Project Umbra – concurrent report

Report: 7
Date: 16 November 2006
By: Chief Executive & Clerk

Summary

This report outlines some of the key opportunities, challenges and concerns from a range of equality and diversity perspectives as it relates to Project Umbra, led by the MPS.

A. Recommendations

That members agree:

1. That the MPS outline to members how they will resource Project Umbra adequately both in the short and medium to long term
2. That Project Umbra reports its performance to the next MPA Domestic Violence Board on 6th February 2007.
3. To review the progress made in Project Umbra across the six equality strands in the next committee cycle.

B. Supporting information

Background

1. Project Umbra is a multi-agency initiative, led by the MPS designed to improve London’s response to domestic violence. It was commissioned by the London Criminal Justice Board (LCJB) in 2004 and, following negotiation the Mayor’s Office agreed that it form the ‘delivery arm’ of his second London Domestic Violence Strategy. Project Umbra involves a partnership of voluntary and statutory sector organisations working together to find solutions to the ‘hardy perennials’ – the intractable issues at the heart of removing barriers to securing and protecting the safety of the predominantly women and children affected.

2. Project Umbra is made up of six ‘strand working groups’ focused around six key areas:

• Strand 1 – improving performance and data sharing
• Strand 2 – increasing advocacy and support services
• Strand 3 – protecting children and young people exposed to domestic violence
• Strand 4 – improving perpetrator management
• Strand 5 – greater integration of legal systems and services
• Strand 6 – domestic homicide reviews (agreed as an additional strand working group but yet to hold its first meeting)

3. Project Umbra’s performance is overseen by the Mayor’s London Domestic Violence Forum Steering Group which is co-chaired by Anni Marjoram, the Mayor’s Adviser on Women and Women’s Issues and Steve Allen, Commander, MPS Violent Crime Directorate. This steering group has responsibility to review performance across the project’s strand working groups, resolve issues and make decisions.

4. As part of the Mayor’s Second London Domestic Violence Strategy, the MPA has a number of responsibilities which include monitoring the MPS’ performance against a series of measures directly linked to tackling domestic violence. The MPA’s substantive response has been to set up the MPA Domestic Violence Board, co-chaired by Cindy Butts, MPA Deputy Chair, to scrutinise borough and corporate performance against domestic violence. However, given Project Umbra’s central role in facilitating organisational transformation in this area, EODB’s focus on Project Umbra is an additional contribution to the MPA’s response to the Mayor’s strategy.

5. This report sets out the key areas regarding Project Umbra according to the MPA Race and Diversity Unit on behalf of members for the MPS’ consideration. These are:

• Resources
• Performance
• Monitoring, data collection and quality assurance
• Community engagement
• Employment practice
• Organisational learning and integration with the MPS’ ‘big shows in town’

Resources

6. Members have been concerned at what appear to be low levels of resources committed to this project despite its importance for safety in the capital. The resource implications for successful delivery include:

• Strategic MPS policy development
• Steering a multi-agency response around the most intractable issues linked to successful combating of domestic violence in a criminal justice context and ensuring that the cross-cutting linkages are made and joined together
• Administration of the project’s five, soon to be six, strand working groups (including scheduling meetings, securing meeting accommodation, preparing agendas, minutes and reports), communicating with all partners, following up progress and ensuring commitments to actions are followed through
• Sufficient human resources to ensure this happens. Currently only one member of staff is dedicated (but not limited to) this area of work and who is currently away from work in the medium term. Yet on 14th July 2006 the Authority was told:

“We are in the process of identifying extra resources…We have a plan that will shortly see a band D and a band E moved in to support (the issue is primarily about administrative support).”

As far as we are aware, this has not happened as yet. We would also challenge that the issue is primarily about administrative support. The organisation needs to enable both the policy and strategic element to thrive, while ensuring the logistical demands are met.

• Revenue to support the work – it is concerning that no revenue budget appears to be ring-fenced for Project Umbra

7. While the Authority understands that the MPS is clearly committed in its work to tackle domestic violence and to leading Project Umbra effectively, the Authority is equally conscious of frustration on the part of organisations, who are engaged in Project Umbra, due to the implications of its apparent inadequate resourcing. This has had a disproportionately negative impact on small voluntary organisations in the women’s sector who cannot sustain the demand currently on them to fulfil the MPS’ responsibilities in the short to medium term.

Performance

8. Members are clear that the purpose and objectives of Project Umbra are crucial to delivering an improved service to ensure women’s safety in London. That said, members believe that the lack of progress is concerning and would welcome the opportunity to discuss the reasons for this and to explore how the MPA can offer solutions and/or support the MPA to remove any blockages.

9. It is also unclear what role the LCJB has played in supporting the project having commissioned it, and what interest the LCJB has taken following its commission, for instance its performance management.

10. The MPA Domestic Violence Board, established in April 2006, has now held two meetings, looked at 4 Borough Operational Command Units and raised a number of issues relevant to Project Umbra and the corporate policy centre in relation to domestic violence. These issues include:

• The MPS response to domestic violence as an employer
• Training for officers, Police Community Safety Officers and staff on domestic violence
• Use of Safer Neighbourhood Teams in the response to domestic violence
• Framework used to measure organisational performance on domestic violence, including equality monitoring
• Resolution of organisational policy conflict between standard operating procedures on domestic violence, rape and child abuse investigation

11. Progress by individual Project Umbra Strand Working Groups is staggered. More significantly, one Strand Working Groups, led by the voluntary sector, has made greater strides against their agreed work plans than those Strand Working Groups led by the MPS and other statutory agencies, e.g. Strand Working Group 2 focusing on advocacy and support services.

12. The Mayor’s London Domestic Violence Steering Group requires each agency and each Project Umbra Strand Working Group to report progress on a quarterly basis. It is of concern that:

• The MPS has only made 1 of 4 quarterly performance returns required against its recommendations under both Project Umbra as part of the Mayor’s strategy, see Appendix 1(requested in February, April, July and September 2006)
• Project Umbra Strand Working Group 1 (chaired by the MPS) has made only 1 out of 4 quarterly returns (requested in February, April, July and September 2006)
• Project Umbra Strand Working Group 3 (chaired by the MPS) has made only 2 out of 4 quarterly returns (requested in February, April, July and September 2006)

13. Furthermore, the Authority is conscious that there are statutory partners who are not actively engaged with the project delaying overall progress. Members encourage the MPS to seek support from the MPA and the LCJB to support them to secure full participation.

14. It is unclear and of concern to members that the impact Project Umbra is having on front line delivery is not as yet visible. Members understand that it may be too early to identify clear benefits which are directly linked to Project Umbra. However, members would want to stress that the key to delivering Project Umbra is in engaging the organisation beyond Community Safety Units, who while they provide a specialised response, does not constitute the entire response to domestic violence.

Monitoring, Data Collection and Quality Assurance

15. Equality monitoring is an integral part of successfully assessing whether both the MPA and the MPS are meeting their statutory duties under equalities legislation including (but not limited to) the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The MPS has made significant progress in equality monitoring. However, data collection is varied across the organisation. For example, in terms of employment practice, data is now collected across all six strands of equality (age, disability, ethnicity, gender, religion and belief/non-belief and sexual orientation). However, in terms of service delivery and community engagement data collection across these six equality areas varies considerably dependent on the nature of the service provided and the relevant IT system.

16. Given the importance of ensuring an equality of access, outcome and experience of policing in cases of domestic violence, there must be an aim for consistency of approach in terms of data collection across the equality strands and policing of domestic violence.

17. Equally important to collecting data is ensuring that any data collected is accurate. Quality assurance and the timeliness in rigorously verifying the data are critical to assisting service improvements. This data should also then be used and understood to inform service improvements.

18. A trend previously identified through this committee on 6th April 2006, where the ‘focus item’ was Monitoring for Equality, was confirmed by the MPA Domestic Violence Board regarding the significant number of ‘Not known’, ‘Not recorded’ and ‘Blanks’ captured in relation to ethnicity. For example, the rate of unknown ethnicity data in the four BOCUs who have attended the Board varied between 39% – 49%.

19. When such a significant proportion of this data, required by law, is unavailable, it places greater pressure on the MPS to demonstrate beyond challenge that its services genuinely meet the needs of all Londoners in their diversity. Moreover, this issue is further compounded by the fact that disability monitoring will be a legislative requirement from December 4th 2006, and in the longer term the same may be true for sexual orientation monitoring.

20. The Authority understands that the challenge of capturing ethnicity and other equality monitoring data is not confined to domestic violence but instead spans much of MPS business. However, members remain concerned that if equality monitoring cannot be enforced the MPS is simply not in a position to review disproportionality and policy compliance accurately.

21. The Second London Domestic Violence Strategy recommends MPS monitoring of the number of ‘dual arrests’ which take place (where both parties are arrested during the police response to a domestic violence incident). However, the MPS in its Second London Domestic Violence Strategy Performance Return on 5th September 2006 (Appendix 1) stated that they are:

“currently unable to measure dual arrests”.

Members are concerned that this should have been made clear to the Mayor’s Office during the consultation phase of the strategy’s development. Members have also been made aware anecdotally that inappropriate dual arrests are taking place. It was agreed at the MPA Domestic Violence Board meeting on 5th April that a snapshot of this and other data which the MPS stated was not available would be undertaken which the MPA Domestic Violence Board looks forward to receiving at its next meeting on 6th February 2007.

Community engagement

22. Beyond the engagement of specialist community and voluntary organisations in this work, members are interested in the extent of community engagement in delivering each ‘strand’ of Project Umbra. To what extent are survivors and their families able to provide the solutions to the most difficult questions linked to keeping women safe and holding perpetrators to account?

23. What work has been conducted to ensure those who are particularly excluded are able to voice concerns which need to be addressed, for example, refugee, asylum seeker and migrant women?

24. Clearly, staff engagement is an important part of this process. How have staff associations contributed to this process? How have borough Senior Management Teams been consulted? What contribution have front line officers’ views made to the work to date?

Employment practice

25. The MPA Domestic Violence Board’s terms of reference includes a brief to scrutinise the MPS response to survivors and perpetrators who work within the service. The confidence of the organisation’s response to both constituent groups has caused the Board concern during both meetings to date. The Board will continue to review this area during its meetings.

Organisational Learning and Integration With ‘The Big Shows in Town’

26. Where progress is being made with Project Umbra, and as the pace of change quickens, it is important that this learning influences the organisational and cultural change programmes moving forward in the organisation. Specifically:

• How is the work within Project Umbra utilising the momentum of the Met Modernisation Programme?
• How are Safer Neighbourhood Teams being utilised to support the organisation to keep those experiencing domestic violence safe?
• What learning has the Violent Crime Directorate made regarding the perpetrators of domestic violence and their involvement with other violent crime?
• How has Project Umbra engaged with the Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate to support the work?

C. Race and equality impact

Forthcoming legislation including the Disability Equality Duty, the Gender Equality Duty and future legislation around sexual orientation equality in relation to goods and services will make it only increasingly important for the MPS to meet these obligations in addition to those that exist in relation to ethnicity. The role of equality monitoring here will be crucial. Unless the organisation is able to demonstrate that it knows who is using their services, why and how, it will be increasingly difficult for the MPS to translate its commitment to equality into a quality of practice that both the Authority can identify, and that Londoners experience.

D. Financial implications

While there are no implications financially for the MPA that arise from this report, members believe that Project Umbra has considerable financial implications for the MPS which are not being allocated either in terms of opportunity or revenue costs and ask the MPS to outline how it will meet these in both the short, and the medium to long term as recommended to members in this report.

E. Background papers

• Second London Domestic Violence Strategy, Mayor of London, November 2005

F. Contact details

Report author: Hamida Ali, Race and Diversity Unit, MPA

For more information contact:

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

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