Olympic security programme update

Report: 8
Date: 06 March 2008
By: Assistant Commissioner Central Operations on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This report outlines the current progress of the MPS Olympic Policing Programme.

A. Recommendations

That members note the report.

B. Supporting information

1. On 26 September 2006, the MPS provided the Full Authority with a report detailing the MPS approach to the planning of policing and security for the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. The Full Authority whilst supporting the approach, requested that regular update reports are provided to the Co-ordination and Policing Committee.

2. Since this meeting, the MPS has additionally provided two further reports to the MPA:

• How the MPS will deliver equality and diversity to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games to the Equal Opportunities and Diversity Board on 8 March 2007, and
• Corporate Volunteer Programme to the Full Authority on 26 April 2007.

3. An update report was provided to the Co-ordination and Policing Committee on 7 June 2007 where the following areas were covered:

• Foundation Documents
• Scenario testing and workshops
• Organisational learning
• Town planning consultation
• Command and control
• Public private partnerships
• Forthcoming activities
• Operational delivery
• Other significant issues

The major developments in these areas are:

Programme Definition Documents

4. The following programme definition documents and policies were written and the first versions of these documents were signed off through governance:

• Governance Strategy
• Risk & Benefit Management Strategy
• Issue Management Strategy
• Programme Management Approach
• Quality Management strategy
• Finance Strategy

5. The Security Coordinators Security Strategy was written in November 2007. This led to a review of the programme structure. This substantial document laid out the key requirements and deliveries needed to ensure a secure, safe and resilient Olympic Games. Following the publication of the Strategy and the arrival in post of a new Head of OSD and OSD Program Manager, the Directorate has reviewed its structure to ensure that it is aligned to the strategy.

6. The original 15 work streams were reduced to one programme workstream and six delivery workstreams. The Olympic Security Programme (OSP) is now delivering the programme in the following workstreams:

• Secure Environment (Physical & People) - To provide a secure environment in terms of venues and events
• Operational Planning and Consequence Management - Intelligence led planning, command and control, and delivery of operational security and contingencies for a safe, secure & resilient London 2012 Games & managing the impact of the Games on the delivery of OSD member core functions and activities
• Specialist and Human Resources - Coordinating OSD Members to identify and equip themselves with the skills, volume and specialist resources to ensure delivery of a safe, secure & resilient London 2012 Games whilst ensuring the delivery of OSD member core functions and activities
• Information Technology and Communications - Provision of safe, secure & resilient information, technology and communications for the London 2012 Games
• Community Engagement - Engaging & involving the public in working towards delivery of a safe, secure & resilient London 2012 Games
• CONTEST - To ensure the provision of appropriate counter terrorism and allied security/protection measures in line with HM Government Counter Terrorism Strategy
• Programme Management - Management, coordination and working in partnership across organisations contributing to the delivery of a safe, secure & resilient London 2012 Games

7. The OSP completed its ‘Define and Initiate’ stage during November 2007. This was followed by an Office of Government and Commerce (OGC) review of the Programme during December. The overall OGC Gateway RAG status was Amber. There were 10 recommendations, six of which were Amber (two directly belonging to the Home Office) and four were green. The OGC report acknowledged the efforts being made to tighten the management around the programme and positive direction that the Security Coordinator’s Security Strategy has provided. The OSP has written an action plan to deliver each of these recommendations, which is being monitored through governance.

Operational Delivery

8. In July 2007, businesses and residents left the Olympic Park Site. Some were required to leave through the use of Compulsory Purchase Orders. The OSD worked closely with the ODA in developing the operational plans for this activity and in working with the communities affected by the action. The Olympic Site Support Unit (OSSU) played a key role during the closure of the site and its interventions made a significant contribution to minimising local disruption as a heavily used thoroughfare across East London disappeared overnight. The Olympic Park site is now completely private and demolition and clearance of the site has commenced. The Olympic Park and Village (and other associated developments) are now closed to the public. Hoardings have been erected around the site, roads have been permanently closed and over one hundred buildings have been demolished. Demolition and remediation will continue up until the end of March 2008 at which point construction will commence.

Significant Achievements and Areas of Work since June 2007 Olympic Security Directorate

9. The OSD has continued to develop. The following agencies are now co-located in MPS accommodation in Stratford:

• British Transport Police
• London Ambulance Service
• London Fire Brigade
• Essex Police
• Dorset Police
• Hertfordshire Police
• Borders & Immigration Agency
• NHS London
• Transport for London
• SOCA

Scenario Testing and Workshops

10. The OSD recruited the first two members of the Scenario Testing and Exercise Planning (STEP) team at the end of November 2007. The team has been formulating the Olympic exercise strategy and processes including the development of an exercise schedule for past, present and forthcoming events.

11. The principles of the team include: sharing learning and exercise information through the introduction of a database; identifying gaps and inconsistencies in procedures and protocols; contributing to strategic, tactical and operational preparedness including the Counter Terrorism interface with Consequence Management and maximising legacy opportunities.

12. Within the next six months significant scenario workshops and table top exercises are planned within the following areas:

• London Underground Network multi-agency tabletop exercise to test the effectiveness of emergency plans and command & control structures.
• Health and Safety exercise to test ODA arrangements in dealing with a critical incident.
• Exercise to test the Olympic Park Off Site Plan as a result of an incident on the Olympic Park.
• Workshop to determine working arrangements between Law Enforcement agencies and the ODA in respect of fraudulent activity.
• Workshop to establish a partnership between the OSD and Newham BOCU for policing the Olympic Park, the Olympic Village and Stratford City.

Organisational Learning

13. The OSD and its partners continue to be engaged in deriving organisational learning from previous Olympic and Paralympic Games, and other significant sporting events in order to ensure that all aspects are catered for within the policing and security programme.

14. In September 2007, senior staff from the OSD attended the Beijing Security Conference. This was followed by a visit to the International Olympic Committee headquarters in November 2007.

15. The OSD hosted a delegation from Vancouver during this period where valuable experience from people involved in planning forthcoming Games was obtained, and there will be a reciprocal visit in March 2008. The Commissioner is due to go to Athens in May 2008. Both visits will further supplement learning in the following areas:

• Operational planning
• Venue management
• Crime trends
• Athlete and participant security
• Transport network and infrastructure

16. The Beijing torch relay will be in London during April 2008 and the OSD is increasing its knowledge about the torch relay by building relationships with Greece, Russia and France. OSD staff have been invited by the Chinese authorities to participate in the official Beijing 2008 observer programme. This programme is designed to give a high level overview of the planning and activities that have taken place to deliver a successful Games. Bi-lateral negotiation is also taking place with a view to securing a broader access to the Games environment and to maximise the one-time opportunity of benchmarking the London 2012 security plan to a live Olympic environment. This will be achieved both through public attendance and negotiated access to venues/events. Concurrent activity during Games time will include a VIP protection operation and capability, through the deployment of multi-skilled staff, to provide a broad police presence in the event of a major incident occurring.

Command and Control

17. The first draft of the Command and Control business case has been written. This sets out how the command and control programme will facilitate the delivery of the objective “ to achieve safe, secure and resilient operational delivery of the Games” as defined in the Security Coordinators security strategy. The business case includes:

• National Olympic Coordination Centre
• Olympic Intelligence Centre
• Enhancements to the current command and control environment
• Development of overall command and control processes
• Technology Infrastructure

The Business Case will go through the MPA investment decision process and will then be sent to the Home Office Group Investment Board.

Forthcoming Activity, Events or Products

18. The focus of work over the period 2008/9 will predominantly focus on planning, but there are areas of enabling and day-to-day operational delivery that requires to be addressed at the same time.

Planning

19. The major piece of work being undertaken by the OSD is to produce the OSP Blueprint. The Blueprint will be used to maintain the programme’s focus on delivering the required transformation and business change. The scope of the Blueprint will:

• Reflect the capacity of all organisations, agencies and bodies who have a role in delivering the safe, secure and Resilient Games as detailed in the Security Coordinator’s security Strategy.
• It will detail the capacity and capability needed to deliver the 2012 Olympic games only.
• It will dovetail in with the Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for the 2012 London Games especially with the ‘Organisational Structure’ element of the Blueprint.

20. Other work being undertaken by the OSP that will come to fruition within the next six months is the second draft of the CONOPS. This document will lead to individual memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the main Olympic delivery partners.

Operational Delivery

21. The new Olympic Park policing team, known as The Olympic Site Support Unit (OSSU) was established in July 2007 and is dedicated to the area of the Olympic Park. The OSSU is the dedicated policing input to the Olympic Park and other associated developments. It is the only police and emergency service unit that has unrestricted, unescorted access within the perimeter of the Olympic site. Members of the OSSU have undergone industry specific health and safety training and have the associated qualifications to enable them to be a fully functioning unit throughout the life of the project. They also have the appropriate protective equipment to be able to operate safely in a construction environment. The team is already proving to be invaluable and has been welcomed by all partners, gaining their trust from the outset. The OSSU performs a number of vital functions in support of its objectives supporting both the Home Office Contest Strategy and the Security Co-ordinator’s security strategy for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This team is responsible for:

• providing specialist support, knowledge and expertise to Newham BOCU, the wider MPS and multi-agency partners in relation to the Olympic Park, Olympic Village, Olympic Co-ordination Zone and all associated developments throughout the construction phase, Games-time and into legacy in support of the Security Co-ordinators Security Strategy and according to need.
• maximising the opportunity for gathering and using intelligence from on-site sources and to appropriately feed it into Olympic intelligence systems.
• providing appropriate additionality to venues and the Olympic Co-ordination Zone security regime in support of the Safe and Secure Venues decisive condition in the Security Co-ordinators Security Strategy throughout all phases of the project.
• facilitating MPS / OSD public relations activity on the Olympic site.

22. Some examples of the activity that the OSSU has undertaken in this quarter include:

• Responding to incidents on-site
• Setting protocols for dealing with the discovery of World War II ordnance on the site
• Joint activity with the Olympic Security Directorate intelligence cell
• Pro-active operations to combat criminality on the site
• Advising on areas of potential weakness in perimeter security and man-guarding methods
• Delivering CT awareness training to security staff and crime prevention advice to on-site partners
• Arrests for site related crime
• Participation in and support to on-site partner scenario tests
• Guidance and advice at the recent ‘Olympic Fire’
• Site safety and security awareness tours for key partners and supervisors
• Close liaison with local Safer Neighbourhoods Teams surrounding the Park

Other Significant Issues

Mutual Aid and Staff Retention

23. It is anticipated that there will be a significant demand for police officers and support staff during 2012. In particular, there will be a demand for officers with specialist policing skills. There is also the ‘double skill’ issue to consider, as many officers may have more than one specialism, and this will need to be taken into consideration when resource planning. The National skills audit is being undertaken by ACPO and the first draft of the MPS skills audit will be completed by April 2008. This will enable the OSP to identify any potential gaps in skills or officer numbers.

24. In anticipation of this work, a multi-agency workshop was held during January 2008, which looked at ‘filling the gap in 2012.’ The specialist and human resources workstream together with workforce planning are now scoping ways of filling the gap in terms of staff numbers and skills. Areas being looked at are:

• Retention of officers
• Award recognition
• 30 plus

C. Race and equality impact

1. Diversity and the needs of the community will be addressed through every stage of the planning and delivery phases of the programme through a clearly defined and deliverable programme plan where Community Engagement is a critical enabling work stream. The Olympic Security Directorate now has a full time Community Engagement Team (CET), led by a superintendent. In order to support this work, the CET has now been located within the OSD offices in Stratford.

2. The CET and the OSSU are mutually supportive and work closely together to ensure that the needs of local communities are met and that the opportunities that the Games bring are maximised.

3. The first meeting of the Strategic Community Engagement Board was held in July 2007. This is nationally focussed and includes members from the key London and national statutory agencies.

4. An OSD National Community Engagement Strategy (supporting the Decisive Conditions within the Security strategy) is being developed. This will be based upon the interim DCFD London focussed Community Engagement strategy.

5. A Volunteer Co-ordinator has been in post since November 2007. He is responsible for rolling out the volunteer action plan through an established steering group.

6. The CET is concentrating on other stakeholder engagement within the MPS through newly developed BCU Gold Groups and a SNT forum.

7. A Youth employment programme linked with local youth offending teams is being piloted in Waltham Forest and soon to be rolled out to other host event boroughs.

D. Financial implications

Costed Security Plan

1. The key area of work that is the current priority of the OSD is the preparation of a costed security plan for the Programme. This will be a multi-agency plan and an initial draft will be with ministers by end of March.

Funding

2. For 2007/08 the Home Office has made available £4.6m to fund policing security costs of the Games with the MPS receiving £4m of this funding. As at the end of January the MPS is forecasting an overspend in the region of £250,000 on Olympics' security costs, which reflects the decision of the Security Coordinator to bring planning forward. This overspend will be funded from the overall Central Operations budgets.

3. No announcement has been made regarding funding for 2008/09 onwards and the MPS and Home Office is in regular dialogue over this issue. A discussion is underway between the MPS and the MPA to decide the appropriate financial governance for ongoing funding, once announced.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author(s): Jude Beehag Inspector, Olympic Security Directorate, MPS

For more information contact:

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

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