Draft proposals for Recommendation 61 consultation report

Report: 3
Date: 31 May 2001
By: Clerk

Summary

This paper reports on the emerging findings of the extensive consultation exercise conducted by the Authority into the feasibility and desirability of implementing Recommendation 61 of the Report of the Inquiry in the matters arising from the Death of Stephen Lawrence (1999) - [Referred to in this paper as the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report].

The Home Secretary asked police authorities, as independent bodies with statutory responsibility for consulting with the community on policing issues, to undertake this consultation, fully engaging their chief officers in the work and taking account of their views.

This has been an important opportunity for authorities to engage dynamically with their local communities on a critical aspect of how they should be policed.

The MPA held its initial consultation conference on Recommendation 61 in March. Since then, a range of consultation methods has been used with different groups in order to seek their views. This report outlines the progress made to date and makes some proposals about the initial draft report which will be presented to the Association of Police Authorities (APA) for onward transmission to the Stephen Lawrence Steering Group, chaired by the Home Secretary in June. It also proposes a more detailed report for the Authority's consideration on a slightly longer time scale.

A. Recommendations

1. That members consider and comment on the proposed content of the initial draft submission to the APA.
2. That members approve the process outlined in paragraph 19 for approving the finalised response to be submitted to the APA by the deadline of 7 June 2001.
3. That members approve the proposal for a further, more detailed, report that will highlight the comments and responses from key groups (police officers, young black people, community leaders etc), to be considered by the CDO committee in the first instance and brought to the full Authority in autumn for action. (draft contents see Appendix 1, see Supporting material).

B. Supporting information

Recommendation 61 states:

1. "The Home Secretary, in consultation with police services, should ensure that a record is made by police officers of all "stops" and "stops and searches" made under any legislative provision (not just the Police and Criminal Evidence Act). Non-statutory or so-called voluntary searches must also be recorded.

The record to include the reason for the stop, the outcome and the self-defined ethnic identity of the person stopped. A copy of the record shall be given to the person stopped."

2. Although on the face of it, the Recommendation appeared relatively straightforward, Home Office research highlighted the following key areas which needed to be explored and consulted on further:

• definition of a police stop
• desirability and resource implications of implementing the recommendation as stated
• the nature and type of 'record' that should be given to individuals

Overview of Home Office research on Stops and Stop and Search

3. In response to the of Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report, the Home Office's Policing and Reducing Crime Unit was commissioned to carry out a programme of research on stops and stop and searches.

4. Researchers drew, among other things, on interviews with over 100 operational police officers, supervisors and managers; over 340 hours of observations of routine patrol work; in-depth interviews with people stopped or stopped and searched and discussion groups from the wider community; statistics produced from police records; and previously published research.

5. Research was carried out in five sites to reflect a wide range of policing environments within Leicestershire Constabulary, West Yorkshire Police, the Metropolitan Police Service, and Suffolk Constabulary.

6. In all, six detailed research reports were produced. These were considered by the Stephen Lawrence Steering Group, chaired by the Home Secretary and including representatives of the APA (Dr Ruth Henig) and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), including Ian Blair. R. David Muir has been nominated to represent the MPA on this group. Confirmation of his membership is awaited.

7. The Home Secretary, faced with conflicting advice on the implications of implementing Recommendation 61, asked the APA to co-ordinate a comprehensive consultation exercise, involving all police authorities, to ensure that the views of as many and as varied a selection of community groups could be taken into account.

The MPA consultation

8. Between 23 March and 9 June the MPA, with the assistance of and in partnership with the MPS and other organisations, will have carried out 12 separate consultation meetings to seek the views of a range of London's communities on Recommendation 61. One of these was exclusively with operational police officers. Some meetings have been organised and facilitated solely by the MPA, without the MPS involvement. These are outlined in the initial draft response to the APA and will be dealt with in greater detail in the full consultation report proposed in paragraph 13 of this report.

9. Because of the scale of the exercises the current initial draft response to the APA does not contain the detailed analysis of the questionnaire. An update on progress in tabulating the feed back will be presented to the Committee at its meeting.

Revised timescale

10. The APA has asked for authorities to submit their findings by 7 June 2001, to allow them to produce a consolidated report to the meeting of the Home Secretary's Lawrence Steering Group on 21 June (this is a much longer period than originally proposed). Should the Authority wish to, further comments and emerging issues could continue to be fed into the Home Secretary's steering Group via the APA.

11. Everyone involved in the consultation exercise has been taken aback by the scale and enthusiasm of the response. There is no doubt that the exercise has struck a nerve and linked as it has been to the general "Stop and Search – know your rights" campaign the consultation exercise has generated enormous interest. One, unlooked for, side effect has been to raise the profile of the MPA, with community groups, individuals and the police. This is welcome, but the scale of the exercise and the importance of the issues identified has created difficulties in meeting the original time scale.

12. In particular:

• arranging consultation meetings with various groups has been highly time and resource intensive;
• the officers involved in managing and co-ordinating the project continued to hold responsibility for the day-to-day delivery of outputs of other work responsibilities. Julia Smith and Julia Shakespeare, supported by many members of the secretariat, have put in a magnificent effort and through hard work and long hours achieved very impressive results. But the staffing implications of future consultation exercises will need to be much more clearly defined;
• the first tranche of questionnaires without the freepost address, yielded relatively low returns, meaning that, halfway through the process, further questionnaires and freepost envelopes had to be resent to a large number of groups;
• and success breeds success. We received a significant number of requests for questionnaires for groups and individuals who had learned of the consultation from other groups or individuals. These all required a response.

Detailed MPA report on the issues arising from the consultation on Recommendation 61

13. The consultation exercise on Recommendation 61 has identified a number of issues, some more complex than others, which the MPA must consider, as it seeks to find ways to increase public trust and confidence in the police generally, and more specifically with particular sections of the London's black and ethnic minority communities. Many of these issues may not be addressed fully in the Authority's response to the APA and it is therefore proposed that a further, more detailed report, should be developed for the Authority's own consideration.

14. In a consultation meeting with Race Equality Council representatives, many attendees expressed the view that the matters currently under discussion were in fact not new but a replay of issues discussed over 20 years ago. What was therefore required was not further debate, but action by the MPA to address these well known difficulties.

15. This more detailed report will be initially considered by the Consultation, Diversity and Outreach (CDO) Committee to form the basis for an implementation plan for progressing the key recommendations especially where they relate to the area of public confidence in the police.

16. A paper outlining the actions for the Authority to progress the recommendations of the CDO Committee's deliberation will be brought to a full Authority Meeting in autumn 2001.

Definition of a "Stop"

17. One of the key difficulties identified by the original Home Office research and confirmed convincingly by the MPA consultation was how to define a "stop" in a way which neither formalise and render obtrusive fleeting encounters nor significantly add to the bureaucratic burden on the police.

18. Possible definitions were explored at the workshop on 23 March. The work has been progressed in a small forum, led by Dr Richard Stone, who was an advisor to Sir William MacPherson during the Lawarence enquiry. Others who took part were Cindy Butts (Deputy Chair of CDO) Ian Blair and Mr Naz Uddin. The Police Federation were invited but unable to attend.

Draft definition proposed by working group

The approach proposed by the working group is:

1. "A stop" by police occurs where an officer attempts to:

• delay a person from moving freely in a public place
• so that the officer can speak to the individual
• because the officer

1. believes that the person is a suspect of a criminal offence or
2. wishes to seek an account of the individual's actions or
3. wishes to seek an account of the individual's possession or suspected possession of any article
2. It would be the policy of the MPS, that whenever reasonably practicable in these circumstances, an officer:

• will always make a written record of the stop
• will always offer a copy of that written record to the individual stopped, although there is no obligation on the individual to take a copy

3. The officer will ask for and record the details of the individual (name, address, date of birth, ethnicity) but will inform the person that there is no obligation on the person to provide these.
4. This policy does not include encounters which are for the purpose of:

• general conversation
• the provision of directions
• the seeking of witnesses to an offence of which this individual is not suspected
• during the course of public order operations

5. Additionally, it would be the policy of the MPS that any person can ask for and will be given a written record of any encounter, even outside these provisions, which involves the individual or any person for whom the individual is directly responsible, provided the record is asked for at the time.
6. The exact nature of this written record will require further debate and consultation but those involved so far have agreed that the record should be as minimal as practicable, preferably in the nature of a carbonised tick box form.
7. The purpose of this definition is to stop the sterile debate about whether a casual conversation is a stop. There will be need for further debate around:

• the handling of group encounters, such as the spill over from a pub fracas
• the definitions of 'public order operations' and of 'public places'
• the transition between the seeking of witnesses and the forming of reasonable suspicion
• the nature of the recording form
• the question of whether ethnicity should be self defined or defined by the officer

Next steps

19. An oral update on preparation of the response to be sent to the APA will be given at the meeting. The CDO does not meet again before this will have to be submitted to meet the deadline of 9 June. Members are therefore invited to agree that the draft response be circulated to all CDO & CCU members for comment in writing. Minor textual revisions will be accepted by the APA up to 15 June but we must aim to get the substantive report on our findings to them by 7 June 2001.

C. Financial implications

• The cost of the consultation conference was £8,000.
• The freepost service fee for the consultation questionnaires cost an initial £60 for an annual freepost licence and each piece of freepost received costs .5 pence.
• Speaking Fees for the conference amounted to £770.
• And fees associated with the consultation amounted to £2,500.
• Approximate Total £11,600.

D. Background papers

None.

E. Contact details

The authors of this report are Catherine Crawford and Julia Smith.

For information contact:

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

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