Outcomes of the MPA consultation on policing priorities

Report: 8
Date: 13 November 2003
By: Clerk

Summary

This report presents some of the recent findings arising from the public consultations on policing priorities undertaken directly by the MPA, as well as from other survey sources, on what Londoners feel about crime and safety issues and what they think the police should do about it. The conclusions reinforce the deliberations of the Commissioner’s Conference as well as the directions from the Home Office that there should be less prescriptive and fewer corporate ‘high level’ priorities and emphasis placed on a more accountable, ‘diversified’ and ‘localised’ planning process.

A. Recommendation

That members note the report.

B. Supporting information

1. In complementing the community intelligence gathered by the MPS for the Commissioner’s Conference held on 24 September (see the report of the results of the e-consultation at Appendix 2), this report presents some of the recent findings arising from public consultations undertaken directly by the MPA. It also draws on the results of consultation undertaken, employing a variety of methodologies, by other agencies and institutions such as the GLA, ALG, local authorities and Community Police Consultative Groups (CPCGs). In addition, it also draws on the findings of other relevant recent studies and reports.

2. In determining the policing priorities for 2004/05, the MPA needs to be informed by as many different sources as possible. An important component of informing its decision-making process is its statutory duty to 'obtain the views of the public about policing'.

3. In terms of their impact on policing priorities, this report draws to the attention of members recent findings on changes in who Londoners are, what Londoners feel about crime and safety issues and what they think the police should do about it.

Results of MPA consultation

4. To complement the work undertaken by CPCGs in local police priority setting and their input, along with many other community stakeholder groups to the Pan London On-Line Consultation process, the MPA, through its Consultation and Diversity Unit, undertook a range of consultations over the summer with a number of communities regarding policing priorities for 2004/05.

5. This has included a breakfast consultation with representatives of the faith communities in partnership with the Haringey Peace Alliance that involved over 200 participants. In addition, in partnership with the London Civic Forum, six focus groups were held with representatives from Asian communities, refugee and asylum seekers, disability communities, women networks, small business, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. A further youth workshop was also organised by the Peabody Trust.

6. It would be impossible to attempt to summarise, in order of priority, the crime priorities from these very different discussions. In some cases there were inevitably competing and conflicting crime priorities of different groups. Participants were however generally disinclined to participate in a process of merely identifying discrete areas of criminal activity and attempting to put them into some kind of priority list.

7. More importantly, the overarching theme arising from the MPS’s consultations was the public desire for ongoing, direct, active involvement and engagement with the police in the identification and tackling of crime and disorder issues.

8. Rather than distinguishing between the relative importance of different forms of criminal activity, these discussions were more concerned with the process and manner by which the police interact with Londoners in addressing crime and maintaining the peace. This appeared to be the more urgent underlying priority. The priority suggested to developing safer communities was for the police to focus on the processes and methods of re-establishing and strengthening their interactions with Londoners. This was seen as essential to ensure and secure Londoners trust and confidence in the police.

9. The recurrent theme that emerged from the consultations was the demand for greater local police-community interaction and accountability. The police’s reassurance and peacekeeping role was given primacy. A constant refrain in the consultation was the desire for the police to re-engage with local people and to do this in a variety of ways – rather than meeting them only in the context of incidents of crime and disorder or in police-initiated consultation.

10. This view was reinforced by some emerging issues that arose from the Black and Minority Ethnic Communities Cracking Crime conference held in April 2002, that identified considerable under-utilised community resources that could be brought to bear in addressing local crime and disorder. Faith communities, for example are particularly well situated to offer support to victims and the vulnerable whilst providing role models and community leadership.

11. The participants of the community consultations recognised that the MPS has undergone huge administration and organisational changes over the last few years. The emphasis of some of these changes on increased community-police interactions and on decentralisation was strongly endorsed. But there was a clear sense that there needs to be more urgency in more fully rooting these directions.

12. There was also recognition that there is an inevitable and natural tendency in determining policing priorities to focus resources on the most serious crimes and those that create most concern. This tendency is also reinforced by what has been described as police 'managerialist considerations'. These considerations place a premium on quantifiable performance measures of the impact of resource allocations and on results that are demonstrable in the short term. But the community consultations were concerned that narrowing the focus in this way tends to diminish, if not rule out, community-based preventive strategies which might be highly effective but whose impact is less certain and may not become apparent in the medium to long term.

Policing priorities and London’s diverse communities

13. In addition to the outcomes of the consultation, for the first time this year, MPA officers considered evidence from research and other data including those below.

Census data

14. In assessing the most recent Census data, the speed with which the diversity of London’s population is changing has huge implications for policing priorities. As the recent work of the Audit Commission has stressed, applying a user focus and responding to the consequent differential policing needs of those users should be the basis and rationale for business change.

15. The data indicated that almost half of all ethnic minority Britons now live in London. London’s non-white population is already the largest of any European city at just under 2 million – 27% of the capitals’ total. Demographers at the GLA predict that this will grow to a third within the next 10 years. Most of Britain’s 185,000 new immigrants each year end up in the capital. Over 300 languages are spoken in London.

16. London’s accelerating diversity includes characteristics not only of race, ethnicity, and language and immigrant status. It also includes huge differences in crime and safety experiences, and thereby differential policing needs, based on age, gender, sexual orientation, and mental and physical disability. At least a million Londoners are from the lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender communities. At least 17% of Londoners have some form of disability. Further layers of London’s exploding diversity highlighted by the census data that impacts upon policing planning and priorities include the complex and overlapping differences and divisions that exist in London’s population in terms of peoples’ values and beliefs, lifestyles, life chances and levels of disadvantage and deprivation.

17. The dramatically changing and mobile nature of the population clearly creates greater urgency for more purposeful inclusive policies and practices that are accessible and equitable for all sectors of the population. The ongoing rapidity of demographic changes presents particular challenges to the priority setting process of the MPA and the MPS to ensure that all members of London’s communities are able to derive different but equal service and benefit from the police.

Public perceptions of the police

18. In addition to the 2002/03 Public Attitude Survey undertaken for the MPS, a number of other recent satisfaction and public attitude surveys, etc, undertaken by various sources have highlighted areas requiring attention in the police priority setting and planning process. For example, confidence in our criminal justice system is not high.

19. In rating public service, the 2002 ALG Survey of Londoners found that only 28% of Londoners rated policing services as good to excellent, which was a 7% drop from 2001, the biggest drop of any public service.

20. Ethnic minorities are less confident that the criminal justice system respects the rights of, or treats fairly, people accused of committing a crime. The 2002 ALG Survey of Londoners, for example found that just over half (52%) of black respondents believed they would be treated fairly by the police if they were a suspect (compared to 64% of white respondents). Further, according to the Policing For London Survey (PFLS), 36% of all Londoners believe the police treat ethnic minorities unfairly.

21. These differences are significant and clearly reflect the effects of direct and indirect experience. In addition to race, these surveys also highlight differences towards the police based on gender, disability, age, work status, social class, housing, and borough residence (PFLS, 2002; BCS, 2000; ALG, 2002).

22. People who had contact with the police during the last year were less likely to say that their local police did a good job (75%) than those that had no contact with the police (81%). For victims of crime, levels of satisfaction have been falling from 45% very satisfied in 1981 to 32% in 2000 (PFLS 2002). In the ALG 2002 Survey, 25% of Londoners were not confident the police would deal with their situation seriously if they were a victim of crime.

23. A third of Londoners had been ‘really annoyed’ at the way the police had treated them or people they knew according to the British Crime Survey. The main reasons for annoyance in the last five years were unfriendly manner, unreasonable behaviour and failure to do enough. Interestingly, failure to detect crimes rarely caused annoyance.

24. Public perceptions and, therefore, trust and confidence in the police are a critical foundation for effective policing in London. Irrespective of whether declining public confidence is a consequence of poor police performance or simply rising public expectations, the above figures must be of concern. They suggest a priority that needs to be addressed directly.

25. In considering an appropriate response, it is of interest to note that the ALG 2002 survey of Londoners concluded that any public service wanting to maximise the number of people who think they do a good job will need to ensure that their communications with residents are highly rated. Of the three dimensions associated with communicating with residents (informing, listening and involving), it was suggested that listening is the most important. Improving ‘listening’ ratings appears to be about managing expectations, telling people why a decision was made and having specific, targeted communication.

What Londoners want

26. In the Policing for London Study (PFLS 2002), which was a representative sample of 2,800 adult Londoners, people were asked to identify up to five priority problems, which 'the police in your area should spend most time and energy trying to fight'. Burglary, mugging and dealing in hard drugs emerge as clear priorities. The MPS 2002/03 Public Attitude Survey confirms these priorities.

27. Having canvassed views on London’s crime problems, respondents were asked about solutions to crime and disorder. The lead-in to this section of questions stressed that the police had limited resources and could not always cover everything; respondents were then asked to say which activities the police ‘should do more of’.

‘Table 1’ - Activities the Police Should Spend more time on:

28. There was a clear desire for ‘working with the community’, crime prevention and work with teenagers and children. This desire is reinforced by many of the discussions of CPCGs such as the outcomes of the consultation undertaken by the Camden CPCG on behalf of the local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership. The Kingston CPCG for example, in stressing the quality rather than the quantity of policing as of paramount importance, see the priority through neighbourhood policing where beat officers regularly patrol the same beats and are pro-active in developing links and interacting with local community groups.

29. In this regard it is of interest to note that the MPS Public Attitude Survey 2002/03 identified two functions that the MPS carries out to a lesser standard than other police functions: providing a visible policing presence and consulting with the public.

30. The PFLS confirmed the overwhelming evidence of the public’s desire to see more ‘bobbies on the beat’. These findings are confirmed in the MPS 2002/03 Public Attitude Survey (PAS), which found only 15% are presently satisfied with the number of police on the beat. Few previous surveys, though, have tried to pinpoint what people actually expect from this extra patrolling. The PFLS asked those who advocated more time on patrol to say what types of activity the patrols should engage in. The most common responses can be summarised as:

What do people want from patrol?

• To deter or prevent crime (65%)’;
• Providing reassurance (49%),
• Work with schools (25%),
• Gathering local intelligence (24%),
• Dealing with disturbances (20%); and
• Providing advice on crime prevention (15%)

31. In the 2002 GLA survey of Londoners, 50% of Londoners think safety/crime should be the top priority to improve London as place to live. Concern about crime continues to increase and has increased by 18% over the past four years. The survey concluded that the public want to see and hear a focus on the ‘liveability’ issues of community safety.

Conclusions

32. The Policing For London Report (2002) argues that performance management requirements that depend on statistical targets have encouraged a simplification process of priority setting based on specific crime categories. The net effect of such quantitative performance measurement is to seriously limit consideration of the nature of policing priorities. Managerial requirements are in danger of determining police priorities rather than the reverse. As the old adage says, 'what can’t be measured doesn’t count and what doesn’t count doesn’t get done'. This narrow focus puts long-term investment in, for example, community-police relations at serious risk.

33. An overwhelming conclusion of the MPA consultation of what Londoners want is that policing priorities should be founded upon and responsive to the diversity of local needs at the borough level. More purposeful consideration therefore needs to be given to developing an array of local arrangements that increase the capacity and improve the quality of both community input and community accountability.

34. This conclusion suggests that the framework by which police priorities are established in a way that truly reflects Londoners needs can only be determined through a policing service that is ‘diversified’ and ‘localised’. The expressed policing priorities by Londoners would appear to concur with and reinforce much of the deliberations from the Commissioner’s Conference as well as the thinking of the Home Secretary towards a process of civil renewal through a new localism.

C. Equality and diversity implications

The consultation process undertaken by the MPA gave particular attention to many of London’s diverse communities and the conclusions of a more localised process of police planning and priority setting should ensure a greater capacity to address equality issues.

D. Financial implications

There are no direct financial implications of this report. Funding for the additional consultation processes informing this report were approved by the Consultation Committee at previous meetings.

E. Background papers

• Online Consultation Report

F. Contact details

Report author: Tim Rees, MPA.

For more information contact:

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

Appendix 1

References

• Association of Local Government (2002) – Survey of Londoners
• Audit Commission (2003) - Local Criminal Justice Boards Report
• Aye Maung (2001) - 2000 British Crime Survey: Findings for London
• Data and information taken from the MPA’s CPCG minutes and reports (2003)
• FitzGerald et al (2002) - Policing for London
• Government Office for London (2002) - Report from BME Communities Cracking Crime Event
• Greater London Authority (2002) – Missed opportunities – A skills audit of refugee women in London from the teaching, nursing and medical professions
• Greater London Authority (2003) - Annual London Survey
• Haringey Peace Alliance (2003) – Report from the Faith Breakfast Consultation
• Home Office Police Standards Unit (2003) - Section 17 in Action: Lessons from the first Priority Policing Areas
• Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate No. 136‘ - British crime survey 2000’
• Institute for Employment Studies / MPA (2003) - A Review of Community and Race Relations (CRR) Training
• Kershaw et al (2000) – The 2000 British Crime Survey. Home Office Statistical Bulletin
• London Civic Forum (October 2003) – Report from Policing Priorities Focus groups
• Office for National Statistics (2001) - Census Data

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