PPRC Annual Report 2003/04

Report: 12
Date: 22 April 2004
By: Clerk

Summary

This is the draft annual report for the Planning, Performance and Review Committee (PPRC) for the year July 2003 to March 2004. It describes the main projects, topics considered and achievements of the committee for the year. This report will be a key input in the Authority’s overall Annual Report. Additional statically results will be made available on 23 April 2004 and will be added to the final report.

A. Recommendations

That the Committee agrees the draft annual report for PPRC for presentation to Full Authority and/ or suggest any additional areas or changes required.

B. Supporting information

Introduction

The Planning, Performance and Review Committee (PPRC) responsibilities include: monitoring performance against targets; overseeing the development of annual and corporate plans, including the setting of targets; advising the Authority on targets to be set in annual and corporate plans; scrutinising areas of performance; discharging the Authority’s responsibilities as a best value authority (including the overseeing of best value or service improvement projects) and monitoring MPS performance in the context of the criminal justice system as a whole.

These duties are carried out in accordance with equal opportunities and equalities legislation. The PPRC positively promotes the Authority’s commitment to equalities and diversity.

Detailed below are the main achievements and areas of work for the PPRC from July 2003 to March 2004. These are detailed in four main sections: planning, performance, review and criminal justice issues.

Planning

2004/5 Policing Plan

PPRC was responsible for ensuring the development of priorities, objectives and targets for the plan, balanced the needs and priorities of the London community, statutory requirements and those requirements highlighted through MPS intelligence. The Planning Panel, a sub-group of PPRC, oversaw much of the development work for the 2004/5 Policing and Performance Plan.

The MPA and MPS invited 826 community and local government organisations in London to participate in a consultation to identify policing priorities. The results together with the Public Attitude Survey were used to develop the 2004/05 Policing Plan.

The online consultation was conducted in three sessions:

• Session 1 asked participants to identify which policing issues are of particular concern to them and why.
• Session 2 enabled participants to see all the issues identified by participants in Session 1 and to indicate what thy considered should be the priorities for the MPA/MPS 2004/05 Policing Plan.
• The final session gave respondents feedback on the results and the process was also validated and evaluated.

The views of MPS staff were sought on the outputs from Session 1 of the public consultation.

The MPA also organised a series of focus groups from ‘hard to hear’ communities across London.

Analysis of these combined responses produced the following list of policing issues:

External consultation

• Anti Social behaviour & low-level crime
• Drugs and drug related crime
• Working with community & key agencies
• Access to police & response times
• Visibility & numbers of police
• Violent gun crime
• Improving victim support
• Youth crime & youth issues

Internal consultation

• Anti social behaviour & low-level crime
• Violent gun crime
• Street crime
• Drugs and drug related crime
• Burglary
• Visibility & numbers of police
• Youth crime & youth issues
• Access to police & response times

Setting the priorities

The Commissioner held a seminar for 150 senior MPS staff and together with MPA members and officers to debate these consultation results together with performance data. This produced a set of proposed priorities.

The MPA held a workshop with pan London organisations to consult on these proposed priorities. The organisations were Victim Support, Clockhouse Community Centre, Board of Deputies of British Jews, Chinese Community Centre, Muslim Women Helpline, London Underground, London Civic Forum, Transport for London, Women against Rape, London First, East London Partnership, Refugee Council, Revolving Doors, Roadpeace, London Chambers, Cross River Partnership, TUC East London Race Relations Committee, NACRO and London Cycling Campaign.

Audit of the 2003/4 Policing and Performance Plan

Each year the District Audit carries out an audit of the Annual Policing and Performance Plan.

The Audit Commission considered that our 2003/04 plan was a well presented and useful document. However, the audit report included an opinion which was ‘qualified’.

The Audit Commission reported reservations about 7 of the BVPIs, either because the MPS could not produce the BVPI in question or was unable to satisfy them on their accuracy. A further 2 of the BVPIs submitted for audit were amended as the result of the audit work. The Commission recommended that action was taken to strengthen the procedures for producing BVPIs.

The process of audit was useful and identified ways that would improve liaison between the MPA and MPS and would add value to the processes involved. Work has since been carried out by both the MPA and the MPS to address the recommendations in the report and the PPRC will be requiring the MPS to provide an action plan to address any outstanding recommendations.

Performance

Monitoring of policing plan targets

PPRC is responsible for monitoring performance against annual policing plan targets. It has received a performance report at every meeting during the year and has asked for more detail and in-depth reports into any areas where performance has caused concern or where more information was required by members.

In addition to the performance reports received at each meeting, PPRC receives bi-monthly management information reports from the Specialist Crime Directorate and Specialist Operations.

Awaiting end of year results – a summary will be put on this website once the end of year performance report is received.

In-depth reports performance reports

During the last year the PPRC has received a number of more in-depth reports on performance detailing areas such as differences in borough performance, reporting on success of initiatives, new initiatives planned and factors influencing performance. Subjects considered in performance reports included:

• Organised immigration crime – A report on the program to counter organised immigration crime within the capital (Op MAXIM) was presented to PPRC in February 2004. The initial stage of the operation began in March 2003. Within a year the successes included 46 proactive operations resulting in 148 arrests.
• Domestic violence murders – A review was completed into over 400 cases to identify common aspects of domestic violence murders. Six risk factors were identified: - separation (child contact), pregnancy, escalation, cultural issues and sensitivity, stalking, sexual assault. Findings were distributed to all Chief Officers in England & Wales following the government recognising the MPS approach to murder prevention as good practice.
• Child protection – The implementation of the Laming report has radically changed the approach the MPS takes towards child protection following the death of Victoria Climbie. The MPS are currently implementing procedures to improve the way cases involving child protection are dealt with.
• Group rape – The MPS has and continue to improve victim care for rape victims and the investigation of rape through Project Sapphire. Analysis in this report shows the overall trend of group rape is downwards, contrasting to the rising level of rape (single offender) offences recorded. The report also highlights good practices from the French Ministry of Education visited in 2003.
• Police in schools - The Safer Schools Partnership currently has 80 officers placed in schools as School Beat Officers (SBO). The four main roles of the SBO are: - Law, Education, Advisor and Role Model, elements required to ensure a safer school community. The report detailed the work being carried out. A further report on progress and learning from the work has been requested.
• Response times – The PPRC requested a report on response times. This report identified a decline in the percentage of responses within target and a drop in satisfaction with the response to 999 calls. The MPS are now developing a new grading and deployment policy to improve the accuracy of call grading and make more appropriate deployments.

These in-depth reports supported the PPRC in its task to understand the issues of performance in greater depth and to concentrate MPS management focus on areas of concern and interest to the authority and helps the authority make judgements about future years’ targets.

PPAF

The Policing Performance Assessment Framework (PPAF) is a joint initiative of the Home Office, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities.

PPAF reflects a whole range of issues affecting “policing” as a whole by using details from the police service, local communities and other organisations. PPAF aims to fill the gaps of current performance assessment, which tend to focus on police statistics only.

In addition, PPAF was set up to meet the five key priorities set in the National Policing Plan 2004-07; providing a citizen focused service to the public, tackling anti-social behaviour and disorder, continuing to reduce crime in line with the Government’s Public Service Agreements targets, combating serious and organised crime, and narrowing the justice gap.

Development of PPAF

PPAF is continually developing in line with the changing focus of policing. The most recent developments include the introduction of Activity Based Costing (ABC) into all forces in England & Wales to attribute a cost to different activities carried out within policing. A revised set of Most Similar Forces has also been developed to assist in better comparison of data enhancing the quality of the data collected by the framework. A number of continually developed performance measures are to be implemented into the framework within 2004-05, helping to continually evolve this performance assessment system.

The chair of the PPRC and the Head of Performance and Planning continue to be involved in the Home Office and APA consultation around PPAF measure development.

Review and scrutiny

In 2003/04 PPRC initiated and approved a service improvement review of Operational Support Policing. This review followed on from the Managing Demand review completed in 2002/03 and explored the central units that support boroughs in the delivery of policing services to the public. The review made recommendations around the roles, responsibilities and resources of central units, including the establishment of a central ‘gateway’ for boroughs to use when accessing services. Other recommendations concerned intelligence sharing and raising the awareness of local people about the activities of central units in their areas.

In October 2003 PPRC deferred the completion of the Staff Deployment review pending HMIC’s thematic inspection of civilianisation and replaced it with a review of Custody Capacity. PPRC subsequently approved the Project Initiation Document for this new review, which will be focusing on the future requirement for cells, as well as making recommendations on how existing facilities can be used to best effect.

During the year members monitored the progress of the Records Management, Crime Management and Managing Demand best value reviews through implementation reports as well as receiving the regular ‘Criminal Justice Update’ covering issues raised in the review of Bringing Offenders to Justice.

Members also selected two service improvement reviews to be carried out in 2004/05 – security guarding of premises and security clearance procedures.

PPRC has also monitored the implementation of the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership scrutiny and has received reports detailing MPS and MPA progress towards delivering the recommendations. Members have continued to highlight the issue of rape – commissioning a report on group rape and supporting the work of Project Sapphire. A scrutiny of gun crime has also been completed but falls under the remit of Co-ordination and Policing Committee.

Criminal Justice

PPRC receive an update report on Criminal Justice issues at every meeting. The main performance issues reported on are discontinued cases, discharge committals, cracked and ineffective trials and persistent young offenders (PYOs). Other issues include:

Justice for London (JfL) model was set up to increase the number of offences brought to justice and to enhance the quality of service given to victims and witnesses. The JfL model comprises of four key elements:

• Gatekeeper quality assurance supervisor
• Case progression unit
• Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) lawyer at the point of charge, and
• PPRC receive an update report on Criminal Justice issues at every meeting. The main performance issues reported on are discontinued cases, discharge committals, cracked and ineffective trials and persistent young offenders (PYOs). Other issues include:
  • Justice for London (JfL) model was set up to increase the number of offences brought to justice and to enhance the quality of service given to victims and witnesses. The JfL model comprises of four key elements:
    • Gatekeeper quality assurance supervisor
    • Case progression unit
    • Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) lawyer at the point of charge, and
    • Victim and witness support desk

The work carried out over the year has enabled the MPS to develop significant changes to the current system including rolling out victim & witness support desks, CPS lawyers at point of charge available to all 32-boroughs and in addition, CPS lawyers available during out of normal office hours by telephone for advice to officers. One of the key approaches to criminal justice in London has been to focus on improving case files during an investigation. The Glidewell project, piloted at Holborn, aims to deliver co-located administration units of both MPS and the CPS in order to develop a more efficient case preparation system. The implementation of case progression units and lawyers at point of charge has assisted in achieving a higher standard of case files.

Other areas of progress include the MPS and CPS London setting up a joint performance meeting, which focus on the key accountabilities for both parties on performance and any issues surrounding the MPS and CPS interfacing with each other at an operational level. A shared performance improvement plan is developed as a result of these meetings. All parties taking part deem this meeting a success. The second round of these meetings will be completed by March 2004.

From 20 January 2004 an amendment to PACE empowers officers to release suspects on bail to attend a police station at another time. This helps with the increasing demand on custody suites allowing a more efficient/demand lead system to be run. PPRC will continue to monitor the impact of this initiative. Victim and witness support desk.

The work carried out over the year has enabled the MPS to develop significant changes to the current system including rolling out victim & witness support desks, CPS lawyers at point of charge available to all 32-boroughs and in addition, CPS lawyers available during out of normal office hours by telephone for advice to officers.

One of the key approaches to criminal justice in London has been to focus on improving case files during an investigation. The Glidewell project, piloted at Holborn, aims to deliver co-located administration units of both MPS and the CPS in order to develop a more efficient case preparation system. The implementation of case progression units and lawyers at point of charge has assisted in achieving a higher standard of case files.

Other areas of progress include the MPS and CPS London setting up a joint performance meeting, which focus on the key accountabilities for both parties on performance and any issues surrounding the MPS and CPS interfacing with each other at an operational level. A shared performance improvement plan is developed as a result of these meetings. All parties taking part deem this meeting a success. The second round of these meetings will be completed by March 2004.

From 20 January 2004 an amendment to PACE empowers officers to release suspects on bail to attend a police station at another time. This helps with the increasing demand on custody suites allowing a more efficient/demand lead system to be run. PPRC will continue to monitor the impact of this initiative.

Challenges for the coming year

A new four-year term for the Authority begins in 2004/2005. Any new members on PPRC will need to be inducted and duties assigned as speedily as possible to ensure that the work of the PPRC continues to be carried out in accordance with statutory duties.

The committee will need to oversee the development of the 2005/6 plan. The planning process is being reviewed to enable a closer working relationship with the MPS planning function and to improve the scheduling of the planning process throughout the year and to encompass the requirements of PPAF. PPRC will need to monitor how the MPS performs compared with other large forces and also to see how these developments impact on the MPA policing plan and strategy.

The committee will oversee the two areas for service improvement reviews that were identified for 2004/2005:

• Security clearance processes have been selected for review as the time taken for security clearances to be completed has been raised as a concern. The review will be used to identify what improvements to these processes could be made without compromising security arrangements.
• Providing security guarding for MPS premises will be reviewed as it represents a significant cost to the MPS. There are also concerns over the service being provided and the scope of the guarding function and alternative ways of delivering this service will be explored.

C. Race and equality impact

The committee has ensured that all reports it has received during the year contain equalities and diversity implications. Some of these are significant, such as performance monitoring in areas of crimes against vulnerable victims, human trafficking and customer satisfaction. Criminal justice issues have also included a number of diversity implications, highlighting the need to provide equality of service for victims and offenders. Equality and diversity implications are detailed in individual reports.

The committee also ensured that it contributed to the accomplishment of the MPA duties under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. Any areas of concern identified with regard to race discrimination were reported to the Equal Opportunities and Diversity Board and followed up.

D. Financial implications

Similarly, each committee report gives details of the financial implications. In terms of planning and performance, the setting targets overseen by the committee will impact greatly on the budget submissions and spending by the MPS during the year to meet performance targets. Best value reviews all contain a number of recommendations aimed at improving efficiency and often providing savings. To improve the criminal justice system has required review and significant expenditure in areas such as joint relocation with the Crown Prosecution Service and the development of victim and witness focus desks.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report author: Jane Owen, MPA.

For more information contact:

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

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