The MPS Leadership Academy

Report: 7
Date: 06 April 2006
By: Commissioner

Summary

The purpose of this report is to provide members with an overview of the proposals for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) Leadership Academy, a fundamental aspect of the Together approach, and illustrate how the Leadership Academy will contribute towards the success of the MPS in delivering the strategic outcomes and performance ambitions coordinated under the Met Modernisation Programme (MMP).

A. Recommendation

That Members note the report.

B. Supporting information

The MPS Leadership Academy

1. The Leadership Academy proposal is being developed against a background of significant change (see Appendix 1). Building on the corporate values, the Leadership Academy is a fundamental aspect of the Together approach. The Leadership Academy should not be seen as a training institute for those with a management responsibility to ‘attend’ but a more visionary concept not only raising the profile and importance of management and leadership development but also driving organisational and cultural change across the Metropolitan Police Service. The work of the Leadership Academy is underpinned by the following principles:

Strategy

To ensure an integrated strategic approach to all management and leadership development and to work in partnership (internally and externally)

People

To develop and support managers and leaders throughout the organisation and equip them with the ability to enhance service delivery and standards of policing

Research

• To be a recognised centre of excellence for the provision and development of management and leadership skills
• To identify, generate and integrate new thinking on leadership and its component parts
• To evaluate leadership and management development against client demands

Organisational learning

• To act as a central point for bringing new thinking into the organisation and share this with police officers and staff
• To work to facilitate an MPS culture of organisational learning and change

2. The Leadership Academy will be the central vehicle through which the MPS will deliver the strategic requirement to increase its management and leadership capability and embed this capability in a way consistent with the refreshed MPS values. At the heart of the Leadership Academy is the proposal to develop leadership pathways within five key ‘impact’ levels across the MPS. These are detailed in table 1.

Table 1: Key ‘impact’ levels within the MPS

3. Table 2 details the specific products that will be delivered by the Leadership Academy in Financial Year 2006/2007. These have been mapped against the impact levels discussed above to provide a high level indication of the groups of staff that would benefit from delivery and demonstrate how the MPS base of 13,000 managers will be supported.

Table 2: Leadership Academy projects and associated target groups

4. All initiatives cited in Table 2 are focused on increasing the existing capability of (both new and existing) MPS managers / leaders and integrating the corporate values into the operational context. The relatively small investment (discussed in Section D) has high significance in terms of overall MPS strategic ambition, performance improvement, reputation and the credibility of the Together approach.

5. The leadership foundation training for 1st and 2nd line supervisors will provide the capacity for (approximately) 1500 staff a year to benefit from newly designed leadership development modules focused on providing individuals with practical skills and tools. This equates to a 33% increase in staff throughput. Over 800 of the 1500 trainees in year 1 will be newly promoted Sergeants; many supporting the rollout of the Safer Neighbourhood teams. Increased leadership capability amongst this group is critical. Contrary to existing training, the new leadership foundation modules will also enable police officers and police staff to train together on core components leading to a breakdown of existing cultural barriers and an enhanced understanding of different perspectives / roles. This will also provide an increased formalised training input for police staff on a par to their police officer colleagues.

6. To expand the training provision for levels 2-4, the Commissioner’s Leadership Programme will deliver 3 additional courses in Financial Year 2006/2007: 1 residential, 1 non-residential and a new executive level programme. This will enable an additional 170 delegates to benefit from the CLP, equating to an increase of 48% on current provision, and help ensure that the MPS has a balance of CLP trained managers across all OCU Senior Management Teams.

7. A flexible and scalable ‘field service’ provision will cover newly promoted staff as well as those MPS staff already operating within a management / leadership context at levels 1-5. This arm of the Leadership Academy will deliver tailor made products at OCU level optimising opportunities for experiential learning and work-based development through:

• Leadership and people skills training modules (a prospectus describing available modules will be made accessible to all managers. This will compliment the Personal Development Review (PDR) process and other training provided outside of the Leadership Academy e.g. role-based skills. It will also provide transparency in presenting the opportunities available for police officers and police staff)
• Debriefing and learning from incidents
• Critical incident training exercises / operational simulations
• Solution focused coaching (including training a cohort of MPS staff in year one that is sufficient in number to coach staff in impact levels 3 & 4)
• Action Learning; and
• 360 development.

8. Taking these products to the workplace and ensuring bespoke design to meet the specific needs of the OCU will provide deliverables across all impact levels, vital for sustaining the momentum and credibility of the Together approach. A field-based provision and additional non-residential CLP also continues the work of Human Resources to expand its innovative and non-residential training delivery, providing greater flexibility and a more family friendly approach (a recommendation from the Ghaffur Review). The business case submitted to the MPS Investment Board has requested funding to undertake bespoke support work on eight OCUs in Financial Year 2006/2007.

9. It is proposed that the Critical Incident Steering Group will control the tasking of this field-based resource. This will provide a corporate and coordinated means for assessing need that could be used to support other MMP strands of work (e.g. Safer Neighbourhoods, Corporate Tasking Group) helping them to realise and maximise their benefits on behalf of the MPS. A structured tasking mechanism will ensure the use of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound) objectives and enable the link between investment and enhanced performance to be demonstrated (focused on improved service delivery).

10. A web based learning facility will enable the continual professional development of managers and provide them with ongoing support from the Leadership Academy. This is not intended to be an e-learning provision. It will be an interactive website that will not only support students through their learning programmes but will also provide the wider organisation with an easy to search database of a vast library of knowledge (maintained fully up-to-date by the Leadership Academy and a variety of MPS Subject Matter Experts working within the field). This will allow good practice to be fed straight back into the organisation and accessed by those who need it in an innovative and dynamic way.

11. Hosted via the Internet (rather than the Intranet) the site will be accessible from outside of the immediate MPS workplace enabling staff to use it in a more flexible manner. Information will also be held in a range of formats (interviews, stories, case studies, articles, discussion forums etc) to cater for different individual learning styles. The website will also give trainers the opportunity to post pre-course joining instructions, reading material etc. for access by those students attending a particular course. Each student will have an area to record their own ‘journal’ of learning, a self-reflective area that can also be used for personal discussion with their trainer. The site will also host a tool to support an on-line 360-degree review process for each student.

12. If, as anticipated, Leadership Academy programmes are delivered in a modular fashion the website can be used to maintain the contact amongst cohorts of students and between students and trainers during times when students are not physically attending modules. This is key to sustaining motivation and ensuring that students feel valued throughout their training experience.

Desired outcomes

13. Key to the MMP is the delivery of increased staff capability in management and leadership, firmly founded in the new corporate values. Activity is needed to enhance the skills of MPS managers so that they can effectively lead their teams to better provide policing services and control the financial and people resources under their command. A major objective is to ensure that our managers are trained and skilled to manage these resources in a way that the MPS would wish and both the MPA and London’s council taxpayers would expect.

14. Improvements to the quality of management and leadership within the MPS will enable the organisation to more effectively deliver against its strategic priorities. A coordinated and corporate approach to management and leadership development is required to ensure that the benefits of investment in this area are realised in line with strategic outcomes and focused on delivering service improvement.

15. Effective leadership and management has a key role to play in delivering the equality and diversity agenda across the organisation from the perspective of employment practice, facilitating the MPS in its desire to become an employer of choice. A focus on value driven management and leadership will ensure that those with this responsibility manage their staff fairly and proportionately. It is anticipated that the outcome of this will be:

• Staff feel valued and respected as part of the wider team.
• There is no significant disparity between the experiences of people based on their identity (e.g. ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation, religion and belief or age)
• Equity of treatment between police staff and police officers
• The avoidance of high profile and sensitive employment cases which, publicly and internally, challenge the reputation of the MPS
• Staff are clear about their objectives, roles, responsibilities and accountabilities (supported by regular reviews)
• Increased confidence and effectiveness in managing poor performance
• More effective local resolution of disputes in a timely and transparent manner (a central theme of the current DPS review); and
• More effective handling and resolving of complaints.

16. This is not a unique programme. The MPS is the biggest single employer in London with around 13,000 members of staff undertaking a leadership, managerial or supervisory role. Any major organisation would wish to invest in its managers to ensure that they perform at a level required. The MPS has a responsibility, in common with any large organisation, to regularly train managers and supervisors to enhance their leadership skills to improve the quality of service that they, and their staff, provide.

List of abbreviations

MMP

Met Modernisation Programme

VFM

Value for Money

ACAS

Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service

SMT

Senior Management Team

CLP

Commissioners Leadership Programme

HYDRA

System to train police officers in critical incidents and major crime investigations

PDR

Personal Development Review

OCU

Operational Command Unit

MTFP

Medium Term Financial Plan

C. Race and equality impact

1. The Leadership Academy will be a key vehicle for promoting a value driven style and its work will also increase accessibility to development opportunities. On-going activity will ensure that MPS management processes (for example recruitment, selection and promotion) are supportive of and consistent with the organisational values. Transparent processes will facilitate the fair and equitable treatment of all staff and increase staff confidence in the organisation’s processes.

2. It is recognised that care must be take to ensure that the Leadership Academy is not perceived as affording opportunities only to managers. Together must also consider aspiring managers and those who may have no interest in promotion. There is an associated need to communicate why managers have been prioritised, linked to the key role they play in driving behavioural change across the MPS, in order to mitigate any negative effects of the current approach.

3. A community and equality impact screening has been conducted for the Leadership Academy. In accordance with the guidelines and on the basis of this initial screening, the decision was taken that a full impact assessment was not required at the current time. However, the community and equality impact screening will be reviewed on a quarterly basis within the Together governance framework to ensure that this situation is monitored.

D. Financial implications

1. The £1 million growth bid for Together submitted under the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) for financial year 2006/2007 was agreed in principle by the MPS Management Board and by the MPA last year. The MPS Investment Board has now approved the redirection of a further £1.25 million in financial year 2006/2007 on the basis of the business case for the Leadership Academy. These savings will be found. The £1.25 million savings will be found from the procurement of Lifescan and the phasing of the implementation of victim and witness focus desks. Both these will release funding fro 2006/7. This brings total growth to £2.25 million. This investment will fully meet the business requirement outlined in Appendix 1. All £2.25 million will be focused on the creation of the Leadership Academy and delivering the products identified in Table 2 of this paper.

E. Background papers

• Towards a Leadership Academy for the MPS, MPS Development & Organisational Improvement Team, July 2004
• The Development of MPS Values and Behaviours, Paper for the MPA Co-ordination and Policing Committee, 3 February 2006
• Together Initial Strand Plan, Leadership Development Directorate (in conjunction with the Met Modernisation Programme), March 2006 (live document subject to on-going review)
• Business Case for the creation of an MPS Leadership Academy, Paper for the MPS Investment Board, March 2006

F. Contact details

Report author: Alex Felton, HR Strategic Management Unit

For more information contact:

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

Appendix 1

Background

Strategic fit

1. The mission of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) is widening. The MPS wishes to, and needs to, respond to a changing crime environment and continued pressure to seek efficiency and effectiveness improvements. The Met Modernisation Programme (MMP) is the 3-year plan that will draw together the priorities in the Policing London Strategy 2006-2009, proposals arising from the Service Review and existing major change initiatives within the MPS.

2. Underpinning work to meet the challenges facing the MPS is ‘Together’, designed to address the behavioural and organisational cultural improvements the MPS needs to make in order to deliver its strategy. Launched by the Commissioner in February 2005, Together describes our style of working. It is about how we aspire to be when delivering London’s policing service and the perception we want our colleagues, partners and the public to have of us as an organisation. Together will work to join all parts of the Metropolitan Police Service and unite staff behind our mission and priorities. Together aims to make the MPS an organisation where all individuals, regardless of their role or their personal background, feel valued and respected as part of the collective team and supported in maximising their potential.

3. Following a successful period of unprecedented growth in capacity, the MPS must now focus on the accompanying organisational capability that is needed, particularly around management and leadership, to meet the changing demands of a modern police service. People are our most important asset and how we lead, manage and develop our workforce is a key factor in how the MPS performs and how it is perceived both internally and externally.

4. In recognition of the above, Together has been identified by Management Board and the MPA as one of the seven priorities within the Policing London Strategy 2006-2009, and as one of four critical major change priorities (‘Category 1’) for delivery in 2006/2007 under the MMP.

Current challenges for MPS management and leadership

5. The training and development of MPS staff emerged as a key strategic theme across the Morris Inquiry, the CRE’s Formal Investigation in the Police Service in England & Wales and the Ghaffur Thematic Review of race and diversity in the MPS, highlighting further work the MPS needs to do to ensure that all staff and managers are appropriately developed to enable them to carry out their role to a competent standard with confidence.

6. The Morris Inquiry noted:

• It is only by managing the Service’s officers and staff effectively that the MPS will achieve the best operational results
• MPS officers are frequently given managerial responsibilities without training or support (also highlighted in Virdi Inquiry Report)
• The community will benefit from a Service that is well motivated and better trained; and
• There is an apparent lack of sanction for getting it wrong irrespective of the consequences to the organisation or those on the receiving end.

7. The Morris Inquiry recommended that the MPS:

• Implement a more effective management development programme available to police staff as well as police officers (formal training should form part of the solution)
• Put in place processes to ensure those recruited receive appropriate training to undertake the roles to which they are assigned; and
• Take urgent steps to eliminate discriminatory management practice.

8. MPS exit interview data shows that poor management is cited as the main factor influencing resignation decisions, specifically inappropriate style of line management, a lack of support from line managers and a lack of recognition from senior managers.

9. The Service Review, corporate values consultation process and Service Conference (2005) highlighted issues with regards to the need for visible, accessible and accountable leadership.

10. A recent Performance Needs Analysis of 1st and 2nd line MPS supervisors has highlighted that a change in the prevailing leadership model is needed and that significant associated cultural barriers need to be challenged.

11. The MPS is operating in the context of a significantly tougher resource environment and we must do even more to tackle our organisational weaknesses in maximising our Value For Money (VFM) delivery. The lack of clear alignment between resource allocation, corporate prioritisation and leadership accountability is a challenge that must be addressed.

12. An impact of the ‘Transforming HR’ programme will be that line managers are required to take more responsibility for management issues (e.g. discipline procedures) as the local HR service is restructured. The organisation must support managers in this transition and ensure that they are fully equipped and confident to perform their role.

13. Recent reports by the Equal Opportunities Commissioner and Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) have stated that improving employee relations is key to productivity improvements; business performance and employee satisfaction are raised when employee relations are based on mutual trust and respect.

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