Metropolitan Police Authority Full Authority meeting

80/02
24 July 2002

The Metropolitan Police Authority will meet on Thursday 25 July at 10 a.m. in Meeting Room 1 (ground floor), 10 Dean Farrar Street London SW1. The meeting is open to members of the public and press.

Toby Harris, Chair of the MPA and Ian Blair, Acting Commissioner, will launch the Race Equality Schemes for both the MPA and the MPS in a short ceremony at the start of the meeting.

This month the MPA will be considering how to increase the number of officers from minority ethnic communities in the Met, as the current target of 7.9% is not being achieved. A taskforce is now being set up to look at ways in which visible ethnic minority recruitment can be increased. At the Full Authority meeting the Chair and other members will be appointed to the group.

Toby Harris, Chair of the MPA, said:

“This is an MPA led initiative aimed at recruiting visible ethnic minority officers and developing new ideas for police recruitment at Borough and London wide level.

“The recruitment task force will be drawn from the public, business and voluntary sector to offer practical ideas, proposals and support to the Met. Community and under represented groups will also be invited to provide assistance and advice to help make the Met more responsive to their needs and more representative of their interests.

“Currently 17% of applications to join the Met are from ethnic minorities and although Police Reforms offer opportunities to recruit from EU and outside the Commonwealth, we must make sure that the Met recruits from and is representative of the people of London.”

The group aims to finish its work within six months and any good practice found during that time will be shared amongst all the Boroughs. A final report of the group’s achievements and recommendations will be made to the Full Authority in due course.

Members will also be updated on the progress of introducing Police Community Support Officers, specifically into the Transport Operational Command Unit and other plans to extend their operations into community schemes. So far, the Met has received 760 completed application packs with 450 of those people being interviewed. A significant proportion of those enquiries are from minority backgrounds. The first training course will begin on 2 September 2002 and the first PCSOs will be deployed in central London on 23 September 2002.

Other items on the agenda include an update on key issues of Police Reform, an MPA/MPS Strategic Framework to provide long term direction and the medium term financial projections for 2003/2004 to 2006/7.

The Acting Commissioner, Ian Blair, will give an oral update on current operational policing issues in London and Toby Harris, Chair of the MPA, Catherine Crawford, Clerk to the MPA and Members will give updates on Authority matters.

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