Securing continuous improvement - update

Report: 17
Date: 13 March 2003
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report describes the progress that has been made in implementing changes to the best value regime including the move to service improvement reviews. It outlines the anticipated dates for key reports to the Authority for the two reviews scheduled to be undertaken in 2003/04.

A. Recommendation

That the Committee endorses the proposed outline timetable for undertaking service improvement reviews during 2003/04.

B. Supporting information

Background

1. The Committee agreed at its meeting on 9 January 2003 a number of changes to streamline the arrangements for conducting statutory (best value) reviews. This report provides an update on the progress that has been made in implementing these changes, including the move to service improvement reviews.

Service Improvement reviews for 2003/04

2. The Committee endorsed the review topics proposed by MPS Management Board at its last meeting. The review areas, together with an outline timetable for the presentation of key reports to the Authority are described below.

3. Operational support policing

• This review will complement the current review of demand management and will examine the support policing functions that are provided to support Boroughs. It will focus on 'second tier' response such as the services provided by the serious crime group or TSG. Scoping work has commenced to identify the issues for in depth examination during the review. The scoping exercise is due to be completed in April 2003. The review will be completed within 6 months.
• It is anticipated that the Project Initiation Document (PID) for this work will be presented to the PPR Committee at its meeting in May 2003 with the final report and associated improvement plan expected to be completed by the end of October 2003 for presentation to a subsequent meeting.
• The existing team leader and some other members of the team responsible for the Managing Demand Review will deliver this second review. The team will also be augmented with consultants from the Internal Consultancy Group. Further details on the resourcing arrangements for the review will be presented in the PID.

4. Staff Deployment

• This review is intended to examine how the organisation can make the most of civil staff to support operational policing. It will examine ways of capitalising on the specialist skills of civil staff.
• Given the potential scope of this review, the scoping report could present a number of options on the areas that the review should concentrate on. It is intended that the scoping report will be presented to the MPA in May/June 2003. It is proposed that the review will commence in September 2003 and, depending on the eventual scope of the review, the final report and improvement plan will be presented to the Authority in early 2004.
• This review will be managed and led by a Principal Consultant from the Internal Consultancy Group. It will be primarily staffed with consultants from the Group and supplemented by 'experts' in the field seconded onto the team.

5. Members will recall the possibility of the MPS contributing to a national review of Special Branch as a result of the recent HMIC thematic inspection 'A Need to Know'. An initial MPS response to this review was presented to COP on 17 February. Currently there are no firm plans to undertake a national review in this area and the MPS view is that a review using best value principles would be inappropriate whilst changes arising from the inspection are being implemented.

Improvements to the review process

6. It is intended that there will be a greater emphasis in the future on the scoping work that precedes reviews. This should result in a clear description of the problem or issues that the review will address, it may result in an options paper for MPS managers and MPA Members on areas where the review needs to concentrate. The scoping work will examine the extent to which the four Cs have been covered by previous studies in the area.

7. The use of professional consultants / project managers to undertake the reviews will assist in a more proportionate and flexible approach being undertaken to reviews. Greater use of ICG staff will reduce police abstractions from operational duty. Clearly there will still be a need for police officer input to reviews, although this will be achieved through the use of seconded staff rather than officers being transferred to review teams.

8. Draft national guidance on conducting reviews has been issued by the Home Office. This will form the basis of MPA/MPS guidance. This is being supplemented by good practice that has been identified both nationally and as a result of the debriefing exercises that are conducted at the completion of MPS reviews.

9. A number of activities are in hand to signal and publicise the new focus on service improvement. This includes publicity on the MPS Intranet and a proposed article in The Job newspaper from the MPA lead on best value. Further activity will take place in line with the launch of the reviews for 2003/04.

C. Equality and diversity implications

A Race Equality Scheme impact assessment will be conducted as part of the scoping work for reviews. This will allow the equality and diversity implications relating to the review area to be identified at the outset and be addressed during the review itself.

D. Financial implications

The reduction in the number of reviews to two per year and the move to more focused reviews with shorter timescales will reduce the costs associated with conducting these reviews. The reduction in the use of police officers on review teams will release officers to operational duties in line with the recommendation from the Bureaucracy Task Force.

E. Background papers

PPR Committee 9 January 2003: Report 14 (Securing Continuous Improvement)

F. Contact details

Report author: David Skelton, MPS.

For more information contact:

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

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