Community tension assessment

Report: 9
Date: 5 July 2007
By: DAC Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) assesses community tension using a three tier, six level matrix, this method is held in common with the National Community Tension Team and is therefore suitable for comparing community tension levels across the UK. While the system has been in place for over a year it has been acknowledged by the MPS that there is a need for increased input from partner organisations and community members.

As a result of this acknowledgement a project and guide was commissioned to develop a more integrated, systematic and sophisticated approach to understand community dynamics and anticipate and address community tension. The guide is currently being piloted on three boroughs.

The MPS also deploys community monitors to operations and events and uses Community Consultative Forums together with Independent Advisory Groups or their equivalents to ensure that that the view of communities are considered when events are policed. 

A. Recommendations

That Members note the contents of the report.

B. Supporting information

Current situation

1. Three basic tenets underpin this guide. The first is that communities themselves are best placed to identify their own priorities and problems and to determine their own futures and solutions. Engaging with and supporting communities, building their capacity, confidence and resilience is at the heart of the approach.

2. Secondly, the guide is concerned with knowing how people are feeling, potential and emerging tensions, so that there can be an ‘early and upstream’ response, rather than reacting once tensions have become manifest.

3. Third, there is a vast amount of information available to partner agencies whose staff have daily face-to-face contact with the community – in schools, housing offices, voluntary agencies, youth projects, advice centres – and they have a key role to play in contributing to the complex picture of community dynamics. The guide seeks to address the challenge of capturing that information and sharing it between partners, pooling knowledge and expertise to support a predictive and preventative approach to community tensions.

4. The broader context of this is the drive to support more cohesive communities, where there is a common vision and sense of belonging and the diversity of people’s backgrounds and circumstances is appreciated and valued. In cohesive communities, people of different backgrounds have similar life opportunities and strong and positive relationships are being developed between people of different backgrounds and circumstances in the workplace, in schools and within neighbourhoods.

5. The specific concern is to prevent or minimise the risk of disorder, fear of crime, insecurity, illegal or criminal activity, damage, violence and loss of life which can occur when tensions are heightened. Public bodies have general and specific duties with regard to the safety and well-being of communities and to promoting good race relations. Disorder on any significant scale will severely damage the local reputation and could result in the curtailing of investment in jobs, housing and employment.

6. The guide uses good practice already developed within the police service and seeks to promote this with other partners. Equally, the tension monitoring system seeks to bring techniques, knowledge and information from other partners to build the bigger picture.

7. Together, the aim is to prepare partners to work with communities to address tension and manage situations in ways which are collaborative, sensitive and effective, but with a reduced reliance on police led interventions. The guide and the methods contained in it builds on the existing process in place in the MPS and is in the process of being piloted by four London borough local authorities as a method of reporting community tensions back to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and for increasing the contribution made by local authorities to the MPS tension monitoring process.

Method

8. In order to evaluate tensions, an assessment of intelligence (both open source and closed) and environmental scanning together, where appropriate, with consultation with community members is carried out.

9. The results of this process are combined to provide a community tension assessment which is divided into three sections:

• Experienced (how do communities feel)
• Evidenced (what does our information tell us is happening)
• Potential (what might happen)

10. The results of each of these sections are tabulated to give a numerical assessment of community tension, where one is the highest and six is assessed as normal. Supporting information is provided by the assessor in each section.

11. While each of the three tiers has specific guidance as to what constitutes each level in the matrix the terminology for each level is shared and is currently:

1. Imminent
2. High
3. Raised (High)
4. Raised (Low)
5. Above Normal
6. Normal

12. These definitions are also shared with the MPS community Impact assessment model which again allows for tensions to be compared on an identical.

13. The process is carried out by each Borough Operational Command Unit (BOCU) on a weekly basis, with the results of the assessment being supplied to the Communities Together Strategic Engagement Team (CTSET) by 12 noon on Friday. This includes and assessment from those borough piloting the guide who simply produce their assessment in consultation with their local authority partners. There is an expectation that all boroughs will consult with members of their Independent Advisory Group (IAG) or equivalent together with local community contacts in order to complete the assessment as fully as possible. The frequency of reports can be increased either across the MPS or on specific boroughs in response to specific events or incidents.

14. The results from all the boroughs together with:

• Open source intelligence
• Information from the Operation Element bulletin (the national community tension assessment)
• Information from other units and meetings
• Specific tension assessments from the Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate (DCFD) strand teams.

15. Are then brought together to produce an MPS community tension assessment document that contains a 3 figure MPS tension assessment figure together with information about trends and information about tensions in specific areas of interest. These areas can be varied but currently are:

• Race related tensions
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) tensions
• Gang related tensions
• Faith based tensions
• Disability related tensions
• Tensions relating to Gypsies and Travellers
• Tensions attributable to the Olympics

16. Copies of this document are circulated within the MPS together with a copy to Lord Toby Harris, member of the Metropolitan Police Authority.

17. This document together with the borough documents provides a baseline from which event or incident specific tension monitoring tasks and/or impact assessments (CIA) are carried out.

18. Specific forms have been developed to support this process.

Community monitors and consultative forums

19. In order to ensure that community members are more fully engaged with the public order policing process the DCFD have developed two additional models for direct community involvement in policing public order events.

20. Community monitors are community members (who are specifically not IAG members) that are deployed with police officers to give a community perspective on the way in which an event or operation is being policed. They can be directly deployed into the operation itself, or as is more common deployed to the Gold Command Suite in order to directly advise Gold on the event. In the latter context they are generally deployed in conjunction with IAG members. They have been deployed in a variety of recent events including operations Neon and Radon and other large scale demonstrations in central London.

21. Community Consultative forms (CCF) are time limited, issue specific groups of community members who have specific knowledge of the issue, event or operation under discussion. They provide specialist advice to Gold on all aspects of an operation or event. The CCF model also provides for members of each of the 5 corporate IAG’s to be part of the CCF.

C. Race and equality impact

This report does not refer to a policy document.

D. Financial implications

All financial costs for the production of the guide have been met in the 2006/2007 financial year. I am unaware of any other ongoing costs.

E. Background papers

• Understanding and monitoring Tension and Conflict in Local Communities. A Practical Guide for Local Authorities, Police Services and Partner Agencies.
• MPS Community Tension Assessment Template
• MPS Community Impact Assessment Template
• MPS Full Community Tension Return Document

F. Contact details

Report author: Nicholas Williams, Sergeant, Communities Together Strategic Engagement Team, MPS.

For more information contact:

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

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