The MPS tasking budget 2005/06

ps/09/06
20 February 2006
MPA briefing paper

Author: DAC Richard Bryan, MPS

This briefing paper has been prepared to inform members and staff. It is not a committee report and no decisions are required.

Background

At its meeting on 23 June 2005 the MPA approved the use of £4m of the 2004/05 MPS underspend to create a tasking budget for the Director of Tasking. This briefing note provides a financial analysis of how this money has been utilised by the MPS.

The £4m Tasking budget is used to cover police overtime (and related Employer’s national insurance contribution) and supports the idea that if a borough or OCU makes a bid for a taskable resource then this resource should be provided at nil extra cost.

Tasking continues to be an essential element of Capital City Policing allowing the deployment of extra specialist resources to support Territorial Policing and other Business Groups. The process continues to be reviewed to refine and improve the system. It is closely linked into the Met Modernisation Programme and is the subject of a paper to Management Board in early February.

Allocation

As at 31 December 2005, approximately £1.9m of the Tasking budget has been spent according to MPS priorities. There follow three tables detailing the breakdown of this expenditure by:

• Operation type
• Taskable resource
• Borough receiving the resource

Table 1 – Tasking by operation type

Table 2 – Allocation by taskable resource

Table 3 – Boroughs receiving the taskable resource

Table 4 - Tasking Days and Number of officers

The following table indicates the daily deployment of taskable resources through the Tasking system and where these officers have been deployed.

Average deployment per day - 346 Officers per day

Commentary

The tables show that as at 31 December 2005, £1.9m has been paid out from the Tasking Fund. This is on a cash basis, not an accruals basis, and there is a time delay between the cessation of an operation and a closure form being submitted to the Tasking Unit. This can result in money being allocated a number of weeks after the operation date. At present approximately £840k has been allocated by the Director of Tasking for which closing forms are awaited. Once received a proportion of this allocation will be paid out to taskable OCUs.

This £1.9m represents the additional costs of tasking, i.e. it covers only the overtime and ERNIC costs of tasked resources. The actual cost of tasking is far greater as it includes the salary costs of the officers tasked. Using the Tasking budget in this manner creates flexibility and continuity of deployment allowing taskable units to be deployed on borough for a full working day without the borough or taskable unit having to support the additional overtime costs (often inevitable when travel is involved). In the past 3 years, these additional costs have been funded by the Safer Streets funding from the Home Office, this funding ceased in 2005/06.

It should be noted that not every taskable deployment results in additional expenditure over and above the standard pay costs of the officers involved.

Table 4 shows clearly that the TSG is the taskable resource utilised most often. Unlike other OCUs, which have specific core responsibilities outside of the Tasking process, the vast majority of the deployments of the TSG are task based through the Tasking process.

Issues

Clearly, the events of 7/7 and 21/7 and subsequent related activity had an impact on the level of ‘normal’ Tasking activity where taskable OCUs were deployed outside of the usual Tasking process.

Within the Central Operations modernisation process practices and policies are being examined to ensure that resources are deployed in the most efficient and effective manner.

Resource implications

The Tasking Process is directed by DAC Richard Bryan supported by a Superintendent (part time), an Inspector, a PC and a member of Police Staff. A review of Tasking is currently being undertaken

Equalities implications

There are no direct equalities implications linked to this paper

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