How the MPS will deliver equality and diversity to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games – concurrent report

Report: 07
Date: 8 March 2007
By: Chief Executive & Clerk

Summary

The purpose of this report is to outline some of the key opportunities, challenges and concerns from a range of equality and diversity perspectives for the MPS in its activities in relation to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympics Games.

A. Recommendations

That Members 

1. note this current report; and
2. agree to request a progress report on the equality and diversity issues as they relate to the five areas of activity as outlined in paragraph 2.

B. Supporting information

1. As stated in the MPS’ report, the MPS Programme Vision for the Olympics is:

• To develop a safe and secure environment for all those who are involved with or are impacted by the 2012 Olympic Games
• To recognise the issues and impact on the population of London and to work in partnership to address / mitigate them
• To develop a world-class security package

2. The MPA recognises the significant work that has been undertaken to date in managing this major programme. There are five areas that EODB wishes to focus on in this report:

• Olympic Security Directorate;
• Community Engagement;
• Volunteers;
• Synergy With Other Corporate Initiatives; and
• Performance regime and monitoring

Central Operations (CO) 12/Olympic Security Directorate

3. The development of the Olympic Operational Command Unit (CO12) and within it the creation of the Olympic Security Directorate (OSD) will present an exciting opportunity for MPS staff. There are three major equality and diversity challenges faced by CO12/OSD:

1. Ensuring that there is diversity within the CO12/OSD workforce. Given the nature of the Olympic and Paralympics Games, it will be important that the workforce for this programme has the requisite and diverse sets of skills, knowledge and experience to successfully manage this major programme;
2. Communication. Given the size, scale and complexity of the challenges faced by delivering a safe and secure environment for the Games, another challenge will be communicating key messages both internally to staff and externally to London, key stakeholders and to participants in the Games. The MPS report also highlights the challenges that the range of different languages and interpreting will pose for thiese events. There will also be the challenge of listening and responding to issues raised by existing, new and emerging communities.
3. Bringing in new talent. The MPS has a large workforce and wanted to use this programme as an opportunity to provide opportunities for its staff. However, it may be that this programme can also provide opportunities to bring in new talent, thus widening the existing skills base.

Community Engagement

4. The MPS has extensive community engagement networks. One of the issues that will need constant vigilance and communication will be security/resilience issues, particularly with Deaf and disabled communities. With the Games still five years away, this presents the MPS a major opportunity to work with London’s Deaf and disabled communities to put into place a resilience, communication and reassurance framework that deals with security issues and that is accessible, citizen-focused and equitable to all.

Volunteers

5. The MPS report notes that over 125,000 have expressed an interest in supporting the Games. The MPA encourages the MPS to use its leverage to ensure that the volunteer workforce is as diverse and as representative of London as a world city as possible.

Synergy With Other Corporate Initiatives

6. The management of the Olympic and Paralympics Games is a significant corporate initiative for the MPS. One of the challenges of such a change programme is to ensure that it has synergy with other corporate initiatives such as C3i, the MPS Equalities Scheme, attaining level 3 of the Equality Standard for Local Government (ESLG) and the MPS’ Modernisation Programme (MMP).

7. Another challenge for this programme will be to share any learning emerging with other parts of the MPS, especially in relation to other corporate initiatives. For example, the Morris Report identified a number of key concerns such as supervision, handling internal cases and management of the media – all of which may apply to CO12/OSD as the programme to support the Games develop.

Performance regime and monitoring

8. The MPS are in the process of developing a performance management regime, which is able to monitor its activities in this ares. It will be appropriate to develop a sound equalities and diversity baseline, which is benchmarked (wherever possible) with robust performance measures around some of these challenges. These measures should be focused around employment, service delivery and community engagement.

9. In developing critical success factors, the MPS should be aiming for the following: that there is no significant disparity between the experiences of people based on their identity e.g. ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation, religion and belief, or age. This outcome-focus is in line with the organisation’s corporate response to the recommendations made by the Morris Inquiry, CRE Formal Investigation, Ghaffur Thematic Review of Race and Diversity in the MPS and the Taylor Review. Some of these performance indicators could include (but not limited to):

• Evidence of links between performance and personal diversity objectives;
• Evidence of case management data being shared appropriately with staff, police and/or community groups as part of the CO12/OSD work programme; and
• Evidence of partnership working with the community in order to improve performance and the perceptions and experiences of those contacting CO12/OSD

10. It is important that any system devised for collating data on should be routinely profiling equalities information on age, disabilities, ethnicity, faith/non-belief, gender and sexual orientation. This will assist both CO12/OSD and the MPS demonstrate that it is meeting its various statutory duties under existing and forthcoming equalities legislation.

11. One area of success for CO is the appointment of a diversity Coordinator. The MPA sees this as a practical step in supporting and enabling equality and diversity issues to be mainstreamed in CO’s day-to-day business.

C. Race and equality impact

The London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics Games have provided the MPS with a unique opportunity to positively shift and mainstream equality and diversity notonly within a major change programme, but across the MPS as a whole.

The challenge for the MPS will be to respond to the range of issues in relation to resilience, safety and reassurance; to further its work with key stakeholders; to develop a performance regime that measures all the equality strands and which aims to ensure that there is no disparity in the experiences of people engaging with CO12/OSD; that there is an open and transparent process for recruiting into CO12/OSD; and to communicate the findings of any Equality Impact Assessments with its diverse communities.

D. Financial implications

There are no financial implications directly arising from this report.

E. Background papers

1. MPS Olympic Report to Co-Ordination & Policing (CoP) Committee

F. Contact details

Report author: Laurence Gouldbourne

For more information contact:

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

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