Minutes - draft

Please note these minutes are currently draft and are subject to committee approval.

Minutes of the Equal Opportunity & Diversity Board held on 1 December 2005 at 10 Dean Farrar Street, SW1H 0NY.

Present

Members

• Kirsten Hearn (Chair)
• John Roberts (Deputy Chair)
• Cindy Butts
• Damian Hockney (from agenda item 8)
• Aneeta Prem

MPA officers

• Catherine Crawford (Chief Executive and Clerk)
• Annabel Adams (Deputy Treasurer)
• Laurence Gouldbourne (Head of Race and Diversity)
• Hamida Ali
• Julliett Fearon
• Doug Lewins (Policy Development Officers Race and Diversity Unit)
• Bennett Obong (Project Manager, Race Hate Crime Forum)
• Gemma Walters Performance Analyst
• John Crompton (Committee Services)

MPS officers

• Deputy Assistant Commissioner Rose Fitzpatrick (Diversity and Citizen Focus)
• Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick
• Stephen Rimmer (Director of Strategy, Modernisation and Performance)
• Bill Griffiths (Director of Leadership Development) attended for consideration of agenda items 6 and 7
• Shaun Kennedy, Head of Diversity Learning and Development, Diversity Directorate attended for consideration of agenda item 9
• Anthony Doyle Director of Procurement Services attended for agenda item 11.

Also present:

• Lionel Harrison, ACAS
• Lyn Daniel ,Met Black Police Association
• Alfred John, Met Black Police Association
• Zenobra Cowan- Davies, Met Black Police Association
• Ann Stuart, British Association for Women in Policing
• Ann Middleton, MPS Association of Senior Women Police Staff
• Marion James ,Commissioners Women’s Focus Group
• Cliff Codona, Gypsy Traveller Independent Advisory Group
• Maqsood Ahmad, Head of Police Race Equality and Diversity Policy, Home Office

31. Apologies for absence

(Agenda item 1)

Apologies for absence were received from Peter Herbert and Lee Jasper A number of apologies from members of the invited community organisations were also received.

32. Declarations of interests

(Agenda item 2)

No interests were declared.

33. Minutes – 6 October 2005

(Agenda item 3)

Resolved - That the minutes of the meeting held on 6 October 2005 be agreed and signed as a correct record.

34. Chair and member’s update

(Agenda item 4)

The Chair reported on the conference organised by the Race Hate Crime Forum held on 17 November 2005. She wished to thank the Chair of the Forum and the relevant MPA officers for their hard work which had helped to ensure the success of the conference.

John Roberts reported that he had attended the at the Association of Police Authorities Conference held in Belfast the previous week where he had led one of the discussion groups. A Home Office group he sat on was looking at a new publicity campaign on stop and search.

Aneeta Prem reported that she had continued to attend meetings concerned with the issue of forced marriages.

Resolved – That the reports be noted.

35. Follow up to previous meeting

(Agenda item 5)

The Board noted that there was nothing to report as the MPS had provided answers to all the outstanding points from the discussion at the previous meeting.

36. Focus item - Met Modernisation Programme: promoting equality and diversity

(Agenda item 6a and Agenda item 6b)

And

37. Discussion on focus item

(Agenda item 7)

Standing Orders were suspended for this item to enable contributions to be made from non-members.

The MPS submitted a report which outlined the current thinking of the MPS in relation to the Met Modernisation Programme in equality and diversity principles. This report describes how the Met Modernisation programme will enable significant improvement in key areas of equality and diversity within the MPS. This improvement will be achieved by all strands within the programme undertaking impact assessment and monitoring and evaluation of their ability to achieve improvement. Five specific programme strands are highlighted in this report as addressing key diversity and equality issues. A summary was provided of a Service Review Partner event held on 8 September.

In a concurrent report the MPA identified some of the key challenges and concerns from a range of equality and diversity perspectives as they relate to the “Modernising the MPS” agenda.

In introducing the report by the Commissioner the Director of Strategy, Modernisation and Performance stressed that the aim was to achieve sustained change across the organisation and to ensure that members of the public were aware of an improvement in the service they received.

In introducing the concurrent MPA report the Head of the Race and Diversity Unit outlined the areas where the MPA was seeking further information

Points from MPS Staff Associations and IAGs

Ann Middleton, MPS Association of Senior Women Police Staff, said she wished to make the point that she had gleaned more information about the Service Review through her membership of a staff Association rather than through her position as a manager within the Service.

Ann Stuart, British Association for Women in Policing speaking on the communications aspect said that the types of jobs done within the organisation varied enormously. In considering how to deliver information and training packages it was important to bear in mind that many MPS colleagues did not have regular access to an Aware terminal and for most rank and file police officers sitting at a desk was not part of the normal work activity.

The Director of Strategy, Modernisation and Performance said that various options for the communication strategy were being explored. There were potentially attractive possibilities such as one day training for all staff but these came with a large cost attached.

Alfred John, Met Black Police Association, said that the research he had done indicated that there was very little recording of how the various major pieces of work and new initiatives in recent years had been implemented within the MPS. The sheer size of the organisation was clearly an issue but there did need to be an improvement in this area.

Cliff Codona, Gypsy Traveller IAG,spoke of the importance of communications in terms of building up knowledge about the various communities such as the gypsy traveller community.

Points from other groups

Maqsood Ahmad, Head of Police Race Equality and Diversity Policy, Home Office referred to examples of introducing cultural attitude changes in other large organisations which the MPS could draw upon.

Lionel Harrison, Equality Service Manager ACAS, drew attention to a new document on the model workplace which had just been published by his organisation and said that copies were available at the meeting for members of the public to take away.

Points from MPA members

John Roberts said that the rank and file police officers he had spoken to were not aware of the Review and he wished to know more about the communications strategy.

He felt it was essential for the success of the introduction of the Service Review that there be commitment from all members of the MPS Management Board.

Aneeta Prem echoed the point made by John Roberts and said that many officers below the rank of Inspector had made the point to her that their views were not taken into account.

Cindy Butts said she would be interested to learn how the communication arrangements would relate to individuals as well as the Staff Associations. She also asked about the arrangements for holding people to account.

The Director of Leadership Development confirmed that the Management Board was committed to effecting the changes and the leads for each strand of the modernisation programme were set out at paragraph 4. Communication was a huge task but would clearly be integral to the success of the programme and various cost-effective options of getting the message across were being explored. It was acknowledged however that there would always be some members of staff who would be less enthusiastic than others on the merits of such an ambitious programme. With regard to holding people to account a detailed procedure would have to be drawn up in conjunction with the Professional Standards Directorate.

Resolved – That

1. the reports be noted;
2. That the critical success factors as outlined in paragraphs 10 – 21 of the MPA report be agreed; and
3. key issues and concerns be referred to the Oversight Group.

A note from the MPS received subsequently on the points which were not covered at the meeting is attached as appendix 1.

38. Update report on the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report

(Agenda item 8)

A report was submitted which provided an update on progress in meeting the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry report recommendations and related future governance arrangements.

Standing Orders were suspended for this item to enable contributions to be made from non-members.

In reply to questions, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Fitzpatrick said that within her Command there would in future be a more systemic recording of the progression of all the relevant recommendations.

Members indicated that there needed to be greater certainty with regard to the delivery of the targets in terms of deadlines and timelines.

In reply to a question DAC Paddick stated that all the recommendations concerning stop and search in the Lawrence inquiry report which fell within the purview of the MPS were being addressed. John Roberts reminded the meeting that the MPA had spearheaded the introduction of Recommendation 61.

Alfred John, Met Black Police Association spoke of the importance of the messages being given out being relevant to particular communities so that they could assess how much progress was being made. John Roberts said that a similar point had been made to him when he had visited other parts of the country.

Cliff Codona, Gypsy Traveller IAG, said he wished to remind the meeting that members of the gypsy traveller community had traditionally been heavily targeted for stop and search.

Resolved – That the progress made towards the recommendations be noted.

39. MPS progress on the implementation of the Police Race and Diversity Learning and Development Programme

(Agenda item 9)

This report details progress on MPS implementation of the Police Race and Diversity Learning and Development Programme published by the Home Office, Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), and the Association of Police Authorities (APA) in November 2004. The report also includes an update on MPS progress on the development of training on the Race Relations Amendment Act (2000).

The Head of Diversity Learning and Development, Diversity Directorate attended for consideration of this item

Members suggested that there should be a timetable for the full introduction of the standards referred to in the report.

In reply to a question Deputy Assistant Commissioner Fitzpatrick explained that the Race and Diversity Learning and Development Programme Board which she would in future be chairing would meet in January and it was intended that it would then meet more frequently than had been possible in recent months.

A note from the MPS received subsequently on the points which were not covered at the meeting is attached as appendix 1.

Resolved – That the work in progress be noted.

40. Corporate equality objectives

(Agenda item 10)

This report requested members to endorse the progress made towards achieving the Corporate Equalities objectives for 2004–2007. It also highlighted areas of improvement and invited members to agree the actions needed to meet the agreed objectives.

Following on from comments from members on equality training for MPA members the Chair said she would urge the Chair of the Authority that all members be required to undertake this training and to consider introducing sanctions.

Resolved –That-

• the progress and outcomes made towards the Corporate Equalities objectives be endorsed; and
• the action listed as outlined in paragraph 3 be agreed to keep the MPA on track to achieve its objectives.

41. Procurement Services diversity policy update

(Agenda item 11)

This report gives an update of the actions taken by Procurement Services to address and promote diversity and equal opportunities within the supply chain and inclusion of all suppliers in our policies and procedures for tendering

The Director of Procurement Services attended for consideration of this item .

The Chief Executive said that her perception was that the Metropolitan Police Procurement Strategy was ahead of the field in its treatment of diversity and equality aspects.

Cindy Butts made the point that whilst there were good reasons for using the ethnic press to advertise procurement exercises these were not specialist publications. The Director of Procurement Services confirmed that the response from the ethnic press advertising was often very disappointing.

The Chair thanked MPS Procurement for their presentation and praised them for their progress to date and the way in which they have successfully worked with the MPA Race and Diversity Unit. She hoped that this model of good practice could be shared and used by other parts of the MPS in developing future policies.

Resolved:

1. the current ongoing status of Procurement Services diversity policy be noted;
2. the future actions outlined to ensure that the MPA’s commitment to diversity is adequately reflected in the procurement process be endorsed; and
3. the Diversity Questionnaire Form as shown at Appendix 1 be noted.

42. Equal opportunities and diversity management information report

(Agenda item 12)

This report provided equal opportunities and diversity management information.

In reply to a questions from members the Chief Executive and Clerk advised that this was part of the remit of the Planning Performance and Review Committee was to consider situations where targets were not met. She also advised that the Authority had received an early draft of the MPS rape review report: the final version would be considered by at an Authority committee meeting in due course.

Resolved – That the report and emerging trends be noted

43. Reports from sub-groups

(Agenda item 13)

The following oral reports were given:

Disability

Kirsten Hearn, as Chair of the group reported briefly on the last meeting and said that the next meeting was due to be held the following week.

Stop and Search

John Roberts as Chair of the Scrutiny Board reported that it was due to meet the following week.

Race Hate Crime Forum

In the absence of Peter Herbert, the Chair of the Forum, the Project Manager reported on procedures in regard to the reporting and monitoring of race and other hate crimes. The Forum had requested that the MPA to monitor the quality of data collected in boroughs that are under-performing in the recording of race and other hate crimes. The Forum was seeking support from the Board to impress on the MPS the importance of ensuring reporting of race hate crimes and incidents are done in accordance with newly established Home Office procedures.

The Chair said she would recommend that the Board supported the request

Resolved - That

The MPS be requested to provide regular updates on race and other hate crime data to ensure that the reporting, recording and monitoring of race hate crime and incidents is performed in accordance with newly established Home Office procedures, particularly at borough level policing.

The meeting closed at 12.16 p.m.

Appendix 1: Outstanding questions from EODB – 1 December 2005

Points relating to agenda items 6a and 6 b

• Devolution of budgets
  Depending on current (gu)estimates, 80 – 85% of budgets are held centrally. If the ‘franchise’ model is being proposed at BOCU level, how will this work? What impact will this have in terms of procurement, particularly for BME suppliers? If BOCUs are responsible for recruitment and retention issues, what happens to the ‘corporate memory’? And what steps are taken to ensure that there is not ‘corporate amnesia’?

The question states that 80 to 85% of budgets are held centrally but this is incorrect. In fact over 80% of budgets are now devolved to BOCU/OCUs and only a small number of budgets are now held centrally-and these are reviewed on a regular basis in order to ensure the maximum devolution of budgets is achieved.

Discussions around changes to BOCU/OCUs management arrangements were raised within the Service review but much further work would be required before any changes were agreed -indeed a franchise model is only one possible option. It is thus not possible, at this stage, to speculate on how a detailed model might work.

It is not envisaged, however, that any model would dramatically change the current MPS procurement procedures or indeed the current recruitment (or retention) procedures for police officers.

Whilst BOCU/OCUs do have devolved responsibilities for procurement of many supplies and services, and for the recruitment of police (civil) staff , all of these actions are carried within a corporate MPS wide framework, scheme of delegation and financial regulations-and with full engagement with central procurement and HR teams

The MPS procurement rules permit the BOCU/OCUs to procure goods/services up to £40k without procurement involvement. Our experience to date clearly shows that the BME market is not mature enough or indeed available to support the MPS requirements in terms of supplying goods/services in excess of £40k, they do however provide a valuable contribution below the £40k threshold. Based on this, any changes to devolved budgets are considered to have minimal impact on our BME supply base.

However, the more budgets are devolved then the less control we have over any corporate initiative, so spend with BME's/SME's will be ad hoc and not part of a formal procurement supplier diversity strategy."

• Flexible working
  The MPS is signed up to this policy, but there are tensions: different boroughs operate different shift patterns. If there is greater centralisation, will worklife balance be compromised?

Greater centralisation should assist the consideration of worklife balance arrangements and not hinder them.

The MPS has a progressive enabling policy on flexible working , and seeks to encourage managers to think creatively about working arrangements based on service and personal need. Certainly we would be keen to ensure that local shift patterns are governed by local business need,and variations in shift patterns can indicate a healthy worklife balance and as such should where necessary, be maintained . However corporately there is a need to ensure consistency in the management of worklife balance issues, particularly around the basis on which applications for flexible working are turned down. Responsibility for considering flexible working applications and the decision to approve or otherwise would remain with local managers. However support and advice provided through a centralised unit should ensure a wider practice view and thereby enable greater consistency. For example where circumstances in one area of the business appear similar to those in another, but where the views of the line managers appear markedly different - practice in one area can be used to inform/develop practice in another area and similarly the risks of inconsistency are all the more transparent."

• Treatment of staff
  How will the modernisation programme ensure equality of opportunity? Equity of treatment? How does the organisation get the expertise of the right person – no matter where they are based in the organisation?

All changes proposed by the Modernisation programme will be subject to full consultation with recognised trades unions and staff associations and key stakeholder groups including the staff support associations.

All changes will be service based. In other words any impact on officers and staff will be based on justifiable service changes determined for implementation following relevant consultation with key groups.Any officers and staff impacted will be those working in the areas affected by service change.

We anticipate that in the vast majority of cases , jobs and responsibilities will be reshaped and changes agreed with the existing postholders.

Processes for selection to reconfigured posts or to new posts will also be subject to consultation with the recognised staff organisations, and it would be normal practice for these to be agreed. Arrangements for selection to relevant posts will be based on the skills and competencies required for these posts , and as such we will ensure that people with the relevant expertise are selected . Of course , we will wherever possible consider existing capabilities and the potential for anyone 'at risk' of displacement to receive appropriate development and training in the appropriate area of expertise where it is reasonable and practicable to do so. Where this is not reasonable or practicable , staff affected will be subject to the normal redeployment processes and vacant posts will be advertised across the MPS.

The equality impact of any change, and of the change processes should be fully assessed."

• Morris et al
  How are the recommendations from major inquiries such as Morris, Ghaffur, Lawrence, etc going to be incorporated within the modernisation programme?

The Met Modernisation Programme is underpinned by the delivery of relevant recommendations against each of the programme leads. As part of the scope of the programme each strand will be subject to an equalities impact assessment. DAC Fitzpatrick, Head of Diversity and Citizen Focus, sits on the Programme Delivery Board and is therefore able to have significant input to the programme. Additionally, the EODB can scrutinise progress against the programme plan on a regular basis."

Points relating to agenda item 9

Has the Metropolitan Police Service met its statutory duty to train all staff on the general and specific duties of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000? If not, what steps are to be taken and within what timeframe?

In July 2004, the Director of the Diversity Directorate, commissioned MPS Training Standards Unit to undertake a performance needs analysis (PNA) to identify any potential training needs arising from the implementation of the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000 (RRAA).

The Performance Needs Analysis was completed in October 2004 and presented to the MPS Race Relations Amendment Act Steering Group in November and Training Management Board in December 04.

Performance Needs Analysis RRAA (2000) Training Recommendations

A key recommendation of the PNA report was that to meet the RRAA specific duty to train staff, new training objectives and supporting learning material addressing the general duties should be developed and delivered to all staff.

The report advised that this work should be progressed by commissioning the National Centre for Applied Learning Technology (NCALT) to develop an e-learning module on the RRAA general and specific duties.

The PNA recognised that E-learning had the potential to be a more cost effective way of providing staff with an initial level of knowledge and understanding to meet the general duties of the Act compared to classroom-based training.

This work was initially co-ordinated by the Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate’s Learning and Development Branch in consultation with NCALT, but was superseded by work (commissioned by CENTREX) nationally to produce E-Learning resources across the 6 main diversity areas.

The Race E-Learning module (and accompanying resources) was recently completed and is currently undergoing user-testing. The module was produced in consultation with the CENTREX Race and Diversity reference group and covers the historical context of race in the UK, multi-ethnic Britain, race relations legislation (including the RRAA 2000), responding to a racist incident, understanding the impact of disproportionality in service delivery, and understanding the implications of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry.

There is also a linked module for Supervisors (which covers, tackling racism in a team, managing racist incidents involving members of staff, operational planning issues, Race Equality Schemes, Race Equality Impact Assessments and ethnic monitoring).

The programme will be available to MPS staff from the beginning of February 06 once initial testing by NCALT has been completed. MPS E-Learning usually requires ‘protected learning time’ and up to 4 hours per member of staff has been agreed by Training Management Board (although it will not take more than an hour and a half to complete the Race E-Learning module).

MPS-wide implementation will be co-ordinated by the Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate and will initially be piloted with directorate staff during February.

The MPS has not looked at commissioning another provider to undertake this work. This is partly on the grounds of cost (NCALT E-Learning is free and has been subsidised by the MPS) and there are benefits in utilising race and diversity learning and development resources which are available to the police service nationally as this will help ensure compliance with national standards (in particular the race and diversity national occupational standards 1A4 and 1A5).

Previous Community Race Relations (CRR) training was expensive and did not measure any increase in understanding of the issues of race and community. Are there plans to incorporate any assessment of learning in future courses delivered to all of the Metropolitan Police Service?

The MPS Race and Diversity Learning and Development Programme Board will have responsibility for the development of an evaluation and assessment strategy. This will be informed by an evaluation strategy developed by CENTREX.

All CENTREX developed learning material is issued to the MPS under license. The license agreement acknowledges that CENTREX will design a system to gather data from all participants (in the race and diversity learning and development programme) as part of the quality assurance process. Initial evaluation will focus on how forces are intending to use the race and diversity learning and development resources, feedback from users of the learning resources and feedback about the blended learning approach. It is also anticipated that MPS-specific evaluation will be undertaken by HR:Directorate of Training and Development’s Training Standards Unit.

Have the LGBT AG been consulted on the module covering LGBT issues and the Disability AG on the disability module?

The MPS has had the national lead for the development of the LGBT E-Learning programme. A reference group (comprised of members of the MPS LGBT AG) had a key role in supporting this work. During 2005 the MPS co-ordinated a national consultation exercise involving more than 20 focus groups (across the UK and representative of the various LGBT communities) together with 1-to-1 interviews with key individuals within the police service and from the LGBT community. Members of the reference group assisted with the facilitation of the focus groups and the collation of the findings. Information collated from the national consultation have been provided to CENTREX and the findings will be used to develop the LGBT E-Learning Module and other learning resources (for publication in March 06).

Disability Awareness Module

The former MPS Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate's Strategic Disability Team project managed the development of the Disability E-learning module on behalf of CENTREX. However, the Disability IAG had not been fully constituted during the development phase of the product by CENTREX and the national Centre for Applied Learning Technology (NCALT). The programme had external subject matter expert consultation from Disability Matters Ltd, following their award of the contract by CENTREX through a competitive tendering process, which attracted competition from a number of companies. Disability Matters Ltd is a well established and respected consultancy within this field and the main consultants working with the development teams Dr Stephen Duckworth and Peter Bailey are both disabled people with significant educational credentials as well as expertise in the field of disability.

Since the completion of the E-Learning module, the Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate's Disability Focus team have provided the Disability IAG with access to the resource. The Disability IAG have been supportive of the introduction of this learning product as a start in terms of developing MPS awareness.

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