Scrutiny programme 2006/07

Report: 9
Date: 3 March 2006
By: Chief Executive and Clerk

Summary

This report outlines a proposed scrutiny programme for 2006-7.

A. Recommendations

That

1. members confirm whether the scrutinies identified in the MPA corporate strategy remain relevant (paragraph 7); and
2. the proposed scrutiny programme for 2006-7 (paragraphs 11-13) be endorsed.

B. Supporting information

1. The Peer Review of the MPA (carried out by the IDEA in January 2004) and the Audit Commission Initial Performance Assessment criticised the MPA for lacking a rationale for developing our scrutiny and review programme and for the balance we maintain between scrutiny and service improvement reviews. A framework for identifying areas for review was agreed by Corporate Governance Committee on 11 July 2005.

2. The MPA carries out scrutiny of MPS activity in a number of ways. This paper concentrates on the work of the scrutiny and review team. The scrutiny and review team is currently two FTE officers. We have a number of responsibilities including ensuring the MPA delivers its requirements under best value legislation, managing ‘set-piece’ scrutinies on behalf of Members, overseeing the MPS ‘Met Modernisation Programme’ and managing the MPA improvement programme on behalf of the MPA senior management team.

3. To date, the scrutiny and review team has delivered one ‘set piece’ scrutiny per year. However, the team is now up to strength and anticipates it can deliver at least two per year, which fits with Members’ objective to free up time through the review of the committee structures to conduct more scrutiny.

4. The scrutiny and review programme, encompassing MPA-led scrutinies and service improvement reviews needs to develop synergies with the internal audit process (and be clearly linked to the external audit and inspection process) so that it is part of a holistic process that drives radical shifts in delivery. A process has been established to ensure that this happens, as reported to Planning Performance and Review Committee on 13 February 2006.

5. The Authority has undertaken a number of scrutinies, since its inception. These have been effective when members wish to challenge the MPS approach to dealing with particular issues and when the review would benefit from significant involvement from communities and other key stakeholders.

6. Whilst it is important to ensure that evidential\ scrutiny focuses on areas where recommendations would be actionable by the MPS, there are benefits to using scrutiny to review areas where the solution to an issue cannot necessarily be delivered by the MPS alone, with the Authority playing in a key role in influencing others to accept the need for change. This can be developed further, as has been done with the mental health review, to undertake scrutiny jointly with other statutory agencies. A process that proved extremely successful.

7. The Authority is committed through its corporate strategy to undertake scrutinies of the following during 2005/06:

• resource utilisation - including changes to operational deployment following the introduction of the Step Change programme and workforce modernisation.
• review of resources - including overtime allocation to all OCUs and monitor implementation of the recommendations of those reviews.

However, with the launch of the service review the MPA agreed to suspend its review programme until April 2006. Members are asked to confirm whether they believe these scrutinies remain valid in light of the service review and the subsequent Met Modernisation Programme.

8. The framework agreed by corporate governance committee in July 2005 aimed to articulate all MPS activity under broad headings used by the baseline assessment. This has been helpful to an extent but in developing a scrutiny and review programme, we need maintain some balance (i.e. avoiding overburdening the Authority and the Service). Therefore, the following filtering criteria should also be considered:

• Issue being examined elsewhere or recently reviewed.
• New legislation anticipated.

9. The baseline assessment of the MPS carried out in 2005 indicates that the following areas, having being rated poor or fair, could be considered for review:

• Fairness and equality.
• Customer service and equality.
• Volume crime reduction.
• Volume crime investigation.
• Forensic management.
• Criminal justice processes.
• Reassurance.
• Reducing anti-social behaviour and promoting public safety.
• Call management.
• Training and Development.
• Race and Diversity.
• Performance management and continuous improvement.

10. There is substantial activity ongoing in many of these areas aimed at achieving improved quality of service (and therefore improved scores) in time for the next baseline assessment. Some of the areas above e.g. volume crime investigation, reassurance and reducing anti-social behaviour will be heavily influenced by changes brought about by the Met Modernisation Programme. Appendix 3 provides more detailed analysis. Given the filtering out criteria listed in paragraph 8, it may be considered premature to conduct any significant scrutiny activity into most of these areas.

11. Another approach could be to identify potential scrutiny areas in terms of crime types. This corresponds with the approach taken by Members in the past (e.g. rape, gun crime). The service review recommended the development of public protection units, which may cover child protection, rape, domestic violence, hate crime and mental health (many of which have already been subject to MPA scrutiny). One area that has had very little MPA scrutiny to date, and where it clear that there are opportunities for improvement is addressing drug crime. Reducing drug crime has been an MPA target for a number of years but is not currently included in the annual performance plan for 2006/07 (although this may change before the plan is finally agreed). Members have raised concerns about this in other fora. A report presented to PPR Committee in December 2005 and the subsequent discussion, indicated that there was a lack of internal co-ordination in the approach to addressing drug-related crime and that the strategic approach taken by the organisation is not as well developed as it could be. Furthermore, the MPS is part of a multi-agency response to reducing drug use through Drug and Alcohol Teams therefore an outward focused scrutiny approach would be an effective review methodology.

12. There are other areas of new activity that may warrant more detailed scrutiny by the MPA. These include ‘high tech’ crime capability and the developing approach to Organised Criminal Networks. Whilst is considerable work ongoing within the MPS particularly within SCD, it would be appropriate for the MPA to gain a better understanding of how these are developing and the resource and strategic implications this may have in due course. The establishment of the Serious and Organised Crime Agency in April 2006 will also need to be looked at in this context.

13. To date, the MPA has concentrated on undertaking comprehensive evidential scrutinies. We have developed other approaches to scrutiny in the last year, such as undertaking shorter, time-limited scrutinies, spread over one or two meetings (the gun crime ‘revisit’ for example). By using resources in this way, the MPA will be able to increase the level of scrutiny it is able to undertake. On this basis, it is recommended that the drugs scrutiny is a comprehensive evidential scrutiny and the investigation into ‘high tech’ crime and organised criminal networks are more focused. This will leave contingency to respond to any issues that arise during the course of 2006/07, addressing a concern that was raised by members of the corporate governance committee when they agreed the framework in July 2005.

C. Race and equality impact

There are no direct race and equality implications from this report. However, the following points should be considered:

• equality and diversity issues (particularly disproportionality) have been a key factor in the decision making framework for the scrutiny and review programme
• all review conclusions and recommendations arising out of scrutiny activity will be fully impact assessed.

D. Financial implications

There are no direct financial implications to implementing this framework as the work will be undertaken as part of the Scrutiny and Review Unit annual work programme. Review activity can be resource intensive both for the MPA and the MPS, and within the MPA there are limited scrutiny resources available. It is therefore important that these resources are focused on areas where efficiency and or effectiveness gains can be maximised.

E. Background papers

• Corporate Governance Committee 11 July 2005 – Developing an Effective Review Programme

F. Contact details

Report author: Siobhan Coldwell, Head of Scrutiny and Review, MPA

For more information contact:

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

Appendix 1

Scrutiny should:

• encourage innovation and excellence
• ensure services are responsive to the needs of users and not for the convenience of providers
• engage local communities, staff and other partners in shaping local services
• deliver improvements
• focus on outcomes not process
• provide a rigorous (but not rigid) framework
• enhance national and local accountability.
• provide the opportunity to undertake a root and branch review of service, by fundamentally challenging how and why a service is provided.

They can be helpful when:

• there is a need to improve performance in a priority area, or performance is good but might benefit from fresh thinking
• the authority is unclear about the objectives of a service or how the service contributes to local or national priorities
• there is a need or opportunity for step change in performance (or significant savings and evidence is that such a step change is reasonable (e.g. where other authorities, forces, providers) are delivering a much better quality or more efficient service.

Appendix 2

Summary of HMIC Baseline Assessment Judgements 2005

Appendix 3

Areas of weakness identified in baseline assessment

Citizen Focus

• encompassing ‘fairness and equality’ and ‘customer service and equality’
  • This judgement was made before the appointment of the DAC Citizen focus
  • This is a key issue for both the MPS and the MPA
  • It is a key element of the citizen focus programme which has recently commenced and forms part of the Met Modernisation Programme (MMP)
  • Key deliverables for 2006/07 include improving the user experience and improving engagement
  • There is MPA oversight through the MMP Oversight Group and attendance at the Citizen Focus Programme Board

Reducing Crime

• Volume crime reduction
  • Whilst this is clearly an area of concern, MPS is graded ‘poor’ partly because crime is not reducing as quickly in London as it is in the rest of the MPS comparator group. The MPS is also penalised for its poor performance against NCRS. There has been significant activity aimed at improving NCRS performance and there has been extensive MPA oversight of this activity.
  • Crime rates are a consequence of a wide range of factors many of which are outside the scope of influence of the MPS, therefore working in partnership is key. The MPS is graded ‘good’ for working with partners.

Investigating Crime

• Volume crime investigation
  • This area was subject to in-depth review as part of the Service Review and as a result, significant changes to investigative practices were recommended and are being taken forward.
• Forensic management
  • A number of weaknesses were identified in the application of forensics with the organisation and the MPS was also criticised for not having an overarching strategy (although subsequent responses to the report indicate this is no longer true). It is also an area that leads to significant budget pressures for the organisation, given the demand-led nature of the activity.
  • The SCD modernisation programme has identified as an area where change is needed. These are being implemented as a result. It may therefore be premature to review this area.
• Criminal justice processes
  • As volume crime investigation. Additionally, there are a number of significant projects such as NSPIS (Case and Custody) coming to fruition, which will have a significant impact on the way services are delivered. Activity in this area is monitored regularly by PPRC

Promoting Safety

• Reassurance
• Reducing anti-social behaviour and promoting public safety
  • Achieving improvements in these areas is essential to achieving PSA and MPS targets. Safer Neighbourhoods will be key to delivering improvements in both reassurance and reducing anti-social behaviour. The full roll out of the programme will take place in 2006/07. There has been significant MPA oversight of safer neighbourhoods and neighbourhood policing will be inspected as part of the baseline assessment in 2006. Therefore, it may not be appropriate to review this area at this time.

Providing assistance

• Call management
  • C3i roll out continues. MPA Members are involved in oversight of the programme.

Resource use

• Training and Development
  • Training and Development was inspected by HMIC during 2005 and was the subject of a national best value review during 2003. Although the service only received a ‘fair’ assessment, the prospects for improvement were considered ‘promising’.
• Race and Diversity
  • This is a key issue for the MPA and there has been considerable activity in this area such as the Morris Inquiry and the subsequent steering group. EODB also has an extensive programme of themed meetings, which aim to scrutinise MPS activity in more depth than is possible through normal committee processes.
• Performance management and continuous improvement
  • There have been changes to the MPS approach to performance management and continuous improvement in the last 18 months. However, it is not clear that this broad topic would be particularly suitable for an MPA scrutiny.

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