AGENDA

Meeting Police and Crime Committee Date Thursday 23 February 2017 Time 10.00 am Place Chamber, City Hall, The Queen's Walk, London, SE1 2AA Copies of the reports and any attachments may be found at www.london.gov.uk/mayor-assembly/london-assembly/police-and-crime-committee

Most meetings of the and its Committees are webcast live at www.london.gov.uk/mayor-assembly/london-assembly/webcasts where you can also view past meetings.

Members of the Committee Steve O'Connell AM (Chairman) AM AM (Deputy Chair) Florence Eshalomi AM AM MBE AM Sian Berry AM AM Andrew Dismore AM Peter Whittle AM

A meeting of the Committee has been called by the Chairman of the Committee to deal with the business listed below. Mark Roberts, Executive Director of Secretariat Wednesday 15 February 2017

Further Information If you have questions, would like further information about the meeting or require special facilities please contact: Joanna Brown or Teresa Young; Telephone: 020 7983 6559; Email: [email protected]/[email protected]; Minicom: 020 7983 4458

For media enquiries please contact Mary Dolan, External Relations Officer on 020 7983 4603. Email: [email protected]. If you have any questions about individual items please contact the author whose details are at the end of the report.

This meeting will be open to the public, except for where exempt information is being discussed as noted on the agenda. A guide for the press and public on attending and reporting meetings of local government bodies, including the use of film, photography, social media and other means is available at www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Openness-in-Meetings.pdf.

There is access for disabled people, and induction loops are available. There is limited underground parking for orange and blue badge holders, which will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis. Please contact Facilities Management on 020 7983 4750 in advance if you require a parking space or further information.

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If you, or someone you know, needs a copy of the agenda, minutes or reports in large print or Braille, audio, or in another language, then please call us on 020 7983 4100 or email [email protected].

Certificate Number: FS 80233

Agenda Police and Crime Committee Thursday 23 February 2017

1 Apologies for Absence and Chairman's Announcements

To receive any apologies for absence and any announcements from the Chairman.

2 Declarations of Interests (Pages 1 - 4)

Report of the Executive Director of Secretariat Contact: Joanna Brown, [email protected] and Teresa Young, [email protected]; 020 7983 6559

The Committee is recommended to:

(a) Note the list of offices held by Assembly Members, as set out in the table at Agenda Item 2, as disclosable pecuniary interests;

(b) Note the declaration by any Member(s) of any disclosable pecuniary interests in specific items listed on the agenda and the necessary action taken by the Member(s) regarding withdrawal following such declaration(s); and

(c) Note the declaration by any Member(s) of any other interests deemed to be relevant (including any interests arising from gifts and hospitality received which are not at the time of the meeting reflected on the Authority’s register of gifts and hospitality, and noting also the advice from the GLA’s Monitoring Officer set out at Agenda Item 2) and to note any necessary action taken by the Member(s) following such declaration(s).

3 Minutes (Pages 5 - 60)

The Committee is recommended to confirm the minutes of the meeting of the Police and Crime Committee held on 26 January 2017 to be signed by the Chairman as a correct record.

The appendix to the minutes set out on pages 9 to 60 is attached for Members and officers only but is available from the following area of the GLA’s website: www.london.gov.uk/mayor- assembly/london-assembly/police-and-crime-committee

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4 Summary List of Actions (Pages 61 - 84)

Report of the Executive Director of Secretariat Contact: Joanna Brown, [email protected] and Teresa Young, [email protected]; 020 7983 6559

The Committee is recommended to note the completed and ongoing actions arising from previous meetings of the Committee, as listed in the report.

5 Action Taken Under Delegated Authority (Pages 85 - 88)

Report of the Executive Director of Secretariat Contact: Joanna Brown, [email protected] and Teresa Young, [email protected]; 020 7983 6559

The Committee is recommended to note the recent action taken by the Chairman of the Police and Crime Committee, Steve O’Connell AM, under delegated authority, following consultation with the party Group Lead Members and Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM, namely to write to the Government to urge that the National, International and Capital City (NICC) grant allocated to the Metropolitan Police Service and the review of the way funding is allocated to the police properly reflects the responsibilities that the Metropolitan Police Service has to keep London safe.

6 Response to The Mayor's Police and Crime Plan - To Follow (Pages 89 - 90)

Report of the Executive Director of Secretariat Contact: Becky Short, [email protected]; 020 7983 4760

The Committee is recommended to agree its report, Response to the Mayor’s Draft Police and Crime Plan.

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7 Question and Answer Session with the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime and the Metropolitan Police Service (Pages 91 - 104)

Report of the Executive Director of Secretariat Contact: Janette Roker, [email protected]; 020 7983 6562

The Committee is recommended to:

(a) Note, as background to the question and answer session with the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime and the Metropolitan Police Service, the monthly report for the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime attached at Appendix 1 to the report; and

(b) Note the report and answers given by the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime and the Metropolitan Police Service to the questions asked by Members.

8 Police and Crime Committee Work Programme (Pages 105 - 108)

Report of the Executive Director of Secretariat Contact: Becky Short, [email protected]; 020 7983 4760

The Committee is recommended to:

(a) Note the work programme, as set out in the report; and

(b) Delegate authority to the Committee’s Chairman, Steve O’Connell AM, in consultation with party Group Lead Members and Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM to agree the topic and arrangements for the Committee’s meeting on 9 March 2017.

9 Date of Next Meeting

The next meeting of the Committee is scheduled for Thursday, 9 March 2017 at 10.00am in the Chamber, City Hall.

10 Any Other Business the Chairman Considers Urgent

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This page is intentionally left blank Agenda Item 2

Subject: Declarations of Interests

Report to: Police and Crime Committee

Report of: Executive Director of Secretariat Date: 23 February 2017

This report will be considered in public

1. Summary

1.1 This report sets out details of offices held by Assembly Members for noting as disclosable pecuniary interests and requires additional relevant declarations relating to disclosable pecuniary interests, and gifts and hospitality to be made.

2. Recommendations

2.1 That the list of offices held by Assembly Members, as set out in the table below, be noted as disclosable pecuniary interests1;

2.2 That the declaration by any Member(s) of any disclosable pecuniary interests in specific items listed on the agenda and the necessary action taken by the Member(s) regarding withdrawal following such declaration(s) be noted; and

2.3 That the declaration by any Member(s) of any other interests deemed to be relevant (including any interests arising from gifts and hospitality received which are not at the time of the meeting reflected on the Authority’s register of gifts and hospitality, and noting also the advice from the GLA’s Monitoring Officer set out at below) and any necessary action taken by the Member(s) following such declaration(s) be noted.

3. Issues for Consideration

3.1 Relevant offices held by Assembly Members are listed in the table overleaf:

1 The Monitoring Officer advises that: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct will only preclude a Member from participating in any matter to be considered or being considered at, for example, a meeting of the Assembly, where the Member has a direct Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in that particular matter. The effect of this is that the ‘matter to be considered, or being considered’ must be about the Member’s interest. So, by way of example, if an Assembly Member is also a councillor of London Borough X, that Assembly Member will be precluded from participating in an Assembly meeting where the Assembly is to consider a matter about the Member’s role / employment as a councillor of London Borough X; the Member will not be precluded from participating in a meeting where the Assembly is to consider a matter about an activity or decision of London Borough X.

City Hall, The Queen’s Walk, London SE1 2AA Enquiries: 020 7983 4100 minicom: 020 7983 4458 www.london.gov.uk v2/2016 Page 1

Member Interest Tony Arbour AM Member, LFEPA; Member, LB Richmond Jennette Arnold OBE AM Committee of the Regions Gareth Bacon AM Member, LFEPA; Member, LB Bexley Kemi Badenoch AM Shaun Bailey AM Sian Berry AM Member, LB Camden AM Congress of Local and Regional Authorities (Council of Europe) AM Member, LFEPA; Member, LB Wandsworth Tom Copley AM Unmesh Desai AM Member, LB Newham AM Member, City of Westminster Andrew Dismore AM Member, LFEPA Len Duvall AM Florence Eshalomi AM Member, LFEPA; Member, LB Nicky Gavron AM David Kurten AM Member, LFEPA Joanne McCartney AM Deputy Mayor Steve O’Connell AM Member, LB Croydon Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM Keith Prince AM Member, LB Redbridge AM Member, LFEPA; Member, LB Islington Dr AM Navin Shah AM Fiona Twycross AM Chair, LFEPA; Chair of the London Local Resilience Forum Peter Whittle AM

[Note: LB - London Borough; LFEPA - London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. The appointments to LFEPA reflected above take effect as from 17 June 2016.]

3.2 Paragraph 10 of the GLA’s Code of Conduct, which reflects the relevant provisions of the Localism Act 2011, provides that:

- where an Assembly Member has a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest in any matter to be considered or being considered or at

(i) a meeting of the Assembly and any of its committees or sub-committees; or

(ii) any formal meeting held by the Mayor in connection with the exercise of the Authority’s functions

- they must disclose that interest to the meeting (or, if it is a sensitive interest, disclose the fact that they have a sensitive interest to the meeting); and

- must not (i) participate, or participate any further, in any discussion of the matter at the meeting; or (ii) participate in any vote, or further vote, taken on the matter at the meeting

UNLESS

- they have obtained a dispensation from the GLA’s Monitoring Officer (in accordance with section 2 of the Procedure for registration and declarations of interests, gifts and hospitality – Appendix 5 to the Code).

3.3 Failure to comply with the above requirements, without reasonable excuse, is a criminal offence; as is knowingly or recklessly providing information about your interests that is false or misleading. Page 2

3.4 In addition, the Monitoring Officer has advised Assembly Members to continue to apply the test that was previously applied to help determine whether a pecuniary / prejudicial interest was arising - namely, that Members rely on a reasonable estimation of whether a member of the public, with knowledge of the relevant facts, could, with justification, regard the matter as so significant that it would be likely to prejudice the Member’s judgement of the public interest.

3.5 Members should then exercise their judgement as to whether or not, in view of their interests and the interests of others close to them, they should participate in any given discussions and/or decisions business of within and by the GLA. It remains the responsibility of individual Members to make further declarations about their actual or apparent interests at formal meetings noting also that a Member’s failure to disclose relevant interest(s) has become a potential criminal offence.

3.6 Members are also required, where considering a matter which relates to or is likely to affect a person from whom they have received a gift or hospitality with an estimated value of at least £25 within the previous three years or from the date of election to the London Assembly, whichever is the later, to disclose the existence and nature of that interest at any meeting of the Authority which they attend at which that business is considered.

3.7 The obligation to declare any gift or hospitality at a meeting is discharged, subject to the proviso set out below, by registering gifts and hospitality received on the Authority’s on-line database. The on- line database may be viewed here: http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor-assembly/gifts-and-hospitality.

3.8 If any gift or hospitality received by a Member is not set out on the on-line database at the time of the meeting, and under consideration is a matter which relates to or is likely to affect a person from whom a Member has received a gift or hospitality with an estimated value of at least £25, Members are asked to disclose these at the meeting, either at the declarations of interest agenda item or when the interest becomes apparent.

3.9 It is for Members to decide, in light of the particular circumstances, whether their receipt of a gift or hospitality, could, on a reasonable estimation of a member of the public with knowledge of the relevant facts, with justification, be regarded as so significant that it would be likely to prejudice the Member’s judgement of the public interest. Where receipt of a gift or hospitality could be so regarded, the Member must exercise their judgement as to whether or not, they should participate in any given discussions and/or decisions business of within and by the GLA.

4. Legal Implications

4.1 The legal implications are as set out in the body of this report.

5. Financial Implications

5.1 There are no financial implications arising directly from this report.

Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 List of Background Papers: None Contact Officer: Joanna Brown and Teresa Young, Senior Committee Officers Telephone: 020 7983 6559 E-mail: [email protected] and [email protected]

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Page 4 Agenda Item 3

MINUTES

Meeting: Police and Crime Committee Date: Thursday 26 January 2017 Time: 10.00 am Place: Chamber, City Hall, The Queen's Walk, London, SE1 2AA

Copies of the minutes may be found at: http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor-assembly/london-assembly/police-and-crime-committee

Present:

Steve O'Connell AM (Chairman) Unmesh Desai AM (Deputy Chair) Tony Arbour AM Sian Berry AM Andrew Dismore AM Florence Eshalomi AM Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM Keith Prince AM Peter Whittle AM

1 Apologies for Absence and Chairman's Announcements (Item 1)

1.1 Apologies for absence were received from Kemi Badenoch AM, for whom Tony Arbour AM attended as a substitute; and Len Duvall AM.

2 Declarations of Interests (Item 2)

2.1 Resolved:

That the list of offices held by Assembly Members, as set out in the table at Agenda Item 2, be noted as disclosable pecuniary interests.

City Hall, The Queen’s Walk, London SE1 2AA Enquiries: 020 7983 4100 minicom: 020 7983 4458 www.london.gov.uk Page 5 Greater London Authority Police and Crime Committee Thursday 26 January 2017

3 Summary List of Actions (Item 3)

3.1 The Committee received the report of the Executive Director of Secretariat.

3.2 Resolved:

That the completed and ongoing actions arising from the previous meetings of the Committee, as listed in the report, be noted.

4 Action Taken Under Delegated Authority (Item 4)

4.1 The Committee received the report of the Executive Director of Secretariat.

4.2 Resolved:

(a) That the recent actions taken by the Chairman, Steve O’Connell AM, under delegated authority, following consultation with the party Group Lead Members and Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM, namely to agree the Committee’s output from its scrutiny review of the policing and security of Notting Hill Carnival, be noted.

(b) That the Committee’s report, Notting Hill Carnival: safer and better, as attached at Appendix 1 to the report be noted.

5 The Mayor's Draft Police and Crime Plan; and Question and Answer Session with the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime and the Metropolitan Police Service (Item 5)

5.1 The Committee received the report of the Executive Director of Secretariat as background to putting questions to invited guests on the Mayor’s Draft Police and Crime Plan. The discussion was divided into two sessions: the first focussed on the Mayor’s proposals for the criminal justice system; and the second session was the monthly question and answer session with the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), with focus on the Mayor’s Draft Police and Crime Plan.

5.2 The following guests were in attendance for the first session on the Mayor’s Draft Police and Crime Plan:  Ben Summerskill OBE, Director, Criminal Justice Alliance;  Bernadette Keane, Victims Services Director for London, Victim Support; and  Evan Jones, Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust.

Page 6 Greater London Authority Police and Crime Committee Thursday 26 January 2017

5.3 A transcript of the discussion during the first session is attached at Appendix 1.

5.4 In the monthly question and answer session with Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and the MPS, the Committee put questions to:  Sophie Linden, Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime; and  Craig Mackey QPM, Deputy Commissioner, MPS.

5.5 A transcript of the discussion during the second session is attached at Appendix 2.

5.6 During the course of the discussion the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime undertook to:  Notify Police and Crime Committee Members by email for each Policing Matters and Justice Matters meeting that took place;  Provide figures for the extra resources MOPAC is providing for the whole-school approach pilot work in Croydon which is tackling violence with a focus on children and young people; and  Inform the Committee of the action she had taken to lobby the Government about achieving a fair financial settlement for the MPS.

5.7 During the course of the discussion the Deputy Commissioner, MPS, undertook to find out if it was possible for the MPS to re-analyse older data for a comparison of how things had changed (for example in relation to prosecutions and convictions resulting from hit-and-run offences).

5.8 At the end of the discussion the Chairman thanked the guests for their attendance and helpful contributions.

5.9 Resolved:

(a) That the monthly report from the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, attached at Appendix 1 of the report, be noted.

(b) That the report and the discussions with invited guests be noted.

(c) That the Chair writes to guests requesting the follow-up information as outlined above.

(d) That authority be delegated to the Chairman, in consultation with the party Group Lead Members and Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM, to write to the Government to urge that the National, International and Capital City (NICC) grant allocated to the Metropolitan Police Service and the review of the way funding is allocated to the police properly reflects the responsibilities that

Page 7 Greater London Authority Police and Crime Committee Thursday 26 January 2017

the Metropolitan Police has to keep London safe.

6 Police and Crime Committee Work Programme (Item 6)

6.1 The Committee received the report of the Executive Director of Secretariat.

6.2 Resolved:

(a) That the work programme as set out in the report be noted.

(b) That it be noted that the date of the Police and Crime Committee’s Question and Answer Session in March will be held on Wednesday, 29 March 2017 at 10am instead of Thursday, 23 March 2017 at 10am.

7 Date of Next Meeting (Item 7)

7.1 The date of the next meeting was scheduled for Thursday, 9 February 2017 at 10am in the Chamber, City Hall.

8 Any Other Business the Chairman Considers Urgent (Item 8)

8.1 There was no other business the Chairman considered urgent.

9 Close of Meeting

9.1 The meeting ended at 12.50pm.

Chair Date

Contact Officer: Joanna Brown or Teresa Young; Telephone: 020 7983 6559; Email: [email protected]/[email protected]; Minicom: 020 7983 4458

Page 8 Appendix 1

Police and Crime Committee – Thursday, 26 January 2017

Transcript of Item 5 - Mayor’s Draft Police and Crime Plan - Part One

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): I first of all welcome our three guests this morning, who are Ben Summerskill OBE, Director of the Criminal Justice Alliance; Bernadette Keane, Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support; and Evan Jones, Head of Community Services at St Giles [Trust]. Again, welcome very much to you this morning and thank you very much for the giving of your time.

You will be aware that the subject is the Mayor’s draft Police and Crime Plan. Within it, there is reference to the broader criminal justice system. This Committee is gathering evidence to make our contribution towards the consultation and we will be listening to your evidence this morning and using that accordingly.

I will start the questions this morning, which are particularly about a better service for victims and offenders. My first question is initially to Bernadette but others can, clearly, come in. What are victims of crime in London telling you and your organisation about their experiences of the criminal justice system and the support that they receive?

Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): They are telling us that it is not satisfactory and that they have lots of concerns about it. One of the commonest themes we hear is the different points of contact that they have all the way through the journey. Often when they report a crime, the follow-up information on that crime can be disjointed and they can hear from several different officers. We know that a third of victims do not hear anything after they have reported a crime.

We hear very positive feedback about the police and the way they respond but we also, unfortunately, hear a lot of negative feedback as well. The person who first responds to the crime is very important to them. We have concerns about police training and it is something that, as Victim Support, we have talked to the police about. We feel that it needs to be enhanced.

The disjointed journey is the most important thing that comes out, having to tell their story again and again, not having a full understanding of the criminal justice process, not being kept informed of the investigation into the crime and then, even when the court case has happened, not having clear information about the outcome.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): We have heard this. Previous Deputy Mayors’ administrations took an interest in this and we have heard that before. I accept that. Has this got worse or have there been improvements? What is your view around that?

Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): There is a willingness to make improvements, but we have not had feedback that there have been improvements. Yes, unfortunately, I cannot say that there have been improvements. It has remained the same, if not got worse.

We used to have a model in London where victims were referred to victim support services regardless, but the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has now gone to a consent-only model and victims have to consent before they are referred to support services. We are concerned about the consistency of that and how it happens on the ground. We hear from lots of victims that they are not told about support services in a timely manner. We Page 9 continue to have concerns about the support that victims get from the police and in the rest of the criminal justice process.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): You are saying the system has slightly changed whereby the support was offered almost by default --

Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): Yes.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): -- but now they have to proactively give some sort of consent around it?

Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): They do, yes. The police have to ask and then tick it on a form for us to receive a referral. That happened in May last year [2016].

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): You sense that it is still fragmented support. Can you give me, perhaps, an example of someone - without naming them - and what it looks like?

Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): We know that fewer than 50% of people report crimes to the police and so we know that it is not just down to the police to support victims of crime. We actively encourage self-referrals and we work with our communities across London to try to encourage self-referrals.

When we work with those people who maybe have had more difficult experiences from the police in the past and maybe are not going to -- actually, I have not answered the question, exactly. We hear regularly that people who have come to us were not offered, at the point of contact, support and were not told about victim services. That is clear. We are told that.

It is also different in each different part of the system. I cannot really give you a coherent or consistent answer to that, I am afraid.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): OK. I will bring Evan in.

Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): He might be able to, yes.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): We will be writing to the organisations as well and so there may be other examples you could probably give.

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): I was just going to pick up on that. With us, we tend to be working with people who are victims and offenders, or victims or offenders, or victims today and offenders tomorrow. Their experience of being victims tends to be very negative because, when they are involved in a crime as a victim, it will be immediately seen that they have a criminal record, they are known as a gang member or they are known for some other crime.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): These are previous offenders who have now become victims?

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): Yes. We have a classic example of this and there is stuff in the report about this, which is great, around the hospital-based work with youngsters who come in and have been victims of serious knife attacks and so on. They are also very likely to also be perpetrators. Quite often, they are likely to be perpetrators very soon after that event, as soon as they have recovered, because they want to go and get revenge for whatever has happened to them. Yes, we could gain a Page 10 lot if victims who are also perpetrators were treated as victims when they are victims. We might engage more people through that process.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): This is the work that you do and you have an evidence base around the fact that victims who were offenders can be - and often are - treated in a different manner?

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): Absolutely, yes. They are treated very differently. They are not even inclined to go and report. As you said, only 50% actually get as far as reporting.

Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): Less than 50%, yes.

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): I am sure that a lot of that group are the ones we know. They do not even report the crimes but, when the crimes do come to the attention of the authorities, they do get treated so differently. They are not treated as victims, even though on that occasion they most certainly are.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): The subject of today is particularly around the emerging Police and Crime Plan. What we will be wanting from you, not just today but when we write to you is any items or measures that you feel are in the Plan and if you would say there is something it mentions that it could do better. That is the point I am making. If you do not have that evidence today, we can write. Ben, did you have any contribution around this in particular?

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): I certainly rehearse what both Victim Support and St Giles Trust have said because they are member organisations of ours.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Indeed.

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): Certainly, we welcome - and I think all our member organisations that operate in London welcome - the commitment the MPS has given to one point of contact throughout a victim pathway.

Possibly the most important point - and it is sometimes overlooked - is that for the vast majority of victims, there are not necessarily transformations that need to take place. They just need to be treated competently. One of the reasons that, in our view, they are not is because the criminal justice pathway is so fragmented. Of course, that is reflected not just in London but across the country as well. A perfect example of that is the simple fact that it must be unsatisfactory that the average times it takes from the commission of an offence to a court case starting in London is more than six months. In some cases, it is 18 months.

For many victims, of course, just the competent investigation of an offence is what they want. When it is absent - and we only have to look recently at the case of the murders by Stephen Port in Barking, where we had what can at its most generous be described as calamitous incompetence on the part of investigating officers - that, of course, causes massive distress to victims. They are not necessarily looking for a complete reconfiguration of the criminal justice system; they are just looking for very basic standards of competence.

Unmesh Desai AM (Deputy Chair): In terms of what you just told us about the experiences of victims, would the concept of a Victims Commissioner help? What would your hopes be for them and what do you envisage them doing?

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Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): We really support the recommendation for a Victims Commissioner. We feel that it is really important that the victim’s voice is heard and we believe that having a Victims Commissioner would really help that. At Victim Support, we have - obviously - a big group of victims and we would want to work very closely with the Victims Commissioner to make sure their voices were heard so that they could influence policy and the structure of the services going forward. We strongly support the proposal.

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): Yes. I would add that there is also a role there for supporting particularly high-profile victims, many of whom feel obliged to set up their own independent charities when they do not really have the skills to do that but are amazingly powerful and passionate speakers whom we should be getting in front of young people and other groups. That could be facilitated centrally rather than everyone having to set up their own individual charities. There is a real gap there. We are seeing a lot of high-profile victims suffering financially and emotionally because they feel they have to go it alone. We are quite concerned about this.

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): We warmly welcome the proposal - and again, I reflect what member organisations have said - but with one caveat. We agree completely that a Victims Commissioner should have the capacity to listen sympathetically to the experience of victims and engage with them. We agree completely that a Victims Commissioner should be someone who has the capacity to give a voice to the experience of victims.

However, our view is that those two things, while they are necessary, are not sufficient. Possibly, we are looking at the experience on the national stage here, but what we think is critically important is that if a Victims Commissioner is appointed, they also have the toughness and the resource to be able to challenge those parts of the criminal justice system in London in order to ensure that necessary structural change takes place or that efficiency is delivered in the way we have outlined. Just having a Commissioner who in some senses gives a voice to victims is probably not quite enough. What we want to see is someone who, as I said, has the toughness to be able to offer that sort of challenge.

Unmesh Desai AM (Deputy Chair): One more question. Does the draft Police and Crime Plan reflect what is needed to deliver an effective criminal justice service to victims? What, if anything, is missing from the Plan in relation to victims that you would like to see included?

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): In fairness - and we have to be objective about this - it is actually quite an inspiring Plan if we compare it with what is being delivered elsewhere across the country.

It recognises probably the most important thing, we say, and we will come back to devolution of powers. It recognises the real difficulties that arise through the complete fragmentation of the criminal justice system. This is established and understood.

If we were to say there was one thing that we think would benefit from inclusion, it would be to make the allusion to restorative justice more robust. The reality is that, as it points out, restorative justice works. It is incontrovertible that restorative justice, most particularly for victims but also in terms of rehabilitation, has real benefits.

We have been anxious that the Ministry of Justice granted £565,000 in 2013/14 to the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) for the delivery of restorative justice and MOPAC appeared to spend nothing on it. It was granted £917,000 by the MoJ in 2014/15 and appeared to spend £10,560 on it. It was granted Page 12

£1.879 million in 2015/16 and spent £250,000. I am not saying that that money has disappeared; it was just spent on something else without MOPAC being challenged about where it had gone.

While there is now a contract in place to deliver restorative justice in London, which we support, what Londoners should be offered - and an amendment could be made to the Plan - is an entitlement to restorative justice, rather than the somewhat vapid offering that is given in the Victims’ Code, which is that they have an entitlement to be told about restorative justice and then are sometimes told, “It is not available in this area”. Given that it is clear that restorative justice has real benefits for victims - and there is hard evidence of that - it would be very welcome if the Mayor could see fit to guarantee that benefit to victims in the future rather than just say it is an aspiration or an ambition that people should be able to receive restorative justice.

Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): Like Ben, when I first saw the draft Police and Crime Plan, I found it inspiring. I was particularly pleased to see the focus on vulnerability - that is a really important aspect of the Plan - and the focus on more joined-up working and a more seamless approach.

Just in terms of the Victims’ Code of Practice, it is something that at Victim Support we have quite a lot of concerns about because we know that that code is not being upheld. Only a very small proportion of victims are offered [the chance] to give a victim’s personal statement, which we know can be a very powerful voice for victims and means they are having their voice heard and their feelings heard. We at Victim Support would like for it to be made a legal duty, which it is not at the moment.

I would also like to mention restorative justice. We at Victim Support also really support restorative justice. We run the national Homicide Service and restorative justice is a key element of that offer. We have seen the really powerful impact it has on helping the bereaved understand the conditions of their loved one’s murder and we have seen them move on to cope and recover more effectively from that crime. I have also seen many perpetrators change their lives around because of going through restorative justice. It is a very powerful and something that we at Victim Support fully support.

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): I would just echo that, yes.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Thank you for that. What has come out of that is that, clearly, you were inspired. The word was used twice. You liked some of the stuff in it but particularly, Ben, your critique on historical issues around restorative justice. We all around this room agree that restorative justice is an incredibly powerful tool and you have described that very well. Thank you for those comments.

We will now move into some questions around breaking the cycle of offending.

Sian Berry AM: These are questions to Evan initially about young offenders. Can you tell us what the young offenders you work with are telling you about their experiences of the criminal justice system and what support there is to prevent them reoffending?

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): Yes. I was going to highlight that one of the things that I felt was a little lacking in the report was housing. It is awful. We do not like to mention it now because there is not any, but we really need to resolve this.

If you talk to a young person in custody or a young person who is running around dealing drugs, what they are usually after is stability. If you want to achieve with them, stability is the way to go and housing is

Page 13 usually the first part of that. Then it is about training and then it is about employment. That is the path out that we have seen work for so many people. That is a key one.

What is happening at the moment is that quite a lot of services seem to be being commissioned in an almost housing-blind way, “We will think about trauma”, or, “We will think about mental health”. All of these are great and are really important things, but without housing you cannot get someone to a mental health appointment and all the rest of it. That is a key one for me.

I have another general point. Lots of this stuff is in the report and it is great, but I just want to draw a few things together into one theme, which is about putting resources at the most useful point of intervention. We have stuff in there about the hospital services, which we deliver some of and other agencies deliver, where young people are met at the hospital bed. We need more through-the-gate services. We need more services that talk to young people in custody because that is a point at which young people are motivated to change. If you want to break the cycle, get in there then. Nobody wants to go back to prison when they are in there, but we need to make it easier for people to go straight. There are other points, like custody suites. Again, we could do more work on custody suites. There is a pilot in at the moment, which has done very well.

It is about getting those resources into places where people are at a point of change because we will get a better take-up rate. Our experience is that the take-up rate is best in the trauma centre of the Royal London Hospital. When people have nearly died, they are very receptive to an offer.

Sian Berry AM: Yes, some of us have been to visit the Redthread work that is done there. You also mentioned when they come into custody. What support do people get at the moment?

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): In custody now, particularly for the over-18s, we have had a lot of change because of Transforming Rehabilitation, which was effectively the splitting of probation. What it does mean now is that there is better data-gathering and better assessment in custody and more consistent assessment than there ever has been. That is great. We know who is there more than we did. If you had gone five years ago to Brixton Prison and said, “Tell me how many young people from this borough you have”, they probably could not have answered you. If you go there now, they do know but they do not have the resources to give them the support. We are a little more forward than we were because we do know who is there and what their problems are. What we need now is better linking services into the community. Sadly, that is one of the bits that, across the whole of Transforming Rehabilitation, has not been commissioned very well or with a lot of resource behind it.

Sian Berry AM: Do the other panel members want to comment on that?

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): I would just say that certainly we commend the work of Redthread.

Something else I would say - and we engage with the Transition to Adulthood Alliance - is that we do warmly welcome the recognition in the Plan that the way to deliver the best outcomes for young people probably needs to be bespoke. There are very special issues that arise: issues of maturity, issues of diversion. We welcome the fact that there is recognition that they need a distinct approach.

Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): In London, Victim Support runs the core victim service and a part of that service is a specialised service for children and young people. We have seen that increasingly the bar of need is going up and up with the pressure on other services. For example, children and young people who maybe would have got support from Child and Adolescent Mental Page 14

Health Services in the past do not. We are seeing some very high-support young people whom it is really hard to support sometimes. That is a concern for us at Victim Support.

I would also like to say that I am very supportive of the focus on more early intervention. I know that schools are very busy places, but more work has to be done in schools. We support that as laid out in the Police and Crime Plan.

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): Yes, just one thing to come back on your original question about what they are saying they like and what works. It is also a personal relationship, not a complex referral process. This is one of the tensions that comes out in the report and just comes out naturally.

When we have a place as big as London, there is always a tendency to want to make economies by commissioning pan-London. London boroughs are very small and it can be very fragmented. Specialist services can have half a worker each in one borough, which is ridiculously small. However, you do end up, if you have a pan-London service, with a complex referral process.

What we have found is that we struggle to get young people through those processes. What they respond to is somebody in their face talking to them right now on their level who can engage with them, which we and other agencies are good at providing, but we do need to cut out that bureaucracy. It needs to exist and the assessments need to happen, the safety plans need to happen and the risk assessments, but they do not need to happen first. We need to get in there and deal with the young people.

Sian Berry AM: Can you comment further on what the draft Police and Crime Plan has to say about all of this? It has a big section on young people. Does it have the right kinds of priorities to improve young people’s experiences of the criminal justice system as both victims and offenders?

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): Like my colleagues here, I think that there is some very good stuff in here and it is heading in the right direction.

The bits I wanted to pick up on particularly was the reference to county lines in there - but only very briefly - and the drug-trafficking lines that go out of London to the regions. All it says in the report is that we want to make sure they are arrested. We definitely want to do more than that. That really leapt out at me. Lots of them are under 18. For the youngsters who carry the drugs out to Ipswich, Southampton or wherever, it is a safeguarding issue and it should be a multi-agency response. That is not what we are getting at the moment.

I realise that this is not just London’s problem. This is probably a national issue that needs some national funding to address it, but London needs to push on this because London is the biggest exporter.

That is also one of the biggest changes that we are seeing to the scene that young offenders operate in. Instead of the market being Peckham, Brixton or wherever it is they live, the market that they can sell drugs in is now huge. It does mean that we have what were definitely urban street gangs heading towards being serious organised criminal gangs because the amount of money they are able to make is that much greater.

Sian Berry AM: Like the other panel members, is there anything missing from the Plan that you think ought to be in there?

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): Certainly the housing thing I mentioned before and also family support could not be emphasised enough. One of the effects of the housing problem is that almost all the young offenders we work with now live at home. Ten years ago, a naughty 22-year-old Page 15 would probably have lived in a hostel or possibly even a flat. Now they live at home and so we have to support the family as well.

Again, going back to my point about putting the resources where they are going to do the most good, if there are younger siblings and so on in the family, they are going to need support. If the eldest child in the family is involved in gangs, drug-dealing and so on, those siblings are at such risk. To stabilise the housing and to support the young person, you need to support the family as well.

There has been a tendency to put family support in a separate box, but we really cannot do that anymore. We have to get in there and support families based on the indicators we are seeing like kids being in pupil referral units, kids getting arrested and kids being on gang matrices. All of those things should attract family support to a family because that is where it is desperately needed. They are the families that would be the last ones to go to statutory services for help as well.

Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): Given the recent Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) report on the police handling of children’s cases, we know that a lot of work needs to be done and we are very far from where we need to be. I know that it is mentioned in the Plan, but that is a deep concern, obviously, to all of us.

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): I would just add to what both Evan and Bernadette have said. Of course, if the Plan offered an entitlement to restorative justice, particularly for low- level offences and antisocial behaviour, quite often that engagement at a very early stage with young people would lead to diversion in the first place. Those interventions that are relatively cheap at an early stage can often mean that that young person never gets on the criminal justice escalator to start with.

Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): I was speaking to an ex- offender last week and he told me that the reason he changed his life around is that when he was in prison he heard a talk about the impact of crime on victims from Victim Support. Maybe, in terms of educating young people early, tie it in with restorative justice around the impacts of crime. If people understood it more, it might support them to move out of offending.

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): There is one other thing that I picked up in the report as well. There is a reference to MOPAC engaging with employers about creating job opportunities for ex-offenders. What I would say is: lead by example. MOPAC needs to commission actively to encourage employment of ex-offenders. I would say this because 40% of our staff are ex-offenders, but there are lots of agencies and lots of contracts that do not put any emphasis on this issue. That is one way we can resolve some of these problems. If we can provide people with role models who have moved through offending into employment and are now doing something constructive, they are the people who help to change lives. By commissioning differently, there could be more of those.

Sian Berry AM: I have one final question. Related to what you said about housing, some of the things you have talked about - family support in particular - are services that local councils offer and are things that the (NHS) do. Is there enough in the Plan about how the police will work with other agencies? Is there enough about commissioning outside of police work in the Plan?

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): I suppose I am seeing this across lots of different local authorities. I am seeing a lot more joint commissioning with health at the moment - that seems to be happening - and I am seeing a lot more commissioning that is informed by the police, but it is all in little

Page 16 pockets. Yes, maybe a central push through this report to encourage that type of commissioning would be a good thing.

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): What you have just done is to exemplify perfectly one of the problems we have where the necessary outcomes to solve some of these problems all sit in different places. Where you do have a Mayor, even if the Mayor does not have statutory authority, the Mayor does possibly have the opportunity to influence some of those public bodies to work together in the way that needs to be done to get from where we are to where we should be.

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: I just wanted to pick up with Evan. Some of the offenders you are dealing with, as you mentioned earlier, are also victims. I was thinking particularly of young women who might end up being linked to a gang but who are actually victims, often, of things like child sexual exploitation. We know from evidence from the Children’s Commissioner that a lot of young women are just not being believed by the police.

Do you still find that in the MPS or has that changed? Is there enough in this draft Plan to look at tackling that attitude issue in the police?

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): We have not had issues with the MPS. We have been spotting this around the county lines issue. A 16-year-old who has run away from care in London and gets picked up in a drug-dealing premises in Ipswich will be treated more as a class-A drug-dealer or as a victim but not one who needs to attract any attention. We have had cases where the police have just let under-18s go, having swooped on a house. In London, we have not had that issue.

I do agree that that group is getting missed on lots of occasions. The gangs matrix is mentioned in the report, which is great, and talking about changing it. The current gangs matrix focuses just on crimes of violence and we know who commits those, do we not? We tend not to get many young women on the gangs matrix. There are other matrices being used. There is one called the Self Assessed Violence and Vulnerability Matrix, which has more vulnerability indicators in it, which would draw attention to a different group.

Also, the work in health could be expanded. In the major trauma centres, we and Redthread tend to see young lads because they are the ones who suffer the serious injuries. If we had an equivalent service that worked in sexual health, in rape crisis or in emergency contraception - we talk to health professionals and they know there are things going on - they would have to have something equivalent to refer into. We could pick up a lot more young women that way.

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: You could expand the youth worker element to other parts of the NHS to pick up some of those other victims?

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): Absolutely. What we find with health professionals and others is that they are very wary of pressing the big red panic button. Everyone has a big red panic button.

If you called in social services because you suspected the young woman you had just given emergency contraception to was perhaps raped, you know that she would not say anything or you could be pretty confident she would not. If you were able to say, “Look, just have a chat with my colleague”, and if, again, it was someone credible and approachable who would understand the situation the young woman might be in, one of my staff would probably have her talking very quickly. We would find out a whole lot more and we would be able to offer support. Page 17

Certainly, nurses would massively welcome this because they tend to know what is going on but are just not able to do the next step.

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: That was really helpful. That is something we could put forward.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): We could pick up on that. The last set of questions is around devolution of the criminal justice system. The draft Plan says that London needs a criminal justice service that “answers to the elected Mayor of London, not central government”. This is a theme that has general acceptance and support.

Andrew Dismore AM: Perhaps I could ask Ben about this. The first question is: if there is to be devolution, which services do you think should be devolved and to where?

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): Our strategic view in the long term - and this does not apply just to London - is that considerably more of the criminal justice services, including, arguably, local prisons, should be devolved to local control. Again, as I said, that is across the country, not just in big cities. People are looking at a model of this in Lincolnshire, for example, so that precisely those connections can be made at every level across the criminal justice pathway.

The simple fact is - and again, the situation in London reflects the national picture so that, while the volumes of crime are higher, the situation is not different - you do have this completely fractured system where you have police dealing with offenders, courts dealing with offenders, prisons dealing with offenders, and the Probation Service. Almost all of those institutions and the individuals within them have no idea what happens to people once they leave their bit of the criminal justice pathway. Of course, if your actions are not informed by the consequences of your actions, then the consequences do not inform those actions in the first place.

Putting magistrates’ courts under the control of the Mayor seems eminently sensible because it means the Mayor would then have the opportunity to influence the way they engage with local communities. We also completely agree that putting young offenders’ services under mayoral control would make sense.

In summary, we recognise that there are certainly some people in the Government and many senior folk in the Conservative Party who would support this complete devolution. We think this is a tentative compromise between where you would want to be and where we are now.

Andrew Dismore AM: Going back to my original question, the services you would like to see devolved include the magistrates, young offenders and what else?

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): Arguably, probation as well. We would probably put those as the first three.

Andrew Dismore AM: Looking at magistrates’ courts, there are lots of different functions in the magistrates’ courts. One of the issues would then, I assume, be how you would maintain the judicial independence of the magistrates, particularly in terms of sentencing and trials, at the same time as devolving control of the courts to the Mayor.

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): In fairness, that is an absolutely proper question and it is a question, of course, that is always asked. I was speaking to a High court judge not very long ago and was saying to him, “Would it be a very good idea if the magistrates’ courts operated, as the Page 18

Leveson report [Lord Justice Leveson, Review of Efficiency in Criminal Proceedings, 2015] suggested, from 8.00am to 1.00pm and 1.00pm to 6.00pm? You could do that in the High Court as well”. “No, you have to understand that the High Court is very different from the magistrates’ courts” - because of course they have to go off and play golf in the afternoon! But the reality is that those issues of independence are always brought up when you raise the better administration of courts.

Of course, there has to be that distinction, but at the moment the magistrates’ courts are essentially managed by the MoJ and, again, I make absolutely no criticism of the way in which that is done, but you still have effective political control of that administration. Quite properly, it is at arm’s length and it is not compromised. There is no reason whatsoever, if you devolved the administration of courts to a mayoralty or, indeed, a county council or a police and crime commissioner, that that compromise should necessarily be made in any way that is not made at present.

Andrew Dismore AM: One of the key issues is listing cases. It has come up before. As I understand it, listing has always been considered to be a judicial function and, therefore, independent of the administration.

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): That would remain exactly the same if the administration of the courts and the -- one perfect example is the opportunity to drive the way in which courts can problem-solve by driving liaison between local services. That is what Evan has already alluded to. That is far more likely to happen and to be taken advantage of if control of those courts is closer to the ground and that applies as much in London as it does in Lincolnshire, Sussex and Manchester.

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): I was just going to say that influencing sentencing is not necessarily a bad thing. The easiest way to do it is to just offer more options. I talk to a lot of sentencers and very few of them do not want to send young people to prison and they do not want to send people to prison for stupidly short sentences for minor crimes, but they are often presented with no alternatives. We find that when our staff go along to court with someone and talk him up and say, “He is doing really well and he is engaging with us”, we can get a non-custodial settlement.

Andrew Dismore AM: Do see restorative justice sitting there or do you see restorative justice outside the court system altogether?

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): The worry about restorative justice within the court system is that that influences sentencing and it would concern me if people were putting themselves forward for restorative justice based on a belief that they were going to get a reduced sentence. Engagement with services generally should influence sentencing.

The way to make this happen is to make the cost of prison borne locally. If the budget for paying for those guys in prison was held in London, we would see a reduction in imprisonment. It has happened with young offenders and it is fantastic.

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): That is the macro vision supported by former Ministers like Nick Herbert, the former [Minister of State for Policing and Criminal Justice] --

Andrew Dismore AM: Are you advocating that the Mayor should take over the running of Wandsworth and control --

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): No --

Page 19

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): No, the Prison Service is better run nationally.

Tony Arbour AM: That is not what Mr Summerskill says.

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): It needs to be able to move people around. We do not want lots of little local prisons. We would have to have enormous extra capacity to make that work. The budget should follow the prisoner, as it were, but that would just give such a strong incentive to sentencers, local authorities and agencies to come up with different disposals.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Divergence of opinion we have had in the panel.

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): You have spotted a slight distinction in perception, but we would still take the view that in 10 or 20 years that might be where you would want to be. Clearly, it is not something that is currently countenanced and there would be very specific arguments to be had about the distinction between the prisons that would, of necessity, be run nationally because they are holding very serious offenders and prisons that are dealing with a very local population. With thought, there might be the opportunity to concentrate minds on how to reduce the cost of dealing with those offenders.

It is another perfect example of where the people who are making decisions currently are miles and miles away from the consequences, including the fiscal consequences, of those decisions.

Andrew Dismore AM: Yes, particularly with the prison construction programme, which is looking at fewer bigger prisons miles from anywhere rather than locally. We are running the risk of opening a whole new area of questioning there, which is not really on the agenda at the moment.

OK, we will look at devolution, but devolution is relevant or important only if it has an effect on improving services both to victims and also to offenders. The question then follows: supposing we get devolution of the magistrates’ courts administration, the young offenders system and probation. How would that actually result in better outcomes for victims and for offenders?

Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): I do not know if this is going to directly answer your question but, in terms of the Witness Service, if that was devolved, it could possibly lead to greater integration with the wider victim support service and could lead to a better support system for victims. That really would have an impact. I do not know about the wider --

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): I do not know.

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): Yes, it does seem to me that there are so many opportunities in devolving lots of these things because it is this issue. For now, at the moment, somebody’s costs are covered centrally when they go to prison. They are off the streets for a few weeks, a few months or a few years and it is not costing the local authority or London anything in a direct sense. If it was, people would be far more creative.

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): I could not have put it better myself.

Andrew Dismore AM: To my mind, that sounds a bit thin in terms of a benefit. Can you be a bit more specific or concrete on what you think the benefits would be?

Page 20

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): Based on what has happened with the under- 18s, fewer under-18s are going to prison. That is fantastic.

Andrew Dismore AM: Why would that follow from devolution?

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): Because of the cost. It is the cost that has driven that change. Local authorities are now responsible for the cost of imprisonment of under-18s and so they are thinking more creatively about what to do and --

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): If I can add, it is important to emphasise that it is not that they are just not sending young people to prison; it is that they are thinking more creatively and are working in a much more co-ordinated way to try to drive the sorts of outcomes that mean those young people do not have to be sent to prison.

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): In Wales, they have almost got down to single figures for under-18s in custody. That is so impressive. We have had a reduction in that as well.

Andrew Dismore AM: The next question is: devolution to what level? We can talk about devolution regionally to London and that might make sense for part of the things we are talking about, but a lot of the things you are talking about are local authority functions, are they not? Are you talking about devolving beyond the London Mayor into the boroughs?

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): I must admit that I have not considered that. When we are going from a completely national service, it would seem sensible to at least stop at the city.

Andrew Dismore AM: We would end up with permanent revolution, would we not?

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): Yes, it feels like that sometimes.

Andrew Dismore AM: There is a last question from me about this. There is reference to this in the Police and Crime Plan, which is what we are looking at now. Do you think that the case for devolution is well made in the Police and Crime Plan or is something missing or should something be taken out?

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): It certainly came across when I read it. I thought, “Great. I like this”. Possibly, it could be better made, maybe looking at the examples around youth justice to give really concrete examples of the change that has happened when structural changes have led to changes in sentencing practice.

Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): I agree with Evan’s point.

Tony Arbour AM: I am surprised that none of you have mentioned Manchester, which of course, effectively, is having many of these powers devolved to it.

Judging by the dissonance there is between the current Mayor and the Government, it is not awfully likely that more powers are going to be devolved. Given that that is so - which you may not accept - how can the Mayor and the Assembly hold existing parts of the criminal justice system to account? How, for example, can the Mayor hold the Probation Service to account? I do not think even he would consider wanting to take over the Prison Service, with the greatest respect. I draw your attention to the fact that the old Greater London Council

Page 21 was, of course, responsible for court premises and so there is a kind of reinventing. I seem to have gone around this course many times.

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): Perhaps they just did not run them for long enough.

Tony Arbour AM: Possibly. The essential question is: if the Mayor is not successful in getting the kind of devolution set out in the Plan, how can he better hold the existing system to account? Do any of you have any views on that?

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): I must admit that I do not.

Tony Arbour AM: None of you were summoned here. You were invited.

Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): I have just a couple of points. The Mayor could monitor and ensure compliance with the Victims’ Code of Practice. That is one thing. Also - and there is a commitment to it - listening to the voices of victims has to be a way forward and there is a commitment to a Victims Commissioner. They are the two things that I would want to add.

Ben Summerskill OBE (Director, Criminal Justice Alliance): I would just say - and these are macro observations - that one is transparency. If the Mayor can shine a light on what is going on - which is something he is perfectly entitled to do - along the criminal justice pathway, it does put pressure on public institutions. The appointment of a Victims Commissioner is certainly an opportunity to give someone else the opportunity to draw attention to those inadequacies - and, of course, sometimes successes - across the criminal justice pathway in a way that can drive organisational behaviour.

Tony Arbour AM: I wonder if I can ask you a general question, which relates possibly to you, Mr Jones. Do you think that legal aid is something that ought to be devolved?

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): It is certainly something that we are noticing a lack of at the moment. All of the various cuts in legal aid have hit our client group very hard. Whether it could be better managed devolved or not, I am not sure, but we would appreciate some more of it.

Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): I am not sure, either, but we are definitely seeing a massive impact of the cuts in legal aid, particularly to domestic violence victims.

Tony Arbour AM: Do you think that legal aid is properly described as part of the criminal justice system or is it something separate?

Bernadette Keane (Victim Services Director for London, Victim Support): It seems separate.

Evan Jones (Head of Community Services, St Giles Trust): I suppose it is something that people should get when they are being put through the criminal justice system. They should have the resources there to put their case in the best possible way. I would say that it should be seen as part of it, but it is not a question I have thought of before, I have to say.

Tony Arbour AM: Yes, but, thanks to Mr Summerskill, we have had something that certainly I do not think we had ever considered: that prisons should be handed over. That was a completely left-field suggestion and may be worth considering. Page 22

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Unless there are any other questions, I would like to thank you all for your contributions this morning. I shall be writing to you formally to thank you and it may well be that in response you wish to give some more evidence to us. We have noted very much your comments and we will be considering how we weave them into our representations. Again, thank you very much.

We will now move, with a slight pause, into the second part of the meeting.

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Page 24 Appendix 2

Police and Crime Committee – Thursday, 26 January 2017

Transcript of Item 5 – The Mayor’s Draft Police and Crime Plan – Part 2; and Question and Answer session with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and the Metropolitan Police Service

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): We are now moving on to the second part of our discussion this morning, again on the Mayor’s draft Police and Crime Plan. We are incorporating it within our monthly question-and- answer session (Q&A), but the session today will be our last opportunity to take evidence on the Police and Crime Plan before we formulate our response. This first part is around the priorities in the draft Police and Crime Plan.

We very much welcome Sophie Linden, the Deputy Mayor [for Policing and Crime] and Craig Mackey, the Deputy Commissioner.

As you will be aware, a couple of weeks ago [12 January 2017] we had some very august guests come along to give us their thoughts, opinions and ideas on the Plan, which was most helpful. There were some very positive comments that we had, indeed. Part of that evidence was suggesting potential areas that the draft Police and Crime Plan may or may not have given the emphasis it should have done and perhaps may have been lacking. One of the contributions was around - quote, unquote - and I will not mention who it was, although it is on the record:

“I have great sympathy with a lot of the priorities in the Plan, but there is a danger that it is over- idealistic and that it is setting too many.”

Too many priorities, I assume, we were talking about then. This is the first Plan and it is right and correct that the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor set the priorities, but this was one critique we heard a couple of weeks ago.

A question from me, the first question of the session, is to you, Deputy Mayor. As I just quoted, we heard suggestions that the number of priorities and objectives set out in the draft Police and Crime Plan might make it over-idealistic by dint of the priorities and also the number of priorities. To what extent, Sophie, do you think that may or may not be true?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): The Police and Crime Plan is ambitious and is rightly ambitious in terms of London and wanting to make London safer. I do not make any apologies for being ambitious. Whilst we are ambitious, we are making sure through the draft and the development of it, and through the consultation, that it is achievable and deliverable. I believe that it will be achievable and deliverable.

In terms of the priorities and the question of whether there are too many priorities, I do not think there are. We have set out quite clearly that we expect there to be local priority-setting and then some cross-London priorities. At the moment, what the Borough Commanders, the MPS and I are doing is having that consultation with boroughs around how that priority-setting takes place and to make sure that the priorities that are set are deliverable, that there are not too many priorities and that it is very clear. I believe that at the end of this process we will have a framework for the whole of London that is achievable and with the right amount of priorities.

Page 25

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): I will not delve into detail on priorities. I have already been told off for taking other Members’ questions. You will be asked about those a little bit later.

My point really was around two points. There is the broad number of priorities within the Plan - if you read it, they are ambitious and there are many priorities - and also whether they are achievable. There are two bits to that.

These guests really did think that there were some issues. They saw some very good things in there, but the worry they had - and I would like, again, for you to add a little bit more comment around it - is that by aiming for so much, what could happen is that we are setting ourselves up to fall. What do you feel about that critique?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): As I said, it is ambitious but it is right that we should be ambitious for London.

In terms of the broad areas within the Police and Crime Plan, they are all absolutely within the parameters of what the MPS can deliver. Also, this is a Police and Crime Plan. In terms of the criminal justice service, they are ambitions and priorities that are deliverable and I would hesitate to drop any of them or think about what it is we would not do.

In terms of the key themes around violence against women and girls, it is right that that is a priority; protecting children and young people, child protection, youth violence, knife crime and gun crime. It is absolutely right that that is in there. Then the third priority around tackling extremism and standing up to intolerance are key issues for London.

London is a complex and diverse city. It does mean, necessarily, that the Police and Crime Plan will have a few priorities, but I believe that they are achievable.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Just turning that on its head, it is a busy Plan - that is probably one way to describe it - with many priorities, which we have just talked about. When we talked to the guests a couple of weeks ago, they did pick out some areas that, perversely, you may say --

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): They wanted to put in?

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): -- the Plan was lacking. That is the nature of the debate, is it not? They talked about it lacking online crime, for example, and tackling online crime, which has been an emerging theme in previous years and something that the Commissioner [of Police of the Metropolis] and the Deputy Commissioner have certainly busied themselves around.

There is an emphasis - and this is quite marked - on Territorial Policing (TP) and so the thread through the Plan is frontline policing. That tends to be TP, in the main, and so many of the priorities seem to be very TP- orientated. The point I am making is that there were some areas that were thought to be lacking.

Whilst the Plan is busy - and that is a critique that we have already exercised - do you think it is feasible that you would even consider taking any priorities out or putting any priorities in as a result of the consultation?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): I do not think the Plan is busy. The Plan is detailed and it is very clear what the direction of travel is, trying to move towards looking at harm and vulnerability and ensuring that there is local flexibility for the local police and local boroughs to be able to Page 26 tackle local areas and problem-solve. It is not a busy Plan. It is right and it is clear and there is a clear framework.

Within that, there is detail, but that is right. It is a Police and Crime Plan for four years and that is right.

In terms of whether we are prepared to take some things out, enhance other things or put things in, absolutely. This is a consultation. I did not read the whole of the transcript from your last session, but I have certainly been out talking to people about the consultation.

People are raising, as you said, online crime. It is in there. We talk about cybersecurity and how we will be developing a cybersecurity strategy. Within the themes, we also ensure that when we are talking about protecting children and young people, it is not just what happens on the street, in the home or at work but it is what happens online as well. I am listening to the consultation. If we need to make clearer what the plans are around cybersecurity and online crime, we will see what we can do within the Police and Crime Plan’s final version.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Indeed. It is a draft and that is the whole point of the exercise. You are going out for consultation and for other people’s opinions - including ours, hopefully - and you will weave those suggestions, perhaps or perhaps not, into the Plan.

We have just had a full debate about devolution and the aspiration of the Mayor to have devolution as in Manchester, which has been mentioned to the Mayor, around the criminal justice system, which is a broad ambition that the previous Mayor and Deputy Mayor [for Policing and Crime] had also. There are some issues around that. We will return to that later.

Unmesh Desai AM (Deputy Chair): Good morning, Sophie, Craig. I have two questions and the first question is to you, Deputy Commissioner, and then to you, Sophie. I should say that two of our three guests earlier in the morning described the Plan as, quote, “inspiring”, unquote, and so there you are.

Deputy Commissioner, we heard that it might be difficult for officers to know what to focus on because of the number of priorities set. Have your frontline officers seen the draft Plan and do they feel that they have a clear sense of direction from this Plan?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): Officers will have had exactly the same opportunity as everyone else to see the Plan. There has been some stuff on our internal intranet in relation to the publication of the Plan.

We have to be realistic and quite honest here. In terms of officers now, officers in the past and officers when I was a patrol officer, the importance of this is how we turn it into something real for first and second-line supervisors so that a Sergeant or an Inspector when they brief them is clear on what they are doing today, what the focus is and what has come out of the local consultation around priorities. Then they will know what to do.

It might sound quite hard, but I do not think many officers sit there thinking, “I must read the Police and Crime Plan before I go out” --

Unmesh Desai AM (Deputy Chair): We would not expect that.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): -- as you would expect.

Keith Prince AM: I am sure they do! Page 27

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): It is important that we are honest about this. It is the same with most large organisations; people do not sit and read their organisational strategies and documents. The reality is: how does someone bring this to life for a frontline officer?

Keith Prince AM: They read the Mayor’s manifesto, do they not?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): That is the important bit. That is where the piece around local priorities, whilst difficult to do and inspiring, offers a real opportunity at a local level to get into that.

The previous question highlighted the dilemma about priorities. In the five years I have been appearing here, no one has ever asked me to take something out. You have always urged me to increase something else from policing drones to animals to roads. You name it; over the last five years you have asked me to add it. The reality is that, around policing, whilst I would urge a clear focus, it is an incredibly difficult thing to do.

Unmesh Desai AM (Deputy Chair): Perhaps I could rephrase that question. I certainly do not expect frontline officers to spend their bedtime reading going through the Plan.

One of our witnesses at the previous session, Gavin Hales [Deputy Director, Police Foundation] told us that he questioned whether the Plan would, quote:

“... help an Inspector know what is most important when confronted with a wide range of pressures every day”.

It is about getting the flavour of the Plan and transferring it into operational practice by people on the front line.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): Yes. The theme, I would say, at the heart of it is around safeguarding the most vulnerable Londoners and the most victimised and, absolutely, those messages are there. It is turning it into that sort of language and saying to people, “Those are the priorities about what we are doing about protecting Londoners”.

We have always had - and this is where we have to be really careful about the language - priorities, targets and measures because they are slightly different. We have always measured and looked at our performance against a wide range of activities of policing in London and nothing will change. This Plan does exactly the same as that. It is important, but that has always gone on in terms of what we do.

In terms of those central themes for officers, yes, particularly in TP and in other parts of the organisation through our Crimefighters process or our performance process, we are looking at how we link both the Plan and the delivery of it into how we measure performance within the organisation.

Unmesh Desai AM (Deputy Chair): Sophie, if I could come to you, I just meant to ask you. Have you met the Migrants’ Rights Network yet?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): I might have met them.

Unmesh Desai AM (Deputy Chair): You have a meeting coming up. I mentioned them a couple of weeks ago and --

Page 28 Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): They might have been part of the stakeholder group that I met in terms of migrants and refugees, but I have not met them individually.

Unmesh Desai AM (Deputy Chair): Sure. If you could sum it up in one sentence for MPS officers, what would be your clear statement of intent based on the Plan?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): It would be providing a good-quality service for all Londoners and making sure that we protect the most vulnerable by problem-solving and harm reduction.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Before we move on, that was a good set of questions and Craig is absolutely correct. His officers do need some certainty. When they parade in the morning and are about to leave, those Sergeants, Inspectors and Police Constables (PCs) need to know exactly what they need to achieve that day. We will be looking at that in the Plan.

Keith Prince AM: On MOPAC’s own risk register list, it says that the MPS has serious concerns about finding the extra £100 million of savings that has already been agreed. Can you tell me what you have done to identify this extra £100 million of savings? It is part of the £400 million package.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes, you are absolutely right about the challenges ahead in terms of the finding the savings. There is a massive challenge. In terms of finding the savings, it is something that MOPAC and I have oversight of and we are regularly meeting and going through those savings. We have an oversight board coming up to do that. It is an ongoing process, but we have not been hiding at all. This is a really challenging process.

It is going to be even more challenging if the police funding formula settlement comes out against London, which is a serious risk, and/or if the National and International Capital City (NICC) funding is not properly funded. We are in really challenging times in relation to the budget.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): We have a full set of questions at the end.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Fine.

Keith Prince AM: I do not disagree with what you are saying, to be fair, Deputy Mayor, but this is about the £100 million that we already have to find, not what happens after the settlement.

Can I ask you, Deputy Commissioner, if you are confident that you will find that extra £100 million?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): To be clear, the £100 million is part of the £400 million and that is out to years two, three and four. As the Deputy Mayor said, the phrase the Commissioner used the other day about a range of things was, “The lights on the dashboard are starting to glow”. It is going to be really challenging in 2018/19 and 2019/20. There are some big national things, if they slip, that could force more cost into us in London. It is only fair that we are honest about how big the challenges are as we look further on out.

In terms of the programme, the Plan and the ideas, yes, we have firm proposals on how to bridge the budget gap. At some point, when you spent 75 pence in the pound on people, it is people.

Keith Prince AM: Could I just ask a question of the Deputy Mayor in relation to the meeting called Policing Matters that you held here? I do not know whether you were aware - and I suspect you were not, but then neither was anybody else - that that meeting was taking place. This august body was not notified of it. Page 29 Members of this body were not notified of that meeting. Staff were not notified of that meeting. It seems a shame that, if you are going to do something like that, it is held almost in-camera.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): The meeting, Policing Matters, that took place a few months ago would have been publicised on the website. Certainly, a call was put out to it and we would have gone through the same processes as previously with the MOPAC Challenges in terms of advertising it.

Keith Prince AM: Would you not agree, though, that it might be beneficial to proactively notify the staff and Members of the Committee that that is taking place?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): As I said, it is on the website. Our forthcoming dates for Policing Matters and Justice Matters are on the website. We can send an email out if that would help so that you do not have to look on the website, but we do publicise them and it is public information. Absolutely, we can do that.

Keith Prince AM: Thank you.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): The next set of questions is about preventing crime with a focus on children and young people, something that this Committee particularly has been interested in and has issued reports about previously. I am pleased that tomorrow, Deputy Mayor, you are visiting Croydon to see a MOPAC-funded project.

Sian Berry AM: I did not know about your visit when I put this question in, but we would like to know more about the Croydon pilot programme. It is a very interesting box that appears in the draft Police and Crime Plan. Can you just tell us more about it and what is actually happening there at the moment?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): It is in the early stages. As Steve said, I am going to visit it tomorrow. It is in a school in Croydon and it is a whole-school programme around tackling violence. It is ensuring that there are materials and there is training and that we can look at the way that, for pupils in the school in everything they do there is some focus on tackling violence and ensuring there is a focus on respect, confidence and the right way of interacting with each other.

Sian Berry AM: That sounds very promising. There is a line in the section on violence against women and girls in the Police and Crime Plan that also mentions a whole-school pilot on prevention there. Have these projects now been merged? Are they taking place in the same --

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): We will be looking at what the pilot in Croydon does and whether we need to do a separate one on tackling violence against women and girls. Essentially, it is around respecting confidence and building up the right way for young people to interact and engage with each other.

Sian Berry AM: It does include elements of respecting women and all of those other things?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes.

Sian Berry AM: That does sound promising. I have been visiting lots of organisations that do this kind of education and one of the most impressive I saw was the Ben Kinsella Trust, which focuses a lot on consequences. It does not do shock tactics. It is not a focus on weapons, particularly. It is about the emotions, the family ties and the consequences. That makes it suitable for primary school children, for one thing. You are working with primary school children in Croydon as well; is that right? Page 30 Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): There is a link to some primary schools but it is based in a secondary school. I will know far more when I visit it tomorrow.

Sian Berry AM: Absolutely. Is this receiving extra resources on top of what would normally happen? It is presumably costing more than what would normally happen in Croydon.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes. We have procured a contract to do this and there are some extra resources going in. I do not have the figures for that but I would be able to give them to you. It is procurement that we have done for that school and we are working with an organisation to deliver it.

Sian Berry AM: Are police officers involved in the pilot or is it external organisations? Does it have a different focus from when police officers are involved?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Police officers are involved in schools anyway. There will be a link to the police of a school. That is not all schools, as you know, but the link to police officers will be there. This is really early days in the pilot and I will have to come back to you with more detail.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): What you have is just the scoping piece, this first six months, and then the actual project in and of itself will go out for commissioning in the autumn.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): We have commissioned an organisation to scope it for us. There are resources going in there.

Sian Berry AM: That all sounds really interesting. I would love to hear more about the budget potential. It is not specifically mentioned in the draft Plan but is this something you are considering has potential to roll out across London and all schools?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): This is a pilot. It is learning the lessons from it. With pilots, if it is successful, we would want to roll it out. It is, as with a lot of things, whether you would have to roll out the whole thing or whether you would roll out elements. Then you will be looking at it. The principle of doing a pilot like that is how important schools are in relation to working with young people and what the learning is from that.

Yes, we will be looking at what lessons can be learnt and how that can be rolled out but, as I said, it is early days and I would not want to make a commitment to roll it out now because we do not know what is going to happen and whether there is anything essentially very different there than some other schools. As you said, other schools do some fantastic work around this, bringing in organisations and working themselves. The Edmonton County High School’s Dr Susan Tranter [Executive Headteacher] has done fantastic work around this as well. It is what is different and what you can then replicate in other schools.

Sian Berry AM: Great. One thing I have noticed, again, going out and meeting people involved in this, is how under-resourced or how patchy the whole thing is. Having a consistent London-wide approach would be great, if that emerges from the pilot.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes. Just a little caveat around a consistent London-wide approach: as you know and as everyone knows, schools manage themselves. We from City Hall do not have the power to say to all schools, “We want you to do this”, but we can certainly help schools to have the right principles and the right materials, or to know where the good practice is. Essentially, it is then down to the headteacher and the governors to decide what happens in their schools.

Page 31 Sian Berry AM: Yes, absolutely. A template and some resources would be great. Just one further question, then: how does this relate to the manifesto commitment to put a police officer in every school, has it been worked out how those two things might relate?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): We do want more police officers in schools. Some of the quality of what they do, making sure that what they are doing in there is right, is dependent on how the restructure around the boroughs takes place because that will enable more officers to go to schools. We are working toward that and we are planning that but some of it bears some dependencies around it.

Sian Berry AM: It does sound a little bit like that is separate from this schools pilot, then.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): The schools pilot is in Croydon and it is one school that I am visiting tomorrow. The Safer Schools officers are going out in every borough and they are in nearly all schools. Where the pilot is, it should be linked, but I cannot say it is linked in every borough and every school because there is that one pilot.

Florence Eshalomi AM: Just following on from that, sadly, on Monday Quamari Barnes was stabbed outside a city academy. When I tweeted, a number of people who replied were saying that we need to look at sentencing for young people and being a lot tougher. They want the Mayor to look at that approach. I know that one of the things that MOPAC is looking at is the sentencing of young people, making sure the Plan commits to scrutinising how effective that is and how you could look at out-of-court dispersals for young people.

On that, if something is picked up during that oversight, how would you intend to address it? Is it a route that you think MOPAC should be going down?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): In terms of what we have put in the Police and Crime Plan around looking at community sentences, what we want to look at is what works and to make sure that, if there are community sentences, they can work. We need more education that they can work and to look at how effective and how often mandatory sentences are used. There are new changes in the rules around sentencing for knife crime. How often is that used? There is a lack of transparency at the moment around how often that is used and whether that has been effective. It is early days to know whether it has been effective. What I want to do for MOPAC is to keep an eye on that and look at how effective it is. Then look not just around sentencing but at where sentencing fits in with tackling knife crime, what else needs to be put around sentencing and what other forms of support need to be put around it. As you will be aware, it is not just about the sentencing. It is also about the support.

I went to Brixton Police Station yesterday to look at a fantastic project they are doing there, which is in custody, like Redthread, at that teachable moment. When young people come into custody and have been arrested, there is somebody there to talk to them about the reasons they have been arrested and how they can make changes to their lives to stop the crimes that they are participating in. It is those types of projects as well that are going to be very important, not just the sentencing.

Florence Eshalomi AM: Just one more point. How do you think we would need to get that message across? Do you think that the Plan as it stands spells that out? Again, thank you for meeting with the family of Fola [Folajimi Orebiyi, murder victim] just before Christmas. Again, you could feel the pain that that family were going through.

Unfortunately, when you do meet victims and their families, the one thing that they sometimes seem to say is around the issue of sentencing. They feel that it is not strongly enforced enough. How do we get that message that on the one hand we do need to look atPage supporting 32 some of these young people who are caught up in crime but equally send them that strong message that if they do carry a knife, there will be consequences to that as well?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Before Christmas I met his [Folajimi Orebiyi] family and I have met other families of victims of knife crime. They do talk to you about the sentencing and I completely understand that because it is such an awful, dreadful thing to lose your child in that violent way, but it is not just about sentencing and it is difficult to get that message across. It is incredibly difficult if you have been a victim and your family is suffering in that way. It is about what works. Families where tragedies have happened will understand and will want us to do what really works in terms of stopping people carrying knives and stopping young people using their knives. Sometimes that will be sentencing. It is important that young people understand and that we get the message across to them that if you carry a knife or use a knife, there are going to be some quite harsh sentences. That can be right. We do have to protect the public and we do have to protect young people.

Florence Eshalomi AM: Thank you.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Before we move on to the next group of questions, as a Committee we are going to the Brixton custody unit next Wednesday as well. We will be able to see exactly what is going on.

Andrew Dismore AM: It must get a lot of visitors.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Again, the point is around serious youth violence. I know if Len Duvall [AM] were here now, he would be reinforcing the point around serious youth violence and what needs to be done around that.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): Can I just say a point? That was a really important question on the sentencing and sentencing policy. At the heart of one end of your question was the fine balance of whether sentencing carries public support. That is a really difficult thing. The idea of looking at it and, as the Deputy Mayor [for Policing and Crime] said, getting that transparency around it and understanding it will help that debate. It is a very difficult place for policing to step into. Traditionally we have had a position where we do not step into debates saying, “That is a good sentence”, or, “That is a bad sentence”. There is a fundamental point in what you say around, “Does sentencing still command the support of the public?” This allows us to look at it. The Deputy Mayor is absolutely right; there are a whole range of interventions and things we can do better. We must not lose sight of the fact that the criminal justice system works on the support of the wider public. We just need to keep being alive to that.

Florence Eshalomi AM: Definitely. Earlier we were talking about devolution in terms of the criminal justice system and whether that would help in terms of the work that you as police officers are doing, making sure that on the one hand we get the sentencing right but equally that we support the families and young people who are caught up in it as well.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): Yes, the transparency around sentencing. I will leave it here. We have not done it yet in London but in other places we have done examples where we get members of the public to sit as magistrates in a trial scenario, get the same evidence the magistrates get and then see what sentence they would give. It is quite interesting. You assume people would be far tougher but the experience is that sometimes, when they are looking at it, they are not a lot apart. They look at the full context of what has gone on with the offending and some of the background.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): The next set of questions is around the Mayor’s proposals for the front line. Initially it is about local priority-setting and the change of emphasis from the MOPAC 7 to other targets. Page 33 Andrew Dismore AM: Sophie, perhaps you could tell us what advice or guidance you are giving to the boroughs on how they should go around setting local priorities.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): In terms of setting the local priorities, MOPAC’s Evidence and Insight Team, working with the MPS, are putting together not a large pack but a pack of indicators of the crime and the crime types that are taking place in their borough. Then we are basically going around the boroughs, meeting them and talking to them about that priority-setting. Last week I went out to a borough to have that conversation. It was a really good discussion around what the indicators were showing, what the priorities were that that borough wanted to set and what would make a big difference in the borough in terms of problem-solving and, alongside that, how the London-wide priorities feed into that. That is how we are doing it, providing the evidence and insight. Then we are going alongside senior members of the MPS to have those conversations with the Borough Commanders, the borough leaders and officers.

Andrew Dismore AM: That is the next question. When you say you are going to the boroughs, I would like to know exactly who you mean. “The boroughs” are the MPS, the councils, the Safer Neighbourhood Boards and the wider local community. Who is actually going to be involved in setting these priorities and how are you going to get the feedback?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): We are discussing that with the Borough Commanders and the borough leaders. We have offered to do that in each of the 32 boroughs of London and we are putting that in place at the moment. It is with the Borough Commanders and the leaders of the councils.

Andrew Dismore AM: That sounds a bit top-down to me. Is the intention therefore to get the grassroots people in the borough feeding into this process? How do you envisage that happening? Through the Safer Neighbourhood Panels? The Boards? Public meetings?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): As I said, we are putting together the evidence pack. It is far less top-down than the MOPAC 7 was, which was just a London-wide, rigid, four-year target. We are going and having those conversations. The reason that we are doing it in partnership with the council leaders is that we feel that that will bring in the community voice. At the last meeting I had, the lead member for Community Safety was there as well. Borough Leaders do know their boroughs. That is the process that we are undertaking at the moment.

Andrew Dismore AM: The priorities are going to be set by the Borough Commanders and the Borough Council Leaders?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): The priorities are set in discussion with the Borough Commanders and the Council Leaders and in discussion with MOPAC, the MPS and me.

Andrew Dismore AM: That does sound to me a bit too top-down. We are ditching the MOPAC 7. You will get no argument from me about that. You have your London-wide set of priorities, which are top-down. That is a different question. Craig [Mackey QPM] talked about two baskets of priorities before. You have the top-down, centralised London-wide ones, whatever they may be, and then you have the local ones. If the local ones are set in this absence of public engagement, how are you going to get the public to be involved in supporting it?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): The local priorities for the borough will be set through the evidence and having those discussions. That does not mean that there will be no more local priority-setting via the ward panels in consultation with the public and the Dedicated Ward Officers (DWOs). Those priorities at ward level, borough level and LondonPage [level] 34 make up a good package of priorities that enable local, ward-level issues to be tackled and problem-solved and borough-level issues to be problem-solved as well as London-wide issues. That together provides real local priority-setting that is not top-heavy and is flexible because they will be annual targets. We can have a conversation about in the future about what community engagement there is but that is the way we are undertaking it at the moment.

Andrew Dismore AM: I have to say that to my mind that does not sound as if it is the best way of getting the command of the public or the interests of the public in this process. You have the Safer Neighbourhood Boards. There does not seem to be any obligation on either the [Borough] Commanders or Council Leaders to engage with the public, bearing in mind borough leaders have a million and one other things to be doing as well. It may not be top of their in-trays. To my mind, it does seem to me important that we do try to get some feedback and input from the public if they are going to have any confidence in the setting. Otherwise, what is the difference from it being set at Scotland Yard or whatever it is called now?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, MPS): New Scotland Yard.

Andrew Dismore AM: New New Scotland Yard. It is just handed down from on high.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): It is very much not handed down. In terms of local engagement and local priority-setting, we are on a different pitch to what we were on in the previous administration around the MOPAC 7. In terms of the Borough Commanders, the Leaders and ourselves are undertaking that discussion and engagement. It is not based on plucking things out of the air; it is based on strategic assessments and their local knowledge. I would expect the Borough Commanders and the Lead members to have been to the Safer Neighbourhood Boards and to have taken that into consideration when they are setting the priorities.

Andrew Dismore AM: I sit on both my Safer Neighbourhood Boards in both my boroughs and no one has been anywhere near us to talk about this. I know there is a public meeting tonight with the new Borough Commander for Camden and Islington jointly but that is to talk about borough merger issues, it is not to talk about setting priorities.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Can I add to this very good question and throw another dynamic in? If you go to the Borough Leader and say, “Give us your priorities”, he will refer you to the Safer Neighbourhood Board.

I will go straight back to Andrew but the point to be made is that each borough in Croydon and Sutton is consulting on their four-year strategies about the Safer Croydon Partnership priorities for the next four years. Loads of work has gone into it. Every single borough is doing that. There is that piece of work going on already, which the boroughs are engaged in, which is about the borough priorities. How many layers of priorities are we going to be talking about?

Andrew Dismore AM: I am not sure it is about layers of priorities. I am more concerned about making sure that the public are involved in the process and feel they have some ownership of it. Part of the problem is to get the public supporting the police, policing by consent and all that. Even when the MOPAC 7 was being set up, there were public meetings in each of the boroughs where they could have their say about it. They may not have liked what was going on but they did have the opportunity to have their say about it. I am concerned that this is not going to grab the public’s imagination as it should do.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): You are only looking at this one particular set of local priority-setting. As I said, there will be the ward priority-setting where the public and the engagement of the public is there through the DWOs and the ward panels. That will still take place and that is still there. The relationship and the engagement of that fits in withPage the borough 35 priorities that we have been discussing. In terms of engagement and consultation around the Police and Crime Plan, the priority-setting, I would say and I believe that we have genuinely done far more engagement with the public, the communities and stakeholders than in the development of the previous Plan. We are still in consultation and we are still to have public meetings. It is not either/or. This is one part around the priority-setting. There are the ward priorities and then we are still in consultation and we are getting out there with the public and communities.

Andrew Dismore AM: I have said all I had to say about that. How many boroughs have chosen their priorities so far?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): We have had one meeting so far and we are in the process of putting the other meetings in place.

Andrew Dismore AM: One borough has set priorities so far?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): We have had the discussions. We will put it down on paper and then sign it off.

Andrew Dismore AM: You have had one discussion with one borough?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes.

Andrew Dismore AM: The other 31 have yet to have a discussion?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes, and we are undertaking that in the next few weeks.

Andrew Dismore AM: Which borough is that?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): I was in Haringey last week.

Andrew Dismore AM: If you have spoken to only one borough, you cannot say whether you have found differences in the way each borough approaches it.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): What I found when I went to Haringey was genuine engagement. They were pleased that we were coming out to talk to them and to understand what was going on in Haringey rather than setting London-wide four-year targets. That is what we have found. In terms of the conversation, we talked about what the indicators showed, what would help the Borough Commander and the Borough Leader really tackle the local problems and whether the priorities that were set would drive the right Lead Member behaviours and enable them to look at year-on-year reductions in crime in the borough. That is the conversation we had. We agreed the priorities and we will be publishing them with the Police and Crime Plan.

Andrew Dismore AM: You agreed your priorities with Haringey. Who was at the meeting with Haringey?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): The Borough Commander, the Borough Leader, the Lead member, the Chief Executive of the borough, Martin Hewitt [Assistant Commissioner, MPS], Mark Simmons [Deputy Assistant Commissioner, MPS], the Chief Executive of MOPAC and me.

Andrew Dismore AM: That is going to be the sort of format in which you are going to be agreeing these priorities with all the other 31 boroughs? Page 36 Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes. I have already explained that.

Andrew Dismore AM: What does a good local priority look like, based on Haringey or somewhere else?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): A good local priority would be one that is clearly one of the areas of crime within the borough that would probably be high-volume but also high-impact and is one that will make the most difference to the local community. Those are the discussions that we have been having.

Andrew Dismore AM: Can you give me an example?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): If you look at the volume crimes, you have theft, you have burglary and you have robbery. Those are the types of crimes that we are looking at.

Andrew Dismore AM: You said that the ward panels will be able to set priorities as well. Does the ward panel priority have to be in the context of the borough priority or can they set a different priority?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): They will be able to set their own priorities, depending on what is happening in their local ward and their local area.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Like it has always been.

Andrew Dismore AM: It was not, actually, because they were not allowed to set priorities.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): There has always been a tension between local ward panels Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: I am interested that you have now started to talk about ward panels because there is not one mention that I could find in this document of ward panels. My assumption was that you were going to be getting rid of them, which was a huge concern to me, because they do not appear anywhere here. If, as you claim in here, “We are clear that local police priorities are best set locally”, it seems to me that to get your borough priorities it should be all the ward panels working with the community there feeding up what they think the priorities should be, rather than this very heavy top-level group of police, MOPAC and Council deciding the priorities for that borough rather than having community involvement.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): That is community involvement, is it not?

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: No, it is not.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): The way that the local leader will set priorities will be through the strategic assessments, through discussions with the local community and through discussions with the Safer Neighbourhood Board. It is not that this is appearing and does not fit in with anything else. It is part of the structures and part of the evidence-gathering that should have already taken place and will already be taking place in local areas.

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: I have real concerns about this. The idea that every leader of every council is in touch -- you only have to look at Lewisham and the Millwall decision to see how out of touch they are there. Seriously, they cannot be on top on every issue. If you have that genuine community involvement from every ward panel to be able to feed in, then you could make a decision. That is a far more what I would expect from a Labour Mayor, quite frankly, than what you are giving us today.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): This is absolutely local priority-setting. It is also evidence-based local priority-setting. It has to be evidencePage 37-based and it will continue to be evidence-based. There is also, within that, flexibility at ward level for local priorities and local problems to be tackled with DWOs and the community, through problem-solving. I am interested that you think democratically elected politicians are not in touch with their local communities.

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: I said that some leaders are not in touch on every issue and I gave you a good example.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): I set great store by local democracy, local government, local councillors and the work that they do to understand their communities.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): You are protesting too much. The fact of the matter is there is a perfectly good process around ward panels setting three priorities. The process was that those ward panel chairs would meet on a quarterly basis and those priorities would then feed into the Safer Neighbourhood Board. There was a bottom-up, perfectly good system set up by the previous Mayor and supported across the way. It seems to me that that has been ditched.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): No, it has not been ditched. We are very clear that we are not ditching the community --

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: Ward panels are not mentioned.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): We could do a whole set of questions.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): We are not ditching it.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Anyway, we are moving on.

Andrew Dismore AM: I have not quite finished, actually. I will give you an example, right? This weekend just gone, there has been a whole series of anti-Semitic attacks in Edgware and Mill Hill, which you will know about. They are very troubling. Is that going to be a local priority, a ward priority, a London-wide priority or not a priority at all?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): As you know, the Mayor’s and the MPS’s position on hate crime is absolutely a zero-tolerance approach. Priorities will be set. Where there are specific instances like that, I know it is the case that the police take that incredibly seriously and should investigate it. It should be tackled and there should be a zero-tolerance approach taken. There is priority-setting in terms of strategic direction and strategic priorities, and then there are local operational decisions that are taken by the police.

The hate crime incidents, the anti-Semitic incidents that have been happening over the last few days and weeks, are absolutely appalling. I really did think about it when I came to this chamber on Monday for the Holocaust Memorial Day, the juxtaposition of those difficult and awful anti-Semitic attacks and us here in the Assembly remembering the Holocaust and remembering the lessons that we ought to learn. We have to be clear that that has to be a zero-tolerance approach. That is about everyday decision-making that the police will undertake.

Keith Prince AM: I am just trying to get my head around exactly how many priorities you are going to have. First of all, did you say there were going to be three central priorities, four local priorities and then approximately 19,000 ward priorities?

Page 38 Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): In terms of the London-wide priorities that we set out, we expect there to be priorities around reducing harm, which is around reducing repeat victimisation and repeat offending. In terms of the local priority-setting, the discussions we are having are that between two and four local priorities will be set by borough. That is the framework we are working on. As before, there will be ward priorities, ward panels and local priority-setting in that way. It is important and it should take place but that is not in the framework that we will be assessing.

Keith Prince AM: We are saying four local priorities? I want to get it clear in my head. Will there be three London-wide priorities that will be the same for every borough or three high-harm, i.e. any three from the MOPAC 7 or something like that? Can you just explain that bit to me?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): There will be the London priorities around reducing repeat victimisation and reducing repeat offending, and then in terms of the local priority-setting we are having discussions of before two and four. It will probably be nearer two.

Keith Prince AM: I got that bit.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): No, you did not get that bit because you said we are talking about four local priorities. It is between two and four.

Keith Prince AM: Two to four; on average, three. In the first bit, are those three going to be all the same across the whole of London?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes.

Keith Prince AM: They are. You are going to decide on three along the lines you have just said.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes.

Keith Prince AM: That is fine. The ward ones are going to be different for every ward?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): The ward priorities will not be featuring in the priority framework that MOPAC and the MPS are setting London-wide, in terms of the indicators that we are assessing. In terms of borough-wide, there will be the two to four local priorities set, the priorities around harm, repeat offending and repeat victimisation. That will be the framework and the indicators that we look at across London, and are able to see where the performance is improving, where it needs to improve a little bit more and where things will start flashing up and being problematic.

Keith Prince AM: Can I call that the ‘top six’ then, just for me? The three and the average three: are there going to be targets attached to those?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): We are setting them as priorities. We want to see year-on-year reductions in crime, overall reductions in crime year-on-year, but as you will know, sometimes if you set a target in terms of domestic violence you are looking for increases. I would expect that in terms of reporting, we would like to see increases in reporting. We are not looking at plucking some figures out of thin air to say, “We expect you to go from this to this”. We are looking at year-on-year reductions in crime and in some areas we expect there to be an increase in reporting. What we want to see is an increase in the confidence of people to come forward, specifically around domestic violence and sexual abuse, but there will be other areas as well. Hate crime is one area where we know there is a lot of under-reporting. We would like to see that go up. Page 39 Keith Prince AM: If a borough was to, let us say, on one of the high-harm issues, achieve a 0.01% reduction, you would see that as a success, would you?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): We would like to see year-on-year reductions in crime, as communities would and as the police would. In terms of the assessment of this, the MPS has the Crimefighters Forum, as you know, and will be assessing progress around this. It will have a performance framework that flows from this Police and Crime Plan.

Keith Prince AM: There will not be any targets? Will it be a traffic-light system?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): As I said, we are not going to be plucking figures out of thin air as to what the reduction should be. We are looking for year-on-year reductions.

Keith Prince AM: OK. That is fine. On the ward-specific targets, the ones that the wards decide on, are we looking at three there?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): It is in terms of the problem-solving at ward panels. That is something for the MPS to be deciding on, how many there are and how that fits in. At the moment, there are three.

Keith Prince AM: Will that be measured in any way?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): That will be measured by the ward panel.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): It is measured locally.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): In terms of progress, the ward panels when they meet next will ask the police and local DWOs --

Keith Prince AM: Again, there will not be any targets attached to that?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): We are not going down to ward level.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): We have a set of questions around measuring success. Ward panel priorities have always been in the gift and the control of the members of the ward panel working with the local PC.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Absolutely.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): That really must continue because that is the best bottom-up broad-based measurement.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): If I can help, some may not lend themselves to targets. It may be a problem of place.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Exactly.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): As you say, the right test for that is to go back next month and say, “How did we do?” --

Page 40 Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): It is often a case of, “There are a lot of herberts hanging around on a Friday night. Can you get rid of them?” That is only measurable by getting rid of that group of people.

Peter Whittle AM: Deputy Mayor, I want to know how long each set of priorities will last. When it is set, when the borough sets it, how long are you talking? How long will that priority list be in place?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): They are annual priorities.

Peter Whittle AM: Annual priorities. Basically, something could move up and then move down and what have you?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Some boroughs remain quite static but there is churn in London and we know about the changes in demographics in London and the change in population. Croydon, Enfield, Barking and Dagenham are seeing changes in the way that crime is happening in their boroughs and changes in the make-up of the population. It is right that we look at annual because things are changing. London is changing rapidly.

Peter Whittle AM: I know that you have what you call two baskets of priorities, the other basket being the overall targets or approach for London generally. I am just wondering how this will appear to the public, not in a crude public relations (PR) way but in terms of public confidence and trust. The way it has been conjured up for me, it tends to give itself to possibly stigmatising certain areas of London. If various priorities are given for various sorts of crime, will it not therefore appear to the public that this is almost a new crime map that is being written, like a poverty map?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): I understand what you are saying but I do not think that is necessarily an issue. Members of the community would prefer that their local police are tackling the issues that are most local to them and most important to them. I think that is going to be far more important than there being a change in the priorities set in the local area. What they want is for their local issues to be tackled by the local police and for those to be flexible enough to be able to change if there are changes in the area.

Peter Whittle AM: When you prioritise, it is usually another way of saying, “Cutting your cloth accordingly”, is it not? In other words, what we are talking about is having to prioritise because what we really need is, say, 10,000 more police. You would not have to then prioritise, would you?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): You will always have to have problem-solving and prioritising. No, it is not about cutting your cloth. It is about saying that in this particular area, there are these specific problems. We recognise that and this is what we are going to do, the local police and the local borough, working in partnership to say, “This is how we are going to solve it”.

Peter Whittle AM: Therefore, when it comes to rolling this out for the public, it has to be done very sensitively so that it does not add to a greater fragmentation of London. Even if people are saying, “These are the areas where there are problems”, you have to be very careful how it is done.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes. In terms of priority-setting, local people know what the local problems are. The evidence will show you also what the local problems are. The previous administration had a dashboard where you could see what was happening in boroughs. There is lots of information. Boroughs already publish a lot of information about the crime types and the volume of crime in their areas. It is not going to start fragmentation of London. It is important for public confidence that it is very clear that the police, as well as partners, are transparent and accountable; show that they understand what is happening in the local area and then how theyPage are 41 going to tackle it. It is much worse for people to feel that the local police, local authority and local partners do not understand and are not tackling the local issues.

Peter Whittle AM: Given that this is going to happen, this is the approach in the Plan, it might be worth -- you were at the female genital mutilation (FGM) event this week, were you not? Assembly Member Jennette Arnold [OBE] had done a superb map about FGM and where it is most prevalent. That could be utilised, could it not, in terms of prioritising, if it is made available to the various boroughs?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): I did not see the map. I would have to have a look at the map.

Peter Whittle AM: It was very good. It basically gives all the areas where is most prevalent.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): It is one of those areas which is around cross-borough working and cross-London working. We have had some really good pilots in terms of what works. Having the evidence to find out where the issues are is really important. If there is evidence Jennette [Arnold OBE AM] has - I have not seen the map - then we would look at it, maybe not in terms of priority-setting but feeding it into the work that we are doing with boroughs around FGM.

Peter Whittle AM: Thank you. Can I just ask you, Craig? I know there has only been one meeting, from what I can gather, so far with a borough, but what is the general feedback from the front line to this idea of priority-setting?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): The local one is well-received. Certainly I am not speaking for Martin [Hewitt, Assistant Commissioner, MPS]. He is capable of speaking for himself. The feeling from the first meeting was very good. I know there is another one this afternoon and another one tomorrow, in terms of getting that local feel for priorities. The reality is that as a police officer, and you will know from the boroughs you represent, it is quite hard to even get one thing that affects people right across an entire borough. There are challenges of place sometimes in boroughs. You can have a fairly large borough that has a town centre that is the crime and disorder driver for that borough. You tackle that particular area. The idea of getting some local engagement is absolutely the right way to go.

Can I just pick up on an interesting point you made at the start about the mapping? It would be useful. I know the MOPAC insight team has it. The challenge for the wider public sector in London is that some of those areas have not moved for 30 or 40 years. You can look at some wards in London and they have been the high-crime, high-disorder wards for generations. The challenge ought to be to all of us, “Why is that still the case?” I understand your stigmatisation point but some of that mapping already exists. Certainly there are some quite interesting longitudinal studies of crime over 60 or 70 years in London that show some of these places do not move. We need to understand why that is and what drives those.

I think the local focus will be well received by officers. The engagement point about involving Martin [Hewitt] as the lead of TP and also involving the local Borough Commander is good. It links to a point made early on in the session. We are absolutely clear that, when Martin and the Borough Commander are there, that is whole force of the MPS. A lot of these priorities we are talking about will not be tackled just by uniformed officers. When we talk about the challenge around knife crime and gangs, it is the entire organisation stepping in behind that.

Peter Whittle AM: Thank you very much.

Keith Prince AM: As you, Deputy Mayor, two of my boroughs are involved in the tri-borough test, which I broadly support. I will put that on record. You did Pagepoint out,42 quite rightly, that Barking and Dagenham are having challenges. That is the third borough, along with my two. These two to four priorities, will they be different for each borough or, if it is a joint borough, will they be shared?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): They will be different for each borough.

Keith Prince AM: In the tri-borough test in east London, they will have nine high-harm priorities? Is that right?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): No, they will have the local priorities that will be different and the high-harm priorities will be the same because they are cross-London.

Keith Prince AM: The same. They will have three high-harm and then nine local?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes. They will be the borough priorities. That is right. There is still that borough priority-setting.

Keith Prince AM: Thank you.

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: I want to pick up your real neighbourhood policing, your new approach to it, two dedicated officers by the end of this year, aimed at improving relations with local communities. Do you think that goes far enough? Do you think we need to be putting more dedicated police into wards and more dedicated Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) into wards to bring it back to the level of Safer Neighbourhood policing we had in the past?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): It is right that there is a minimum of two DWOs. As you will know, in some wards where there is higher demand there will be more than two DWOs. That is a matter for the Borough Commander, his or her view of the borough and how he or she wants to deploy the officers. It is not that every ward will only have two DWOs. Some will have more.

Would I like to put in more DWOs? Of course I would, but we have to balance it with the resources we have, the officers we have and the demand across London as well. At the moment, that is the appropriate level given the resources we have.

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: Under review, maybe?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Absolutely, but that is the commitment that we have going forward, an absolute commitment. It is there. You will know that the MPS are already halfway to delivering that, to make sure that that happens. It will absolutely happen by the end of 2017. There will be at least two DWOs in every ward and one PSCO per ward.

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: The guarantee is one PCSO dedicated per ward as well?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Dedicated per ward, that is right.

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: What about the abstraction? In the past, they were absolutely protected and could not be abstracted. This was weakened under the previous administration. Can you explain when they can abstracted and when they cannot be, or is it, “You are dedicated to that ward. End of”?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): The commitment around abstraction is that they are dedicated to that ward except for extreme emergencies, should they happen, and most likely around the Notting Hill Carnival and New Year’s Eve. Not definitely,Page 43but those are the two times that they might be abstracted because of the heavy demand on police resources and police officers to police those two events. It is not definite but those are the two.

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: ‘Extreme’, like a big, London-wide mass emergency?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Absolutely, yes.

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: Fair enough. Notting Hill. New Year’s Eve. That is it?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes. The difference from before is that previously it was not transparent or accountable when officers were abstracted from their wards. This time, we are doing this in the Pathfinders and if we do continue, there will be - you can call it what you want - reporting back to the local area around what has happened to those DWOs. It will be transparent if there have been abstractions.

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: We would be able to look at that abstraction data as well. That is helpful because that is something I recall from when I was on the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA). It came in and I could not support it because you were weakening those dedicated officers.

I was not, sadly, at our last meeting, but one of the issues that came forward was that people said about morale that it is one of the biggest risks for the MPS today. Maybe I should start with the Deputy Commissioner. The draft Plan says that motivation, morale and expertise in the workforce is critical to success but also is the biggest risk. What steps do you want to take to improve morale in the workforce? Then, Sophie, you could also answer the same.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): The issue around morale is real. We have discussed it before at this Committee. A number of the changes that were made both nationally and locally over the last few years have knocked people. If you talk to individual officers, as many of you will do, they will talk about changes in their terms and conditions. The reality is that a lot of the work we are doing now about saying what the MPS could look like going forward we hope will start to shape and give some certainties to some of those, because what police officers do not like is uncertainty. The fact we deal with uncertainty every day on the streets we take for granted, but when you get back into a police station, you say, “There is this change coming and there is this change coming”. I am hopeful that with the Police and Crime Plan, linking it more to the transformation journey we are on, we can talk about those things we are doing.

I have been very open about this: with the change in Commissioner and a range of things, part of the things we are talking about is how we do some stuff about those - for want of a better word - wellbeing issues around officers and staff. No one in this life anymore can give people absolute certainty, but there are things we can do around supporting people and taking people forward.

The biggest one I would like to do is to try to rebalance the blame culture. I would need help with that on both a national and local level, but officers perceive that the moment they step out of line or do not follow a process, they will be blamed, and they have a very real justification for feeling that. We - my generation of policing - have to try to rebalance that because it is not in anybody’s interest.

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: Sophie, is there anything you want to add?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Just in terms of the morale and the workforce, it is an issue and it is something that we are very aware of. We will be working with the MPS in terms of what we can do to ensure that police officers feel supported and that they feel they are going to be treated fairly within the service and they have the trust and confidence ofPage the public44 as well. That is going forward and that is within the Police and Crime Plan around the importance of our staff, not taking for granted the commitment and dedication of police officers and police staff in the service and making sure that, when they are at work, they have the right facilities and are treated with fairness.

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: Deputy Commissioner, you have really tight budget pressures. We have discussed that at the Budget and Performance Committee. How are you going to ensure that things like training are properly resolved? I know many of the reports we produce say that we want you to do more training in mental health, in child protection or in whatever. There is huge pressure so that your officers have the right expertise to tackle this changing nature of crime. How are you going to make sure you have the resources to be able to do that training?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): You will remember - and we have discussed this previously - that for most operational police officers we introduced a training day as part of the cycle and so we can target training.

First, we have to look at how we deliver training. There is a great resistance in policing to anything that is seen as computer-based training. For a whole variety of reasons, officers, unless someone has sat and spoken to them - and I understand some of that - do not feel they have had any training or input, but there is something now in the modern world about how we impart learning and knowledge, and then how we talk about application of that learning and knowledge. We are looking quite carefully at how we do that.

The reality is you have to prioritise it. These are all tough decisions because we could probably take every officer off the streets for the next three or four weeks and train them, but that is just not a reality. It has to be prioritised, and it has to be prioritised against the risks that we face in terms of doing it. A lot of the work around child protection and the wider safeguarding has absolutely been prioritised in terms of training, but that means that then, when someone comes in and says, “I want you to understand more about the threats from wildlife crime”, or something, you cannot fit all of that in. What we do is have a strategic training plan and strategic training board, and they make the tough decisions about what to put in that process.

Also, when you look at the wider thing about how we are changing the workforce - and you have seen some of the national announcements about moving to a graduate profession - it is just reinforcing what has been a reality for many years, that that continuing, ongoing development of officers in skills and experience we are just formalising in a completely different way. It is a challenge. Keeping some of those high-end skills will be increasingly challenging in a very active labour market.

We have spoken before a lot about things like cyber skills. As you know, I do quite a lot of work around that area and business crime with colleagues in the City of London [Police]. The reality is that as soon as we skill people up, at the moment, if we put ‘cyber’ in someone’s title, the major banks will be in to take them before they finish their training. The reality is that there is a national shortage of some skills. We have put a whole range of things in place to try to build those skills and experience up, but ultimately we have to prioritise them. We only have so much space available.

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM: Thank you.

Keith Prince AM: I am just interested to develop a bit about the two officers per ward. It has been brought to my attention that historically - perhaps you can answer the technicality of this, Mr Mackey - you had one police officer per ward and then behind that was a support team.

I can never remember what the name of that support team was. Perhaps you can give me that name. They did a lot of the investigations on the burglaries and so on. What is the name of that team? Page 45 Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): The Neighbourhood Team sat above. You had one officer per ward and one PCSO per ward and then you had the Neighbourhood Team, which was like a support above them.

Keith Prince AM: Yes, the Neighbourhood Team. My understanding is - and you may correct me - that that Neighbourhood Team is pretty much being dispersed in order to put the extra officers in the holes to make up the two.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): If you see it as a level, some will go across into neighbourhoods. Some will go across into the Emergency Response and Control Team (ERPT).

Keith Prince AM: Yes. That is my understanding and it is good that we agree on that, or that I understand it, more importantly.

Can you or the Deputy Mayor [for Policing for Crime] tell me, having just made the point about the investigations, who now you think will be doing the investigations?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): The ERPT is taking more investigations and so it will carry investigative workload. There is a piece of work called My Investigation. One of the things leads to the question that Caroline [Pidgeon MBE AM] asked about skills and experiences. You will know that one of the challenges we have at the moment is getting people to step into the Detective role, and one of the key blocks to that - perception is reality - is the reality for people that the Detectives carry every single investigation. It felt like, for the organisation, Patrol Officers and officers in uniform went to a job, filled in a form, gave it to an investigator, forgot about it and moved on to the next job. We are moving away from that. We are moving much more in line with the other 42 forces in the country and what we call ‘level 1’ crimes - relatively straightforward, although at the high end quite important for Londoners - will be dealt with by the officer attending. We will not be handing off. We will not be moving crimes around the system.

Keith Prince AM: Can you give an example of one of those?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): Yes. In the current scenario, I arrive at the scene of a robbery and we detain an offender across the road for the robbery because we are there quick enough and we catch them and that sort of thing. The reality is that now I would probably fill in the initial crime report, I would take the prisoner to the station and the next person you would deal with is going to be someone completely different. It will probably be a Detective from one of the Volume Crime Teams. In the future, the likelihood is that you will continue to see me.

We are putting in more training. It goes back to the point around My Investigation. We are training officers in what we call ‘PIP’. You will hear officers talking about ‘PIP’. That is the Professionalising Investigation Programme, which is putting those investigative skills where they were back in frontline officers, and they will carry investigative caseloads.

Keith Prince AM: Whereas in the past we had one police officer per ward and then we had a back-up Neighbourhood Team that would go and do investigations, that Neighbourhood Team is being dispersed, effectively. The vast bulk, I suspect, is going into the wards and then there is a residual amount that is going into the Response Teams. Then those Response Teams are now going to be doing the investigations that the Neighbourhood Teams were doing. Who is doing the response, then?

Page 46 Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): They will still be doing response as well. There is a whole move in this --

Keith Prince AM: They will be in the middle of investigating something; a call will come through saying, “By the way, please attend”, and so on, and then they will go, “Sorry, I can’t do it”, jump in the car and drive off.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): If only life were that straightforward.

Keith Prince AM: That is the reality, though, is it not? That is the reality. They are going to go, “Sorry, mate. I just have to zip off”.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): No.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Can we move this on a little bit, if we can?

Keith Prince AM: It is very important. There is a structural change in how we are going to be policing locally, a structural change, and this Committee needs to understand exactly how that structural change is going to work.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): We have piloted this in a borough already and we are rolling it out to other boroughs in terms of the My Investigation piece. The reality is that officers will carry a workload. It will not be a huge workload and that is a real challenge for us in terms of managing that workload. You remember those teams; this is pushing people either way in terms of how we do it. The ERPTs are being bolstered in terms of things going in.

Keith Prince AM: Not a lot.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): The other piece of work that we are working through at the moment is how we look at frontend demand. You remember that I have spoken before here. We had something in the region of 170,000 calls for service and, if we looked at how we graded our calls for service, we could deal with them completely differently and could resolve them without attending. There is a whole range of work going on to cope with a change in the structure of the organisation.

Keith Prince AM: Did you say you are now trying to find ways of not attending emergencies?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): No, not emergencies, but in terms of calls for service and how we grade our calls, the 170,000 or 180,000 calls that we attend, usually the 101-type calls that we go to, which sometimes people do not even want us to go to. We go to --

Keith Prince AM: Why are they phoning the police, then, if they do not want the police?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): The reality is that there are very few other numbers available now. If you look at some of the volumes of calls that have gone up, as local authorities and others have shut contact centres, in fact, we have examples where people say now, “Ring 101”. We are the service of last resort. We are always available.

Keith Prince AM: It just seems a bit strange to me, and I understand that you have to work within the political constraints that you have been forced into.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, MetropolitanPage 47 Police Service): It is not political.

Keith Prince AM: It just strikes me as a bit strange that in the past we had a team of people who did investigations, and now we do not have that team anymore to do the minor investigations. We have now two police officers wandering around wards and some of these wards in London have very low - in fact there are some with zero - crime rates; wandering around all day, looking good, making people feel safe. That is wonderful. Then we have the ERPT, which has only grown by a very small amount, now doing those investigations.

Seriously, what happens when there is a call? There is a call, “We have an emergency”, and they go, “Sorry, mate. I know it’s important, but I’ve just got to jump in my car”. It is very worrying.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): No. I think you characterise for effect and I understand doing that, but the reality is --

Keith Prince AM: What an accusation to make.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): The reality is that in those scenarios you describe, officers now will always prioritise. If I am in the middle of taking a statement from a victim and a call comes in and it is far more important that I am at it and I am close to it, I will go. That will happen today.

Keith Prince AM: That is what I was just demonstrating.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): That is written hard in the DNA of policing. We will always do that. We will always go to something in terms of those calls and those demands. The reality is that what we are doing is bringing the officers back into that investigation mode for the long-term good health of the organisation, and it is the right thing to do.

Keith Prince AM: Then you have two officers in every ward not doing any of that.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): They will be doing some. They will pick up some low-level stuff and do that. They are police officers. We are absolutely clear.

Keith Prince AM: Yes, they are. Yes.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): I agree with the narrative because the previous model was encouraging the local DWOs to take ownership of those local crimes. That one or two now, if they had a local burglary, for example, would take ownership from the beginning to the end of the process. Is that still going to continue?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): If they are the first officer who attends, they will keep it.

Keith Prince AM: There is one other question. Abstractions: where are they coming from? The Response Teams?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): The abstractions have to come out of that core.

Keith Prince AM: You have them investigating the crimes and being abstracted. Is there going to be anyone left to respond to any emergencies? Page 48 Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): There are plenty. The Response Teams are still there.

Keith Prince AM: Seriously, this is very worrying. The people of London will be very concerned. I understand you are trying to do the best within the political constraints that you have, but the people will be very concerned --

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): What political constraints are you talking about?

Keith Prince AM: -- about how they are going to get the most important service they receive from the police, which is emergency response.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): Emergency response will come today, tomorrow and in the future --

Keith Prince AM: After they have finished the abstractions, after they have finished doing their investigations.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): No. Emergency response will come, and emergency response will always come.

Keith Prince AM: Very worrying. Very, very worrying, Mr Mackey. Very worrying.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): It is the service we have.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): We will continue to take a keen interest in that. It is a point very well made. We want to move on, but did you have, Sian, another question on this point?

Sian Berry AM: I do not think we have said enough about training.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Go on, then. Say something more about training.

Sian Berry AM: In response to what Craig was saying, we have all been in professions where the pressures of the daily job do interfere a little bit with training, but I am hoping that will be tackled within the new Plan, to some extent. Are there plans to reform this further?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): In terms of how?

Sian Berry AM: To create more space within officers’ days. We did hear at the last Committee meeting from officers who had been thrown into Safer Neighbourhood Teams, for example, and they had not been informed of even what to expect there in terms of what local groups there might already be, whom they should go and meet, and how the councils might be structured. These are not things that you automatically know. You have to go and be trained to be a Safer Neighbourhood Officer. This former officer we were talking to had not had that training and had to feel his own way. That is not an efficient use of time for that to happen. It is efficient to pull people out and train them so that they can be effective.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): You have just heard the other concern and so you want me to take people out, and the concern from the other side of the Chamber is that I do not have enough people out there doing the job.

Page 49 Sian Berry AM: That is their point. This is mine. It is better if they are more effectively trained in the new specialisms and things.

Keith Prince AM: It is not often that the Greens and the Conservative agree anyway. Let us be honest.

Sian Berry AM: I did not say I agree. We were saying different things, but we are not contradicting --

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Let us make the point, Sian, and we will move on. Did he answer it?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): I do not disagree with your point, but I am just being really honest with you. That will always be a tension. I did not hear the evidence from a former officer.

Sian Berry AM: I have worked in organisations where training is important. We have solved that problem.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): With the exception probably of - I must be careful of what I single out as an organisation - the military and some of its training when it is not live all the time, the reality is that for most emergency services, particularly us and the Ambulance Service, we are live. We are running live operations 24/7, 365 days of the year. You will always have a limit on what you can take out of the line.

Sian Berry AM: I agree with you. On morale, though, just to also make the point, being valued and being trained are two of the same things. Happy morale, feeling that people are being looked after and developed as professionals, not just harangued with constant time pressures, would be amazing for morale.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): Yes. You have touched a number of times on the pilots. That is why, with the pilot boroughs, with the senior leadership team and with the wider leaders, we have rolled out the Leading for London change, which is about training and development and how they work as a team. As we move through that transition, that is absolutely how we do it.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Can I just make one point as well? Training is linked to morale because there is nothing better for morale than to feel that you can do a good job and that means having the right skills to do the good job, but in terms of the training, we are looking at the training.

You are right and Caroline [Pidgeon MBE AM] said this. Often I go to meetings and they talk about the need for training. Probably the need for training we can expand and expand and expand, but it is not just about what was known as continual professional development and about training while you are in the job. It is also about your initial training and that is something that we are looking at as well to make sure that police officers, through their initial training, are given the skills that they need when they start their job so that when they do go into the wards they do have that training.

Police Now is exactly what that is about. It is really good training about problem-solving and about knowing not all the individual structures but, basically, the stakeholders. They are a fantastic group. We have had two cohorts go through. The numbers are increasing. We need to look at what that teaches us about what the rest of the training needs to be like in the MPS and how we develop that. Yes, it is about on-the-job training, but it is also about when you first come in.

Sian Berry AM: That is a really good example because we have definitely noticed that about the cohort of officers that has come out of Police Now.

Page 50 Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): The model that is emerging around apprenticeships in policing and a graduate workforce will change fundamentally the first three years of an officer’s service. It will rebalance that time in the line with time in what I call education and training, and that is potentially quite an exciting model but will bring its own challenges for us in terms of how we manage the workload.

Sian Berry AM: It is our final question and it is about monitoring and measuring the results. We have touched on it before when you were asked about targets and local priorities, but a more sophisticated conversation in measuring success is how you put it in the Plan.

How does that square with measuring the performance, knowing how you compare to the past as well? Are you still going to be able to be held to account on some numbers in a useful way?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes. In terms of how we will be held to account, there are the dashboards as they were. We are developing the dashboards as they will be in terms of the new priorities, and there will be that absolute public transparency and accountability around what I hope will be progress. I believe there will be progress, but you will be able to see that. Of course, there will still be the usual crime types that will be reported on, as you have every quarter. Every time you have the Police and Crime Committee, you have those figures and you will be able to dig down into the trends and dig down into the crimes. Yes, those dashboards will be developed and they will be there for the priorities.

Sian Berry AM: For the new priorities - and talking about doing things in a more sophisticated way is good - will you still be seeking to make those measurable, though, where that is possible?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): In terms of what we are looking for, it is year-on- year reductions. They are measurable in terms of you will be able to see whether they are going up or down or staying the same. You will be able to see what the trends are and, because of the interactivity around the dashboards, you will be able to look at what it is like for your ward, what it is like for the borough and what it is like in terms of most other boroughs as well. The dashboards are going to be a really fantastic tool in terms of accountability and transparency.

Sian Berry AM: My final question is about the baseline you are going to measure against. If you are making lots of changes to priorities and how you measure things, how are you going to set the baseline for what you are measuring progress against and will that go in any way to the past? As someone who uses statistics quite a lot, as mentioned, when changes are made, if you end up with a big discontinuity because the methods all change, it can be very frustrating. How will you deal with that?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Methods. I suppose there is a slight difference here. What I see is that the priorities are changing and the way that we set the priorities are changing, but they are based on total notifiable offences and based on the crime survey. You will be able to see, from now and before and going forward, what the progress has been. That will be the same.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): Just to reassure and to support that point as well, none of this will affect any of the national reporting. There is a national framework of reporting that we saw recently with the Office of National Statistics reporting. There is local reporting from other oversight bodies, like HMIC and others. With that national trend, you will still be able to see the longitudinal impact of whatever action we do or do not take.

Sian Berry AM: Very finally, I was asking before about hit-and-run offences, which were going up, and that is very interesting. We wanted also to know about how many prosecutions and convictions had resulted from those. You were not able to tell us, but I understandPage that 51 things are being now matched up. When you have better data like that going forward - that is really great and we look forward to it - is it possible then to also do maybe a sample of backward-looking statistics to reanalyse some of the older data or just do a sample so that you have some comparison for how things have changed?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): I do not know. That is the honest answer and so I will not make a pledge one way or the other off the cuff. I am more than happy to take it away and look at it. When we discussed this last time, we are getting better at joining up because we are getting better at joining with the Court Service. Whether I can do that retrospectively, I do not know. I will find out for you.

Sian Berry AM: Yes. I would have thought that was possible at least for the sample, not across the board, though.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): Yes. I will find out for you.

Sian Berry AM: Thank you.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Before we move on, it is absolutely important to talk about the clarity again. I mentioned earlier that whether it is ward panels, Safer Neighbourhood Boards, you or the Deputy Mayor [for Policing for Crime], there is clarity around the measures and what success looks like so that the MPS can be held to account.

Tony Arbour AM: Deputy Mayor, I would like to ask about the NICC grant. On the face of it, it seems astonishing that we asked for £340 million and the Home Office is offering us only £170 million. Tell me. How are you trying to improve the offer?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): You are right that it is astonishing, and you will have seen that the Mayor and the Commissioner and I have said that it is very worrying going forward in terms of what the budget is.

In terms of how we are trying to change that, we are lobbying - and the word would be ‘lobbying’ - the Home Secretary and the Minister for Policing around this and asking for our fair share of resources for London. They have agreed what the amount of money is that the MPS does spend because of its responsibilities in policing because it is in the capital. They have agreed that. They are just not funding it and there is that significant gap of about £170 million.

Tony Arbour AM: Let me get this right. The Government accepts that we need £340 million but it has offered only £170 million?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): The MPS estimate of how much it spends on capital policing is £384 million. The Home Office has accepted a smaller figure than that. In terms of the gap in the figure that the Home Office has accepted, it is about £110 million. Whether you take the £110 million that the Home Office is accepting or what the MPS’s estimate is, it is a huge gap and a huge challenge.

Tony Arbour AM: It certainly is. I have a paper in front of me that has been prepared by the MOPAC and the MPS, which suggests that no negotiations have taken place since 2015. Is that fair? Actual negotiations. I have the sums of money that we say we should be getting, which add up to £343.7 million, and that was done in 2015. Similarly in December 2015, the then Home Secretary wrote to the Commissioner saying that the grant was going to be only £174 million and saying that that was going to be less than you had asked for.

Page 52 It is now the end of January 2017. Those negotiations took place under a different administration. What have you done to jack up the sum of money, if it is so unfair?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): What we have done is we have written to the Minister, we have met the Minister and we have had discussions with the Ministers about this. That has also been taking place at officer level about the unfairness of the NICC funding, pointing out the gap between the expert working group and what the MPS estimate is that it spends on policing the capital. We have had those discussions and we have gone in to Ministers and said, “You need to be funding us to, at the very least, the amount you have accepted”. We are putting that point very strongly.

Tony Arbour AM: You do not appear to have been terribly successful, if I may say so.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): We are still making those discussions. There are still discussions taking place. On behalf of London, I hope that we are successful.

Tony Arbour AM: Yes. Yesterday, I - like every other Member - received a letter from the Mayor headed, “Police funding in London”. You wrote it, did you?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Absolutely. It is a letter that we put together, together.

Tony Arbour AM: You put it together. Did you consult the MPS on the content of this letter?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): The figures in the letter are figures that we have agreed with the MPS.

Tony Arbour AM: No, that was not the question I asked you, Deputy Mayor. I asked you: did you consult the MPS on the content of this letter?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): In terms of that specific letter, I am not sure whether the whole letter would have been consulted on, but in terms of the funding and the position that we are in with the budget, we have been consulting.

Tony Arbour AM: Presumably, therefore, from what the Deputy Mayor [for Policing and Crime]) has said, you have not seen this, Deputy Commissioner?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): I cannot read it from here. There were a number of letters.

Tony Arbour AM: Yes, but you would know whether or not you had received a letter from the Mayor yesterday.

Keith Prince AM: Have a look at it.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): It may well have arrived in my in-tray.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): I can check for you. The amount of consultation that goes back and forward, on specific letters, I must --

Page 53 Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): There are a number of letters about funding going between the two organisations.

Tony Arbour AM: Yes, I understand that. I am asking about this letter. It is relatively unusual that the Mayor writes to us - allegedly personally - on the matter of police funding. It is a rare occurrence, which is why I bring it to your notice. I would have thought it would have been reasonably rare for you to have received a personal letter on police funding from the Mayor. I really want to ask you, please, if you turn over the letter that you have, on the second page in the first paragraph the Mayor says this:

“I am deeply concerned that the combination of the Government’s refusal to fully fund the NICC, along with changes to the police funding formula, could undermine public safety in the capital.”

Is that a statement that you would have agreed to, Mr Mackey?

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): I am not in the politics and the game of politics, but --

Tony Arbour AM: I know you are not and that is why usually I concentrate on asking the questions of the politician here.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): I absolutely understand that. The challenge we face around funding is making sure we get a fair settlement for London that allows us to keep a growing capital city safe.

Tony Arbour AM: Let me go back to the Deputy Mayor [for Policing and Crime]. Was that sentence that I read out, Deputy Mayor, one that you put in and that you concur with?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Clearly, a letter from the Mayor of London is one that I would absolutely agree with and would be, as his Deputy, involved in the drafting of it.

In terms of the absolute crux of this point and the crux of the letter, in terms of the budget, the Commissioner last week, when the crime figures were published, is on record as saying, “The lights are flashing because of the increase in crime. It is not as great as around the rest of the country in London, but it is still increasing”. He is worried. The Mayor is worried. In terms of the sentiments, absolutely.

Tony Arbour AM: Yes. I do seek to be as courteous as possible, Deputy Mayor. I am very concerned. Everybody here is concerned. Every Londoner is concerned that the police should be fully funded, and there is nothing more important than the safety of Londoners. In the context of talking about the safety of Londoners, is it appropriate for the Mayor to say that the change in the funding formula could undermine public safety?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes, it is appropriate.

Tony Arbour AM: All right. Thank you.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): It is appropriate because that is what we are incredibly worried about and that is the challenge going forward.

Tony Arbour AM: This lack of funding is undermining public safety. Also --

Page 54 Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes, absolutely. Going forward, if the challenges of the budget are not met, we are very worried about public safety in London.

Andrew Dismore AM: With respect, Chairman, the letter refers to both the failure to fully fund the NICC and potential changes to the police funding formula. It is both of those things.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): It is very good of you to remind me, Assembly MemberDismore.

Andrew Dismore AM: I would be very surprised if none of us were worried about that.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): In the previous paragraph, if you go back to the first page, you talked about:

“When Ministers considered similar changes at the end of 2015, the MPS stood to lose between £184 million and £700 million before the plans were abandoned.”

What part of those plans related to the NICC? You have already told us that you have been unable to change the Government’s mind on that.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): What I have already told you is that we are lobbying and pressing very hard so that what we are owed in the NICC grant is given to London and that London gets its fair share.

There are two things on here. There is the NICC grant and there is the review of the police funding formula. Those figures that you have just quoted are from the previous review of the police funding formula, which had that level of possibility of funding being taken away from London. You will know that the police funding formula is being reviewed at the moment. The police funding formula review was abandoned.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): What was abandoned, with lobbying from this building and this administration, was a review of the funding formula, which would have had a catastrophic effect on London. That was abandoned back in 2015, the funding formula.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): The funding formula was abandoned, yes. That is what we are talking about.

Tony Arbour AM: Yes. What I am driving at is this is a new administration. You and the Mayor - and we support him - have made much of you having as your overall policy and overriding principle the safety of Londoners. What you have done - and I say “you” meaning you and the Mayor - is to put this all down to Government intransigence in relation to the funding of the police here.

At various sessions beforehand I have asked you what you have done since you took over. You will have come in and you would have known instantly - because I cannot imagine that you would not have been briefed - about the difference between what you think the NICC costs and what the Government has given you. We have had no evidence and there is no evidence before us today to show that you and the current administration have made substantial efforts to make your case to show that we are substantially underfunded here.

If I may say, I have had a note. I doubt that you have seen this, but it was prepared by MOPAC and the MPS relating to the NICC, and it says that there was an executive panel set up to check whether or not the request for the £340 million-odd was accurate. The members of that executive panel included a Her Majesty’s Page 55 Inspector (HMI). It was HMI Otter, whom I seem to recall was at the MPS. It was chaired by Sir Richard Mottram and members of the MPS and MOPAC reviewed this decision.

Very interestingly, it says that between you, you established the policing costs at £340 million-odd, but this panel agreed that just £281 million was justified. Listen to this, “Very interestingly, only very slightly lower than the MPS and MOPAC assessment”. In fact, it is 20% lower. It is very interesting that you describe that as being minor.

Andrew Dismore AM: That is misleading.

Tony Arbour AM: Please let me follow through the argument. We are here to hold the Deputy Mayor [for Policing and Crime]to account. What I am seeking to suggest is that you have not worked terribly hard on redressing what we fully accept appears to be a substantial injustice.

Do you not think that the case would have had much more credibility if this executive panel was not actually an executive panel at all but was some outside body - I do not know, a firm of accountants or something of that sort - that audited what you thought, what the MPS thought it cost and similarly what the Government thought it should cost?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): I will pass over to Craig in a minute, but I would just like to point out to you, Mr Arbour, that this independent panel sat under the previous administration.

Tony Arbour AM: I am not denying that.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Do we know about the independent panel? Absolutely. We have just had discussions about the difference between what the MPS was asking for and what the Home Office agreed and what the independent expert panel agreed. There is a difference. However, there is still a significant shortfall. It could be £170 million or £107 million. That is a substantial shortfall in terms of funding for the MPS.

Tony Arbour AM: We are not disagreeing about that.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): I would ask that, in terms of the Assembly and you as the Police and Crime Committee, which has the interests of London’s safety at heart, you will join us in lobbying the Government and trying to get the message across on how poorly London is and how London is not getting its fair share.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Let me take two points. One point: it would have been better if you had had this paper, which we do not have and so it is too late now, but these are facts --

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): From the previous administration, I presume.

Tony Arbour AM: Produced by you.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): No. The gap of £62 million, clearly, from this table, is around the support costs. The group disagreed about the support costs. That is a fact.

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): Chairman, can I help with some of the process?

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Yes. Page 56

Craig Mackey QPM (Deputy Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service): I will be very quick. We, as in London, do not control the panel. The panel is set up by the Home Office. The NICC in previous years was basically a given fund. Why that review was put in place was that people wanted to try to baseline it. It was built up from the bottom, which is quite unusual in terms of the way of doing that, and we had no say in who was on the panel - Sir Richard Mottram and Steve Otter - because it was grant-given money and that is how it is done.

The area of dispute was whether you pay on-costs. In all grants - there is a percentage of the organisation that has to train people, no matter what you do - we usually get on-costs. This one could not agree on on- costs and so we do not get on-costs. That is the difference between the two figures.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): A point of order for the Deputy Chair.

Unmesh Desai AM (Deputy Chair): Are we moving away from the thrust of this section, Chairman? There are important issues raised by Assembly Member Arbour, but it is about how we lobby the Government, how we build a campaign that we all are signed up to as the Assembly and what arguments we use. I am not saying that Assembly Member Arbour is not raising important issues.

Tony Arbour AM: There is no evidence in either paper we have received that anything has happened between now and - or, rather, since - December 2015.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): You have made that point already, Tony, very well.

Andrew Dismore AM: Sophie has just given us that evidence.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): I have given you the evidence. I have given you the evidence and you are not --

Tony Arbour AM: No. You have merely said that you have done these things.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): The point has been made well by --

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): I am not sure what you are getting at there. You should be very careful. “Merely said.”

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Deputy Mayor, the point has been made very well and your response has been made. Whether it is to the satisfaction of my colleagues is another thing. There are other questions relating to this before we --

Andrew Dismore AM: Chairman?

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): A point of order again.

Andrew Dismore AM: It is important that the correct figures are put before the people who have not had a chance to see them, and this document is absolutely clear. The panel, which was not the MPS panel but set up by the Home Office, found the total direct costs to be £281.1 million; plus then on top of that there is the £62.6 million, which is the support costs and which, unusually, was not agreed. The Home Secretary said that she would fund it, £274 million, being 62% of the £281.1 million. It is quite straightforward. Even on the figures that were put forward by the Home Office, we were ripped off -- Page 57 Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes, absolutely.

Andrew Dismore AM: -- irrespective of the £62.6 million support costs, which would normally be paid on top.

Tony Arbour AM: We are not arguing about that. We were just arguing about what the Deputy Mayor [for Policing and Crime] and the administration have done about it.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): That point has been well made. That point has been made by Tony Arbour.

Andrew Dismore AM: She has done it. What I would suggest, Chairman, is that if Mr Arbour is so wound up about it, maybe Sophie could give us a list of dates when proposals have been put to the Home Office.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): We can do that. In terms of the argument around the figures, the figures in this briefing you have just shown me and the figures in the letter from the Mayor are exactly the same. There is no change. There is no difference. I am not really sure of the point you are driving at on this.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): Would you care to write to me with the details of your meetings and representations for the last 12 months?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime): Yes. Sure.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): If you can do that, it may assuage some concerns.

Tony Arbour AM: I would, however, Chairman, like to repeat how much I deplore the scaremongering of the phrase “could undermine public safety”.

Andrew Dismore AM: [Stephen] Greenhalgh said exactly the same thing here when he was the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime.

Tony Arbour AM: No, he did not.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): The point is made, Tony. Have you any other questions in this section? I think there are one or two more.

Florence Eshalomi AM: We are done, Chairman.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): We are done on the questions. Keith, did you have anything you want to add?

Keith Prince AM: My question has almost been answered.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): “Almost” is good. That is the end of this session. Thank you very much.

Unmesh Desai AM (Deputy Chair): I do not think he has asked any of the questions.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): It got lost in a cloud of very good questions.

Unmesh Desai AM (Deputy Chair): Maybe he canPage write 58 to you, Sophie, formally.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): We may in the exchange have missed one or two points we wanted to make, which is fine, and we will write to you with those points.

Unmesh Desai AM (Deputy Chair): Can I just flag this up? I will not raise this now because of time, but I will write to you, Commissioner, and copy in Assembly Members on this issue about the morale of police and training, the issue of what may be perceived as political correctness and to what extent that impacts on operational policing. I will draw reference to a clip of a protest and the way it was policed, which was given to me back in June last year, but we will share the correspondence. I just want to flag it up formally so that it is recorded.

Keith Prince AM: Mayoral interference falls under the lowering of morale. Yes.

Steve O’Connell AM (Chairman): All right.

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Page 60 Agenda Item 4

Subject: Summary List of Actions

Report to: Police and Crime Committee

Report of: Executive Director of Secretariat Date: 23 February 2017

This report will be considered in public

1. Summary

1.1 This report sets out for noting actions arising from previous meetings of the Committee.

2. Recommendation

2.1 That the Committee notes the completed and ongoing actions arising from previous meetings of the Committee, as listed in the report.

Meeting of 26 January 2017

Minute Subject and action required Status Action by item 5 The Mayor’s Draft Police and Crime Plan and Q&A with MOPAC and the MPS

During the course of the discussion the Deputy In progress. MOPAC Mayor for Policing and Crime undertook to:

 Notify Police and Crime Committee Members by email for each Policing Matters and Justice Matters meeting that

took place;

 Provide figures for the extra resources MOPAC is providing for the whole-school approach pilot work in Croydon which is tackling violence with a focus on children and young people; and  Inform the Committee of the action she had taken to lobby the Government about achieving a fair financial settlement for the MPS. Continued …..

City Hall, The Queen’s Walk, London SE1 2AA Enquiries: 020 7983 4100 minicom: 020 7983 4458 www.london.gov.uk Page 61

During the course of the discussion the Deputy In progress MPS Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), undertook to find out if it was possible for the MPS to re-analyse older data for a comparison of how things had changed (for example in relation to prosecutions and convictions resulting from hit-and-run offences).

Authority was delegated to the Chairman, in Completed. consultation with the party Group Lead See Agenda Members and Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM, to Item 5. write to the Government to urge that the National, International and Capital City (NICC) grant allocated to the Metropolitan Police Service and the review of the way funding is allocated to the police properly reflects the responsibilities that the Metropolitan Police has to keep London safe.

Meeting of 12 January 2017

Minute Subject and action required Status Action by item 4 Summary List of Actions

That the MPS be requested to respond to the Completed. outstanding actions. See Appendix 1.

Continued …..

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Meeting of 15 December 2016

Minute Subject and action required Status Action by item 6 Question and Answer Session with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and Metropolitan Police Service (MPS)

During the course of the discussion, Assistant Completed – see Commissioner Martin Hewitt, MPS, undertook to Appendix 2. provide data on young people involved in hit-and-run road incidents, both as perpetrators and victims.

Meeting of 1 December 2016

Minute Subject and action required Status Action by item 6 Policing and Security in and around the London Stadium

During the course of the discussion, In progress E20 Stadium LLP Alan Skewis, Director, E20 Stadium LLP, and David Goldstone CBE, Chief Executive, LLDC, agreed to provide the contract between E20 Stadium LLP and London Stadium 185, subject to any information that would not be deemed to be releasable under statutory exemptions pertaining to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Authority was delegated to the Chairman, in In progress Scrutiny Manager consultation with party Group Lead Members, to agree any required output from the Committee’s scrutiny of policing and security in and around the London Stadium. Continued…

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10 Child Protection Investigations in the MPS

During the course of the discussion, Commander Completed. Downing, MPS, undertook to provide: See Appendix 1.  The average caseload of staff working in the area of child protection and the supervisory ratio; and

 The current figures for staff working on

child protection.

Meeting of 22 September 2016

Minute Subject and action required Status Action by item 4 Q&A with MOPAC and the MPS

During the discussion, the Deputy Commissioner A visit will be MPS suggested that Members might wish to observe arranged later officer safety training. The Chairman supported during the the suggestion. Assembly year.

Meeting of 19 July 2016

Minute Subject and action required Status Action by item Question and Answer Session with MOPAC and the MPS

During the course of the discussion, the Deputy Completed. Commissioner, MPS, undertook to: See Appendix 1.

 Provide a breakdown of the types of hate

crime offences committed since the EU referendum, including:

o By hate crime type; o A further breakdown of the broad racist and religious hate crime type if possible; and

o By the number of offences taking place online or offline; Continued…

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 Provide data on what was known about alleged offenders of hate crime, for example age;

 Confirm whether any profiling on perpetrators or alleged offenders had been undertaken by the MPS;  Provide a breakdown of from where the 500 supervisory posts within the MPS were being lost;

 Confirm how much the MPS received of the £34 million in national funding for firearms officers;

 Provide a summary of the types of claims Information to MPS against the MPS and whether they had follow increased, and confirm the MPS budget for claims;

 Inform the Committee as to whether the Civil Aviation Authority’s guidelines to the MPS for helicopter flights over London were published;

 Inform the Committee when a risk assessment was last undertaken for the MPS’s bomb disposal vehicles and the age of the vehicles; and  Provide an update on the number of police officers who had been trained in using unmanned aerial vehicles (drones).

Continued ….. Page 65

Meeting of 29 June 2016

Minute Subject and action required Status Action by item 7. Question and Answer Session with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and the Metropolitan Police Service

During the course of the discussion the Deputy Completed. Commissioner, MPS undertook to: See Appendix 1.

 Provide the retention period for CCTV on public transport in London;

 Confirm the number of Detectives who had been moved from Borough Command Units to central operations;  Provide the number of recovered stolen mopeds in Camden and Islington during 2016;

 Provide the number of successful convictions for stolen mopeds in Camden and Islington during 2016;  Inform the Committee of whether any work had been undertaken between the MPS and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in terms of tracking people who register for moped licenses and then commit offences;

 Inform the Committee about the process by which guidelines produced by the College of Policing Guidelines obtained a statutory basis;

 Inform the Committee about the process by which frontline officers were updated and informed about the new College of Policing statutory guidance;  Confirm the dedicated resource for Operation Viper including the number of police officers involved and where those officers came from; Continued ….

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 Provide the number of Section 60 Stop and Searches undertaken as a result of Operation Viper; and

 Provide any MPS analysis that was available on the likely impact on crime detection and prosecution in the West End as a result of Westminster City Council’s decision to stop monitoring its CCTV cameras from 1 September 2016.

Meeting of 17 March 2016

Minute Subject and action required Status Action by item

5 Question and Answer Session – Review of the Police and Crime Plan 2013-16

During the course of the discussion the Completed. Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service See Appendix 1. (MPS) undertook to provide:

 Any analysis the MPS has on the reasons for the year-on-year increase in criminal damage;  Information about how comparable forces are using, or whether they continue to use “taken into consideration” in terms of sanction detections;

 Details of where information on the number of foreign national offenders is published;  A summary of progress made by the MPS on the action points listed within the MOPAC Hate Crime Reduction Strategy;

 An update on the investigation into the fire at the Somali Bravanese Welfare Association, Muswell Hill; and

 Figures which indicate what the biggest impact on abstraction numbers are, for example providing local aid for specific MPS operations, or for London-wide Public Order operations. Continued …..

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Meeting of 3 March 2016

Minute Subject and action required Status Action by item 5 Victims and Vulnerability

During the discussion Detective Chief Completed. Superintendent Keith Niven QPM, MPS, See Appendix 1. undertook to provide Information on the number of frontline police officers who had been trained in understanding and recognising the signs of child sexual exploitation and the numbers of frontline officers who still needed to receive training.

During the course of the discussion, the In progress. MPS representatives from the MPS undertook to provide:

 An update on the MPS’s modelling for the framework for the transfer of commissioning and budgetary responsibility for custody healthcare services, including liaison and diversion and mental health services; and

 Information about how long the Rapid Assessment Interface and Discharge (RAID) pilot would continue.

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Complaints about the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC)

Subject and action required Status Action by Deadline, if applicable Complaints about the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime and the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) The Committee agreed, inter alia, to No disclosures to report for Monitoring n/a delegate to the Monitoring Officer all of the period from Officer the powers and functions conferred on 31 January 2017 to it by the Elected Local Policing Bodies 14 February 2017. (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations, with the exception of the functions set out at Part 4 of the Regulations which may not be delegated; and guidance on the handling of complaints which requires the Monitoring Officer to report, on a regular basis, the summary details (such as can be reported in public), on the exercise of any and all of these functions to the Committee for monitoring purposes.

Transparency Procedure

The Committee agreed Members No disclosures to report for Executive n/a disclose to the Executive Director of the period from Director of Secretariat or his nominated 31 January 2017 to Secretariat representative (within 28 days of the 14 February 2017. contact) details of any significant contact with the MPS and/or MOPAC which they consider to be relevant to the work of the Committee; and such disclosures be reported to the next meeting of the Committee.

Page 69

List of appendices to this report:

Appendix 1 – Letter from MPS to Chairman dated 6 February 2017.

Appendix 2 - Letter from MPS to Chairman dated 7 February 2017.

Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 List of Background Papers: None

Contact Officer: Joanna Brown and Teresa Young, Senior Committee Officers Telephone: 020 7983 6559 E-mail: [email protected]; and [email protected]

Page 70 Appendix 1

Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 This page is intentionally left blank

Page 82 Appendix 2

Neil Jerome Commander Metropolitan Police Service Mr S O’Connell, Crime, Criminal Justice, Roads and Assembly Member Transport Policing Command 3rd Floor Member for Croydon and Sutton Victoria Embankment The Queen’s Walk London London SW1A 2NJ SE1 2AA

7th February 2017

Dear Steve,

I write in response to your letter dated 3rd January 2017 addressed to Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt regarding the provision of data on young people in hit and run incidents, both as perpetrators and victims.

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) do record statistics from Collisions but only in relation to victims not perpetrators. To clarify the statistics, the age of a young person was defined in the search parameters as “under 18”. There is a caveat to the 2016 figures in that they are provisional figures and potentially subject to minor change. There were no fatal collisions during 2016 hence the missing column.

The information you required is shown on the appendix, accompanying this letter.

The MPS have recently updated their collision recording system which will allow for the greater interrogation of data with more detailed information being available.

Please do hesitate to contact me if I can be of further assistance.

Regards,

Neil Jerome Commander - TP Crime, Criminal Justice, Roads & Transport Policing

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Appendix A

Collisions resulting in casualties aged 0 to 17 years inclusive that involved one or more hit and run vehicle in MPS area - 01 January 2014 to 31 July 2016 (provisional)

No. of Accidents Year 2014 2015 2016 Accident Severity 1 Fatal 2 Serious 3 Slight Sum 1 Fatal 2 Serious 3 Slight Sum 2 Serious 3 Slight Sum Month January 0 1 36 37 0 0 24 24 3 35 38 February 0 1 24 25 0 2 31 33 5 28 33 March 0 4 24 28 0 0 36 36 3 28 31 April 0 3 21 24 0 3 27 30 5 22 27 May 0 1 29 30 0 2 35 37 1 30 31 June 0 2 20 22 0 2 26 28 2 13 15 July 0 1 36 37 1 0 28 29 0 26 26 August 0 1 26 27 0 2 31 33 0 0 0 September 0 4 33 37 0 3 37 40 0 0 0 October 1 0 33 34 0 2 29 31 0 0 0 November 0 1 31 32 0 5 25 30 0 0 0 December 0 1 31 32 0 4 30 34 0 0 0 Sum 1 20 344 365 1 25 359 385 19 182 201

Page 84 Agenda Item 5

Subject: Action Taken Under Delegated Authority

Report to: Police and Crime Committee

Report of: Executive Director of Secretariat Date: 23 February 2017

This report will be considered in public

1. Summary

1.1 This report outlines recent actions taken by the Chairman of the Police and Crime Committee in accordance with the delegated authority to take decisions granted to them by the Police and Crime Committee at its meeting on 26 January 2017.

2. Recommendation

2.1 That the Committee notes the recent action taken by the Chairman of the Police and Crime Committee, Steve O’Connell AM, under delegated authority, following consultation with the party Group Lead Members and Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM, namely to write to the Government to urge that the National, International and Capital City (NICC) grant allocated to the Metropolitan Police Service and the review of the way funding is allocated to the police properly reflects the responsibilities that the Metropolitan Police Service has to keep London safe.

3. Background

3.1 At its meeting on 26 January 2017, the Committee agreed to delegate authority to the Chairman, in consultation with the party Group Lead Members and Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM, to write to the Government to urge that the National, International and Capital City (NICC) grant allocated to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and the review of the way funding is allocated to the police properly reflects the responsibilities that the Metropolitan Police has to keep London safe.

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Page 85

4. Issues for Consideration

4.1 The Committee is recommended to note the action taken by the Chairman under delegated authority, following consultation with the party Group Lead Members and Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM, namely to write to Brandon Lewis MP, Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service, regarding the NICC grant allocated to the MPS.

4.2 The letter sent to the Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Services is attached at Appendix 1.

5. Legal Implications

5.1 The Committee has the power to do what is recommended in the report.

6. Financial Implications

6.1 There are no financial implications arising from this report.

List of appendices to this report:

Appendix 1 – Letter sent to the Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Services.

Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 List of Background Papers: Member Delegated Authority Form 788

Contact Officer: Joanna Brown and Teresa Young, Senior Committee Officers Telephone: 020 7983 6559 E-mail: [email protected]; and [email protected]

Page 86 Appendix 1

Page 87 Page 88 Agenda Item 6

Subject: The Mayor’s Police and Crime Plan

Report to: Police and Crime Committee

Report of: Executive Director of Secretariat Date: 23 February 2017

This report will be considered in public

1. Summary

1.1 The Committee is asked to formally agree its response to the consultation on the Mayor’s Police and Crime Plan.

1.2 At the time of publishing the agenda, the Committee’s response is being prepared and will be published following publication of the main agenda.

2. Recommendation

2.1 That the Committee agrees its report, Response to the Mayor’s Draft Police and Crime Plan.

3. Background

3.1 The Mayor, as occupant of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) (equivalent to a Police and Crime Commissioner outside London), has a statutory duty to publish a Police and Crime Plan. The Plan is required to set out MOPAC’s priorities for the Mayor’s time in office, including police and crime objectives, financial and other resources to be provided to the Commissioner and performance measures.1 The Committee is required by statute to review the draft Plan and make a report or recommendations on the Plan to MOPAC. MOPAC must “have regard to any report or recommendations made by the [Committee] in relation to the draft Plan.”2

3.2 The Mayor published his draft Police and Crime Plan for 2017 to 2021 on 1 December 2016.3 Consultation on the draft Plan runs until 3 March 2017 and the final version of the Police and Crime Plan will be published by the end of March 2017.

1 Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 2 Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 3 Mayor of London, Mayor invites Londoners to have their say on plans for a safer city, 1 December 2016

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Page 89

3.3 The Committee examined the feasibility and potential impact of the Mayor’s draft Police and Crime Plan with invited guests at its thematic meeting on 12 January 2017 and dedicated its Q&A meeting on 26 January 2017 for further questions on the Plan. The Committee also heard from Safer Neighbourhood Boards on their views about the priorities in the Plan.

3.4 A final report from the investigation has been produced. It will be submitted to MOPAC to meet the consultation deadline, following consultation with and agreement from all Members of the Committee at this meeting.

4. Issues for Consideration

4.1 The report for agreement, Response to the Mayor’s draft Police and Crime Plan will follow as Appendix 1.

5. Legal Implications

5.1 The Committee has the power to do what is recommended in the report.

6. Financial Implications

6.1 There are no financial implications arising from this review.

List of appendices to this report:

Appendix 1: To follow

Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 List of Background Papers:

Contact Officer: Becky Short, Scrutiny Manager Telephone: 020 7983 4760 E-mail: [email protected]

Page 90 Agenda Item 7

Subject: Question and Answer Session with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and the Metropolitan Police Service

Report to: Police and Crime Committee

Report of: Executive Director of Secretariat Date: 23 February 2017

This report will be considered in public

1. Summary

1.1 This report serves as a background paper to the monthly question and answer session with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS).

2. Recommendations

2.1 That the Committee notes, as background to the question and answer session with the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime and the Metropolitan Police Service, the monthly report from the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime attached at Appendix 1.

2.2 That the Committee notes the report and answers given by the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime and the Metropolitan Police Service to the questions asked by Members.

3. Background

3.1 The Committee has agreed that it will hold monthly question and answer sessions with the head of MOPAC and invite representation from the MPS.

3.2 MOPAC produces a monthly report providing an update on policing operational and financial performance, as well as the activities and decisions of MOPAC. The report is used to inform questions to MOPAC and the MPS at monthly question and answer sessions. The latest report is attached at Appendix 1.

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4. Issues for Consideration

4.1 The Committee will explore topical issues of importance to policing and crime in London. The question and answer session with Sophie Linden, the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime and Craig Mackey QPM, Deputy Commissioner, MPS is likely to cover the following topics:  Custody provision;  Firearms;  Moped related crime; and  Borough mergers.

5. Legal Implications

5.1 The Committee has the power to do what is recommended in this report.

6. Financial Implications

6.1 There are no financial implications to the GLA arising from this report.

List of appendices to this report:

Appendix 1 – MOPAC Monthly report

Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 List of Background Papers: None.

Contact Officer: Janette Roker, Scrutiny Manager Telephone: 020 7983 6562 E-mail: [email protected]

Page 92 Appendix 1

Report to the Police and Crime Committee

Thursday, 23 February 2017 10am City Hall

Sophie Linden Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime

Page 93

MOPAC report to Police and Crime Committee – 23 February 2017

1. INTRODUCTION

This report is provided to the Police and Crime Committee (PCC) for its 23 February 2017 meeting to assist the Committee to exercise its function in scrutinising and supporting the Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime (MOPAC) and to hold it to account.

This report covers the period from 14 January to 10 February 2017.

In addition to the range of regular meetings and briefings with key stakeholders including senior MPS officers, below are the main activities I have been involved in and/or where MOPAC has been represented.

2. MOPAC ACTIVITY REPORT

2.1 Police and Crime Plan Consultation Over the last month I have continued to consult on the draft Police and Crime Plan, including holding a ‘drop in session’ in City Hall, and I have had a number of meetings with stakeholders and victims, including a number of Borough leaders and Chief Executives.

 On 23 January, I met with the Night Czar, Amy Lame and the CEO of the Security Industry to discuss a range of issues aligned with the draft Police and Crime Plan.

 On January 27, I met with the MP for Croydon North, , Croydon Council Leader, Cllr Newman, Croydon Chief Executive Jo Negrini and Croydon Borough Commander Jeff Boothe to discuss Gang Crime in Croydon and the draft Police and Crime Plan. I also met with Philip Kolvin QC and discussed a safe Night Time Economy (NTE).

 On 1 February, I met with Carolyn Downs, Brent Council Chief Executive and the Leader of the Council, Muhammed Butt to discuss the work of their Community Safety Partnership and in particular gang tensions and serious youth violence within Brent. I also took the opportunity to talk about the development of the new Police and Crime Plan and consult on their views.

2.2 London CONTEST Board On 18 January, I chaired the London CONTEST Board. As well as receiving a briefing on the current threat level, a discussion of the work of various agencies with regard to Prevent was held.

2.3 Haringey CAIT visit On 20 January, I visited the Haringey Child Abuse Investigation Team (CAIT) in Wood Green. The Team is responsible for dealing with child abuse safeguarding referrals, investigations and ongoing work with families where child abuse has been evident. I attended a focus group of officers and staff to discuss the challenges they face, impact of Borough Command Units (BCU) changes and other issues relating to tackling Child Abuse.

2.4 Gun and Knife crime in Haringey On the 20 January, I met with , , Claire Kober, Joanne McCartney and representatives from the Local Authority and Metropolitan Police Service to discuss Gun and Knife crime within the borough of Haringey. The purpose of the meeting was for partners to update on

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MOPAC report to Police and Crime Committee – 23 February 2017 activities and progress to date, key challenges. They also discussed and agreed on what more needed to be done across the partnership to address these issues.

2.5 FGM Assembly event On 24 January, I spoke at a Tackling Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) event hosted by the London Assembly at City Hall and met survivors of FGM. This event was aimed at front line practitioners from education, social care, health and the police and provided a valuable opportunity for colleagues to consider how to tackle FGM through effective partnership working. I also spoke about the MOPAC funded Harmful Practices pilot and highlighted key evaluation findings from the MOPAC managed FGM pilot.

2.6 Female Offending Service Launch On 25 January, I visited the Minerva Project with Dr Phillip Lee MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Justice, and Hegla Swidenbank, Director of Probation at the London Community Rehabilitation Company to mark MOPAC’s £500,000 investment in services for female offenders in London.

2.7 St Mary’s Catholic High School Visit On the 27 January, I met with young people and teachers from St Marys Catholic High School who are involved in the MOPAC funded whole school prevention pilot. The work which is being undertaken in the secondary school by Tender, is focused on violence against women and girls and serious youth violence. In partnership with the school, Tender is seeking to create a whole school approach that will be interactive and focused on engaging the whole school community.

2.8 Crime Stoppers On 27 January, I was invited by the Chief Executive, Mark Hallas OBE, to visit the Crimestoppers Bureau. I saw the work that the Bureau does and heard about their impact on fighting crime and protecting communities.

2.9 Launch Pan London Housing Reciprocal On 30 January, I officially announced the pan London housing reciprocal. This is a referral mechanism that helps find accommodation in the capital for those fleeing violence. The event is an example of joint working between MOPAC, the GLA and wider partners.

Around 120 people attended the event including; housing providers, practitioners, Housing Directors, third sector refuge providers and funders, borough Homelessness colleagues, VAWG Coordinators.

2.10 MPS Digital Policing Programme On 3 February, a briefing was provided concerning the MPS Digital Policing Programme. This included a discussion of the various programmes and the progress that was being made, together with the inter dependencies that exist between the programmes.

2.11 London Child Protection Policing Improvement Group On 7 February, I chaired the London Child Protection Policing Improvement Group meeting. The meeting provided me oversight to the work of the Met in improving their response to child protection, with an opportunity to oversee and test the MPS response to the recent HMIC Report on Child Protection.

2.12 City Forum On 9 February, I attended a dinner hosted by City Forum and participated in a discussion about training.

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3. PERFORMANCE Police data is now fully updated on the London data store. In addition, more police and crime data and information and interactive dashboards can be found at: https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/mayors-office-policing-and-crime-mopac/data-and- researchAn overview of key crime types are below.

Feb - Jan 2015-16 2016-17 % change

Total Notifiable Offences (TNO) 737,948 763,410 3.5% TNO TNO Victim Based 670,559 696,309 3.8% Violence Against the Person 223,172 234,930 5.3% Homicide 116 104 -10.3% VAP Youth Homicide 19 23 21.1% VWI 73,301 74,703 1.9% Serious Youth Violence 6,217 7,031 13.1% Domestic Abuse Incidents 147,190 148,440 0.8% Domestic Domestic Abuse Notifiable 73,101 74,389 1.8% Abuse Domestic Abuse VWI 23,544 23,546 0.0% Sexual Rape 5,466 6,314 15.5% Offences Other Sexual 10,480 11,181 6.7% Total Robbery 21,731 23,062 6.1% Robbery Personal Robbery 20,004 21,416 7.1% Business Robbery 1,727 1,646 -4.7% Total Burglary 70,373 68,737 -2.3% Burglary Burglary in a Dwelling 44,421 43,036 -3.1% Burglary in Other Buildings 25,952 25,701 -1.0% Total Theft Person 34,249 36,066 5.3% Theft and Theft Taking of MV 22,028 26,941 22.3% Handling Theft from MV 49,951 52,223 4.5% Knife Crime 9,926 11,372 14.6% Knife Crime With Injury 3,711 4,151 11.9% Weapons Gun Crime 1,851 2,385 28.8% Gun Crime Discharged 227 308 35.7% Racist and Religious Hate Crime 14,255 16,836 18.1% Faith Hate Crime 1,729 2,013 16.4% Anti-Semitic 462 514 11.3% Hate Crime Islamophobic 1,070 1,204 12.5% Sexual Orientation Hate Crime 1,825 2,034 11.5% Transgender Hate 150 193 28.7% Disability Hate Crime 253 779 207.9% Sep-15 Sep-16 Change Confidence "Good Job" Confidence 67% 69% 2% and Satisfaction Satisfaction 80% 79% -1% Dec-15 Dec-16 Change % Change

Police Officers 31,612.25 31,075.83 -536.42 -1.70% Police Staff 10,283.25 8,732.48 -1,550.77 -15.08% Workforce PCSOs 1,662.70 1,464.62 -198.07 -11.91% MSC (Specials) 3,253.00 2,763.00 -490.00 -15.06%

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______

Financial performance report for Quarter Three 2016/17

______A REPORT SUMMARY

1. This is the third full quarterly financial monitoring report for 2016/17 for the MOPAC Group. Taking account of the proposed budget changes and the latest forecasts for savings there is a revenue forecast underspend of £11.8m representing 0.5% of net expenditure. Capital spend is forecast to be £92.2m below budget, 32% of the budget

2. The report:

2.1 Includes proposed revenue movements after the budget was submitted to the GLA including a proposed decreased use of earmarked reserves, and

2.2 Examines the forecast against the financial background in which the budget for the year was set and highlights the risks to delivering the 2016/17 savings to ensure a balanced budget at the year end. For completeness the proposed revenue and capital budget movements are applied in determining the forecast outturn position.

B SUPPORTING INFORMATION

Financial performance for 2016/17 - revenue

1. Detailed in Appendix 1 is the Summary Revenue Monitoring Statement for Quarter Three of 2016/17 incorporating the projected outturn for the financial year. A net underspend of £11.8m is forecast for the year against the approved net budget of £2,498m (£3,339m gross budget).

2. For Quarter Three there is an increase in the underspend on police officer pay and police staff pay, which is offset by some short and medium difficulties in achieving planned savings.

Achievement of savings target

3. The MPS has a £126.9m savings target this year. Appendix 2 shows the MPS is confident that £81.4m of the £126.9m savings target for 2016/17 will be delivered in 2916/17. A further £8.8m may not be delivered this year due to timing issues but will be delivered next year. This leaves £36.7m remaining where there is a high risk of non-delivery in this and future years. The two key risk areas include savings in respect of police overtime and Digital Policing

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Other key pressures and inter dependencies

Police officer and staff pay (underspend increased by £5.9m to £63.5m during Quarter Three)

4. The MPS has spent £1,692.3m to date and is currently forecasting an outturn underspend of £63.5m on police officer and staff pay, of which £49.5m is internally funded.

These underspends arise due to difficulties in meeting volume recruitment targets, delays in appointing Dedicated Detention Officers (DDOs) within Met Detention and Forensic Health Care Nurse recruitment as well as vacancies across the Boroughs for Public Access Officers. Other significant gaps are in LDSS Administrators and Communications Officers. Gaps in police staff pay are being partly managed through their other devolved budgets such as supplies and services (as Forensic Medical Officers who are used to provide cover the nurse vacancies) and police officer overtime (as police officers provide cover in Met Detention).

The forecast underspend reflects the latest workforce modelling performed at the end of December 2016, and further vacancies within Specialist Operations (SO), Territorial Policing and Specialist Crime & Operations partially offset by a small increase in police staff pay in Digital Policing and Met HQ due to the realignment of the capital programme and delayed capitalisation of police staff costs.

Agency staff

5. It should be noted that the MPS is currently relying on significant numbers of agency staff often costing more than the average cost of a permanent member of staff. The number of interim posts has increased over the last quarter (485 FTE end of September to 507 at the end of December). This trend is expected to increase to the end of the year. There is expected to be growth in Business As Usual areas such as LDSS and Vetting and in change roles such as the Portfolio Transformation Office, where there is pressure to utilise agency staff. SO will appointing 150 ex- officer agency workers over the next quarter.

6. Going forward numbers assigned to departmental transformation programmes such as in Finance, DP and Commercial are expected to reduce in 2017/18 as staff are either recruited or the changes implemented. There will be a reduction in agency staff numbers in LDSS as permanent staff are recruited but this is not likely to be until March/ April 2017.

7. The People and Training Board are currently reviewing the usage and controls around agency staff, to understand the key drivers and determine how these staff can be reduced in future. In February the Board plan to undertake a full review of the impact of the IR35 changes announced in the Government’s budget 2016. These changes to the taxable benefits of agency staff, which will apply in the public sector from April 2017, may deter individuals from undertaking work in the MPS.

Police officer and police staff overtime (overspend increased by £2.2m to £20.9m during Quarter Three)

8. The MPS is forecasting an overspend of £18.6m on police office overtime and £2.3m on police staff overtime as gaps in police officer and staff numbers are managed in devolved budgets. For instance one of the key reasons for the overspend in police officer and staff overtime relates to the under-strengths within DDO’s in Met Detention Custody and within Roads Policing mainly

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due to TFL funded operations such as Operation Neon (unlicensed Cab Hire) and additional activity requests from TFL. During the last quarter there were minimal increases in the forecast for police officer overtime. The forecast for police staff overtime however has increased from Quarter Two by £2m which primarily relates to reductions in police staff pay forecasts this quarter in TP and cover for vacancies.

9. In controlling police officer overtime the MPS faces particular pressures this year and the overall overtime position is being kept under careful review by the Deputy Commissioner’s Overtime Gold Group and by the Assistant Commissioners’ Chief Officer Groups (COGs). The most recent meeting of the Overtime Gold Group took place on 9 November 2016 with the next meeting planned for February 2017. The last meeting discussed current overtime spends and questioned what the drivers were for overtime costs in each Business Group.

Digital Policing (overspend increased by £6m to £30.3m during Quarter Three)

10. There are particular pressures for the MPS this year relating to the staged process to implement the DP Target Operating Model. There is a high risk that DP will be unable to meet their planned savings target for this year and DP are currently forecasting an overspend of £30.3m in addition to using £24m worth of reserves.

11. The Mayor has raised concerns about the deliverability of the assumed savings arising from the Met’s transformation programme. He asked MOPAC and the MPS to review again the assumptions behind their savings to ensure that all of the figures are robust. This further review by MOPAC and MPS has identified higher than anticipated ICT related costs, with lower planned ICT savings and slippage in fleet and property related savings. Whilst further work is being undertaken to review costs and plans, the Mayor is not presently confident that all the original assumptions can be sustained. Accordingly, pending the conclusions of this review, the savings to be identified in the MOPAC budget have been increased by £64.6 million in cumulative terms by 2020-21 (of which £38m relate to DP) compared to the draft budget.

Capital Programme

12. Capital expenditure for the year is forecast at £194.8m against an adjusted 2016/17 programme of £287.0m, with a forecast underspend of £92.2m. Actuals to December 2016 are £118.9m.

13. The 2016/17 year end forecast for capital receipts has been reduced from £474m to £458m to reflect the timetable for Mayoral decisions. The MPS will be revising the Capital Programme for 2016/17 and future years will be revised to reflect the revised expenditure forecast and re-profiled receipts and submitted to the Oversight Board for MOPAC approval.

14. Further detail including analysis of spend against the new Portfolio Structure can be found in Appendix 3.

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Appendix 1

Overall revenue position against the updated 2016/17 budget

Table 1 MOPAC Group Summary Revenue Budget Monitoring Statement for Quarter Three of 2016/17

Year to Year to Year to Annual Forecast Variance Date Date Date Budget £m £m Cost category % Budget Actuals Variance £m £m £m £m 1,365.9 1,342.9 -23.0 Police Officer Pay 1,829.6 1,791.3 -38.3 -2.1%

368.1 349.4 -18.7 Police Staff Pay 490.7 465.5 -25.2 -5.1%

46.5 46.2 -0.2 PCSO Pay 61.1 60.6 -0.4 -0.7%

1,780.4 1,738.5 -41.9 Total Pay 2,381.3 2,317.4 -63.9 -2.7%

54.0 64.3 10.3 Police Officer Overtime 70.5 89.1 18.6 26.4%

15.9 17.6 1.7 Police Staff Overtime 21.2 23.5 2.3 10.8%

0.2 0.1 -0.1 PCSO Overtime 0.3 0.1 -0.2 -66.7%

70.2 82.0 11.8 Total Overtime 92.0 112.7 20.8 22.6%

1,850.6 1,820.5 -30.1 Total Pay & Overtime 2,473.3 2,430.1 -43.2 -1.7%

35.4 35.8 0.5 Employee Related Expenditure 49.0 52.6 3.6 7.3%

131.0 129.6 -1.4 Premises Costs 168.6 168.4 -0.2 -0.1%

42.4 48.4 6.0 Transport Costs 57.1 63.1 6.0 10.5%

339.5 321.2 -18.3 Supplies & Services 483.2 513.5 30.3 6.3%

548.3 535.1 -13.1 Total Running Expenses 757.8 797.5 39.8 5.3%

32.2 35.3 3.1 Capital Financing Costs 43.0 42.9 0.0 0.0%

26.9 24.8 -2.1 Discretionary Pension Costs 35.9 33.5 -2.4 -6.7%

2,458.0 2,415.7 -42.3 Total Gross Expenditure 3,309.9 3,304.1 -5.8 -0.2%

-204.0 -203.3 0.7 Other Income -273.3 -277.2 -3.9 1.4%

-317.2 -317.0 0.2 Specific Grants -434.0 -439.6 -5.5 1.3%

-33.4 -22.1 11.3 Transfers to/(from)Reserves -104.2 -100.8 3.4 -3.3%

1,903.3 1,873.3 -30.0 Total Net Expenditure 2,498.4 2,486.5 -11.8 -0.5% Funding (General Grant & -1,845.4 -1,847.0 -1.6 -2,498.4 -2,498.4 0.0 - Precept) 57.9 26.3 -31.6 Overall MPS & MOPAC Total 0.0 -11.8 -11.8 -

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Appendix 2

Update on savings delivery

The table below shows the current position on the deliverability of the £126.9m savings proposal for 2016/17. As at 31 December 2016, the MPS is still confident that £81.4m of the £126.9m savings target will be delivered this financial year (against £84.3m forecast in Quarter 2). A further £8.8m will be delivered in 2017/18 and there is a high risk to delivering £36.7m which includes £26.9m of Digital Policing savings built into the original savings target. The MPS continues to undertake planned management actions to address all the identified risks.

Planned Forecast Variation

Saving (£m) Saving (£m) (£m) Savings with structural delivery problems -47.0 -10.3 36.7 Savings with timing delivery problems -24.5 -15.7 8.8 Savings that are forecast to be delivered in full -55.4 -55.4 0.0 Overall Total – MPS -126.9 -81.4 45.5

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Appendix 3

Capital Programme analysed across new portfolios

In line with the new MPS One Met Model Portfolio Structure, the capital programme managed by individual departments, has been analysed across 13 portfolios (note not all MPS portfolios have capital budgets). Only the portfolios with capital budgets are listed here.

The table below shows the year to date position and the full year forecasts across the portfolios.

Summary position of spend by Portfolio – December 2016

Budget Actuals Forecast Variance MPS Portfolio structure 2016/17 £m £m £m £m

Strengthening our Armed Policing Capability 2.2 0.7 3.8 1.6 Creating a Business Support function of the Future 1.1 0 0.2 -0.9 Enhance Digital Policing for 2020 32.1 19.2 27.2 -4.9 Improving Public Access and first contact 3.9 1 4.6 0.7 Optimising Response 19.3 4.5 10 -9.3 Reinforcing HQ, Improving Information Management 2 0 1.2 -0.8 Smarter Working 46.3 6.2 19.8 -26.5 Transforming Investigation and Prosecution 30.5 10.5 24.4 -6.1 CT Policing Change Portfolio 12.6 4.3 14.8 2.2 DP Adjustment 0 0 -6.4 -6.4 -

150.0 46.4 99.6 50.4 Delivering Maximum Commercial Efficiency - Fleet 23.2 10.1 17.7 -5.5 Transforming the MPS Estate 113.8 62.4 77.5 -36.3 Total Capital Programme 287.0 118.9 194.8 -92.2

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5. CORRESPONDENCE AND MAYOR’S QUESTIONS

MOPAC manages and prioritises all Mayor’s questions and correspondence received to ensure that it is meeting its obligation to respond to a high quality and in a timely manner.

5.1 Mayor’s Questions (MQs)

Mayor’s questions Total received Responded to within In percentage the GLA agreed terms timeframe May 2016 80 80 100% June 2016 93 86 92% July 2016 97 67 69% July 2016 Plenary 41 39 95% session August 2016 MQs are not received in the month of August. September 2016 186 147 79% October 2016 106 87 82% November 2016 100 93 93% December 2016 123 59 48% January 2017 75 63 84%

5.2 Correspondence received and responded to within 20 days

Months Correspondence Number responded to In percentage received within 20 working days terms May 2016 199 189 95% June 2016 270 236 87% July 2016 244 201 82% August 2016 196 189 96% September 2016 198 188 95% October 2016 205 194 95% November 2016 278 240 86% December 2016 175 150 86% January 2017 184 161 87%

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6 MOPAC BUSINESS AND MEETINGS

In the last month, my office and I have had a range of meetings with key stakeholders and MPS officers in support of the Mayor.

6.1 Regular Meetings with:  the Mayor and his Team  the Commissioner and deputy Commissioner  MPS Senior Officers  Partners including local authorities, criminal justice agencies, government departments, policing bodies, service providers and community groups.

All meetings are covered in section 2 and 6.1.

6.2 Decisions The following formal decisions have been made since the last report:

Policing and Crime Decision Formal Decisions made (PCD) Number PCD 114 Catering PCD 116 Provision of Crimestoppers Trust Funding Government Secure Zone ANPR and CCTV Camera Systems - PCD 117 Contract Award PCD 118 Tribune Replacement Extension of Contract: Media Planning & Buying Collaborative PCD 119 Framework PCD 120 Atos Contact Scope Extension - Software License Management PCD 121 Approval for Short Term Resources to Support the One Met Model PCD 124 Integrated Communication Control System (ICCS) Server Upgrade PCD 125 Forfeiture Stage 3 PCD 133 Financial Assistance

6.3 Future MOPAC meeting

Date MOPAC Meeting 27 February Justice Matters

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Agenda Item 8

Subject: Police and Crime Committee Work Programme

Report to: Police and Crime Committee

Report of: Executive Director of Secretariat Date: 23 February 2017

This report will be considered in public

1. Summary

1.1 This report sets out a proposed work programme for the Police and Crime Committee.

2. Recommendations

2.1 That the Committee notes its work programme as set out in this report.

2.2 That the Committee delegates authority to its Chairman, Steve O’Connell AM, in consultation with party Group Lead Members and Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM to agree the topic and arrangements for the Committee’s meeting on 9 March 2017.

3. Background

3.1 The Committee’s work programme is intended to enable the Committee to effectively fulfil its roles of holding the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) to account and investigating issues of importance to policing and crime reduction in London. The Committee’s work involves a range of activities, including formal meetings with MOPAC, the Metropolitan Police Service (the MPS) and other stakeholders, site visits, written consultations and round table meetings.

3.2 The Committee will usually meet twice a month. One of the monthly meetings is usually to hold a question and answer (Q&A) session with the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime. The Commissioner of the MPS has been invited to these meetings. The Committee will primarily use Q&A meetings to investigate topical issues and review MPS performance, including consideration of MOPAC’s approach to holding the MPS to account.

3.3 The Committee’s other monthly meeting is used to consider a particular topic or aspect of policing and crime in greater detail. These investigations will be conducted either by the full Committee or working groups. Working groups will have delegated authority to prepare reports on the Committee’s behalf in consultation with party Group Lead Members. Full reports will be approved and published by the full Committee.

City Hall, The Queen’s Walk, London SE1 2AA Enquiries: 020 7983 4100 minicom: 020 7983 4458 www.london.gov.uk Page 105

4. Issues for Consideration

4.1 The work programme has been designed to proactively examine issues of interest but also allows for flexibility to respond to topical issues and for the Committee to react to MOPAC’s work programme. Topics will be added to the timetable for Q&A meetings as they arise.

4.2 The Committee agreed its initial priorities for its work programme at its meeting on 29 June 2016. Since that meeting, the work programme has been revised and an updated work programme is set out below. The Committee will shortly produce a new work programme for its meetings from May onwards.

March Thursday 9 March 2017 Wednesday 29 March 2017 Thematic meeting – TBC (instead of Thursday 23 March 2017) Q&A meeting April No meetings

The Mayor’s draft Police and Crime Plan 4.3 The Committee’s current main piece of work is scrutiny of the Mayor’s Draft Police and Crime Plan. The Mayor published his draft Police and Crime Plan for 2017 to 2021 on 1 December 2016.1 Consultation on the draft Plan runs until 23 February 2017 and the final version of the Police and Crime Plan will be published by the end of March 2017. The Committee examined the feasibility and potential impact of the Mayor’s draft Police and Crime Plan with invited guests at its thematic meeting on 12 January 2017 and dedicated its Q&A meeting on 26 January 2017 for further questions on the Plan. The Committee is expected to agree its final response at this meeting.

4.4 The Committee’s next thematic meeting will be on Thursday, 9 March 2017. The Committee has not yet agreed a topic for that meeting. It is therefore recommended that the Committee delegates authority to its Chairman, Steve O’Connell AM, in consultation with the party Group Lead Members and Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM to agree the topic and arrangements for that meeting.

5. Legal Implications

5.1 The Committee has the power to do what is recommended in this report.

6. Financial Implications

6.1 There are no financial implications to the Greater London Authority arising from this report.

1 Mayor of London, Mayor invites Londoners to have their say on plans for a safer city, 1 December 2016 Page 106

List of appendices to this report: None

Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 List of Background Papers: None

Contact Officer: Becky Short, Scrutiny Manager Telephone: 020 7983 4760 E-mail: [email protected]

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