Internal consultation in the MPS

Report: 9
Date: 22 September 2003
By: Commissioner

Summary

Internal consultation with staff associations plays a major role in the development of new policy and development of change programmes. This report outlines the formal and informal internal consultation mechanisms.

A. Recommendation

That members note the report.

B. Supporting information

1. The draft MPA/MPS consultation strategy is focused on ensuring that Londoners can understand and influence policies and decisions that affect them. The internal consultation on the draft strategy suggested that this aim is extended to include consultation to engage communities in problem solving. This proposed addition to the terms of reference makes it relevant to refer to internal consultation in the strategy. Problem solving will involve MPS staff and there will be good practice to be gained from each area.

2. Appendix 1 provides details of the internal consultation mechanisms that already exist in the MPS. The Committee are invited to comment on these and officers will later discuss how the framework outlined in the report can be included in or appended to the draft Consultation Strategy if appropriate.

3. There are strong links between the Consultation strategy and the Commissioner’s Communication Action Plan. At this stage however the Communication Action plan is firmly placed to deal with communication rather than consultation issues.

C. Equality and diversity implications

There are no equalities and diversity implications other than those routinely considered whilst arranging consultation.

D. Financial implications

There are no new financial implications from this report, which details existing work, the costs of which are met from existing budgets.

E. Background papers

None.

F. Contact details

Report author: Paul Madge, AD HR Policy and Employee Relations and Supt Chas Bailey, Strategic Consultation Manager, MPS.

For more information contact:

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

Appendix 1

Internal consultation mechanisms in the MPS

Formal consultation mechanisms

The MPS consults regularly with the statutory police staff associations and civil staff trade unions. These are:

• The Association of Chief Police Officers
• The Superintendents Association
• The Police Federation (representing ranks from Constable to Chief Inspector)
• The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) representing the majority of support staff e.g. administrative and managerial staff.
• PROSPECT – representing staff e.g. forensic practitioners and technical support staff.
• AMICUS – representing staff in roles such as catering and transport.
• The First Division Association (FDA) – this union represents senior staff including top managers and lawyers etc.

Overall consultation is generally carried out in the following ways:

• Centrally - this includes meetings with Management Board and membership of project, working and focus groups designed to address strategic issues.
• Locally – most Senior Management Teams across the MPS have regular meetings (in many cases jointly with civil and police staff representatives) to discuss local concerns, for example any changes in working practices.

The MPS consultation philosophy is built around involvement rather than consultation wherever possible. The police staff associations and trade unions are included from the earliest possible stage in organisational projects and are invited to contribute. Recent examples of this include the Budget Star Chamber, Police Reform Steering Group and the Fire Dispute Gold Group. This principle is enshrined in the Partnership Agreement that was signed in April 2000 between the trade unions, the MPS Management Board and the MPA. Development of the agreement was facilitated by ACAS and was featured as a landmark achievement in employee relations in the ACAS Annual Report. A key outcome was that the civil staff unions meet on a monthly basis with Management Board and are directly involved in strategic issues.

Although the Police Federation Constitution does not detail formal consultation arrangements a similar approach is taken to consultation with them and the other police staff associations. At strategic level this takes the form of regular meetings with Management Board.

Whilst there is no formal requirement to consult the staff support associations in the formal sense, the MPS does frequently seek views particularly in relation to diversity issues or those that affect the position, recruitment or retention of under represented groups. A quarterly meeting chaired by the Assistant Commissioner Human Resources offers support to the associations and assists with resourcing and marketing issues. These meetings will in future be held on a two monthly basis.

These associations are:

• Association of Muslim Police
• Association of Senior Women Officers
• Black Police Association
• British Association of Women Police
• Christian Police Association
• Gay Police Association
• Jewish Police Association
• Metropolitan Police Greek Staff Association
• Metropolitan Police Hindu Association
• Metropolitan Police Sikh Association
• Police Anglo Italian Staff Association

Less formal consultation arrangements

There are other less formal consultation mechanisms including focus groups for ethnic staff; women; staff with disabilities; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. The frequency of meetings varies according to need but they are chaired at senior level and the Commissioner often attends them personally.

All staff in the MPS arguably have access to consultation and the facility to influence through mediums such as the intranet “Open Forum” run by Assistant Commissioner Human Resources. All staff are to able raise issues, which receive an almost instant response and where appropriate the issues raised are used to influence organisational development, for example, through referral to the HR Policy Development Team.

The Commissioner holds regular briefings for MPS staff in support of the MPS Mission, Vision and Values. These briefings are held (approximately every 3-4 months) for up to 2,000 members of police and civil staff. In addition to providing staff with information on future developments in the MPS, these events afford staff the opportunity to directly question the Commissioner on strategy, policy and organisational change. The meetings and question and answer sessions are therefore also a useful source of feedback to senior managers about issues that are of concern to staff.

Benefits to the MPS

The MPS sees the following benefits from internal consultation:

• Organisational learning and improvement (including policy development) – Staff associations and their members often support the identification and resolution of problems that are generated by changes in business requirements or the application of new policy. For example, the MPS is carrying out a review of HR policies – the police staff associations and trade unions will be involved in both the identification of revisions required to policy and the staff support associations have been invited to identify those policies which they consider hold implications for the groups they represent and contribute appropriately to their development.
• Delivering corporate change – within the MPS the trade unions, police staff associations and staff support associations are involved in delivering change. An example of this includes the South London Private Finance Initiative (PFI) where some key civil staff roles have been transferred to private contractors and a smooth transition has been secured through effective consultation (despite the unions not being supportive of the PFI concept).
• Staff development and employee relations – Effective consultation with various groups often prevents the escalation of issues, for example, at borough level intervention by a Federation Representative/union representative can often resolve an issue with management before it becomes the subject of a grievance or ultimately an employment tribunal saving cost to the MPS. Additionally, the trade unions are jointly contributing to the development of a civil staff training programme for MPS managers in conjunction with the Training and Development Directorate.
• Ensuring fairness – the MPS has challenging diversity and recruitment targets it is only through consultation with, and the active participation of formal and informal groups such as those that represent particular groups such as ethnic, lesbian gay bisexual transgender, disabled, faith, and women’s interest groups that understanding and therefore business success on the part of the MPS can be attained.

Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000

This act places a specific duty to consult staff on certain issues. In addition to all the above this is achieved through the EMBRACE meetings chaired by the Director of DOIT. These are open to all staff who have an interest this particular field. It is attended in general by senior managers who have responsibility for race relations issues.

Staff surveys

In 2002 all staff were invited to participate in online consultation on the policing priorities (some 500 contributed). This allowed us to develop the technology for staff surveys and some departments are now preparing to carry out online staff surveys (DCC and HR). There are no current plans to carry out a full MPS staff survey.

Measuring the effectiveness of internal consultation

As the police staff associations are nationally based organisations and most of the issues including police terms and conditions are nationally negotiated it is hard to evaluate the effectiveness of consultation in the MPS. However, the organisational policy of inclusivity means that the Federation, in particular, form an integral part of projects and changes programs that hold implications for police officers and there is strong evidence of regular dialogue and the fact that the views of the police staff association are highly influential. A short and informal review of certain Police Federation activities carried out last year evidenced this.

As a result of a recent review of the Civil Staff Partnership Framework (carried out in conjunction with the trade unions) revealed areas for development in terms of consultation and the need to improve awareness the role of union representatives etc. As part of the review process a survey of local managers including Borough Commanders and Personnel Managers and trade union representatives is being undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of the Framework. The results should be available by the end of April 2003.

The effectiveness of the staff support associations in consultation is currently hard to evaluate due to the fact that some associations are national (for example, the Black Police Association) and many internally based associations are relatively newly created. However, notes for guidance developed for these associations require them to produce a business case for their inception (in the case of new associations) and for existing associations to account on an annual basis, for the business benefits they have delivered, for example, perhaps through helping the MPS to improve recruitment within minority groups etc. (It should also be noted that there was a recent audit of diversity in the MPS which touched on consultation issues).

Conclusions

Overall the MPS approach to consultation is one of genuine involvement of the police staff associations, trade unions and staff support associations and is developing but needs to keep pace with the rate of change and contemporary demands. For example, the forthcoming legislation on age discrimination has created further requirements for consultation with a particular group of staff and no doubt further groups with which the organisation will need to engage will be identified.

More work (but with consequent resourcing) is required to quantify the business benefits and overall effectiveness of consultation particularly with regard to the staff support associations. However, the mechanisms exist for police staff associations, trade unions and staff support associations to make a clear contribution to organisational development and exert genuine influence on policy and strategy across the MPS.

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