Metropolitan Police Authority - Full Authority Meeting

90/01
4 December 2001

A meeting of the full Metropolitan Police Authority will be held on Monday 10 December 2001 at 2.00pm in Room AG16, Romney House, 43 Marsham Street, SW1.

The agenda includes Policing Priorities and Objectives for 2002/2003 and Revenue Budget for 2002/2003. The Metropolitan Police Authority welcomed the Chancellor's announcement on 27 November 2001 that £22 million is to be made available to the Metropolitan Police to meet the immediate financial needs brought about following the 11 September events. Following the announcement, Toby Harris, Chair of the Authority, said:

"This amount of money will go some considerable way towards covering costs so far incurred and anticipated additional security commitments for the rest of this financial year.

"We hope that this announcement will lead to a productive dialogue between us and the Home Office on future funding issues."

The Full Authority will also review the Resource Allocation Formula (RAF) following lengthy consultation between the RAF Project Board and London's stakeholders. Lord Graham Tope, as Chair of the RAF Project Board, will recommend that the new Option 4 be adopted, based on best strength. This option takes the best strength of officers on each borough between March 2001 and end of October 2001 as the base to which the RAF will then be applied to calculate the total number of officers to be allocated to boroughs.

The Full Authority will be updated on the Police Reform Act and is expected to agree a date for a special meeting of the Authority to discuss issues around deaths in custody. The Commissioner will also give his regular verbal report on current operational policing issues in London.

The Members will be requested, in accordance with the Authority's Standing Orders, to hear a question from a member of the public relating to an incident in which her son was injured by an officer of the Metropolitan Police in 1996.

The meeting is open to members of the press and public.

Notes to editors

1. The need for a more responsive and fair RAF is well recognised and the creation of the MPA and the move to borough based policing have provided a timely opportunity to review current allocation of resources to boroughs.

The MPA commissioned an external review of RAF by PA Consulting Group which began earlier this year. Its aim was to introduce improvements to the way in which resources are allocated to boroughs, so that officers could be directed to where the demand and need is greatest.

As with any public service allocation system there will invariably be boroughs that are perceived as 'winners' and 'losers' but the joint MPA/MPS Project Board has been completely objective in seeking to arrive at a fair and balanced system across London as a whole.

A meeting was held on 21 November 2001 at Westminster Central Hall as part of a consultation process that has already involved MPA and GLA members. For that meeting, a number of external stakeholders, including members of the Community Police Consultative Groups, local authorities and MPs were invited to join the RAF Project Board and Borough Police Commanders to discuss the implementation of the new formula.

Four options were considered by the Project Board all of which are intended to be implemented against assumption of growth in total officer numbers and, therefore, will represent 'no loss' of officers in any borough. The four options involve implementing RAF 2002 against various baselines :

• Actual borough strength at 30 September 2001
• Forecast borough strength for 30 December 2001
• Borough 's Budgeted Workforce Targets for March 2002 (which were drawn up using the existing formula and which most boroughs have so far been unable to reach during the current year)
• A further option that may be considered by the Project Board is implementing RAF 2002 against the highest number of actual officers on a borough achieved on a particular day during the current financial year.

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