MPA Community Engagement Strategy

Report: 8
Date: 16 June 2005
By: the Chief Executive and Clerk

Summary

This report, with appendices, puts forward for adoption a community engagement strategy for the Metropolitan Police Authority.

A. Recommendation

That the Committee consider and approve this Community Engagement Strategy and forward this report to the full Authority at its next meeting for final adoption.

B. Supporting information

Background

1. At its last meeting of 3 February 2005, the Community Engagement Committee received a draft MPA Community Engagement Strategy together with a draft MPS Community Consultation Strategy. Since that time the MPS has reviewed its organisational arrangements and operational directions with respect to Community Engagement to better reflect and respond to the intent of the MPA Community Engagement Strategy (this is the subject of a separate report on this committee meeting agenda).

2. The statutory obligations of the MPA to engage with Londoners are contained within a number of pieces of recent legislation, most particularly, Section 96 of the GLA Act (1999). Section 96 requires that the MPA must make arrangement after consulting the Commissioner, to obtain the views of the public about policing and to secure their cooperation with the police in preventing crime.

3. An initial draft consultation strategy and action plan was published by the MPA in November 2002. While never formally adopted, it incorporated much of the learning and recommendations arising from the Greater London Authority, Listening to London’ Best Value Review of Consultation as well as those from the MPA/MPS Best Value Review of Consultation (2001).

4. The Community Engagement strategy will need to be viewed as a living document and subject to change and amendments as the strategy is progressed.

5. In order to achieve its overall mission the MPA has adopted a Corporate Strategy with five strategic goals. The corporate strategy sets out the priorities that the MPA intends to achieve over the next three years. The development of the MPA’s Community Engagement Strategy is centred on one of the five strategic goals, which is to:

‘Transform community engagement to help Londoners secure more responsive policing at a local level.’

• The purpose of developing this Community Engagement strategy therefore is first, to set out how the Authority, in partnership with the Metropolitan Police Service will engage with Londoners to put community engagement at the heart of citizen focused policing.
• Secondly, the purpose of this strategy is to develop a systematic framework for embedding community engagement in the practice of policing in London. In other words, the purpose is to encourage and nurture the development of a more integrated approach to citizen-focused policing and community engagement across the whole of the organisation.
• Thirdly, the purpose of the strategy is to establish a framework by which the MPA can assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the MPS in undertaking community engagement, assist in improving its performance and enhance community accountability. Fourthly the purpose is to establish the basis by which the MPA can play a leadership role in further strengthening the civic oversight of policing in London by enhancing the capacity by which Londoners can actively participate in and influence policy decisions at both the pan-London and local level.
• Fourthly the purpose is to establish the basis by which the MPA can play a leadership role in further strengthening the civic oversight of policing in London by enhancing the capacity by which Londoners can actively participate in and influence policy decisions at both the pan-London and local level.

7. Throughout its history, policing in London has been centred on the concept of consensus policing – policing by consent within a community context. Sir Robert Peel’s principles when he formed the London Metropolitan Police in 1829 overtly emphasised the need for good relationships with the public and the prevention of crime. He stated:

“The primary object of an efficient police is the prevention of crime; the next that of detection and punishment of offenders if crime is committed. To these ends all the efforts of police must be directed. In attaining these objects, much depends on the approval and cooperation of the public, and these will be determined by the degree of esteem and respect in which the police are held”.

8. Research has consistently since confirmed that strong communities can help to reduce crime through social monitoring and control. Policing will be much easier and more effective when it has the trust and cooperation of the public, when the police can work with local communities to identify problems and priorities.

From consultation to community engagement:

9. It was not until 1985, after the Brixton riots and Lord Scarman’s report that dialogue with the community actually became mandatory. And while the legislation did not stipulate the form dialogue should take, the most common mechanism was community-police consultative groups (CPCGs). Today even the most cursory review of community police consultative arrangements across London suggests a huge array of different purposes and multiplicity of different outcomes.

10. The evolution of policy and practice over the last twenty years has perhaps brought us back full circle to revisiting what Sir Robert Peel meant by the ‘approval and cooperation of the public’ and of putting people back at the centre of public services. It is, as the Home Office Strategic Plan 2004-08 requires, putting the citizen at the heart of everything the police service does. It has also been a process of moving the traditional notion of policing by consent to a more pro-active, dynamic and accountable process of cooperation and collaboration between the police and citizens in the delivery of policing services.

11. This emphasis is reflected in the first priority of the present National Policing Plan, which requires “providing a citizen focused service to the public which responds to the needs of individuals and communities and inspires confidence in the police particularly amongst minority ethnic communities.”

12. Community police engagement today therefore – and as articulated in the Home Office White Paper, “Building Communities, Beating Crime” (November 2004) – is no longer a reactive activity but a proactive role of harnessing the energies of local communities and partnerships in identifying problems and holding the police to account in negotiating and influencing priorities for action and participating in and shaping solutions.

13. Community engagement is much more than consultation. Community engagement encompasses a variety of approaches at the strategic level (service-wide, pan-London), the operational level (borough level), and the community level (neighbourhood and ward level) that empower residents to both express their views and influence how their particular policing needs and priorities are met.

14. Successful community-police engagement requires:

1. Community Members willing and able to get involved.
2. A police service willing and able to involve and be influenced by the viewpoints of Londoners.

15. The MPA community engagement strategy therefore entails supporting both these two strands. On the one hand the MPA needs to consider and ensure effective ways are in place to increase Londoners awareness and understanding of policing issues and also support the capacity and willingness of individuals and communities to work collectively to shape and strengthen the civic governance of policing in London.

16. On the other hand, it entails the MPA ensuring that the Met actually do engage Londoners in as open and constructive way as possible. In mainstreaming community engagement through all levels and facets of the Service, the Met must be able to demonstrate that it is engaging all Londoners in delivering policing services.

Clarifying oversight responsibilities:

17. 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?

18. A prime governance responsibility of the MPA is to hold the MPS to account to ensure that community engagement is fully integrated and mainstreamed throughout the MPS. In summary, the appended Community Engagement Strategy proposes that the MPA is not the primary provider of community engagement, but instead is responsible for setting the framework and focus by which the MPS integrates community engagement into its activities. Through its responsibilities for monitoring, for setting standards, for scrutiny, for developing and testing exemplary projects, and promoting best practice, the MPA will seek to improve the MPS approach to community engagement and ensure a citizen focus ethos.

19. A further underlying theme of this Community Engagement Strategy is to reinforce the principles of localisation and devolution. This is congruent with the Government’s wider strategy on public service reform and the central importance of engaging with diverse communities at the local level and a commitment to partnership working.

20. In providing greater community opportunities to influence policing, particularly at the neighbourhood and BCU level, the Government proposes a joint duty on the police and local authorities in each CDRP area to ensure they have sufficient arrangements in place to deliver a range of engagement opportunities for local neighbourhoods. At the same time, the Government proposes that the police authority will “oversee the relationship between CDRP’s and neighbourhood bodies and ensure the implementation of citizen involvement’s.

21. In conclusion, the appended Community Engagement Strategy is intended to further strengthen the capacity Londoners have to influence policing decisions, policies and service development. This strategy is also intended as the driver for continuous, robust, and sustainable improvements in ensuring that Londoners play a central part in setting the agenda for policing.

C. Race and equality impact

One of the most important challenges for the police is how the policing needs of London’s diverse population can be met in partnership with, and in a manner, which their differences can be taken into account effectively. The proposed community engagement strategy calls for a much sharper focus on connecting the delivery of policing with the real involvement of the public, in all its diversity.

D. Financial implications

While there are no direct financial implications to this report implementation of the Community Engagement Strategy may require consideration of repositioning existing resources.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Tim Rees, Community Engagement

For more information contact:

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

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