Human Resources Business and Performance Plan, 2004/05

Report: 7
Date: 4 March 2004
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report builds on the earlier report to the January meeting of Human Resources Committee. It sets out the objectives and supporting activities emerging as part of the Human Resources (HR) Business and Performance Plan for 2004/05, together with draft measures and targets, and indicates the timescales within which costings will be developed. The content of the Plan remains provisional, pending conclusion of both the corporate budget process and negotiations with other business groups, which are intended to ensure that HR plans are fully supportive of operational policing objectives. As a result, this is an ideal opportunity for Members to influence the emerging Business and Performance Plan.

A. Recommendation

That

1. members provide their views and feedback on the emerging HR Business Plan for 2004/05 as described in this report;
2. agree that the existing informal liaison between the MPS and the MPA continue following this meeting, to inform the continuing development of the HR Business and Performance Plan;
3. note the lower-level planning arrangements in place in the five directorates within HR;
4. note the performance management arrangements in place within the HR Directorate; and
5. that a further report be brought to the 6 May meeting of Human Resources Committee containing:
   • The final draft of the HR Business and Performance Plan 2004/05; and
   • The Association of Police Authorities’ Framework for Costed HR Plans, completed as far as is possible at that time; and
   • Indicative timescales for progressing each of the supporting activities.

B. Supporting information

Introduction

1. The draft HR Business and Performance Plan for 2004/05 is attached at Appendix 1. It has five strategic objectives, which appear as HR’s Key Business Group Objectives in the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) Annual Policing Plan. As would be expected, these objectives demonstrate a considerable degree of continuity in relation to the 2003/04 strategic objectives. There continue to be strategic objectives addressing the issues of diversity, health and safety and developing a professional and effective workforce. The 2003/04 objectives relating to the HR infrastructure and the creation of a dynamic HR function have evolved into embedding enhanced quality within the HR Directorate and corporate function, and a new objective relates to HR support to the organisation with major change programmes. Each strategic objective has associated with it measures and targets to drive activity and against which performance can be assessed. Supporting activities that will be undertaken to help achieve the objective are also described. Indicative timescales within which it is intended that these supporting activities be progressed will be included, as far as possible, in a future report to the Human Resources Committee (HRC).

2. An attempt has been made to reduce the number of supporting activities featured in this year’s Business and Performance Plan, focusing only on those things with the very highest level of priority, and which represent new or appreciably different pieces of work requiring significant focus. Other work, including business as usual activity, is picked up in the plans of the five directorates within HR, and will be performance managed at that level through the mechanisms already in place for that purpose.

3. Following the last meeting of the HRC, which took place on 8 January 2004 and considered a report describing the process by which the 2004/05 business plan would be developed, an initial consultation meeting took place between the MPA and the MPS to gain initial feedback on the emerging business plan. This meeting provides the opportunity for further input from all Members of the Committee. Additional meetings between the MPS and the MPA Member and Officer (previously nominated) will take place during the remainder of March. It is proposed that a final version of the HR Business and Performance Plan subsequently be submitted to the 6 May meeting of the HRC.

Costings

4. The Association of Police Authorities (APA) provides a framework for costed Human Resources plans as a tool for police authority oversight of forces’ HR planning and activity. As indicated in the report to the January meeting of HRC, the MPS HR Business and Performance Plan takes full account of the APA framework, whilst being structured to best meet and support the particular needs of the MPS.

5. Appendix 2 contains a proforma for the relevant costings information, completed as far as possible with data forecast to the end of 2003/04 and containing spaces for the inclusion of 2004/05 planning data. The template cannot be completed for 2004/05 until the corporate and HR Directorate budget processes have been concluded, thereby determining planned police officer and police staff numbers, along with spend on overtime, training and budgets for each of the five directorates within HR. It is proposed that the template in Appendix 2, completed as far as possible, be submitted to the 6 May meeting of HRC for Members’ approval. However, Members may wish to note that historical attendance management data does not become available until six weeks after the end of the relevant month. It will therefore not be possible until mid-May to fully finalise Table 6 in Appendix 2 with complete 2003/04 data on the average number of equivalent days lost and the average cost of this time lost.

Measures and targets

6. The draft Business and Performance Plan includes only those measures against which it is intended that targets be set. Some additional measures will be included in the monthly HR Headline Scorecard for diagnostic purposes. Targets have not been set against measures where datasets are new or of uncertain quality, or where adequate baseline data does not exist. This includes, for example, workforce data on religion and belief, sexual orientation and disability, where data will not be available until summer 2004. Such data will, therefore, be reported for diagnostic purposes – with suitable caveats where necessary – but it is not appropriate to use these datasets for target setting at this time.

7. In drawing up the measures and targets, heed has been paid to strategies such as Breaking Through (Dismantling Barriers 2) and the National Policing Plan. In setting indicative targets, the MPS has adhered to the principle that targets, whilst needing to be achievable, should also be stretching.

8. It is suggested that the objectives and targets in the business plan form the basis of the personal objectives for senior HR staff.

9. Members may already be aware of the rationale and constraints affecting targets for the recruitment of police officers from visible ethnic minorities (VEMs). A straight line progression from the current position to achieving the existing long term target of 25% VEM police officer strength by March 2009 would require over half of 2004/05’s police officer recruits to be from VEM groups. The prevailing legislative framework, combined with the large number of white candidates who have passed the selection process and await a start date at Hendon, makes this unattainable. Indeed, continuing to achieve a 15% recruitment target in 2004/05 represents a real challenge for the MPS.

10. Many of the targets included in the draft Business and Performance Plan are not yet firm. Strength targets and recruitment numbers, for example, cannot be finalised until budgets have been agreed. Negotiations with other business groups about their requirements are also ongoing and may influence targets as well as supporting activities. The targets detailed in Appendix 1 are therefore indicative at this stage, and represent planning assumptions rather than firm targets.

Performance management

11. Mechanisms are in place to manage HR performance against the Business and Performance Plan. Performance against the measures included in the plan, together with a number of diagnostic metrics, is detailed in the HR Headline Scorecard. The content of this document is discussed at monthly HR Board Finance and Performance Meetings and then reported to the MPA.

12. At the next level down, each directorate within HR produces a more detailed scorecard, which forms the basis of each director’s bi-monthly performance meeting with the Assistant Commissioner HR and Director HR, and contains more detailed diagnostic measures that underpin HR’s achievement against the targets in the HR Business and Performance Plan. The directorate scorecards also include progress reports against the project plans developed in order to progress each of the supporting activities in the HR Business and Performance Plan. It is these project plans that will be summarised to provide Members with information about the timescales for delivery of each of the supporting activities, as outlined in paragraph 1 above. However, Members should be advised that plans at this level will be changed and amended as the year progresses, in response to in-year events and developments.

C. Equality and diversity implications

Enhancing equality and diversity is a central theme of the HR Business and Performance Plan. Some initiatives make specific reference to particular dimensions of diversity, for example targets for the recruitment of women and visible ethnic minorities. Diversity continues to be an underpinning theme for all activity, and is understood in the broader sense, incorporating age, sexual orientation, disability, and religion and belief.

D. Financial implications

The HR Business and Performance Plan clearly has substantial financial and resource implications. Paragraphs 4 and 5 above, together with Appendix 2, describe how the APA Framework is being incorporated in the planning process. The overall HR budget allocation for the year, within which the plan will be delivered, is awaited and will be reported to Human Resources Committee in due course. Should the budget be substantially different from expectations, it might be necessary to revisit the content of the plan. Delivery of some objectives has not yet been planned in detail and costings remain uncertain.

E. Background papers

• MPS HR Business Plan 2004/05, report to Human Resources Committee, 8 January 2004

F. Contact details

Report author: Avril Cooper, Head of Planning and Performance, MPS.

For more information contact:

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

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