Recommendation 61 Monitoring Group

Report: 07b
Date: 04 December 2003
By: Clerk

Summary

This report provides an update on the Recommendation 61 Monitoring Group in Hackney and the recently established MPS Monitoring Group in Tower Hamlets.

A. Recommendations

That:

1. Members note and comment on the progress being made by the Hackney and MPS Tower Hamlets Monitoring Group.
2. Comments on the recommendation from the Hackney Group that more resource to be made available for providing them with more analysis to the local data provided at the meeting.

B. Supporting information

1. The Metropolitan Police Authority is currently the only police authority that has established Local monitoring arrangements to overview the phased implementation of Recommendation 61. Much of the learning that is being developed will therefore inform the practice of other police authorities in this area. This is acknowledged by the Association of Police Authorities and officers will be working to see what further guidance and support can be provided to the other authorities in the six implementation sites and as forces throughout the country prepare for the national roll out of Recommendation 61.

Monitoring Group - Hackney Data Monitoring

2. The Group continues to receive comprehensive data from the police in Hackney, but there is little meaningful analysis of the data. This impedes the ability of community groups and representatives to get a good understanding of the data presented. This has been raised by the group at almost every meeting, however the MPS has stated that it does not have access to an analyst to interpret the stops data, and therefore is unable to provide the level of sophisticated explanation requested by the group. 

3. Should the implementation be rolled out, this is likely to represent real difficulties, not only for the stops data but generally in the ability of the MPS at borough level to make use of the data that is available to inform police practice in crime reduction and detection. This observation has been supported by the recent work being undertaken by the Home Office and the Race and Criminal Justice Unit who highlighted this as a national problem, which must be addressed. 
4. The Hackney Monitoring Group wishes the Board to take action to see that this resource issue is urgently addressed by the MPS as a core performance management practice in winning public trust and confidence.

Data Monitoring

5. In October 2003 there were approximately 450 stops in Hackney. The data provided by the MPS is attached at Appendix 1 and Appendix 2.

• A continuing high percentage of individuals are choosing not to give their ethnic category. These may be people from the local Turkish, Kurdish, Somali and Vietnamese community who, because there is currently no provision on the form to record "other" ethnicity, apart from those in the 16 + codes on the form. 
• of those who did record their ethnicity 44% of all stops were of black and ethnic minority people, 33% white and 23% "other"
• Over 62% of all people stopped or stopped and searched in the borough were between the ages of 11 - 30 years, with 28% being 16 - 20 years old
• 94% of all stops were of males
• 60% of all searches were for drugs

6. Due to the apparent high level of stops of children of school age, the Group has recently asked the police to provide data of stops carried out around schools and the data should be available in the future.

7. At the most recent meeting no data was provided of the stops figures for individual police officers, however this will be considered at future meetings.

Public Meeting

8. The Monitoring Group will be holding the first public meeting to inform the local communities about the progress of the implementation in Hackney. Hackney Council Communications Department is assisting the group and the MPA in the design of a poster and publicity information for the meeting. The details of the programme are still being developed and community representatives, the MPA and MPS and Hackney Council will all play a key role in the event which will take place on 10 December at Oceans, a venue well used by the Hackney community.

Poster and Publicity Campaign

9. In response to the continuing lack of information by the public about their rights when stopped and searched, and on Recommendation 61 the MPA has launched a paper and publicity campaign in the ethnic press. This will run for two weeks to raise the public knowledge of the implementation. The MPA Scrutiny into Stop and Search has also been publicised and has attracted a high level of attention, including from BME groups and organisations in Wales, Manchester and Huddersfield!

10. The poster campaign will be rolled out in Hackney and Tower Hamlets as well as in other boroughs. Hackney Council have been extremely helpful in designing the poster which will be placed on all lamp post sites through the borough in January 2004.

Know Your Rights Campaign

11. Know Your Rights leaflets and cards have been posted to community, voluntary and statutory groups and organisations in Tower Hamlets with an accompanying letter from the Chair of the EODB explaining the changes that will take place from 30 November. The MPA will be working with the Commission for Racial Equality to review the current leaflet with a view to jointly publicising a revised 'Know Your Rights' card. 

Tower Hamlets Monitoring Group

12. The Borough Commander has set up a local group to monitor the police progress of stops in the borough. Abdul Ullah has been asked to chair this group and has been involved in a number of local initiatives, including radio programmes to promote and explain the implementation.

13. MPA officers have attended the MPS Monitoring Group on 20 November and discussions are underway to agree the way in which the MPS group will report the outcomes of its monitoring to the EODB.

Local Evaluation and Monitoring of the Implementation

14. A local community research organisation has been approached to undertake research to measure the success (as outlined by the Association of Police Authorities) of the implementation sites. The proposal will be discussed with the chair and details be brought before the board at the next meeting in February 2004. It will include proposals and recommendations for the way in which the MPA will want to organise its monitoring and overview role in the run up to the full implementation of Recommendation 61 across all boroughs.

Home Office National Evaluation and Monitoring of Rec 61 Implementation

15. Since the meeting of the Monitoring group, the Home Office has released the initial findings of the MORI review of the experiences of individuals that have been stopped in the 7-implementation sites. Unfortunately across the sites, MORI have only been able to carry out only 34 interviews. Seven of the interviews were in Hackney.

16. The low sample size has been attributed to a large proportion of the sample size (65%) being invalid due to individuals not living at the property recorded on the form; and respondents being ineligible, i.e. saying that they had not been stopped or unable to remember the particular stop being asked about.

17. Of those interviewed by MORI 27 were White, 2 Mixed, 2 Asian or Asian British and 3 Black or Black British. Almost 15 were 16 - 18 years old and 30 were males.

18. Due to the low level of response to the HO evaluation the MPA has been asked by the Home Office to assist in providing contacts with local community groups that may be better positioned to help them to make contact with individuals that have been stopped. 

C. Equality and diversity implications

Data on stops, although cursory, indicate that disproportionality continues to exist on the same basis as that for stop and search. If this trend continues, the aim of maintaining public trust and confidence is unlikely to be achieved, especially in the light of individuals not wanting the reason for the stop recorded. The MPS will be asked to carry out an urgent and full equalities impact assessment of the implementation in Hackney and Tower Hamlets so that this board can be assured that steps are being taken under the RRA to minimise and eliminate the potential for negative impact on specific groups especially young Asian and Black African Caribbean males.

D. Financial implications

Expenditure is contained within existing budgets.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Julia Smith

For more information contact:

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

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