Minutes

Minutes of the Co-ordination and Policing Committee held on 6 December 2002 at 10 Dean Farrar Street, London, SW1H 0NY.

Present

Members

• Toby Harris (Chair)
• Nicholas Long
• Richard Sumray
• Graham Tope
• Rachel Whittaker
• Cecile Wright

MPA officers

• Catherine Crawford (Clerk)
• Peter Martin (Treasurer)
• Simon Vile (Head of Secretariat)

MPS officers

• Ian Blair (Deputy Commissioner)
• Martin Tiplady (Director of Human Resources)

Part 1

58. Apologies for absence

(Agenda item 1)

Apologies for absence was received from Reshard Auladin, Elizabeth Howlett, R David Muir and Abdal Ullah.

59. Declarations of interest

(Agenda item 2)

No interests were declared.

60. Minutes

(Agenda item 3)

The committee considered the minutes of its meeting held on 18 November 2002.

Resolved – That the minutes of the meeting of the Co-ordination and Policing Committee held on 18 November 2002 be agreed and signed as a correct record, subject to the inclusion of Cecile Wright’s apologies for absence.

61. Name badges for uniformed officers

(Agenda item 4)

The committee received an oral update from the Director of Human Resources. He regretted the delay in bringing forward a report for the committee to consider. Consultation with the trades unions and staff associations was due to take place followed by proposals being put to the MPS management board on 18 December.

He commented that this was not a straightforward issue and there was disquiet amongst some staff over, for instance, physical safety and it being a potential disincentive to join the MPS. Five other forces currently used name badges and they were compulsory in three of these, so he was reasonably confident that the MPS could progress the issue.

The Chair reiterated the Authority’s commitment to introducing name badges and asked for a detailed report to the committee on how this would be achieved.

Resolved – That a report be submitted to the 24 January 2003 meeting of the committee on how the introduction of name badges for uniformed officers will be achieved.

Rachel Whittaker raised two related issues:

• she understood that some female officers would prefer to wear a tie rather than a cravat
• she also understood that an order had been put in place recently whereby Sikh officers were no longer required to wear a turban with cross banding or a badge, because of the time taken to change into the approved turban

The Deputy Commissioner said that the Director of Human Resources would look into and respond to these points.

Nicholas Long expressed an interest in knowing more about the work of the Traffic and Drivers’ Standards User Group and the Uniforms Group. The Deputy Commissioner said that he would be individually briefed on these. The Chair suggested that it would be useful if a simple guide to MPS uniforms and car markings could be circulated to all members.

62. Any other urgent business

(Agenda item 5)

Standards Committee

It was reported that three members had resigned from the Standards Committee because of other commitments. Following an invitation to all members, Eric Ollerenshaw had offered to serve as a member of the committee. The Co-ordination and Urgency Committee agreed to appoint him to the Standards Committee as an urgent action, as the next meeting of the committee was due to take place before the January meeting of the full Authority.

Resolved – That Eric Ollerenshaw be appointed as a member of the Standards Committee.

The meeting ended at 11.20 a.m.

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback