Project update on the implementation of the Taylor reforms

Report: 10
Date: 10 July 2008
By: Commander Directorate of Professional Standards on behalf of the Commissioner

Summary

This reports follows the regular updates that the PSCC have received on the development of the Taylor reforms and the preparations by the MPS for Implementation.

A. Recommendations

That Members note the report.

B. Supporting information

Progress since the last PSCC meeting

Legislation

1. The Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill received Royal Assent on 8th May 2008. The regulations now need to be introduced to Parliament using the affirmative procedure, which requires that they are the subject of debate and approval by both houses. The secondary legislation process now proceeds for final ratification after the parliamentary summer recess. The Home Office anticipate a 1st November 2008 ‘go live’ date for the new regulations to take effect for the Police Service.

Training

2. A DPS-led training programme is being devised with accredited training service providers (5 Essex Court) for delivery in July and September. BOCU Commanders have been asked to provide the names of those they wish to be trained and to consider at the same time the rank, race and gender of those representatives to ensure confidence in their local processes. Each OCU will have the opportunity to have four police officers trained. One of these officers should be of the rank of Chief Inspector / Superintendent as they will be the OCU Professional Standards Champion whose role will provide the consistency of approach and decision making that will characterise an effective misconduct management system. The other three officers should be of the rank of Inspector or above. This is because the officer chairing a misconduct meeting should be senior in rank to the officer alleged to have failed the standard and the overwhelming majority of allegations are at PC and PS level.

BOCU Model

3. Supt Roger Smalley from Camden, TP representative on the Taylor Project, has been leading on the proposed future B/OCU model and has developed a Professional Standards Focus Desk (PSFD). Once consultation has been completed with key stakeholders, the new framework will be publicised to the rest of the organisation. Camden is well placed to understand and prepare for these changes as a pilot site as Ch Supt Dominic Clout is also on the Transforming HR (THR) Board. Both projects present significant changes but also real opportunities for enhanced management of staff. The key changes emanating from the BOCU model are;

Introduction of the role of Misconduct Severity Assessor (MSA);

4. This will be the Superintendent Ops. This role will be to review all matters that have been flagged to the PSFD as ones which cannot be dealt with as management interventions / management action. The MSA will decide whether a matter should be put before a Misconduct Meeting or dealt with under Unsatisfactory Performance or Unsatisfactory Performance – attendance procedures (UPP / UPPA), or dealt with by way of management action / intervention. The key here is to look at what is the behaviour exhibited and then match the appropriate process to it. We seek to remove the perceived automatic link between behaviour and misconduct.

Role of the Professional Standards Focus Desk (PSFD)

5. The role of this unit will be to receive all (Police and Police Staff) misconduct issues and to review them against the Taylor principles i.e. proportionality.

Common to all OCUs will be the following:

Misconduct Meeting Managers

6. A minimum of four Inspectors per BOCU will be required to be trained to run Misconduct Meetings. The first tranche of training takes place in the last two weeks of July and there has been an overwhelming demand for places on the courses – even though each is of 2 days duration. A second set of dates will be available in September and these are also expected to be fully booked. It is intended that these Misconduct Meetings will deal with Police Staff and Police Officer issues. An HR representative will have the opportunity to support the process subject to the demands of Transforming HR. The opportunity for these Inspectors to deal with the development issues of probationers will be explored in line with TRH changes.

Appeals Managers

7. BOCU Chief Inspectors / Superintendents will receive additional awareness input and will become the appellant authority for appeals processes against the Misconduct Meetings where written warnings have been issued.

8. The proposed BOCU model will be presented to the TP Command Team on 2 September 2008 although by that time the majority of staff will have received training in the processes and it is only the structure and practicalities of operation which will need to be set out. Up until that point Camden and will continue to be a trial site for the MPS.

Consultation and Engagement

9. Consultation and engagement continues with key stakeholders (specifically IPCC and CPS). Monthly meetings have been set up between the DPS Taylor Project Team and the IPCC Project Team to ensure there is a joined up approach to the new reforms – and appropriate guidance. Specific areas currently under discussion include the CPS threshold change and the appeal right for the complainant against the non-referral of a case to the CPS.

10. The collective agreement of the definition of gross misconduct needs to be made. To this end, a small focus group organised by the MPS Misconduct Office will lead on this work. Representatives from the IPCC, DPS, DLS, Counsel (5 Essex Court), Home Office, MPA and Police Staff Associations will be included. A paper will be presented to Management Board on 5th August 2008.

11. One additional specific piece of work surrounds the interpretation of a written warning. With the enhanced status afforded to this outcome under Taylor the question needs to be asked “ how do we deal with written warnings given in the 12 months up to the start date”? This and changes to the 162 form, which details the local misconduct considerations, are under review and scheduled to be discussed with staff associations in the last week of June.

Changes to DPS

12. In order to support the changes to Taylor the MPA will be aware of the inception of the Customer Service Team that now takes 62% of new complaints and is able to provide a high level of satisfaction to complainants. The next noticeable changes will be to the Misconduct Hearings as the role of the Presiding officer changes.

Communication

13. A high impact briefing and publicity campaign will be rolled out in the weeks leading up the ‘go live’ date. A number of interviews by DCS Hamish Campbell have been given to various police publications; Police Magazine, Police Professional Magazine, The Job and Police Review. Internal communications continue via the Intranet, Taylor Web Pages and Newsletters.

Timeline Graph

Table 1: Time line for the impact briefing and publicity campaign for the roll out of the BOCU Professional Standards Model

C. Race and equality impact

Consultation and engagement continues throughout implementation with key stakeholders and police staff associations. The new system seeks to be open and fair, guidance has been issued to OCUs on the selection of staff that will run misconduct meetings to ensure the diversity mix on the OCU is stressed and to achieve full confidence in the process. The new Taylor Performance Framework will ensure that all outcomes are monitored through the Tribune system where consistency of local level decision-making will be monitored.

D. Financial implications

DPS has allocated £75k from its 2008/9 budget to pay for all Taylor Training delivery. There are no further financial implications to be considered at this stage.

E. Background papers

None

F. Contact details

Report authors: Andrew Campbell, Detective Superintendent, MPS and Nadia Musallam, DPS Taylor Project Manager, MPS.

For more information contact:

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

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