Home Office Green Paper on policing reform directions for community engagement

Report: 5
Date: 18 March 2004
By: Clerk

Summary

This report summarises the MPA’s formal response to the Home Office Green Paper ‘Policing: Building Safer Communities Together’ as it pertains to community engagement, together with that submitted by the MPS and the Association of Police Authorities.

A. Recommendation

That

1. the Committee notes the directions for community engagement indicated in the response to the Green Paper on police reform by the MPA as well as by the MPS and APA;
2. the draft Consultation Strategy and Implementation Plan 2002/05 adopted by the Committee at its meeting of 31 October 2002 be reviewed in light of the Home Office Green Paper and consequent discussions, and, in consultation with the MPS, a revised strategy be prepared and presented to the Committee for approval in November 2004; and
3. the revised Consultation Strategy and Implementation Plan to be submitted in November 2004 also consider the budgetary implications and a potential growth submission in order to fulfil the MPA’s community engagement commitments.

B. Supporting information

1. Strengthening communities’ engagement and giving them greater influence over policing is at the heart of the Green Paper. The importance it gives to effective consultation and engagement cannot be overstated – it is the very lifeblood of good practice and good governance of policing.

2. The Governments’ Consultative Document, ‘Policing: Building Safer Communities Together’ was published on 4 November 2003, and launched by the Home Secretary at the Association of Police Authorities’ (APA) Annual Conference in Manchester. The APA coordinated a national response to the consultation exercise and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) similarly co-ordinated a national response to the consultation paper.

3. The MPA mailed a survey questionnaire pertaining to the Green Paper to approximately 1,000 community groups across London, and in addition held a special Members workshop and two separate committee discussions before adopting its response to the Home Office in January 2004.

4. It is clear from the MPA’s own consultations with the public of London and local partnerships that there is already a broad consensus that the delivery of local policing services and community reassurance must be organised more locally, and that the police must be, and be seen to be, responsive to London’s diverse communities.

5. Both the MPA and the MPS response to the Green Paper stress that any strategy for community engagement in London must recognise and address the implications of the diversity of the population served. Communities in London experience wide differences in the levels and impact of crime according to race and ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender. The high rates of population turnover and mobility are also important factors that need to be taken into account in designing and implementing local engagement and service delivery.

6. The MPA has extensive experience of different patterns of local consultation and is already trialling several models, all based on closer engagement with local partnerships. In this context, as the APA response highlights, there is an urgent need to rationalise and co-ordinate the plethora of consultation activity on crime and community safety related issues undertaken by a wide range of bodies including Crime and Disorder Reduction partnerships (CDRPs), Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) and Local Criminal Justice Boards (LCJBs).

7. Even the most cursory review of the existing plethora of community-police consultative arrangements demonstrates a huge array of different purposes and multiplicity of different outcomes. Labels and terminology are used loosely and interchangeably.

8. What this suggests is that rather than consider establishing yet another accountability mechanism, more effort should be spent on strengthening existing methods and structures and ensuring clarity in identifying the nature of participants, intent and intended outcomes of each community engagement and partnership mechanism.

9. With different community engagement and accountability mechanisms needing to be applied to different community objectives at different organisational levels, an appropriate role for the MPA is to support, collect and widely disseminate 'best practice'.

10. A number of recent reports have identified the present confusion around what should be ‘the division of labour’ between the MPA and the MPS – who owns the processes of public consultation and engagement? The responses to the Green Paper lean in the direction of the MPA leading on the gathering of Londoners’ views on overall strategic priorities while the MPS leads on local more tactical issues with the public it serves. As part of this division of responsibilities the role of the MPA would be to set standards and scrutinise against these standards – leaving the MPS to carry out local consultation activity, reporting back on key issues emerging.

11. In clarifying these roles, the MPS response suggests that the strategic strengths of police authority oversight should be retained at the force level while local and operational consultation and accountability should be undertaken through BCUs Similarly the MPA considers it vital for the Authority to take full ownership and implementation of strategic consultative processes on cross-cutting, force wide issues, priorities and plans.

12. Further, the APA response to the Green Paper proposes that police authorities be given clear statutory responsibility to develop, coordinate and secure implementation of a coherent community consultation and engagement strategy at all levels and across all community interests within the police area.

13. Lessons from the MPS work so far on the reassurance policing model indicate the greatest public anxiety at neighbourhood level is generated by ‘signal crimes’ – events such as vandalism, graffiti, abandoned vehicles and litter. Some crimes and disorders matter more to the public than others. These signal crimes negatively impact public perception of police performance and neighbourhood safety. Listening and responding to neighbourhood priorities is a key to success.

14. Local engagement will be frustrated if locally expressed priorities are not capable of influencing policing plans. There needs to be a reconsideration of the balance to be struck between national plans and targets, and local needs and priorities.

15. In this regard, the APA proposes that police authorities be given a clear remit to drive the extension of the NIM to embrace community intelligence and engagement to ensure that the efforts of both the police and other partners are directed at tackling community safety priorities identified by communities at neighbourhood level and that this include responsibility for assessing the impact on communities of such engagement in delivering reassurance.

16. While the Green Paper’s aspirations for community engagement are laudable the MPA response concluded that if engagement is to involve more than ‘the usual suspects’ then two key ingredients must be:

• First, for the police service to relate to the community in wholly new ways, with changes in organisational culture, training and skills, and with police officers rooted in local community bases, not in traditional police estate:
• Second, real and sustained effort in community development and capacity building, especially in BME and other disadvantaged communities, undertaken by the local partners and the strategic police authority. Policing in cooperation can only become real if the community policed has both the confidence and the capacity to cooperate.

17. The vision for police reform as set out in the consultation paper ‘Policing: Building Safer Communities Together’ reflect the existing commitments and directions of the MPA. In translating this vision into practice, there is a high level of agreement and consistency between the MPA, the MPS and the APA with respect to community engagement.

18. Clarification of roles and relationship with the MPS cannot but strengthen community accountability and awareness.

19. There is plenty of potential for the MPA to increase its profile and make the public aware of the benefits of local accountable oversight of policing and the avenues through which Londoners can engage with the police.

20. Implementation of a more robust range of community consultation and engagement processes cannot but strengthen the level of community trust and confidence in policing.

21. A more purposeful public education role for the MPA can only encourage a greater interest and willingness on the part of the public to become actively involved in policing issues.

22. At the heart of civil renewal, of meaningful police reform is the community itself. A mobilised and an informed public is the key to sustained change.

23. As the MPA develops a revised Consultation Strategy and strengthens its involvement in innovative community-police engagement activities, it will also develop a closer relationship with the Home Office through its Police Reform Support Panel.

C. Equality and diversity implications

The MPA response to the Home Office gave particular emphasis to the equality and diversity implications of the Green Paper and the need for them to be more fully addressed and strengthened in any future police reform for community engagement.

D. Financial implications

None directly for the Authority at this stage but significant change to a revised Consultation Strategy and Implementation Plan may involve extra resources.

E. Background papers

None.

F. Contact details

Report author: Tim Rees, MPA.

For more information contact:

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

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