Borough Partnership - withdrawn 6/12/07

Report: 9
Date: 6 December 2007
By: Assistant Commissioner Territorial Policing on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

The proposal will involve local authorities making a two-year financial contribution to the cost of providing up to 320 police officers within their areas to support the delivery of LAA performance targets. This would allow TP to retain some of the police officer reductions included in the draft 2008-11 budget submission subject to approval to a budget growth proposal of £3.9m in 2008/09 and £3.3m in 2009/2010

A. Recommendations

That members supports the initiative and agree that discussions can begin with local authorities within the proposed financial framework set out in Section D and subject to final budget decisions.

B. Supporting information

1. Considerable advantages exist if the MPS can develop a competitive advantage in relation to being the first choice provider for community safety. An opportunity has arisen through Local Area Agreements (LAAs) to support the delivery of local services. The LAA will ‘pool’ existing funding streams such as Stronger & Safer Communities Fund (SSCF) and Drugs Intervention Programme into 4 new blocks viz: Children & Young People (CYP), Safer Stronger Communities (SCC), Health and Older People and Economic Development & Enterprise. No guidance has been given as to whether the Basic Command Unit fund (BCUF) will be incorporated in the LAA pool.

2. Crime is most prominent under SCC but may also feature under CYP.

3. There are of course huge economical benefits within a LAA. Within the LAA exists a ‘stretch target’ element (a reward mechanism) should the local partnership hit their performance targets. New money averaging £8m will become available. The joint working opportunities that exist both for the Local Authority and the MPS are therefore considerable.

4. The impact of joint working around community safety, particularly concerning reassurance and reduction in fear of crime, could provide significant opportunities to effectively tackle those incidents of crime, disorder and anti-social behaviour that affects communities.

5. If the MPS wants to develop and maintain this opportunity it needs to ensure that it is competitive on price, product range and service levels etc. This will require leadership, different thinking, reduction in corporate overheads and re-investment over time. In simple terms, the MPS needs to position itself as the first choice provider for community safety to access new funding opportunities.

6. In order to compete, it is imperative that the MPS are competitive in terms of costs, and to make the initiative attractive to local authorities, the cost of a police constable needs to be less than £44,300 (basic pay cost excluding overheads). The full cost of a warden to a borough, for instance, is about £35,000, including overheads. Providing officers at a cost similar to that of wardens is likely to attract the interest of many local authorities. A police officer offers more advantages through a wider range of powers than a warden and can therefore be used more effectively to achieve LAA targets. The proposal would however, require Mayoral/MPA subsidy of £20,481 a post (2006/07 prices). This subsidy will apply to other ranks if officers numbers purchased require supervision ranks to be deployed within the partnership arrangement.

7. Several local authorities have shown an interest in acquiring more police officers on their boroughs and it is clearly advantageous to the MPS to encourage such involvement from local authorities in funding police officer posts. The initial offer would have to comply with the Resource Allocation Formula which TP use to allocate resources, e.g. Westminster would be offered more officers to buy than Havering but then after the initial offer any unpurchased posts out of the 320 remaining can be offered to the other boroughs.

8. The officers obtained under this initiative would be managed and tasked by the MPS but against neighbourhood and local authority targets, focusing on dealing with local issues in supporting the challenging performance targets that will be contained within the Local Area Agreements. Such an initiative would be the subject of formal contracts, probably for two years. At the end of the two years, either the initiative would be extended depending on the commitment of the local authority and on them being able to meet the funding gap referred to below on an on going basis, or these officers would need to be redeployed to vacant officer posts

9. The number of police officers has been reviewed as part of the budget planning process for 08/09 to 10/11. For the MPA/MPS to manage within the existing financial constraints, police officers numbers need to be reduced. However, the overall impact is different as there is additional funding being provided, for example in relation to CT. There will therefore potentially be overall growth in officer numbers.

10. TP currently need to reduce officer numbers to meet their efficiency requirements. The aim has been to minimise the impact on operational deployment by finding the required posts within non-borough functions and efficiencies. Those reductions amount to 182 posts. An additional 200 posts were given up from the IPLDP budget on the basis that recruitment of officers would be lower than in previous years. The savings offered in relation to these posts did not include TP non-pay costs or corporate overhead costs – these are still therefore funded within the overall MPS budget. Through this initiative, there could be an opportunity for TP to regain some of the 382 posts referred to above, the funding stream from local authorities, the vehicle of delivery being LAAs.

11. The outcome of successful implementation of a cost sharing initiative would be additional police officers in the MPS, available to contribute to the delivery of our targets, at a relatively small cost per officer.

Abbreviations:

LAA

Local Area Agreements

SSCF

Stronger and Safer Communities Fund

CYP

Children and Young People

SCC

Safer Stronger Communities

BCUP

Basic Command Unit Fund

C. Race and equality impact

There are no specific race or equality implications.

D. Financial implications

See Appendix 1

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Anne McMeel, Director of Strategic Finance and Diana Marchant, Director of Business Development, TP, 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