Stop and Search annual report

Report: 15
Date: 12 July 2007
By: Chief Executive

Summary

This report provides members with an update on stops and searches for the period of 2006–07. A full annual report for the period of 2005 to 2007 will follow shortly to entail the MPA stops and searches work with key stakeholders and the MPS across London.

A. Recommendations

That members:

1. note the summary report;
2. approve the achievements made by the MPA and MPA since the publication of the Stop and Search Scrutiny of the MPS Practice report in the 2004; and
3. note the effective working relationships with key stakeholders such as London’s communities, the MPS, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), the Department of Skills and Education (DfES), Association of Police Authorities (APA), other members of the GLA family and most importantly MPA members and staff.

B. Supporting information

Introduction

1. A report on the scrutiny of the MPS stop and searches practice conducted by the MPA was published in October 2004.

2. The scrutiny was instigated by Recommendation 63 of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry and included a public investigation carried out by the MPA through hearing sessions and public meetings.

3. 55 recommendations were set out in the report with 32 allocated to the MPS to make changes in the way they conduct stops and searches on the street in order to build trust and confidence between both the police and communities across London.

4. A EODB summary report on the work that followed after the production of the scrutiny is attached as Appendix 1.

Achievements

Stops and Searches Review Board (SSRB)

5. In 2006 the MPA Stops and Searches Review Board (SSRB) continued the review of the 55 recommendations set out in the scrutiny report.

6. The MPA main stakeholders including the Independent Police Complaints commission (IPCC), the Commission for Racial equality (CRE), the Home Office (HO) and the MPS as well as the MPA presented to the Board of the ongoing progress/update on the recommendations under the themes identified. These are:

• Raising Public Awareness
• Supervision and Monitoring
• Policy
• Feedback and Complaints Resolution
• Training

7. In January 2007, the Board began the signing-off of the recommendations from the scrutiny report proposed as being completed. The process is on a quarterly basis and will continue until January 2008.

8. A number of borough visits were conducted which included Hammersmith & Fulham, Heathrow Airport, Kensington & Chelsea, Greenwich and Richmond.

9. The chair of the SSRB has agreed to curtail the remaining borough visits planned for 2007 as the MPS Stops and Searches Team has now launched Operation Pennant that reviews the performance of all 32 boroughs around stop and search. Only two more visit will be conducted and include Brent and CO19 which will complete all stops and Searches visits in November 2007.

10. The notable achievements include the following;

1. January and April 2007: 23 recommendations of the scrutiny were proposed as completed. Of the 23, 19 were agreed as being achieved with the remaining four being referred for further evidence in support of the information provided. The 19 recommendations agreed by the Scrutiny Board members were signed-off by the John Roberts, the MPA Lead member for stops and searches and Cindy Butts the Deputy chair for the MPA.
2. Ongoing discussion with the MPS to release S44 data borough by borough was agreed at Full Authority in May 2007. However the data will only be available to show the past three months. The overall MPS borough-wide S44 data will continue to be available on a monthly basis on the MPS website (www.met.police.uk/stopandsearch).
3. In support of the work of the Board, the MPS Stops and Searches Team launched Operation Pennant (see Appendix B) in October 2006. Operation Pennant is designed to learn from the performance based approach taken by other parts of the MPS business in order to make improvements. The Stops and Searches Team bring together those boroughs with the most challenging stops and searches performance to put in place improvements to be followed up/reviewed.
4. Currently, the update around Operation Pennant is fed into the Stops and Searches Review Board SSRB. Most recently the work of Operation Pennant was also fed into the EODB and Full Authority around stops and searches performance.
5. In September 2005 only eight local stops and searches community monitoring groups were established across the 32 boroughs as of May 2007, the number of monitoring groups increased to 30.
6. The MPA Equality and Diversity Unit funded media training for nine community members of the S&S CMN Forum. The purpose of the training was to assist in capacity-building the skills, knowledge and experience of existing CMN members. The training was not an ‘incentive’, but would act as an enabler to the CMN members to handle press enquiries if requested/demanded. All nine attendees reported that the training was very useful and was a success.

Stop and Searches Community Monitoring Network (CMN)

11. The Community Monitoring Network Forum established in September 2005 continues to meet on a quarterly basis to discuss issues, share and disseminate good practice and seek guidance and training form the MPA in moving forward.

12. On the first anniversary of the forum, two community members were elected as co-chairs. This system is a rolling process that allows other members of the community to gain experience of chairing meetings in order to remove inhibitions that are sometimes felt when figures of authority (e.g. police officers in uniform) are in attendance at meetings.

13. The CMN Forum has met eight times since September 2005 to discuss the following stops and searches issues that continues to have an impact on London’s communities.

• Section 44 and the impact it had on London’s community since 7/7
• The affect of S&S on Young People - A presentation from the Black Police Association (BPA) Young Advocates around educating young people of their stops and searches rights as well as adopting a more positive behaviours during an encounter
• Disproportionality and what it is meant in relation to the stop and search data produced
• Complaints and Feedback process - this included presentations from both the IPCC and MPS Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) on how to make a stop and search complaint
• The roles and responsibilities of Independent Community Monitoring Groups (ICMGs); and
• Challenges faced by officers conducting stops and searches – this included sketches/scenarios carried out by officers to give an indication on how a stop could have an amicable result and how on other occasions may lead to an altercation with an individual who did not wanted to stopped.

Other work programme to support Stops and Searches

13. In considering the wider implications of the impact of stop and search on community cohesion, resilience and reassurance the MPA’s continues to share good practice London-wide, nationally and internationally. These include:

1. Attending national conferences organised through the Association for Police Authorities (APA), Home Office (HO) and other events organisers such as Capita. (The MPA is one of three leading police authorities [1] that tackle the issues of stop and search and the impact it has on the public to ensure the practice is conducted with respect as well as appropriately). The MPS has made great improvement in past four years to ensure they put systems and processes in place to address stops and searches issues to meet the needs of London’s communities as well as the MPA objectives of the scrutiny report.
2. The MPA continual monitoring of the MPS performance through the MPS Stops and Searches Working Group and Steering Group Meetings. The Working Group a practitioners forum was chaired by Commander Rod Jarman (formerly by Cecile Wright [2]) that consults with the community on the recommendations of the scrutiny report; and the Steering Group formerly chaired by a Deputy Assistant Commissioner (DAC) and now chaired by the Commander agrees whether the MPS has met the objectives of the recommendations.
   Both groups (S&S Working Group and the Steering Group) were recently merged as it was felt that the working progress and consultation to put systems in place were achieved.
3. Supporting the MPS S&S Team Operation Pennant (see Appendix B) in reviewing borough stops and searches performance to include the engagement of their local community groups.
4. Working with the IPCC looking at the complaints process and how effective it is to ensure members of the public are confident in reporting police officers attitude if they had experienced or witnessed a discriminative or inappropriate stop and search.
5. Ensuring London’s communities are provided with stops and searches information (i.e. ‘Know Your Rights’ leaflets) in different languages that caters for all of London’s communities with continual liaison through the APA.
6. Working with other MPA Unit such as Planning and Performance, Engagement and Partnership (formerly Crime Disorder Reduction and Partnership and Community Engagement) to ensure the work of stops and searches is monitored and that the MPS uses the practice appropriately so as to decrease disproportionality.

Next steps

14. In June 2008, the SSRB propose to hold a conference that looks at its achievements over the past four years since the publication of the scrutiny report. These include:

• To review all the recommendations that have a status with continual work in order;
• To make decisions on where these are placed in committees relevant to the recommendations to be reviewed by the MPA; and
• To extend the MPA gratitude to all stakeholders and staff who took part in the review process

C. Race and equality impact

1. This report provides a summary update of the MPA work around stops and searches and future activities to be carried out by SSRB in order to assist in meeting the MPA’s legal obligations and commitments. This report provides an interim update for 2006 to 2007 that looks at the MPS performance; how the MPA addresses the issues and the adverse impact stops and searches have on London’s diverse communities.

D. Financial implications

1. There are none directly arising from this report.

E. Background papers

• Summary Report for 2005 to 2006
• Operation Pennant information and Terms of Reference

F. Contact details

Report author: Cynthia Coleman, MPA

For more information contact:

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

Appendix 1

2005–06 summary report for EODB

MPA Stop & Search Review Board

The MPA Stop and Search Review Board (SSRB), formerly the Stop & Search Scrutiny Implementation Panel (SSSIP), was re-launched in September 2005 and is chaired by John Roberts, the MPA lead on stop and search and EODB Member. Over 60,000 ’Know Your Rights’ leaflets, audio-tapes and CDs have been distributed to local monitoring groups across London, borough Youth Offending Teams, Safer Schools Partnerships and at a range of GLA-led festivals events such as the Pride, Rise and Liberty festivals.

This work has been supported by a series of borough visits to find out what is occurring ‘on the ground’ in relation to stop and search. Visits in the past year have included Royal Parks, Lewisham, Enfield, Barnet and Hammersmith & Fulham. Future planned visits include Heathrow Airport.

Other notable achievements include:

• In December 2005, the SSRB produced the ‘One Year On’ report, which outlined the progress made by the MPA, MPS and other key stakeholders to date against the 55 recommendations. 13 of the recommendations have been achieved, with another 25 recommendations being addressed through on-going work.
• Agreement was reached with the MPS to publish section 444 data monthly on a London-wide basis.
• In May 2006, the Home Office rolled out a publicity campaign across eight forces, including the MPS. Although the MPA’s Stop & Search Lead Member intervened in the publicity campaign and made significant improvements, the change of target audience for the campaign by the Home Office from all young people to specifically Black, Asian and minority ethnic young people caused concern.
• In June 2006, the MPS Monitoring Mechanism was made available on the MPS website. At the click of a button, members of the public can see how their borough is performing in relation to stop and search and compare this against the performance of other boroughs.
• MPA members agreed to support the on-going work of the SSRB. The Board was given 18 months to ‘sign off’ the outstanding Scrutiny Report recommendations.

Stop and Search Community Network

In September 2005, the (Stop & Search) Community Monitoring Network was created. The Network is where local monitoring groups meet regularly to question the police on stop and search practice, share information and disseminate best practice. Eight local stop & search monitoring groups had been established across London by September 2005. As of July 2006, there are now 26 local stop and search groups working across London.

The Network has made a number of interventions in MPA & MPS stop and search work such as comments on the Standard Operational Procedures (SOPs) on stops and searches, lobbying for information on s44 stops and advice on publicity information, including videos and press campaigns.

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