Written evidence from the London Assembly [PCC Progress 38]

The London Assembly Police and Crime Committee welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Home Affairs Committee inquiry on police and crime commissioners. The following is a cross-party perspective on some issues we have experienced in London which might be relevant in terms of your national scrutiny work.

Since the establishment of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) in January 2012, the Assembly and my Committee have experienced a number of issues resulting, in particular, from different interpretations of the legislation. We are making good progress in resolving these issues, enabling the Committee to hold MOPAC to account and investigate issues of importance to policing and crime reduction in London.

Transparency and data availability are crucial for police and crime panels to be effective. My Committee has been determined to ensure that the new governance arrangements established through the introduction of police and crime commissioners do not diminish the transparency and accountability of policing in London. Although the new datastore website provides a lot of new data, obtaining information from MOPAC, as elected members, has been a challenge but I believe the Committee has made good progress in establishing and embedding the scrutiny role the Assembly has to play.

Nonetheless, full and regular access to information has been an ongoing issue for the Committee. The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime initially insisted that requests for information should be made to MOPAC rather than to the Met, since the PCC’s role is to scrutinise MOPAC not the Met,   and said he would assess whether or not the information should be provided. Similarly, he sought to limit appearances by senior Met officers, including the Commissioner, at the Committee. We argued that, if the Committee needs information from the Met to fulfil its functions, the Met should provide it directly, noting that as Assembly Members we would be entitled to this information if we requested in that capacity anyway. It must be up to police and crime panel members to assess what information they require to hold their elected commissioners to account and it cannot be right for commissioners to try to make that judgement.

The Deputy Mayor also sought to limit the role of the Assembly’s Police and Crime Committee and the information available to it. The Committee argued that effectively holding MOPAC to account requires the Committee to look in detail at the full range of areas of policing and crime reduction, whether or not a particular area is a current priority for MOPAC. Police and crime panels need to understand the broad policing landscape in their area and must have the ability to investigate issues that are not priorities for their elected commissioners. Because the legislation does not set out in detail what information and access police and crime panels should have, this can depend on the individuals in elected commissioner posts. In our case, it took the intervention of the Mayor to resolve some of the issues we faced following a new Deputy Mayor’s appointment. This must lead to a concern that, without clearer guidance, new individuals in the elected commissioner posts might bring a new set of challenges for police and crime panels – e.g. different expectations around transparency.

There are, however, areas where a lack of information has made our scrutiny work more difficult. Decisions previously taken in public by the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), supported by public reports and minutes, are now often made in private between the Deputy Mayor and the Met. Our recent investigation of the decision to expand Taser deployment in London demonstrated why such discussions must take place in public. Despite assurances that MOPAC would provide more public information than the MPA, less information is now available than under the old regime. The periodic updates received by the MPA on a range of programmes and strategies being pursued by the Met are no longer available and monthly financial information, previously reported through the MPA Finance and Resources Committee, was entirely withdrawn for a time and now published in a more limited way.

Since it was established, the Assembly’s Police and Crime Committee has investigated issues that are important for Londoners and held the Deputy Mayor to account on a cross-party basis. As examples, the Committee has made recommendations to improve MOPAC’s proposals for new Safer Neighbourhood Boards;[1] to reverse the Met’s poor performance in supporting victims of crime;[2] and has set out a series of steps that should be taken by the Met and MOPAC before any further changes are made to the availability or range of so called less-lethal weapons carried by police officers in London.[3] Additionally, following a detailed examination of the Mayor’s draft Police and Crime Plan, the Committee called for a number of improvements, including: more sophisticated performance targets; a clearer explanation of how MOPAC would work with the Met to improve public confidence in the police; clarity around how the new neighbourhood policing model will continue to support community engagement, accountability and confidence; and more information about how MOPAC would work with partner organisations to achieve the Mayor’s criminal justice and community safety objectives.[4]

The Committee will continue to help shape the Mayor’s strategy for policing in the capital and question senior officers from the Met and MOPAC on a range of issues, as we have to date on anti-terrorism powers; implementation of the Met’s new local policing model; stop and search; and undercover policing. There are outstanding issues which still require answers and performance improvements, such as the effectiveness of MOPAC in promoting police integrity, the handling of police complaints and the disciplinary process for senior officers. Questions also remain as to how MOPAC is monitoring the Met’s approach to discipline more broadly – a role previously carried out by the MPA and now led by the Met. However, obtaining the information we need to assess the effectiveness of the Deputy Mayor and MOPAC in overseeing an effective police force for London is likely to remain our biggest challenge.

As with any organisational transition we found that the changeover between the MPA and MOPAC bought its own challenges. There was a loss of organisational memory and some processes were not maintained. Securing the transition, including various staff restructures, has been a large part of MOPAC’s operation in its early years. Ultimately, this has left a period in which the police were less accountable.

Joanne McCartney AM

Chair of the Police and Crime Committee

London Assembly

December 2013