Personnel management information

Report: 14
Date: 19 April 2001
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report provides a range of personnel related management information to the end of February 2001, with a summary of key points. It supplements the main MPS Performance Report, providing more details information in the personnel field.

A. Recommendation

That Authority members note the contents of this report and the management information provided.

B. Supporting information

Management information charts

1. The attached charts show, at Appendix 1, the position against the personnel related Best Value Performance Indicators, and, at Appendix 2, a range of supplementary personnel management information.

2. The charts provide data to the end of February 2001.

Key points

3. The key points to emerge from the reports are set out below:

MPS strength

4. Police strength at the end of February was 25,339. There was no intake in February and this represented a decrease of 83 on the end of January figure. Excluding February, strength has risen each month since October 2000. The intake in March was 220, with wastage estimated to be 105 (based on past trends). The projected strength for 31 March 2001 is 25,454.

5. Civil staff strength increased by 43 in February, to reach 10,307, compared to a budgeted workforce target of 11,110.

6. Traffic warden strength has seen a marginal decrease of 2 when compared to last month.

7. The police, civil staff and traffic warden strengths remain under BWT - police by 261 (1.02 per cent), civil staff 803 (7.24 per cent) and traffic wardens 252 (26.28 per cent). The projected position for police at 31 March is 146 (0.6 per cent) below the B.W.T.

Ethnicity

8. The percentage of visible ethnic minorities as a proportion of police strength is currently 4.11 per cent. The percentage has steadily increased during the year from a start point of 3.95 per cent.

9. The percentage of visible ethnic minorities as a proportion of civil staff strength grew slightly in the first 9 months of the year and has remained steady at around 15.50 per cent over the last three months. The current rate is 15.48 per cent.

10. The percentage of visible ethnic minority as a proportion of traffic warden strength is 12.38 per cent, which is higher than last month's 11.92 per cent and 12.16 per cent at the start of the year.

Gender

11. The percentage of females as a proportion of police strength is currently 15.72 per cent (police), which continues the small increase throughout the year.

12. The percentage of females as a proportion of civil staff strength is currently 58.6 per cent, a very slight decrease from the previous month.

13. The bulk of female civil staff is at Grades 12 and 13 (70.01 per cent).

14. The proportion of traffic warden strength that is female is 60.98 per cent, which is slightly higher than last month's 60.81 per cent but this is due solely to a decrease in overall strength, there are the same number of female traffic wardens.

Command and operational resilience

15. This chart still contains the 'adjustment' BWT for police ranks, which will be cleared to the actual BWT in the next report.

16. The "Others" BWT represents various grades for which a BWT has been included in Business Group figures but which cannot be redistributed across the unified grades as no definitive designation is available. The strength for "Other" refers to the number of college based students currently employed.

17. The difference between the BWT and strength for Grade 11's occurs because the BWT includes a number of catering grades that are not part of the unified grading structure, and are categorised as Grade 11s for workforce records purposes.

Police recruitment

18. The police recruitment target for 2000/2001 is 1,355, which includes 663 new recruits covered by the Home Office Crime Fighting Fund

19. The ten intakes this year including March have totalled 1350 new officers, (including those posted directly to Boroughs), only 5 short of the target (1355).

20. 88 ethnic minority officers have been recruited, which represents a shortfall of 212 against the target of 300 required to meet the 5 per cent target for the overall police workforce proportion.

21. 279 officers have been recruited (20.7 per cent of all recruits).

22. Recruitment of both ethnic minorities and female officers to date this year are higher than wastage and the proportion of these groups in the police workforce is growing, albeit slowly.

Police wastage

23. At an average of 120 per month, the wastage rate continues to run above the comparator of (115), although wastage in November, December and February fell below the comparator.

24. The number of medical retirements as a proportion of all retirements in February was 27 per cent, which is lower than last month at 36 per cent. The year to date figure is 30.55 per cent of all retirements, below the BVPI target of 33 per cent. Over the year, 32.7 per cent of officers have retired on ordinary pensions and 14.4 per cent were medically retired.

25. 41 Visible ethnic minority officers have left the MPS to date this year, 4.02 per cent of the visible ethnic minority average strength. This is slightly lower than the overall wastage rate of 5.24 per cent.

26. Overall, resignations and officers joining other forces continue to form virtually half of all wastage: 24.5 per cent resign and 25.6 per cent join another force.

Civil staff wastage

27. Civil staff wastage has fallen below the comparator (125) at an average of 123.8 departures each month, and has remained below the comparator since October 2000. Resignations account for 61.6 per cent of all wastage, an average of 76 per month. Medical retirements as a proportion all civil staff retirements to date is 33.35 per cent.

Traffic warden wastage

28. The wastage rate to date this year averages 11.83 per month. This equates to an annual rate of 18.74 per cent of the average strength to date. 48.67 (36.70 per cent) of traffic wardens have regraded to civil staff grades and 40.71 (30.70 per cent) have resigned.

Sickness

29. PIB are still working through the backlog following the installation of a new computer system. Sickness figures for the month of November, December and January will be available as soon as the backlog is cleared. October data has been included since the previous report.

Police sickness

30. The police sickness rate to date for the year is 9.69 days i.e. 0.69 days greater than the 9 days target. Year on year the average is 0.11 days less per month than 1999-2000. Recent months have seen a gradual increase in the sickness rate.

Civil staff sickness excluding traffic wardens

31. Civil staff sickness, at 10.8 days, stands at an average rate of 0.8 days per month above the target of 10 days.

32. PIB are experiencing difficulties extracting traffic warden sickness data, consequently the figures for the month of September 99 are unavailable for both civil staff and traffic wardens. As soon as the problem is resolved, backdated data will be included in future reports.

Traffic warden sickness

33. Traffic warden sickness continues at a much higher rate than for other staff. The figures to date this year show an average of 21.67 days lost per traffic warden. The rate is also higher than for the same months last year. There has been a gradual but steady increase over the last four months.

Extended sick pay for police officers (Regulation 46)

34. Over the year to date an average 106 officers per month are off on extended sick leave on full pay, 66 officers on half pay and 20 officers are off pay. There has been a decrease in full and half pay cases in February. The general trend until January was upwards, but February has seen a slight dip.

Grievances

35. New grievances to date show an average of 10.36 new cases a month. This compares with last year's average to date of 12.9, a reduction of 19 per cent (27 cases).

Employment tribunals

36. The total to date for this year shows a 15.84 per cent increase in the number of new cases over this point last year (16).

Occupational health

37. The number of new occupational health referrals (excluding Welfare) in January was 361, lower than last month's 396. The monthly average to date is 345. The number of staff returning to full duties during the month was 144, a decrease from last month's 156. The management information for OH, such as waiting time for appointments, is being expanded and will be included in future reports when available.

C. Financial implications

None.

D. Background papers

None.

E. Contact details

The author of this report is Chris Haselden.

For information contact:

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

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