How the MPS uses and delivers equality and diversity in its response to gun crime - concurrent report

Report: 09
Date: 7 February 2008
By: the Chief Executive

Summary

The purpose of this report is to outline some of the key challenges and concerns in relation to the Metropolitan Police Service’s (MPS) response to gun crime from a range of equality and diversity perspectives. This report also responds to the mini-review of Trident Operational Command Unit (OCU) – item 8 on this agenda.

A. Recommendations

That:

1. members note the progress and successes made by MPS in tackling gun crime;

2. ask the MPS to respond to the challenges from an equality and diversity perpsective listed in paragraphs 3 to 13 as part of its ongoing and future policy formulation, employment, community engagement and service delivery activities within the next 12 months; and

3. receive within 12 months a brief progress report against the targets set by the MPS with regards to increasing the representation of women, disabled and Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) within Operational Command Units (OCUs) which have an explicit gun crime remit.

B. Supporting information

1. One of the most challenging aspects of current policing is how the MPS responds to gun crime. Whilst the MPS has made significant advances in supporting victims and witnesses and tackling gun crime, the use of illegal firearms is a significant contributor to the fear of crime.

2. The purpose of this concurrent report is to highlight some of the key equality and diversity issues emerging in relation to gun crime as they relate to employment, service delivery and community engagement. The three areas this report will focus on are:

1. Mainstreaming Equality and Diversity
2. Developing A Representative Workforce
3. Ongoing and Future Challenges

Mainstreaming Equality and Diversity

3. Both MPS reports on this agenda detail a number of steps taken to integrate equality and diversity within existing and emerging gun-crime operations. For example, some of the innovative internal community engagement work undertaken by CO19 targeting under-represented groups has started the process of breaking down some of the perceived barriers to working in this business area. This, coupled with some of the ground-breaking external community engagement activities carried out, for example, by Trident OCU with Black communities, has positively impacted on reassuring victims and witnesses and bringing offenders to justice.

4. The MPA has identified three areas for equality and diversity to be further enhanced in terms of mainstreaming. This is not to say that work in these areas is not already in progress: on almost all fronts activities have either been well established and/or is underway. However, if the process of mainstreaming equality and diversity is to be sustainable, then these four issues will loom large and impact on the quality of the MPS’ current and future response to gun crime:

• Children
• Supply of guns
• Performance
• Monitoring

5. Children: Whilst there has been significant media commentary on youth as victims, witnesses and suspects of gun crime, relatively little, in comparison, has been written about young people living in the families of ‘men of violence’. Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur has described this scenario as a ‘child protection issue’ on a number of fronts, including (but not limited to):

1. The potentially lethal risks to those children living in and around guns;
2. The influential risk factors of older siblings and/or parents involved in crime; and
3. The potentially lethal risks to those children who, as a possible result of this lifestyle, then view and choose living and using guns as an accepted way of life – thus perpetuating a cycle of violence.

6. Whilst the MPS has made considerable progress in tackling gun crime, it also acknowledges through its own research that the average age of both victims and accused has decreased to 19 years  [1]. In addition, Early identification and intervention with these young people will need to be a vital proactive component of the MPS’ response to gun crime.

7. Supply of guns: One of the constant questions asked by London’s diverse communities is how illegal firearms (as well as replica guns and non-lethal weapons such as CS Spray) find their way into the hands of young people. The MPS has invested resources in trying to target the supply of guns from outside the UK, but also acknowledges that for this objective to be successfully met, it will need a co-ordinated, transnational, multi-agency, multi-disciplinary response with a variety of key stakeholders.

8. Stemming and tackling the supply of illegal guns is an activity that easily lends itself to mainstreaming equality and diversity: in terms of employment, it provides the MPS potential opportunities to use its internal human resources, especially through its Cultural and Community Resource Unit (CCRU)  [2]; in relation to community engagement, the MPS will need to work with communities who either are most at risk as a result of illegal firearms trade (often tied up with other criminal activities) or from where vital intelligence can be obtained; and with service delivery, tackling the supply of illegal guns will result in making London a safer place for all.

9. Performance: One of the reasons why Trident OCU has been effective is that, in listening, actively working with and allowing some of its service delivery to shaped by Black communities, it has had a direct and positive impact on performance – and in bringing the ‘men of violence’ to justice.

10. There remains a challenge for the MPS as to whether other gun crime-related services can successfully facilitate this ‘place-shaping’ agenda with other diversity groups. In relation to both service delivery and community engagement, EODB has developed a series of critical success factors, key outcomes and effective and efficient stakeholder engagement from an equality and diversity perspective [3]. The critical success factors in relation to service delivery are:

1. Critical Success Factors: No significant disparity in the MPS’ response to the experiences of people based on their identity in relation to a) the incident(s)/crime(s) they have experienced or b) alleged to have committed.
2. Key Outcomes: Clear levels of accountability; increased performance at local Safer Neighbourhood (SN) level; reduction in communities’ fear of crime; increased levels of public confidence when encountering the police; clear evidence of personal diversity objectives linked to performance; use of equality impact assessments to structure the delivery of service.
3. Effective & Efficient Stakeholder Engagement: Evidence of provision of accurate and intelligible information; of providing information in formats relevant to community groups; evidence of using the experiences of victims and witnesses to inform future service provision.

11. The critical success factors in relation to community engagement are:

1. Critical Success Factor: No significant disparity between communities and intra-communities satisfaction of police communication, consultation and participation in the delivery of service.
2. Key Outcomes: Engagement with communities, especially new and emerging communities whose voices may have been overlooked or ignored; increased levels of reporting across a range of crimes; evidence of communities actively contributing to problem-solving; use of the ‘police family’ in addressing key issues of policing.
3. Effective & Efficient Stakeholder Engagement: Evidence of using information from link members, SNs, Community Police Consultative Groups (CPCGs)/Community Engagement Groups (CEGs), Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) and Independent Advisory Groups (IAGs) to inform service delivery; evidence that engagement is sustainable and uses internal and external specialists as and where appropriate; evidence that equality impact assessments are reviewed regularly; evidence of using the experiences of victims and witnesses to inform future service provision.

12. The challenge for OCUs which have gun crime as a part of their remit is to ensure that there is consistency of approach, service and delivery with different diversity groups, whilst realising that this does not mean that each group or community is treated in exactly the same way.

13. Monitoring: The MPS has been in the process of moving to the 16+1 ethnicity classification system as used in the 2001 Census [4]. Whilst acknowledging the legacy issues of the 6+1 categories [5] and the difficulties of moving to the new system of ethnicity monitoring, data presented using the 16+1 ethnicity categories will enable the MPS to better analyse and target its responses to gun crime towards certain sections of London’s diverse communities.

Developing a representative workforce

14. One of the major challenges facing the MPS is not only in developing the skills, knowledge and experience to support the needs of a world-class police service, but also to have a workforce that is representative of a world city such as London.

15. In recent years, considerable time, effort and improvements in the numbers of applications to join the MPS as potential police officers from women and BME communities have been made; and this positive improvement has been successfully translated into increased staffing numbers across police officer and Police Community Safety Officers (PCSOs) ranks: 1 in 4 of all new recruits is from a BME community; 30% of all PCSOs are from BME backgrounds [6].

16. Trident OCU has 24 BME police officers, which constitutes 8% of its officer strength [7]. This exceeds the MPS’ target of 7.7%. Trident OCU has, in its own words, ‘negotiated amore ambitious target of 15% for officers from BME backgrounds, requiring a further increase of 19 officers.’ [8]

17. Whilst this is highly commendable and the potential benefits to Trident OCU have been clearly stated, it should be remembered that all of the MPS are potentially dipping into – and competing – within the same pool of existing police officers and/or of future applicants.

18. Central Operations (CO) realise this fact and to this end hosted a Positive Action [9] diversity event on 26 November 2007 to examine how it could engage and attract existing police officers, as well as potential applicants from under-represented groups whilst working with other OCUs/BOCUs. If the aspiration of a genuinely representative workforce is to be realised, then a rotational strategy will almost certainly need to be considered and developed as an integral element of the MPS’ recruitment, selection and retention policy. Such a policy may assist succession planning, career development and talent management.

19. In terms of follow-up, members would wish in twelve months time to see how and what progress has been made against these four areas.

Ongoing And Future Challenges

20. Witness Protection: This presents one of the most considerable and immediate challenges to the MPS, particularly when urging reluctant witnesses to assist key investigations. OCUs with gun-related remits work closely with the Criminal Justice Protection Unit (CJPU) which has lead responsibility for the protection and support needs of victims/witnesses and their families involved in giving evidence in cases of serious crime where risks to safety are identified. Two areas of concern have emerged through recent community experiences:

1. Individual witness protection
   This is where an individual (often a young person) has witnessed a crime and/or wants to leave a ‘gang’ that may have been involved in criminal activities – some of which the individual may have witnessed, but is not an ‘active’ participant. In these instances, moving suddenly out of the immediate area may signal to perpetrators that the individual concerned has turned ‘informer’, thus potentially putting at risk that person’s family who may live in the community. OCUs working in gun-related activities have been working with key stakeholders such as Housing across London, identify places where such individuals can be safe, but still be ‘based’ within their community.
2. Businesses
   This is where gun/gun-enabled crime has taken place in and/or by a business premise and pressure may be put on an owner to remain silent. An example of such premises could be small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) such as take away outlets. In such cases, the MPS are not only considering the safety of the business owner (and their family), but also possibly their livelihood. Given the impact relocating such businesses can have on resources, the MPS need to develop a range of contingencies for this eventuality.

C. Race and equality impact

1. How the MPS responds to gun crime is one of the most significant areas of police activity as it directly impacts not only on crime, but also the fear of crime. Issues of trust, confidence, active community engagement and performance in relation to support and protection for victims and witnesses and bringing offenders to justice are pivotal in tackling gun crime.

2. Across key equalities legislation, there are common general duties in relation to consultation, access, training and monitoring. Performance metrics such as the Equality Standard for Local Government (ESfLG) aim to ensure that equality is integrated into day-to-day business processes. However, measurement against this particular metric is contingent on the performance of an organisation’s ‘weakest link’: if a highly performing organisation has a business unit that is not performing as well, then the overall standard of that organisation will be measured at its lowest common denominator.

3. Therein lies perhaps the greatest challenge for OCUs operating in gun-related activities: given some of the standards that have been reached in relation to community engagement and service delivery: how is learning, development and good practice shared with other OCUs/Borough Operational Command Units (BOCUs) in order to assist and improve the quality of service delivery, community engagement and performance across the MPS.

D. Financial implications

There are no financial implications directly arising out of this report. However, in producing responses to members to the issues raised within this report within the 12 months, there may be some additional operational and opportunity costs generated.

E. Background papers

• How The MPS Uses and Delivers Equality and Diversity In Its Response To Gun Crime
• Trident OCU report
• Reports to Co-Ordination and Policing Committee on Witness and Jury Protection (July 2007 and September 2007)
• Notes of Trident IAG meetings (held on file)

F. Contact details

Report author: Laurence Gouldbourne, MPA Equality and Diversity Unit

For more information contact:

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

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