Minutes - draft

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

Minutes of the meeting of the Equal Opportunity & Diversity Board held on 24 May 2007 at 10 Dean Farrar Street, London, SW1H 0NY.

Present

Members

• Kirsten Hearn (Chair)
• Cindy Butts
• John Roberts (Deputy Chair)
• Peter Herbert (up to agenda item 11)
• Aneeta Prem (up to agenda item 11)
• .John Roberts was in the Chair during part of the discussion on agenda item 10

MPA officers

• Catherine Crawford (Chief Executive)
• Elizabeth Orsborn (Management Accountant)
• Laurence Gouldbourne (Head of Race and Diversity)
• Douglas Lewins, (Policy Development Officer, Race and Diversity Unit)
• Melissa Wagstaff (Analyst)
• John Crompton (Committee Services)

MPS officers

• Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alfred Hitchcock (Diversity and Citizen Focus)
• Chief Superintendent Steve Bloomfield
• Chief Superintendent Bill Tillbrook
• Commander Rod Jarman
• Shaun Kennedy
• Detective Chief Superintendent Glen Allison
• Chief Superintendent David Snelling - Traffic OCU
• Commander Rod Jarman
• Gordon Russell, Property Services

Also present:

• Nathalie Stewart, CEO, Westminster Human Rights, Equalities & Race (Group)
• Cliff Codona, Chairman, National Travellers action Group
• Ibrar Ahmed, Association of Muslim Police Officers Safety Forum
• Vicky Kielinger, Senior Criminologist, Metropolitan Police Service
• Susan Paterson, Senior Criminologist, Metropolitan Police Service
• Peter Collier, Waddon Safer Neighbourhood Police Group
• Eleanor Ruth Child, MPS, Senior Diversity Coordinator, Central Operations
• Samantha Cunningham, Community Protection Westminster City Hall
• Carole Atkinson, CMN, Richmond Upon Thames
• Marion James, Commissioners Women’s Focus Group CWFG
• Andrew Hislop, Haringey
• Martin Davis, Head of Safer Communities, Hackney
• Ben Owusu, Director/Chair Greenwich Action Committee
• David Michael, Chair Lewisham CPCG
• Paul O’Keeffe Chair, MPS Disabled Staff Association

70. Introductions and apologies for absence

(Agenda item 1)

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

71. Declarations of interests

(Agenda item 2)

No interests were declared.

72. Minutes – 8 March 2007

(Agenda item 3)

Resolved - That the minutes of the meeting held on 8 March 2007 be agreed and signed as a correct record.

73. Follow up to the meeting on 8 March 2007

(Agenda item 5)

No matters were seen as outstanding.

74 Chair and Member's update

(Agenda item 5)

No reports were given.

75. Performance Management information on Safer Neighbourhoods

(Agenda item 6)

This report provided management information relating to the focus item for this meeting and other equality and diversity information for hate crime, strength, recruitment and MPA staff figures.

Referring to paragraph 51 Peter Herbert asked what proportion of the stops had resulted in an arrest. The MPA Analyst undertook to provide the information.

Resolved – That the report be noted.

76. Focus item report by the MPS – How equality and diversity will be delivered through Safer Neighbourhoods

(Agenda item 7)

A report was submitted which deals with the delivery of equality and diversity through the Safer Neighbourhoods programme. This is addressed first by dealing with the teams themselves, their membership, training and work practices and also deals with wider issues of recruitment and retention, before presenting an overview by way of a series of examples showing how this programme is delivering equality and diversity across London. The report contains quantitative data, which is of necessity in summary form.

Resolved – That report be noted and a progress report on equality and diversity in relation to the composition of Safer Neighbourhood Panels be considered in 12 months time.

77. Concurrent report by the MPA on the focus item report

(Agenda item 8)

A report was submitted which outlined some of the key challenges and concerns from a range of equality and diversity perspectives as they relate to Safer Neighbourhoods.

Resolved

1. To receive a progress report on the seven-stage model, hate crimes and the composition of Safer Neighbourhood Panels within the next 12 months.
2. To refer any comments in relation to discipline issues as it affects Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) to Professional Standards and Complaints Committee (PSCC).
3. For the MPS to conduct a comprehensive review of the impact and effect of Safer Neighbourhood Panels within the next 18 months.

78. Discussion on the focus item

(Agenda item 9)

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

Employment aspects

Nathalie Stewart CEO, Westminster Human Rights, Equalities & Race (Group) referred to the figures for the recruitment and retention of PCSOs compared to police officers. She said the figures seemed astonishingly different and .asked whether it was known why there should be such a difference.

Chief Superintendent Bloomfield referred to the substantial amount of research, including some by the MPA, as to the possible reasons for the large variation. This had shown that the factors seemed to include the less confrontational nature of the PCSO role and the perception that the role was more closely related to the local community.

John Roberts asked about the work:life balance and felt that expectations from ward residents had to be realistic. For example, a ward panel might suggest a series of priorities which would involve working at night but very few officers actually wished to work at night.

Chief Superintendent Bloomfield confirmed that each request for flexible working had to be treated individually. The overriding consideration was whether acceding to the request would affect operational delivery. Further initiatives for flexible working arrangements were being worked up in conjunction with the HR Directorate.

In reply to questions on discipline Chief Superintendent Bloomfield said he felt the improvement due to better supervision and better integration within the organisation.

In reply to a question from Cindy Butts the Chief Superintendent confirmed that PCSOs were encouraged to participate in the Cultural Resources Unit so that their language and other skills could be used by the whole organisation.

Cindy Butts asked whether there were any figures for the number of BME PCSOs who converted to become police officers and whether there was proactive support given to BME and female PCSOs who it was known were considering going down this route. As it was known that this was a method which members of under-represented groups were using to enter the police service. then it would make sense to actively support them and produce a “churn” with a new wave of PCSOs following on to replace those converting.

Chief Superintendent Bloomfield said that whilst there was proactive support for people who wished to become PCSOs there was not a similar emphasis in supporting PCSOs who wished to become police officers. It should not be forgotten that there had been a big investment in recruiting and training PCSOs.

Chief Superintendent Bloomfield undertook to forward more detailed information about the diversity of PCSOs after the meeting.

Travelling and inter borough communities

In reply to a question Chief Superintendent Bloomfield acknowledged that the approach up to now had been ward based and attention would now increasingly be given to communities which straddled wards and indeed boroughs. He cited the example of an initiative involving the Turkish community in three boroughs in north east London.

Hate crimes

Nathalie Stewart asked whether the MPS looking again at how this is addressed in the light of a recent report.

Chief Superintendent Bloomfield said that for all hate crimes –including homophobic crimes, it was part of the ethos of the Safer Neighbourhood teams to support the victims There was a risk assessment process and although kit would not be likely that a PCSO would be sent to deal with the investigation of a hate crime or to visit at the time of the incident, there was a role as part of the ongoing support for the victim. The service provided to victims included the provision of advice on how people might be better placed to avoid being a victim of crime in the future and details of relevant local support organisations. Similarly, whilst a PCSO would not be expected to be allocated to a Domestic Violence incident it was necessary for them to know which families and individuals were at risk in the ward and how to report intelligence onto the system. At Crime Control Strategy meetings support for victims of crime was an area where borough Commanders were being held to account for their performance. The emphasis was on the quality of service provided.

Neighbourhood Panels

Composition of the Panels

John Roberts said he felt there was a need to look at borough demographics and the mosaic of boroughs. Although borough demographics would differ he would still expect a full representation of for example young people and BME groups on the panels. Cindy Butts agreed it was important for there to be a wide range of representation, but without necessarily prescriptive.

Carol Atkinson. CMN, Richmond Upon Thames reported that her local Panel was set up at a public meeting. It was recognised that it could be more representative and street briefings were being used to identify other people who might wish to join. With regard to the point about mosaics would it not be useful for the Chair or Secretary of each Panel to be supplied with details of the demographics of their Ward?

Chief Superintendent Bloomfield said he would stress that the Panels are a cornerstone to the whole Safer Neighbourhood set up. Whilst the Panels were autonomous he would accept that it was necessary to consider how their composition was to be monitored. The information would be collated on a ward by ward basis but given the marked contrasts between the profiles of wards the bigger challenge would be to find a way to meaningfully present the information on a pan London basis. The mosaic referred to were readily available.

Priorities

John Roberts imitations of the work which SNTs could do and managing the expectations of the public and the Panels in particular. He put forward the suggestion that a more strategic framework was necessary than currently provided by the Panels with buy in from other partners.

Cindy Butts commented that all Ward Panels seemed to have “young people” as one of their priorities, often with no further explanation. She was concerned at this broad brush approach which seemed to be regard young people in general as a problem, and which carried the more serious related risk of labelling all young people as potential criminals. She cited an example where enquires she had carried out revealed that the concerns of the Panel related to one individual young person, yet it was still flagged up as one of the four priorities for the year. She wondered how any conflict was monitored between priorities coming out of the Panels and those coming from the MPS/ MPA.

Chief Superintendent Bloomfield advised that young people was a priority which had been set centrally. It was not intended to be focused on regarding young people as a problem as it was about engaging with and supporting young people. Data relating to the outcome of the priorities was considered by the central team . It was acknowledged that there were enhanced expectations of what the Panels might provide which was why each was limited to four priorities.

Resourcing

John Roberts said that the resourcing of Safer Neighbourhood Panels was a continual issue at Panel meetings he attended.

Chief Superintendent Bloomfield advised that each borough had an allocation of £3000 and £1000 per ward for communications. The £3000 was distributed by the Borough Commander. The suggestion had been made at another MPA meeting that MPA link members had an oversight role in the allocation.

Special Constables

John Roberts said that now that the PCSO numbers were at full strength he felt that this provided an opportunity for the MPS to concentrate on recruiting Special Constables. He said that in Lambeth there were some instance of Special Constables being embedded in SNTs but felt that this might not be widespread elsewhere.

Chief Superintendent Bloomfield advised that there were some boroughs –for example Barnet, in which the Special Constabulary were fully embedded in every SNT and there were examples were they might choose to volunteer to do night time duties. All such decisions were made at local level.

Stop and search

In reply to a question John Roberts it was confirmed that the stop and search information in the reports related solely to those undertaken in relation to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

Aneeta Prem said that disproportionality was still an issue and the young people she spoke to felt that the sole reason they were being stopped was because of the colour of their skin. Peter Herbert agreed and felt that without information on the number of arrests and actual charges which flowed from stop and searches he would question whether that was a disproportionate use of police time.

Chief Superintendent Bloomfield said the whole ethos of Safer Neighbourhoods was trust and engagement. There may be instances where borough wide (i.e. section 60 ) stop and searches had been introduced in response to a specific event. It was considered to be good practice to explain the reasons for doing this to community groups, schools and local businesses. A similar approach was undertaken following a critical incident. Anecdotally and statistically this was seen as improving confidence in policing.

Intelligence

Cindy Butts asked for more information about what happened to the intelligence which comes through from PCSOs. At the moment local communities were supportive of their SNTs, but there was a danger this might be dissipated if it could not be demonstrated how information proffered freely from members of the community was translated into action. How was the sheer volume of intelligence handled?

Chief Superintendent Bloomfield confirmed that a large amount of information was being given to PCSOs but they were given training on the difference between intelligence and information. He would confirm that there were challenges in this area which included the need to ensure that not only was intelligence correctly fed into the system but there was also feed back. There was dialogue within the organisation on how this would best be done with for example the newly established Intelligence Bureau.

Other points

Nathalie Stewart said she would be concerned if the word “Equalities” was being used to replace the word “race”.

John Roberts said he would caution against the over use of IAGs as a means of community engagement as he not convinced that the membership fully reflected the community and also there was no process for them to feed back to the community.

Summing up the Chair remarked that this had been yet another meeting at which the topic of proportionality had been important and said that consideration would be given to having this as a focus item at a future meeting. She would ask anyone who wished to raise any further points to let the officers know, and these would be passed onto Chief Superintendent Bloomfield.

Resolved – That the discussion be noted.

79. Diversity issues within the Specialist Firearms Command

(Agenda item 10)

This report outlined the work of CO19, the MPS Specialist Firearms Command. It provides details of how CO19 supports BOCUs, while ensuring effective community engagement. The report describes CO19’s workforce, its challenges and successes as well as initiatives being undertaken to make the OCU more representative of London’s communities. Lastly, this report records how CO19 supports its personnel involved in major incidents.

Standing Orders were suspended for consideration of this report to enable contributions to be made from non members.

Nathalie Stewart, CEO, Westminster Human Rights, Equalities & Race (Group) asked for clarification on whether it was being stated that a person who is Black or Asian and female is more or less likely to succeed in the recruitment initiative outlined in the report. She said it was disappointing to see that currently there were no female BME officers and would welcome an assurance that there would be a quick improvement.

Chief Superintendent Bill Tillbrook said he readily accept that the current position is not satisfactory and there was clearly much more work to be done. The lessons learnt from the female recruitment would be applied to BME staff.

The Chair suggested the issues were perhaps more complex – including for example people who might suffer multiple discrimination.

Cindy Butts asked for more information about BME recruitment and whether any work had been done to identify any possible bias in the process?

Members commented about the non-use of 16 plus 1 ethnicity data for encounters between armed officers and members of the public.

said that given the nature of the encounters it was often not possible or appropriate for the officer to obtain this information, which is why officer defined ethnicity was used

In response to points made concerning recruitment to CO19 Chief Superintendent Tillbrook said that all aspects were being examined to see whether there were any unintentional barriers. The fitness test used in recruitment had been put together in partnership with Lougborough University who confirmed that it was “Fit for Purpose” and achievable by people regardless of gender. However, the internal fitness test was being examined.

Members raised a number of detailed points concerning the use of the Taser and in particular the disproportionality revealed in table 3. The Chief Executive advised that a report on this subject had been commissioned for a forthcoming meeting of the Co-ordination and Policing Committee and said that the points which had been raised would be forwarded to the report author.

Resolved – That the report be noted.

80. Diversity issues within the Traffic Operational Command Unit

(Agenda item 11)

A report was submitted which outlined the work of the work of the Traffic Operational Command Unit (OCU), provides details of its community engagement activities, examples of monitoring of enforcement activity with regard to disproportionality together with a breakdown of the OCU staff gender and ethnicity and work undertaken to increase under representation.

Standing Orders were suspended for consideration of this report to enable contributions to be made from non members.

Resolved-That the report be noted.

81. Progress report on the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry recommendations

(Agenda item 12)

A report was submitted which outlined the key outcomes for the MPS in progressing the recommendations from the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report from its publication, and what remain as the continuing challenges.

Standing Orders were suspended for consideration of this report to enable contributions to be made from non members.

Resolved –.That

1. the report be noted and the progress made be acknowledged; and
2. the direction that the MPS has taken to overcome continuing challenges be approved.

82. Pan London LGBT strategic group

(Agenda item 13)

This report informed the Board of the formation and development of the Pan London Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transgender (LGBT) Strategic Group. This multi-agency group has accountability for developing a London strategic and operational response to key areas affecting MPS (and criminal justice system) service delivery to LGBT people living, working or visiting the capital.

The report had been considered at the Authority meeting on 26 April.

Standing Orders were suspended for consideration of this report to enable contributions to be made from non members.

John Roberts congratulated all concerned for this piece of work.

Resolved – That the report be noted.

83. MPS progress report on race and diversity learning and development programme

(Agenda item 14)

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

Resolved – That the report and work in progress be noted.

84. MPS Gender Equality Scheme

(Agenda item 15)

This report provided details on how the MPS will deliver Gender Equality using the MPS Equality Scheme framework, which was published on 30 April 2007. The paper outlines the key issues and challenges for the MPS in relation to employment, service delivery, training and community engagement. It also sets out to explain how the scheme was developed.

Resolved – That

1. the report be noted; and
2. the progress made and the monitoring arrangements be endorsed

85. MPA Gender Equality Scheme

(Agenda item 16)

This report presented the MPA Gender Equality Scheme 2007-10

Resolved – That the Gender Equality Scheme be and endorsed and be referred to the full Authority meeting for ratification.

86 Reports from EODB sub-groups

(Agenda item 17)

A report was submitted which updated the Board on the works of the Stop and Searches Review Board, the Community Monitoring Network and the Domestic Violence Board.

Resolved – That the report be noted.

The meeting closed at 4.40. p.m.

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