Personnel department business plan

Report: 5
Date: 17 May 2001
By: Commissioner

Summary

The 2001/02 business and performance plan for Personnel Department sets out the priorities and objectives for the year, together with an outline of the budget and structure of the department.

A. Recommendation

That the Committee note the report.

B. Supporting information

Budget and estimated outturn for 2000/01

1. Information on the budget, spend and projected outturn for the MPS Personnel Department was reported to the Committee in March the data in that report have been updated to show the latest position and are shown at Appendix 1. The outturn figures remain an estimate until the formal end-year situation is confirmed by Finance Directorate as part of the outturn review in June 2001.

2. Similarly, information on those Service-wide budgets managed by Personnel Department on behalf of the MPS as a whole is included at Appendix 2. The estimated outturn shows an underspend in the corporate budgets of £962k. The monthly forecast information from Personnel Department during 2000/01 provided Finance Directorate with early notification of the potential underspend in the corporate personnel budget at year end and this was taken into consideration in offsetting other Service-wide demands last year.

Budget allocation for 2001/02 – Personnel Department

3. The allocation for Personnel Department for 2001/02 is £30.919m. In comparison with 2000/01 the total has been increased to reflect inflation and the approved growth in the recruiting budget (£531k); on the other hand the allocation has been reduced in line with other Business Groups to incorporate an efficiency saving of £1m and to reflect the impact of a 3 per cent vacancy factor in civil staff numbers. The budget breakdown by Directorate is shown in Appendix 3.

4. The allocation for Personnel Department provides a budgeted workforce target (BWT) for 380 police officers and 569.76 civil staff and their supporting costs. The BWT breakdown by Directorate is at Appendix 4.

5. While the successful growth bid for recruiting will go some way to paying for the additional staff who have recently joined Aybrook Street to process applications (or are going to during the year), there is a strong expectation that the civil staff BWT will not be sufficient to match the significant increase in recruitment activity in 2001/02. The situation will be monitored and reported to the Committee as the year progresses.

6. As part of the process to achieve police and civil staff BWT by 31 March 2002, each Personnel Department Director will be required to examine closely their allocation and to plan for meeting their Directorate BWT by the end of the financial year.

Budget allocation for 2001/02 – Service-wide budgets

7. In terms of the Service-wide corporate budgets managed by Personnel Department, Appendix 2 sets out the allocations for 2001/02 in comparison with the previous year. The total budget is £14.768m, excluding pensions budgets. However, in the light of the estimated outturn data for 2000/01, the original baseline bids for 2001/02 (which were assembled in August 2000) have been re-examined recently to identify any potential savings which can be used to offset other corporate priorities in the MPS. While recruiting budgets for 2001/02 remain unaltered (given the significant increase in recruiting activity planned throughout the financial year), other budget lines have been reduced to take into account latest expectations for spend in 2001/02. A commentary on 2000/01 outturn and details of all changes for 2001/02 see Appendix 5.

8. As a result of the adjustments, a total of £702k has been removed from the Servicewide budgets for 2001/02; this will be re-allocated by Finance Directorate as part of the mid-year review to meet other Service-wide demands

9. The Personnel Department Business and Performance Plan for 2001/02 see Appendix 6. It contains personnel aspects underpinning the corporate Policing and Performance Plan.

10. The format follows the corporate template for departmental plans with certain adjustments to make it more suited to the particular needs of the department.

11. The main elements of the plan are:

• the training and development activities in direct support of the MPS service delivery priorities;
• objectives for the developmental priority of 'Making the Met great to work for';
• actions for the developmental sustained activity of 'Modernising personnel management';
• additional 'People Strategy' initiatives;
• internal departmental developmental objectives (mainly resulting from the Excellence Model assessment exercise);
• departmental efficiency savings;
• allocated departmental budget and Servicewide costs;
• departmental structure.

12. The departmental plan is supported by internal plans for each directorate to facilitate the monitoring of progress and achievements.

C. Financial implications

The overall budget allocated for delivering the plan is set out within the plan ie: £30.9m departmental costs plus Servicewide expenditure of £14m. These sums have been allocated to Personnel Department as part of the total Metropolitan Police Service budget.

D. Background paper

None.

E. Contact details

The author of this report is Chris Haselden, MPS.

For information contact:

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

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