of the London-wide Forum had to find secretarial support from within the MPS or via one of the Consultative Groups. This task usually fell to the Chair's own CPCG secretariat. The MPS financed the additional consultative support provided for these meetings.

3. Currently the London-wide Chairs Forum and its Executive Committee has no permanent secretarial support. This has presented a number of difficulties for the efficiency of the meetings.

4. The MPA, budget for Consultative Groups, has an allocated budget of £8,500 to support the administration of the London-wide Chairs Forum. The Executive is now seeking to appointment a part-time Secretary reporting to the Chair of the Forum. To provide it with the level and type of support it requires.

5. This is a new post and there is therefore no precedent in place for the level of funding that is required. Initial Cost analysis indicate that between £7,345 and £7,867 will be required to maintain this post at 10 hours per week and £11,079 to £11,915 for 16 hours per week. The cost options for funding this post see Appendix 1. These have been discussed with the Chair of the London-wide Executive.

6. Members will note that the budget available can fund a part-time post at 10 hours per week. It is therefore proposed that members approved the recommendation that the Authority funds the required Administrative post at 10 hours per week within the budget available.

London-wide Chairs meeting with Members

7. Before the advent of the Metropolitan Police Authority, Chairs of Community & Police Consultative Groups (CPCGs) met twice yearly with the Metropolitan Police Committee (MPC) to exchange information and raise Community issues. The meetings were felt to be of benefit to the consultative groups and the MPS members.

8. The London Chairs Forum have formally requested that similar meetings be held with Members of the CDO Committee and that these should be on a twice yearly basis. Similar meetings are already established with the Commission and it should be in the interest of this committee to respond to the request of the Forum.

9. Members are invited to accept the invitation of the London-wide Executive to meet with consultative groups on at least an annual basis. This meeting could either take the format of a business meeting or an annual seminar to which a wider group could be invited. Now that the format of this committee's meeting is moving into a bi-monthly cycle, members could opt to meet with consultative groups and other local representative groups when formal committee meetings are not taking place.

Consulting community and police consultative groups on the annual policing priorities

10. In a paper presented to this committee on 22 May 2001, one of the methods proposed for consulting on the 2002/03 policing priorities was Neighbourhood Forum. This would utilise the CPCG infrastructure to initiate early views on policing priorities identified by others as well as to confirm the range of priorities identified by other consultation methods. Further discussions have confirmed the MPA and the MPS's desire to engage the CPCGs in this important planning area and it is proposed that an early meeting be held with CPCG Chairs in July to begin this process. Officers will be writing separately to Consultative Groups to inform them of planning process and seek their agreement to take part.

C. Financial implications

The cost for the part-time Administrator can be contained within the executive budget.

Should members support the recommendation that the annual seminar should be held for Consultative Groups. Officers will explore the financial implications and develop a budget to support this within existing budget.

The cost of consulting with Consultative Groups on the policing priorities will be approximately £800 for travel and expenses. This can be contained within existing budget.

D. Background papers

• Report to the Consultation, Diversity and Outreach Committee

E. Contact details

The author of this report is Enid Ledgister and Julia Smith, MPA.

For information contact:

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

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