Central Operations Directorate management information

Report: 10
Date: 11 October 2007
By: AC Central Operations on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This report is a summary of Central Operations performance against targets from April 2007 to July 2007 and includes commentary and examples of operational success. A focus on the work Central Operations does with regard to reducing the number of people killed and seriously injured on London’s roads is also provided. This summer has seen a number of high profile events in London and this report gives details of the impact these have had on Central Operations resources.

A. Recommendation

That:

1. members note the current operational performance within Central Operations;
2. the detailed analysis of killed and seriously injured road casualties and the work in progress to reduce the number; and
3. the impact of high profile events on Central Operations resources

B. Supporting information

Operational performance summary

1. The Central Operations monthly performance report for July is attached at Appendix 1 and provides comprehensive detail of performance against objectives. Appendix 2 provides examples of operational success.

2. Supporting priority crime reduction is a proactive priority for Central Operations and is a significant contributor to these corporate objectives. Areas where Central Operations inputs have made an impact include joint operations against street crime with CO OCUs such as the Territorial Support Group (CO20), Traffic (CO15) and Transport (CO17), as well as specialist units such as Dogs, Marine and Air Support Units providing the necessary skills and tactics to disrupt and reduce crime; provision of armed support through the Specialist Firearms Command (CO19) to tackle gun crime, assisted by CO14 Clubs and Vice; and tackling violent crime.

3. Across London, there is a consistent demand for Armed Response Vehicles (ARVs). There have been 740 deployments so far this year (April 07 – July 07), an average of 185 a month. This has been supplemented by a further 21 pre-planned ARV operations, 236 operations by teams of Specialist Firearms Officers and 99 by Tactical Support Teams who have also made 49 arrests. 318 firearms have been recovered between April 2007 and July 2007, a quarter less firearms then the same period last year. Almost half of these (158) were non-lethal.

4. Around the night-time economy, Clubs and Vice OCU has introduced measures to help reduce the incidence of gun crime and violent crime in and around nightclubs. This includes undertaking both overt and covert visits, ensuring that clubs complete risk assessments prior to proposed events and advising on certain aspects of safety and security of people within premises. To date there has been a small percentage decline in the number of such incidents that have occurred within clubs.

5. A significant proportion of Central Operations resource has been used to assist borough policing in the reduction of priority crime. This is usually achieved through co-ordinated deployments through the corporate tasking process and most often involves a combination of Central operations units working together with BOCU counterparts on intelligence-led activities against, for example, street crime.

6. There were 510 priority arrests and 2,680 crime arrests by the TSG between April 2007 and July 2007. In total TSG has made 6,617 arrests in support of borough performance objectives, this reporting period.

7. As the stature of London as world city continues to grow we see an increase in the number of high profile events that come to the capital in addition to the existing ceremonial, football, security/military and public order events already policed. One such example this summer being the Tour de France which will have a special stage in London requiring considerable large event management commitment. Combined with the opening of the new Wembley stadium and the build up to the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games this means an increased demand for events policing, another key area of specialism residing within Central Operations. Wembley alone is likely to generate at least thirty additional large events every year. The challenge is to deploy appropriate numbers of officers with the requisite public order and events policing skills whilst at the same time allowing events to proceed in a democratic, safe and secure way, preserving the enjoyment of the participating public. The bulk of officers performing this role are drawn from boroughs through the Aid process (officers temporarily leave their borough, police the event usually under the supervision of CO11 Public Order Branch, and then return to their borough to perform their regular duty) and it is a further challenge to ensure both the resilience of borough policing and that the distribution of Aid is equitable across all boroughs.

8. Due to unprecedented demand particularly in July and August, the borough Aid commitment has increased by six per cent against a reduction in the number of events (down 13%) between April 2007 and July 2007. An overview of the resourcing of major events in London can be found at section 3 of this report.

9. Together Traffic (CO15) and Transport (CO17) OCUs are responsible for safety and security of integrated transport networks. Traffic OCU is charged with reducing road casualties and denying criminals the use of the roads, whilst Transport OCU work with Transport for London to ensure crime and congestion on designated bus routes is kept to a minimum.

10. A key element of casualty reduction has been the Think! Campaign, established to raise driver awareness of the factors that contribute significantly to collisions and to target these types of driver behaviour. During the reporting period, over ten thousand fixed penalty notices have been issued against the Think! Campaign themes (driving with excess speed, not wearing a seatbelt and use of mobile phone whilst driving/not in control of vehicle), an increase of 51% from the same period the previous year. Additionally, there have been 494 arrests for drink driving this quarter, a 3% decrease from the same period last year.

11. Denying criminals the use of the road is a key objective for Traffic OCU and intelligence shows that those people who choose not to tax and insure their vehicles are more likely to also be involved in crime in some way and that their vehicles are integral to their criminal enterprise. Our intelligence also shows that 79% of disqualified drivers also have previous convictions. Legislation allows the police to seize vehicles that are untaxed and whose drivers are unlicensed and uninsured. Traffic OCU in conjunction with the Vehicle Recovery and Examination Service (VRES) has seized 3,734 vehicles between April 2007 and July 2007.

12. To tackle criminals in cars we run proactive, intelligence-led operations to arrest and disrupt individuals and networks. As well as the regulatory powers of PACE stop and search, we have developed operational tactics to target these criminals whilst they are travelling by road. One such tactic is the use of Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology. ANPR activity has generated 351 arrests between April 2007 and July 2007, of which 147 were for driving offences, 35 for being wanted on an outstanding warrant, 30 for vehicle crime and around 14 each for drugs and theft offences.

13. A comprehensive overview of casualty reduction performance can be found in section 2 of this report.

14. The work of Transport OCU (CO17) focuses on designated bus routes with an emphasis on making them at least as safe and secure as the non-designated routes and to reduce congestion and disruption to service.

15. Satisfaction with bus reliability has remained at 74%, the same as the previous quarter and is one percentage point above the network average. Satisfaction with journey times has also remained the same as the previous quarter at 80%. This is three percentage points below the network average.

16. 3,223 arrests were made between April 2007 and July 2007, an increase of 38% from the same period last year. Cab Enforcement Team has contributed 410 arrests of which 368 were for taxi touting offences.

17. The Red Route and Congestion teams are responsible for ensuring traffic on TOCU routes flows freely. This is achieved by Red Route and parking enforcement through the issue of Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs). 58,030 Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) were issued between April 2007 and July 2007.

Supporting the reduction of Killed and Seriously Injured casualties

18. Central Operations is responsible for roads policing in London and has as a nationally set objective the responsibility for reducing the number of casualties killed or seriously injured (KSI) in traffic collisions. The national target is reduce the number of KSI casualties by 50% by the year 2010, based on the average for 1994/1998. Incorporated within the MPS/MPA joint policing plan for 2007/08, and in support of the national reduction, there is a target to reduce casualties by three per cent this year.

19. There were 3,806 KSI casualties in London in 2006/07, a 3.4% decline on the previous year. Of these, 225 were fatal, the exact same number as in 2005/06. The number of seriously injured casualties represents the joint second lowest yearly total since the government target was introduced.

20. Chart 1 below shows projected performance (dashed line) against the target for 2010 and represents verified data for the twelve months ending March 2007. The projection indicates a continued decline in KSI casualties but is based on the single month of April 2007 (when there were 270 KSI casualties, just below the target of 277). This projection will adjust and become more reliable over the coming months as data accumulate and will account for both the natural fluctuation in casualty numbers and seasonal influences.

20. A comprehensive overview of road fatalities was submitted to Full Authority in September 2007 and provides further detail on the work of Traffic OCU in reducing casualty numbers. A summary and additional detail follows.

21. Two factors that need to be considered when discussing the reduction in KSI casualties are: the increased survivability due to advances in medical attention at the scene and enhanced vehicle safety, and secondly, cheaper vehicle prices have increase in ownership leading to increased congestion which in turn leads to a reduction in speed. However, the Association of Chief Police Officers recognises the following as factors that influence casualty rates: drink or drug impairment, excessive speed, not wearing a seat belt, and mobile phone use (non-hands-free), and these for elements are the mainstay of the Think! campaign. Our data show that drink/drive arrests have increased by over 40% over the last three years (1,512 in 2007), although this may be a reflection of greater police activity rather than an actual increase in incidence. The issue of Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN) for driving with excessive speed has fallen by 18% during the same period. The areas that have seen the biggest increase are mobile phone use (FPNs up 133%), and not wearing a seat belt (up 45%). Legislative changes and increased police activity may be driving these increases.

23. A closer examination of all personal injury collision data (including the subset of KSI cases) reveals the top ten causation factors for collisions (see Chart 2). Significantly, drivers failing to look properly is the factor most likely to lead to a collision. It should be noted that these data cover all personal injury collisions, not just the killed and seriously injured, and caution should be applied when using post 2005 causation factors because any ONE collision can have up to six causation factors assigned. The assignment and definition of causation factors changed on 1st January 2005 thus post 2005 factors are not comparable with pre 2005 factors.

24. The profile of drivers involved in KSI collisions in 2006 shows just over 75% to be male and 68% to be white (male and female). Through analysis it is harder to draw any firm conclusions about driver age as access to vehicles and the journey frequency are likely to contribute to the likelihood of a collision occurring: there are simply more drivers in the 31 to 40 year age group than there are in the 17 to 30 group, and these older drivers are also more likely to make more journeys. Chart 3 shows the age distribution of drivers involved in KSI collisions

25. KSI hotspot maps have been produced for each borough and an example can be found at Appendix 3 along with a summary of borough data. These data refer to all PI collisions (not just KSIs) for each borough. The KSI clusters represent locations where 10 or more KSIs have occurred in the period within a set radius. The radius set for all KSI clusters on these maps is 250m. The maps also show the main corridor Traffic OCU targets for casualty reduction.

26. In terms of outcomes, our Traffic Criminal Justice Unit (CO16) works closely with Traffic OCU and the Crown Prosecution Service to administrate justice in relation to fatal and serious injury collisions. In 2006, CO16 dealt with 252 fatal collision cases and 633 serious personal injury cases. Table 1 shows the disposal decision or outcome for these cases.

Table 1: Fatal and serious personal injury case disposal outcomes

Event planning and the impact on Central Operations resources

27. London is a world city and the centre of Government and as such finds itself the centre of many high profile events, ranging from ceremonies of national importance, through demonstrations and peaceful protest, to major sporting and cultural events. Set against a backdrop of a security threat that has been raised to ‘severe’ since 7/7, there is a strong need for enhanced contingency planning in the management of events. CO11 Public Order Branch plays an integral role in delivering events police policing of the highest quality in an exceptionally demanding arena. The nature and scale of these events often requires a police presence to preserve public order and maintain security whilst at the same time allowing Londoners to go about their lawful business. Policing such events requires a dynamic and well-planned response from the MPS to ensure that we retain the ability to supply the correct number of appropriately trained officers to police events. The MPS has standard operating procedures that provide guidance on the processes for planning an event or operation within the MPS, updated in accordance with the ACPO manual ‘Keeping the Peace’, and it should enable the operational planner to understand how the planning progresses from first notification of an event to the final de-brief.

28. About four thousand times a year the scale of these events is such that the BOCU on which they occur does not have the capacity to police the event itself and maintain business as usual on the borough. In such cases, the BOCU is reliant CO11 Event Planners to provide ‘Aid’ - a call for additional resources - so that both the event can be managed and resilience is maintained on the BOCU.

29. There are three areas CO11 planners consider when calling for resources for events. Firstly, geography; in most cases the planners try to draw officers from boroughs near to where the event is taking place. This reduces the length of the day spent on Aid, as officers are not required to travel long distances across London. Obviously this is not always possible, depending on the size and location of the event. Secondly, the current commitment to Aid is examined to ensure that no one borough is disadvantaged through calling for excessive officer numbers. Finally, the Personnel Allocation Formula (PAF) is examined and from this officers are picked from boroughs “owing” Aid days, thus ensuring an equitable spread across boroughs. The PAF is a very simple formula: the borough BWT for uniformed constables, as confirmed at the beginning of the financial year by MPS Workforce Planning, is calculated as a percentage of the total MPS BWT. Any particular borough is then required to provide that percentage of Aid days, averaged over a rolling twelve month period. For example, Hackney is 3.81% of the MPS strength and so is required to provide 3.81% of all aid days over twelve months. This can be expressed as the target number of constable days to be supplied. In Hackney’s case, this is 6,246. The public order planners know from their record keeping (POSMIS) how many days have been supplied for each borough, both to other boroughs and as self aid. It is then a matter of a simple calculation to work out the variation between target days to be supplied and the actual days supplied. A pick list can then be developed that draws resource from boroughs that owe the most. Geography and current commitments will be further considered when prioritising the pick list, thus maintaining equitability. Public Order planners try to manage each borough’s variation to within ±10% of target.

30. Rather than discuss the impact of high profile events on CO resources a slightly different approach will be taken; impact will be discussed in terms of “busy days”. These are days that require an unusually high commitment to Aid. One or more major event may be taking place on that day, as well as a number of smaller events. Chart 4 below shows the average monthly Aid abstraction from boroughs since March, along with the types of events that led to this increase in demand.

31. The requirement for Aid from Territorial Policing in April, July and August exceeded 10%. Events contributing to this demand included: London Marathon, Tour de France, Notting Hill Carnival and Operation Hargood – the policing of the Camp for Climate Change event held at Heathrow Airport and other venues across London, not to mention some of the numerous background events that although smaller in nature also require resourcing.

Central Operations resources

32. With regard to pre-planned events these are just that, and there should not need to be specific contingencies around accommodating it. Contingencies are included within the plan itself. The knock on effect that a large event, i.e. Notting Hill Carnival, will have on other OCUs should be either built in or forecast/flagged up so that basic business continuity issues can be taken into account. This is part of the basic pre-planning that CO11 do, and have done, so well, for many years. The contingencies are for the 'what ifs', the unknowns, the spontaneous events which again, CO11, the Service Mobilisation Plan, PNICC and mutual aid, are all there to provide resource planning.

33. Due to current funding arrangements CO6 Diplomatic Protection Group, CO7 Palace of Westminster, CO17 Transport OCU and CO18 Aviation Security do not routinely provide Aid to the MPS, although these OCUs do support MPS Aid requirements where they can within the terms of their respective Service Level Agreements. For example, Transport OCU has supported the London to Brighton cycle ride, a charitable event that impacts heavily on London Buses, and the Tour de France - by supplying significant levels of resources due to this being an event that was sponsored by TfL.

34. Excessive demand impacts primarily in two areas. We place additional demands upon our officers and cancel large numbers of rest days. The effect this has is to build up a large number of re-rostered rest days, which will have to be taken at some point in the future. Contingency for last minute aid poses particular difficulties. In many cases, our OCUs have little choice but to cancel rest days. Quite often the actual requirement is not made until there is less than 14 days notice, which increases overtime costs. The financial pressures and rosters are effectively managed at local levels, ensuring that business continuity is sustained throughout the year without adversely affecting budgets or operational viability. There are occasions when demands are such that at times it may be necessary to cancel other operations, tasking and training.

35. A short summary of operational impacts now follows for those OCUs affected by high demand. Palace of Westminster, Olympics OCU, Clubs and Vice, Traffic Criminal Justice Unit and Specialist Firearms Command have operated normally during these busy periods, so no summary has been provided. It is our larger operational OCUs that have been most affected.

36. From the CO6 perspective the large scale public order events, such as Notting Hill Carnival and Camp for Climate Change (Operation Hargood) have not impacted on the Command directly through the provision of officers for Aid to the extent that they have been in the position whereby they have had to stop any activity or reduce current activity as a result. However, CO6 is affected by large scale events that necessitate the closing off of Central London roads, for example Tour De France and New Years Eve and similar events. Road closures impact on the OCUs ability to respond to within target times. As a consequence, CO6 will undertake a review of policing arrangements to ensure that officers can get to and from posts and that there is the necessary armed support available to officers on posts should there be a requirement for it. Additional costs incurred at such times include double staffing isolated posts within the affected area.

37. For CO6 the biggest impact comes with specific events such as Trooping the Colour (60 officers deployed), Beating the Retreat, State opening of Parliament where there is a significant requirement for officers with specific firearms skills. There is an overtime cost implication for the OCU when policing these events although this is kept to a minimum through local financial management processes.

38. The additional demand has impacted upon the normal working business of CO15 Traffic OCU. Overall CO15 has shown a substantial increase on the aid demand upon its resources in general. A number of high profile events over the summer have put additional strain on the availability of officers.

39. The first major event for Traffic OCU in June with a high demand for the weekend of the 9th, was Trooping the Colour rehearsal and Central London Aid. This required the cancellation of over 40 rest days to supplement the staff already available. At this period, Traffic OCU was supplying 50 officers a week to Operation Vanguard. In July the Tour de France placed a particular challenge upon the OCU. In addition to seven other events the OCU supplied 100+ officers to the Tour de France, which was already on a busy weekend, with 11 officers a day posted to Wimbledon tennis championships. Over 100 rest days were cancelled for the Friday and Saturday and over 30 additional motorcycles were hired to meet the demand. In August, Operation Hargood required 92 Traffic officers a day for the 10 day period. Additional motorcycles were hired and due to the demand had to place the officers on aid on a 12 hour shift. Unfortunately, ANPR and tasking operations had to be cancelled to meet this demand. All internal training was cancelled and the staff redeployed. Notting Hill Carnival required 180 officers for the 2 days and again additional motorcycles had to be hired. A further 40 officers per day were required for Defence Systems Expo in Docklands. Traffic OCU is still supplying 30 officers per week for Operation Vanguard and is currently going through a process of identifying high demand periods which can be anticipated for next year. These will then being written into the 2008/2009 roster to accommodate them.

40. Due to funding arrangement CO18 Aviation Security do not provide aid to the MPS. However, both Operation Seagram (response to Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices in London and Glasgow) and Operation Hargood (Camp for Climate Change) both centred on aviation and Heathrow did require considerable extra deployments of CO18 resources. In addition to core numbers during:

• Operation Hargood an additional 2 Chief Inspectors, 4 Inspectors, 18 Sergeants and 53 constables (over a 24 hour period) were deployed at Heathrow
• Operation Seagram, on average, an additional 3 Inspectors, 3 Sergeants and 36 constables (over a 24 hour period) were deployed at Heathrow and 1 Inspectors, 2 Sergeants and 9 constables (over a 24 hour period) were deployed at London City Airport

41. These resources were achieved by a combination of realignment of resources/taskings, overtime, cancelled rest days, cancelling training and closing office functions (e.g. training, contingency planning etc). Sustaining such additional numbers is problematic in the long term as it builds up rest days and for armed deployments it is vitally important to proactively manage duty times of officers carrying firearms.

42. Territorial Support Group (TSG) deployments are guided by the Central Operations tasking processes every 2 weeks. So, in when a high profile public order event takes place, decisions are made in respect of what and where TSG officers will be deployed too. TSG officers are trained to a higher level in Public Order policing than other members of the MPS, and being specialists are the first port of call for the more demanding situations. This impacts on TSG ability to perform Borough Reserve postings (predominantly crime postings) to OCUs across all of the MPS. TSG do have contingencies for managing excessive demand - but all cost money or impact further down the line in terms of opportunity cost. For instance, we can cancel leaves during high demand. This decision will be based on the urgency of the need, the likely impact if we do not and the impact on the officers in terms of welfare and "burn out". Again, depending on the timescales involved will depend on the costs. We can also move to longer shift patterns (12 hour days for example) thereby freeing up resources but having a significant impact on long term resilience. All of these are considered by the OCU commander (or superintendent TSG) in line with the demand and the tasking (CATO) team.

C. Race and equality impact

1. Where relevant, race and equality issues have been discussed in the main body of this report. Central Operations continues to monitor progress in achieving a more representative workforce profile through regular review of individual OCU positive action programs, as set out in their Equality Development Action Plans.

2. We continue to utilise performance information to inform the Central Operations community engagement strategy and provide input to community and equality impact assessments. Additionally, this type of information assists in developing tactical advice and support, and proactive and preventative work concerning local community engagement when CO resources are deployed within the MPS.

D. Financial implications

There are no financial implications in relation to the issues within this report.

E. Background papers

MPA Full Authority Report. ‘Road Fatalities’, September 2007.

F. Contact details

Report author:  Graeme Keeling, Central Operations Performance and Planning Unit, MPS.

For more information contact:

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

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback