Operational support police service improvement review – implementation report

Report: 6
Date: 19 January 2005
By: Commissioner

Summary

This report provides the second update on implementation of the 13 recommendations of the Operational Support Policing Service Improvement Review that were approved in December 2003 by the Planning, Performance and Review Committee.

A. Recommendations

That

1. the report be noted;
2. Recommendations 1, 5, 8 and 10 are approved as complete; and
3. responsibility for reporting the implementing of Recommendation 9 is transferred to HRD through the MPA Human Resources Committee is approved.

B. Supporting information

Background to the report

1. On 11 December 2003 the Planning, Performance and Review Committee approved the recommendations and improvement plan of the Operational Support Policing Service Improvement Review.

2. The Review made 13 recommendations focusing on functions that support the delivery of policing services to the public by Borough Operational Command Units.

3. Commander Broadhurst, who chaired the Review’s Project Board, chairs an Implementation Board overseeing progress towards achieving the recommendations. Chief Superintendent David Morgan (formerly the SIR Team Leader and now Chief Superintendent Partnership for the City of Westminster) is the Implementation Manager. The Implementation Board comprises of personnel with particular responsibility for the recommendations. Links have been established with other MPS projects and it has been possible to integrate several recommendations into existing pieces of work.

4. The completion of recommendations 3 and 12 was approved by Members at the July 2004 PPRC Meeting. Further, that responsibility for recommendation 11 should be transferred to the HRD reporting to the MPA Human Resources Committee.

5. Further progress has been achieved to date as follows:

Recommendation 1 – To ensure that the most effective and efficient use is made of resources by conducting annual assessments to examine the justification for and the terms of reference of, operational support units against MPS priorities as defined by the NIM framework.

National Intelligence Model (NIM) processes have now been embedded into the corporate planning framework used by the MPS. Annually Business Groups complete Strategic Assessments that examine long-term concerns including the implications of crime and other future threats that affect their areas. These are collated and further analysed to form the Corporate Strategic Assessment that highlights issues that impact at a corporate level.

Management Board use the findings of the Corporate Strategic Assessment to select MPS priorities. The MPS Control Strategy owner appointed to progress each priority then negotiates with Business Groups to establish what each will contribute to achieving the objectives and targets. Business Groups manage their contribution to their objectives through quarterly Strategic Tasking and Co-ordinating Meetings. These critically examine the use of resources to ensure that they are in the right places and doing the right work to achieve their objectives. The Corporate Tasking and Co-ordinating Group monitor service-level performance and can reallocate resources to address performance issues that are beyond the capacity of an individual Business Group.

Evidence of the influence of NIM, in line with national standards, on resource decisions is provided by SCD’s implementation of Operation Trafalgar and also their deployment of assets to tackle South Asian crime.

The original recommendation envisaged that annual reviews of resources would be conducted within the NIM framework. NIM processes that align and allocate resources to priorities continue to develop and will evolve further as knowledge increases.

The Implementation Board invites members to agree that this recommendation has been achieved.

Recommendation 2 – To provide boroughs with a more efficient and effective method of accessing the most appropriate support unit to assist with incidents and also to provide a source of advice and information through the establishment of a 24/7 joint central gateway for TP and SCD.

Members may recall that the recommendation was designed to address the difficulties experienced by boroughs when they needed to identify the appropriate support unit within SCD. The SCD Central Reserve is now well established and actively assists boroughs to obtain immediate advice and support.

The recommendation envisaged a joint SCD/TP central gateway. A TP desk was established in the SCD Reserve as a pilot. However, the desk was only staffed on a part-time basis and the trial proved inconclusive in terms of an evaluation.

Commander Broadhurst is reviewing the outcome of the trial to determine the appropriate course of action. Members will be provided with a further progress report in July 2005.

Recommendation 4 – To improve the consistency and coordination of policing on boroughs by implementing a protocol to ensure the Integrated Borough Operations Office is informed of operational support units operating proactively in their area, unless to do so would compromise that, or future operations.

In November 2004 a workshop was staged to develop an outline framework for the protocol. Representatives attended from SCD, SO12, SO13 and TP. A protocol that will inform boroughs when executive action, e.g. the arrest of suspects, is planned has been drafted. Consultation is being undertaken about its contents before it is published as a Police Notice.

It is anticipated that the protocol will be introduced early in 2005 and members will be updated at the next review in July 2005.

Recommendation 5 – To improve internal awareness about the use of operational support resources in boroughs by ensuring effective debriefing and by making this a standing agenda item at the weekly intelligence meeting (mandatory under NIM) and at the BCTM.

Since 29 November 2004 all boroughs and OCUs have been operating the MPS Briefing and Tasking System (MetBaTS). The new system allows authorised staff to instantly access briefings, tasking and co-ordination material for OCUs and business groups across the Service.

MetBaTS provides real time access to a range of briefings, taskings and tactical planners. It also provides the ability, for the first time ever, to access a range of Strategic and Tactical products across the whole MPS. A key benefit is the crime-digest which provides a summary of all crime recorded in the previous 24 hours for the whole of the MPS.

Borough Commanders now have full visibility of tasking including where support units e.g. TSG are undertaking pre-planned operations. It also includes a de-briefing tool that enables Borough Commanders to check on a daily basis that tasks have been completed. MetBaTS is thus a vital part of the briefing, tasking and debriefing cycle. It ensures officers and police staff are kept up-to-date concerning suspects, crime-series and hotspots.

MetBaTS is now fully operational and the Implementation Board invites members to agree that this recommendation has been achieved.

Recommendation 6 – To raise community awareness about the use of operational support resources by borough commanders through their local media, local consultative group meetings and other channels of communication.

The DPA has produced and distributed a booklet raising awareness about operational support units to London opinion formers and boroughs for them to dispense locally. Work continues with the DPA to identify appropriate methods of consistently sustaining community awareness about the use of operational support resources.

Members will be updated about progress at the next review.

Recommendation 7 – To measure activities and outcomes of operational support units in the most effective and efficient way in order to improve performance management and to influence decision making about their staffing requirements.

Different approaches are used by TSG and SCD7 to measure activity. TSG currently use a bespoke system while SCD7 are piloting MetDuties 1 and are due to be involved in the rollout of MetTime. Internal Consultancy Group (ICG) has been commissioned to evaluate the different systems. This is not aimed at finding the ‘best’ system, as the units perform very different functions. Instead there are three main areas of focus:

• Determining which information is the most useful for managers (both at a local level and to inform resource decisions for operational support units).
• Recommending approaches that other operational support units might use for activity recording; and
• Establishing how MetTime could be rolled out to other operational support units.

Work is in line with the original timescales envisaged in the final report and members will be informed about the conclusions of this work at the next review.

Recommendation 8 – To reduce the impact of the loss of experienced officers from borough and reduce vacancies in operational support functions by seeking to retain officers and police staff with relevant experience and skills past their normal retirement point and by further building on work in progress to establish an MPS bank of retired staff.

Procurement Services have put in place a framework agreement with a number of commercial providers of retired police officers. An alternative source is the MPS People Bank. This is an in-house register of retired staff available for placements. Awareness of the People Bank is increasing and fifty-two people are now registered. Eight people are in placements and a number of other potential opportunities are being actively considered.

It is evident that commercial providers will continue to be the provider of the majority of placements of retired staff for the foreseeable future. The reason is not simply an issue of awareness of the People Bank but the ability of the companies to respond quickly and flexibly to need. Their greater costs are offset to some extent by the fact that they retain employment liabilities and risks.

The 30+ Scheme also seeks to retain the services of police officers beyond their normal retirement point. Phase 3 of the Scheme ends in March 2006. Usage has increased from 8 officers in Phase 1 to 30 officers in Phase 2 and 81 officers in Phase 3. Early indications are that the Home Office will continue to sponsor the scheme.

HRD and Procurement Services will continue work to seek to make the most efficient and effective use of retired staff. The Review’s forecast benefits of achieving savings based on 50% of contracted hours being from the People Bank will therefore not be achieved.

In the light of the progress achieved to date, the Implementation Board invites members to agree that this recommendation has been achieved.

Recommendation 9 – To assess the potential benefits of increasing the use of non-sworn police staff in operational support functions with reference to the recommendations of the ongoing HMIC thematic inspection of civilianisation and the MPS Civilianisation Plan.

The Human Resources Directorate is reviewing the MPS Civilianisation Programme. This work is starting from a new premise of creating police staff roles in order to relieve police officers of those functions that do not require attested powers. Work continues as part of the Workforce Modernisation Agenda.

There are clear links between the ethos of the Review’s recommendation and the on-going HRD work. It therefore makes sense to subsume the recommendation into the broader Civilianisation Programme.

Members are invited to agree that responsibility for delivery of the recommendation is transferred to HRD. Progress on the MPS Civilianisation Programme will then be reported to the MPA Human Resources Committee.

Recommendation 10 – To seek to balance the needs of TP and SCD by retaining experienced detectives on boroughs whilst increasing the capability of SCD through the secondment of selected Trainee Detective Constables from BOCUs to SCD for six months as part of their development programme.

Six-month attachments of Trainee Detectives to SCD have been put in place. In September 2004 thirty-five TDCs commenced an attachment and thirty-eight officers will replace these in March 2005.

The attachments occupy posts in various SCD OCUs that previously would have required to be filled by detectives from boroughs. Plans are now being developed for a continuous PC-DC Development Programme that will incorporate attachments.

The attachment programme has helped to stem the flow of experienced detectives from boroughs and the Implementation Board therefore invites members to agree that the recommendation has been achieved.

Recommendation 13 – To evaluate the effectiveness of the SCD7/HMCE initiative in disrupting the availability of Class A drugs at the point of supply in boroughs.

On 9 November 2004 Operation Middlemarket was officially launched. It is a partnership with City of London Police, HM Customs and Excise and NCIS designed to tackle the supply of Class A drugs by organised criminal networks in London. Some early success has been achieved - approximately 96 kilos cocaine, 18.5 kilos of heroin, 20 kg of amphetamine and 50 kg of cannabis has been recovered – with a total street value of approximately £10.4 million.

Evaluation of Operation Middlemarket is starting with Home Office input and also working with other similar projects around the country. The aim is to evaluate the project and measure its impact.

Operation Middlemarket is linking in with boroughs and attachments to the unit by BOCU based officers are supported and encouraged. A communication strategy ensures that Borough Commanders are notified about operations in their areas.

The work is progressing in line with the original timescale and members will receive a progress report at the next review.

During the week commencing 29 November 2004 HMIC conducted a best value review inspection of the Operational Support Policing Service Improvement Review. HMIC will publish their report in 2005.

C. Race and equality impact

Ensuring equality for all, and its implications, was of fundamental importance to this review. The implications for ensuring equality were considered throughout the analysis of each of the four themes.

The impact of the findings and recommendations from the Review were assessed as to how they affected equality for all. In doing so the review team ensured that the statutory requirements of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 were fully met. The Commission for Racial Equality, Greater London Action for the Disabled (GLAD) and GALOP (the lesbian gay and bisexual community safety charity) examined the review’s findings and recommendations. Staff support associations were also consulted.

D. Financial implications

Implementation to date has been achieved within existing resources. Members will be apprised of any significant financial commitment.

E. Background papers

Management Summary of the Service Improvement Review of Operational Support Policing – previously circulated.

F. Contact details

Report authors: Chief Superintendent David Morgan, MPS.

For more information contact:

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

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