MPS citizen focus - update

Report: 8
Date: 1 September 2005
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report updates members on the arrangements that have been put in place to further develop a Citizen Focused approach to policing within the MPS.

A. Recommendation

That the report be noted.

B. Supporting information

1. The most recent update concerning Citizen Focused Policing to the Community Engagement Committee was on 16 June 2005. Since then a new Citizen Focus Policing Programme Manager has been appointed and the supporting structure, direction and overarching principles have been revisited.

2. The Metropolitan Police Service Citizen Focus Policing programme has been structured to mirror the five Home Office work strands. This approach means that the work undertaken by the Home Office Police Reform team at a national level can be quickly translated to meet the requirements of the MPS. Another advantage of adopting the Home Office work strands is that members of the MPS programme team have counterparts in the Home Office with whom they have developed constructive working relationships leading to greater sharing of information and good practice.

3. The five work strands are as follows:

Improving the user experience

4. Positive personal experiences of contact with the police are a key predictor of overall confidence in policing. As 44% of the public have contact with the police in any year, ensuring that contact is a positive experience is the single most important way to improve overall levels of confidence.

5. Concentration on victims of crime is a key priority as is providing appropriate levels of support to witnesses, especially vulnerable and intimidated witnesses.

6. An important element of this strand is the development of a Quality of Service Commitment that provides a set of national minimum standards for quality, accessibility and responsiveness, which set out for the public the quality of service they can expect to receive from the police whenever they have contact with them.

Neighbourhood policing

7. This work area reflects the need for local service provision to respond to the particular concerns of local communities.

8. Neighbourhood policing means a more proactive, problem-orientated approach being taken to local issues with greater accessibility and responsiveness to people's concerns and needs. The critical starting point is having dedicated teams of police officers and community support officers, working in concert with wardens and other members of the extended police family to provide a visible and accessible presence in communities.

9. Neighbourhood policing therefore has a close relationship with other strands, particularly community engagement and public understanding and local accountability.

10. Within the MPS this work strand is being delivered through the Safer Neighbourhoods programme.

Improving engagement

11. Much of this delivery plan focuses on the need to understand local needs, wishes and priorities. For the MPS, BOCUs and Safer Neighbourhood teams to fully understand their public's needs, there is a need to understand the make-up of the communities it serves, develop the means to engage with them effectively and maintain an ongoing dialogue.

12. This objective will be delivered through a workstream on Engagement that addresses issues of understanding the needs and priorities of communities, and working with them to make services more responsive and continue to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour.

Public understanding and local accountability

13. The MORI CJS Confidence survey showed a link between levels of familiarity with an organisation and overall levels of confidence in that organisation. Overall satisfaction levels can be influenced through the management of public expectations, as well as improvements in service delivery. This can be supported at a national level but the real opportunities are offered by improving public understanding and accountability mechanisms at local level.

14. The police are a trusted source of information on crime and improving the provision of information to the public are key components of this strand of work.

Organisational and cultural change

15. This is an enabling strand of work which underpins delivery of the previous four. The delivery of citizen-focused services requires both cultural and behavioural change amongst people in parallel with changes to policies, business processes and working practices. The workstrand on organisational and cultural change aims to address both and includes issues of leadership, training, reward and recognition, performance management, partnership, business processes and staff engagement.

16. Involvement of staff in the process of change is critical. The aim of delivering increasingly responsive services is predicated on using feedback from frontline staff and the public to continuously improve them.

17. Within the MPS, activity within this strand is closely aligned to the work ongoing under the Together approach.

Progress since the last report

18. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Fitzpatrick has been appointed to lead the Citizen Focus Policing Programme. She will also have overall responsibility for the Diversity Directorate.

19. The draft Baseline Assessment 2005 has graded the MPS as either ‘good’ or ‘fair’ against their Citizen Focus domain. The three areas covered within this domain are Fairness and Equality; Customer Service and Accessibility; and Neighbourhood Policing and Community Engagement. The latter received a good grading with an improved direction of travel.

• Work is underway to ensure that Citizen Focus/Customer Care now form elements in all training programmes, policy development and impact assessments.
• Community and Customer Focus is a now mandatory behavioural competence of performance development reviews at all levels of the MPS.
• Every member of the MPS will be set a citizen focused work related objective in their PDR from 2006.
• A member of the Citizens Focus programme team has been engaged on work underway within the MPS to develop the Leadership Academy to ensure citizen focus principles are disseminated to leaders and become fundamental part of their work.

20. The National ‘No Witness, No Justice’ project has, in partnership with Operation Emerald, funded two pilot sites to accommodate the notification of victims and witnesses pre-charge. Work is underway with a view to extending the pilot to two further sites to include the use of volunteers.

• The Quality of Service Commitment work has identified 36 strategic projects required to ensure that the standards are in place by November 2006.
• Work is underway to develop joint approach to producing an MPA/MPS Community Engagement strategy and underpinning work plan.
• Commander Smith separately reports progress against the Neighbourhood Policing strand of Citizen Focus to the Community Engagement Committee.

C. Race and equality impact

A Citizen Focused Policing approach will improve the way the Service understands, communicates and engages with the communities it serves. This will ensure that the needs of individuals and communities, including diversity and equality issues, will be identified and addressed at a local level.

D. Financial implications

The initial staff costs are being found from within existing resources within the Deputy Commissioner’s Command.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Ch Supt Ian Harrison, MPS.

For more information contact:

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

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback