Questions arising from Commissioners report to Full Authority on 23 July 2009 in relation to (1) Specials and (2) Town centres

24/09
14 September 2009
MPA briefing paper 24/2009

Author: A/Ch Supt Nick Jupp, MPS

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

Specials

John Briggs welcomed the increase in the number of Specials, and asked for further information to demonstrate their effective use. Joanne McCartney asked for statistics on the retention of Specials. Toby Harris asked for some information on the specialist roles performed by some of the Specials. The Commissioner responded by confirming that the MPS were reducing the number of non-active Specials, did make good use of their specialist skills and agreed to supply further evidence to demonstrate how the Met was assuring their effective use

MPS response

Their effectiveness (i.e. work taking place to reduce number of non-effective Specials and increase hours they work)

Upon joining the MSC each officer is asked to sign a statement of expectation. In this statement is the expectation that each officer will perform a minimum of 200 hours per year.

Each Borough is provided with a monthly report indicating the number of hours that are electronically recorded as being worked by their special constables. This corporate method of recording hours was introduced in April 2009 to replace a wide variety of local methods of recording hours. The report is in the form of a three monthly rolling record of recorded hours.

Following the introduction of this new recording system a period of time has been given to officers to allow them to become familiar with the new recording method, and to allow BOCUs the opportunity to monitor compliance with the requirement for officers to electronically log their hours.

As from August 2009 Boroughs will be asked to provide an action plan for each officer who is shown as having performed nil hours over the past three months. As from November, each BOCU will be asked to provide an action plan for each officer who is shown as performing less than the expected number of hours.

Positive action is expected by BOCUs to encourage the reintegration of officers back into the MSC of any officer shown as performing either nil hours or less than the expected number of hours (averaged over 12 months).

The MPS is determined that each MSC officer will be expected to honour their commitment to work 200 hours per year as a special constable. If the volunteer refuses to meet the commitment to the MPS and the MSC, then the BOCU is expected to offer alternatives which may include insistence that the officer volunteer their services to another organisation.

Table 1: Statistics on the retention of Specials

The current level of wastage from the MSC is 19% (March 2009). This is better than the national average of 21.5%. This figure compares very favourably when compared to Merseyside at 37.6% and the Greater Manchester Police at 21.6%. The number of MSC officers leaving the MSC to join the regular service is 104 or 21% of leavers (March 2009). In comparison to forces across England and Wales almost one third of all leavers to join the regular service came from the MPS.

In April 2009 an MSC retention team was formed with the aim of positive intervention to retain MSC officers. MSC officers are meant to give one months notice of their intention to resign, during this period the retention team will take steps to interview any officer who has indicated an intention to resign from the MSC. The team of five volunteers, will try and ascertain whether there are any underlying reasons that are causing the officer to want to leave. The retention team will then take any appropriate steps to resolve the underlying issues, and thus keep the officer, before they leave the service.

The retention team are also committed to interview any officer who does the leave the service without an exit interview. This is to ensure that any learning can be fed back into the MPS.

All of the information gained during the interviews is fed back into the corporate MPS HR reporting systems. It is still too early to gauge the success of this team.

It is expected that the introduction of the two sergeants per BOCU that is currently being introduced onto each BOCU will greatly assist in the retention of MSC officers. These officers will be expected to maintain regular contact with all MSC officers and take positive steps at an early stage to resolve any issues that are currently causing MSC officers to disengage with the MPS. For instance greater flexibility of hours.

Information on the specialist roles performed by Specials (e.g. a Special works in the Arts & Antiques Unit)

Currently there are MSC officers attached to:

• Heathrow
• Traffic
• Operational Support Unit
• Specialist Crime Department (Art and Antiques / Fraud / e-crime / Clubs & Vice)
• Royal Parks
• Transport for London OCU

Town Centre initiative

Caroline Pidgeon welcomed the initiative and acknowledged she had noticed more officers on the street. She asked for a breakdown of town centre teams

MPS response

1. The Commissioner has announced the five Ps as underpinning his time in office, Presence, Performance, Productivity, Professionalism and Pride.

2. The Presence strand is being developed in terms of improvements in how our staff patrol, emphasising how we lead and supervise to ensure they are focused on doing the right things, in the right way in the right places, and how we can increase visibility, capacity and capability to increase the ‘Governance of the Streets’ by dealing with ASB and street crime. The work, which will apply to all business groups, will be developed by a Presence Programme Board, directly supporting the work on the confidence in policing measure. It will focus activity on issues of local concern, ASB on the streets, and enhance confidence through greater visibility dealing with the issues of concern to local communities.

3. Through this work we have introduced additional police patrols to Primary Town Centre locations. Each Borough was required to consult with local partners to identify their ‘Priority’ Town Centre location.

4. Within these locations each BOCU is required to provide 4 additional police patrols (4 officers for 8 hrs per day) every day of the week. As this programme of work develops we will increase patrols during the year to 10 additional patrols.

5. Boroughs are required to find these additional patrols from within existing resources. The type of activity being undertaken is for office based staff being required to perform duty on patrol, Central TPHQ staff (operation Sphere) being deployed to Boroughs to assist their colleagues, probationers on local training and MSC.

6. We do not at this stage record centrally how many officers are deployed within each Town Centre but we do record the Hours worked. These are copied below for reference and are also available for each Borough.

Table 2: MPS Totals for July 2009

7. Each Borough’s BWT is being increased by 2 Sergeants to provided leadership and accountability in delivering the necessary outcomes (reduced crime/ASB and improved confidence). These Sergeants will lead the work within the Town Centres and work toward recruiting significant number of Specials to help provide the extra additional patrols.

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