(POP0058)

Written evidence submitted by Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) (POP0058)

What the Metropolitan Police must do to increase trust under its new Commissioner

1. Trust and confidence in the Metropolitan Police (MPS) have been significantly damaged over recent years. A series of appalling incidents and revelations of inexcusable behaviour from MPS officers has led the Mayor to believe that a serious cultural problem has developed within the Met which is allowing racist, sexist and homophobic behaviour to be downplayed or left unchallenged.

2. These scandals have deeply impacted the trust and confidence of Londoners, which saw a notable fall in Q4 21-22 (see Annex A for more information on how MOPAC measures trust and confidence in its Public Attitudes Survey (PAS) and uses this data to understand its drivers).

3. MOPAC’s Public Attitude Survey shows significant disproportionality in levels of trust and confidence in policing, and wider perception measures, between different groups of Londoners. Londoners from a Black or Mixed Ethnic Backgrounds, those from the LGBT+ community and younger age groups tend to have more negative perceptions of the police. The Mayor has been clear that the MPS will need to focus on rebuilding trust and confidence with these communities specifically.

4. Since 2016, the Mayor of London has taken a series of steps to boost trust and confidence in the

Metropolitan Police (MPS). Work has included a huge push to recruit more officers from London’s Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, as well as more women, investing to protect visible neighbourhood policing, the world's biggest rollout of body-worn cameras to London's frontline officers, a strategy to tackle violence against women and girls and a comprehensive overhaul of the Gangs Violence Matrix.

5. One of the key pieces of work has been the Mayor’s Action Plan to improve Transparency, Accountability and Trust in Policing (MAP), published in November 2020, which seeks to improve trust and confidence in the MPS, reduce the gap in confidence that Black communities have in the police to do a good job compared to White Londoners, and to address community concerns about the disproportionality in the use of certain police powers affecting Black Londoners.

6. The Action Plan was developed following a series of consultations with more than 400 individuals and groups that either work with or within Black communities. The work was undertaken in response to concerns raised about the disproportionate use of police powers, including stop and search, the use of force and Taser. Communities told the Met and City Hall that they wanted to see increased transparency in police actions, decisions and communications; a police service that better reflects the city it serves; and improved community monitoring and involvement in reviewing the disproportionate use of police powers and complaints.

7. As part of the action plan, the Mayor invested £1.7 million to develop greater community involvement in police officer training and in the recruitment and progression of Black officers in the Met.

8. Commitments in the Mayor’s Action Plan to improve Transparency, Accountability and Trust in Policing include:  

• an overhaul of community monitoring structures to ensure that London’s diverse communities are better represented;  

• stricter oversight of stop and search in London – including strengthening community monitoring with Community Monitoring Groups dip sampling body worn video of stop and search encounters, strengthened officer supervision and community input into police training – to ensure it is used lawfully, proportionately and with professionalism;  

• publishing a race equality dashboard reporting on the MPS’ use of its powers, including for example, the use of Tasers and strip-searching, publishing this data and holding the Commissioner to account for it.  As a result of our oversight, the MPS are also publishing more data in critical areas of policing that are relevant to building trust and confidence, including police custody data, such as arrests and the use of strip searching, and data on the use of more thorough [intimate parts exposed] searches. 

9. Rebuilding the trust and confidence of Londoners has also been placed at the heart of London’s

Police and Crime Plan 2022-25 (PCP), published in March 2022 following consultation with nearly 4,000 Londoners, victims of crime, agencies, community groups and businesses. The Plan puts the vital importance of trust and confidence within the context of the totality of policing and community safety activity in London, recognising that the police and partners dealing effectively with the crime, anti-social behaviour and safety issues that concern the public most is an important driver of trust and confidence alongside the integrity and culture of policing. 

10. At his ‘trust in policing’ speech on 17 June 2022, the Mayor set out his expectations of the farreaching reforms urgently needed within the Met Police to regain the trust and confidence of every community in London. This includes systemic change to the MPS’s culture. From the Mayor’s perspective, Londoners must see:

• More robust vetting of new and serving police officers. 
• Better recruitment processes to ensure we only get the right, top quality people in the job.  
• Far-reaching changes to the misconduct process, which includes making it much faster.    
• Proactive procedures to weed out those who should never have been allowed to become police officers in the first place. 
• Strengthened IT monitoring within the Met to help identify corrupt officers and inappropriate behaviour.  
• Ensuring officers and staff have confidence to come forward as whistleblowers.  
• Better training and supervision - particularly sergeants and inspectors who are so influential in shaping the frontline police culture and delivering the policing Londoners expect. 
• Clear steps on how the Met will not just tackle racism, but proactively be an anti-

racist institution.  

• Greater community oversight and engagement with Londoners from all backgrounds.      
• Re-doubling efforts to hire more officers from diverse backgrounds to help change the culture of the MPS from within, and make it more representative of the communities it serves 

11. Improving trust and confidence will also require root and branch reforms to ensure the Met can deliver the basics better, including a first-class emergency response, which protects Londoners, supports victims and brings those who commit crime to justice. 

12. The most important first step to achieving these objectives is having the right leadership. The MPS is now set on a path of far-reaching systematic and cultural reform, with the appointment of a new Commissioner who acknowledges the scale of the problems. The Mayor has been encouraged by the start Sir Mark has made as Commissioner and by his commitment to deliver the step-change in culture, systems, standards, leadership and performance. We have every confidence that he will deliver. 

13. The Mayor will continue to support and hold the Met to account for taking urgent action to reform the culture and systems of the MPS and rebuild trust and confidence. This must include:

Getting the basics right

• The recent PEEL inspection report from HMICFRS – which led to the MPS being placed in HMICFRS’s ‘Engage’ process – confirmed that there are multiple areas in which the MPS needs to urgently improve its service. 

• The report highlighted issues that both the Mayor and MOPAC have been pushing for improvements on for some time and are pleased that there will now be extra impetus for change.  

• The work to lead the force out of the ‘Engage’ process will be a crucial for improving trust and confidence and the Commissioner has already responded strongly to the issues identified in the PEEL Inspection.  

• This has included putting in place the right governance around the required reform and transformation.  MOPAC are part of the Commissioner’s new Turnaround Board which will support the delivery of the Commissioner’s mission and manage the range of priorities and recommendations from partner agencies, including the PEEL report. 

• Tangible action on key issues identified in the PEEL inspection has already been taken by MPS leadership, including an improvement programme for Call Handling which was mobilised in August.  

• It is important that this ‘Engage’ process allows the Met to look beneath the issues to the underlying causes and that their response to the Engage process involved tackling these causes. The Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner have already begun the work to examine the root causes of the issues - such as supervision, standards and leadership. This may mean that change takes longer, but ultimately will be more meaningful and sustainable. 

• The Commissioner has also outlined his aspiration to improve the basics of policing and his vision for this includes strengthening neighbourhood policing. 

• The Mayor recognised the importance of neighbourhood policing in his previous term, delivering on a Police and Crime Plan commitment to restore real neighbourhood policing by ensuring there is a minimum of two Dedicated Ward Officers and one Police Community Support Officer allocated to every ward in the city, tackling the issues that matter most to Londoners. 

Cultural reform

• The Mayor asked the MPS to establish a review of the MPS’ culture and standards of behaviour a year ago. The Mayor continues to provide his full support to Baroness Casey’s review; the inquiry into the issues raised by the murder of Sarah Everard; and will hold the Commissioner to account for implementing their recommendations through comprehensive oversight arrangements. 

• The interim findings of Louise Casey’s review have confirmed the Mayor’s concerns, including that there is systemic bias within the Met and made it clear that the Met’s misconduct system is not fit for purpose. The Mayor now expects nothing less than every recommendation of the review to be implemented in full – something the Commissioner has committed to. 

• Steps have also been taken by the Commissioner to identify police officers who should not be serving in the force and, in the words of the Commissioner, have “corrupted the public’s trust”. This has meant the establishment of a new anti-corruption unit to root out criminal colleagues within the force. More than 100 detectives have been assigned to the unit.  

• The Mayor has publicly welcomed the Commissioner’s determination to proactively root out police officers and staff who are undermining the Met through their actions, not least where those officers are shown to be racist, homophobic, sexist or misogynist. To support this work, the Mayor has called on the Home Secretary to lead a review into the Police Regulations to ensure the processes around misconduct and the removal of officers are fit for purpose and give the Commissioner the best possible chance of improving standards. A review has now been announced, but we await further details on the exact scope.  

Ongoing work of MOPAC to support and challenge the MPS

14. MOPAC conducts continuous scrutiny and oversight of the MPS, to identify key issues and drive improved performance.  Some key examples of this work are:

• Oversight of public complaints: MOPAC seeks to ensure that our role as an independent review body increases public confidence in the police complaints system by holding the MPS accountable for their complaint handling. We also provide learning recommendations to the MPS to improve future performance. MOPAC are playing an integral role in improving the quality and consistency of the manner in which complaints are handled by the MPS. By explaining to the MPS the grounds upon which reviews are regularly upheld, we have been able to work collaboratively with the MPS to inform the training of officers involved in complaint handling and investigation.   

• MOPAC’s Evidence and Insight Team is working with the MPS to deliver research into stop and search using Body Worn Video (BWV) footage to understand better the nature of stop and search interactions and the behaviour factors of officers or individuals that lead to escalation in the use of force. 

• MOPAC led the way in asking the MPS to deliver a pilot project to review samples of vehicle stops to identify any disproportionality relating to ethnicity, which has now been adopted by the National Police Chiefs Council.   

• MOPAC’s oversight processes identified and challenged the Met to improve on key issues which aligned with the PEEL Inspection findings. These included the need to improve performance on emergency response. MOPAC have highlighted response times in our Oversight Board and sought assurance that this is being gripped within the MPS performance management structures. A first-class emergency response is the bedrock of trust and confidence in any police service as it the primary way that many members of the public will interact with the police, often at times of high stress. 

• MOPAC has also long acknowledged the need for improvements to the way in which victims are treated, and there has been substantial activity in this space. This has included a number of high-profile reviews, the development of a comprehensive business case for establishing a “Victim care hub” model in London and the instigation of a review of Witness Care Units. Despite this concerted effort by MOPAC - and by the Mayor’s independent Victims’ Commissioner, Claire Waxman - victim care was flagged in the PEEL report as a systemic issue. 

• Both MOPAC and the Met will need to understand what lessons can be learnt in the areas where there has been focus but not sufficient improvement. 

Annex A: Trust and confidence in the MPS

Policing by consent is a longstanding principle of British policing, and there is also compelling evidence of the importance of legitimacy and fairness to police’s ability to do their job effectively. Those holding positive views of the MPS are more likely to state that they would help the police, including being more likely to: 

• Report victimisation 
• Provide information 
• Comply with police orders 
• Obey the law  

The MOPAC Public Attitude Survey (PAS) has been able to robustly monitor trends in confidence and trust over many years.  The survey currently interviews 19,200 Londoners aged 16 and over every year, using mostly face-to-face interviews. There are 600 interviews in every London Borough per year, and the data are weighted to be representative of the London population. The relevant question wording in the survey is as follows:

• Confidence - Taking everything into account, how good a job do you think the police IN YOUR AREA are doing? 

• Trust - To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements: The Metropolitan Police Service is an organisation that I can trust  

Our survey data shows that trust and confidence in the MPS have seen sustained downwards trajectories since Financial Year 2017/18, before which we saw relatively high levels of confidence (mid 60% to 70%). Trust was included as a measure more recently than confidence (in FY 15-16), and when we started tracking this measure, levels of trust were in the high 80%s. This gradual decline has been seen across other forces (as measured by the Crime Survey for England and Wales), and our own benchmarking exercise has identified similar declines for public trust in central government. 

In Q4 21-22, we saw a particularly notable fall in confidence and trust measures. This represented an unprecedented fall in Trust (-9pp.), to all time low levels never seen before (66%). However, following particularly low PAS results seen in that quarter, perceptions have seen an uplift this quarter (Q1 22-23) and returned to levels more in line with Q3 21-22. Despite this, results remain low: around half of Londoners feel police do a good job in their local area (53%) and less than threequarters believe the MPS is an organisation they can trust (72%). Confidence is 6 percentage points lower than levels seen at the same point two years ago, while Trust has declined by 10 percentage points over this time.

PAS shows significant disproportionality in levels of trust and confidence in policing, and wider perception measures, between different groups of Londoners. Londoners from a Black or Mixed Ethnic Backgrounds, those from the LGBT+ community and younger age groups tend to have more negative perceptions of the police. In the rolling 12 months to Q1 22-23, 48% of Black Londoners agree that the police treat everyone fairly (13 percentage points lower than the MPS average) and 41% of Londoners from Mixed Ethnic backgrounds Londoners agree with the same statement (20 percentage points lower than the MPS average). For LGBT+ respondents, this figure is 48% - 13 percentage points lower than the MPS average. Disproportionality is also seen in levels of trust, particularly for Black (-18 percentage points compared to the MPS average), Mixed (-15 percentage points) and LGBT+ (-10 percentage points) Londoners, as well as those aged 16-24 (-8 percentage points).

Drivers of trust and confidence

Analysis of the PAS shows Trust and Confidence are interlinked – but also distinct – concepts. Trust shares some common drivers as Confidence (such as perceptions of police effectiveness and police engagement/treatment), but also some unique relationships. The drivers are shown in the graphic below: Bold lines are stronger relationships, whereas dashed lines are weaker relationships. 

Londoners interviewed as part of PAS during May 2022 were asked to explain the reasons WHY they did or did not trust the Metropolitan Police Service. Analysis of these comments sought to understand issues on the forefront of Londoners’ minds when answering this question. The key finding was that for both those who trust the police and those who do not, personal experience was most often cited as the reason. This highlights the importance of positive contact between police and public for trust.

Annex B: About MOPAC

In London, the elected Mayor - Sadiq Khan - is the Police and Crime Commissioner, ensuring that there is democratic oversight of how policing is delivered across London. The Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime (MOPAC), led by Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime Sophie Linden, supports the Mayor in fulfilling his role, including setting the direction and budget of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS). London is policed by the MPS in accordance with the National Policing Framework and the Police and Crime Plan for London, which MOPAC delivers by: 

•        Holding the MPS to account  

•        Supporting the MPS 

•        Commissioning and partnerships 

•        Working with communities 

•        National and international co-operation 

•        Measuring impact 

MOPAC is submitting a response to the call for evidence due to its central role holding the MPS to account. We focus on responding to Q5, which is specifically about the MPS, and in so doing we touch on topics relevant to several other questions.    

October 2022