1
 1                                     Monday, 23rd February 2004
 2   (10.30 am)
 3              LORD TOBY HARRIS OF HARINGEY (called)
 4                   MR RESHARD AULADIN (called)
 5                    MS CECILLE WRIGHT (called)
 6   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and
 7       a special good morning to you, Lord Harris.
 8           Can I first of all say thank you very much indeed
 9       for accepting our invitation to attend the Inquiry and
10       to give evidence, and for letting us have your written
11       submission which we found extremely helpful.
12           I do appreciate that for some -- not you, I suspect,
13       but for some of our witnesses, this process can in fact
14       be a very daunting task, so I thought it would be
15       helpful if I briefly say how we propose to conduct the
16       hearing.
17           But first, let me introduce myself and the other
18       members of the Panel.  I am Sir Bill Morris, recently
19       retired General Secretary of the Transport and General
20       Workers Union, a position I held for some 12 years, and
21       I have been asked to chair the Inquiry.
22           As you can see, there are two other Panel members,
23       Sir Anthony Burden, on my right, who recently retired as
24       Chief Constable of the South Wales Constabulary, after
25       a very long and distinguished career in the police
 
     2
 1       service, and Anesta Weekes; Anesta is a QC, is an
 2       eminent barrister, and sits as a Recorder, as well as
 3       a part-time chairperson of employment tribunals.  She
 4       was also counsel to the Lawrence Inquiry.
 5           Lord Harris, as you know, you have asked us to
 6       conduct an Inquiry into professional standards and
 7       employment matters of the Metropolitan Police Service.
 8       It is an independent inquiry.  Our focus is on the MPS
 9       as an organisation, and not the individuals who make up
10       the MPS.  The inquiry that we are conducting is
11       inquisitorial and not adversarial in nature.  We are
12       very keen to enquire into the issues raised by our terms
13       of reference, so that we can make appropriate
14       recommendations for further good practice, rather than
15       concentrating on making criticisms of the MPS as
16       an organisation, or particular individuals within the
17       MPS itself.
18           To help us in our task, we are very keen to hear
19       from all our witnesses, not just about what is wrong
20       with the Metropolitan Police Service, but also what is
21       right with it, but more importantly, your suggestion and
22       any suggestion we can have for putting things right,
23       assuming that there are things wrong.
24           A transcript is being taken, so that we can have a
25       proper record of the evidence given by all our
 
     3
 1       witnesses, and this will be posted on our website later
 2       today.
 3           At the end of these introductory remarks, I will
 4       lead with questions to you, followed by my colleague,
 5       Sir Anthony Burden, and next Miss Weekes, and any
 6       supplementary questions that I might necessary.  At the
 7       conclusion of our questions, I will offer you the
 8       opportunity for a brief closing statement.
 9           In your written submission, Lord Harris, which, as
10       I have indicated, will be posted on the website, you
11       have set out a number of headings which we find
12       extremely important.  You have indicated that the MPA
13       and its function is a prime consideration.  The MPA's
14       responsibility for professional standards, including
15       statutory oversight of complaints, and the conduct of
16       the Metropolitan Police Service handling of individual
17       cases; the MPA's responsibility with regard to human
18       resource; the reasons for establishing this Inquiry; you
19       have also indicated examples of best practice in the way
20       in which the MPS handles matters; the shortcomings in
21       the Metropolitan Police Service current system; and
22       finally the heading that you have set out that we want
23       to explore further, which is the respective roles of the
24       MPA, the MPS, the PCA and the IPCC.
25           We would like to ask you some questions about the
 
     4
 1       material in your submission around those headings, and
 2       seek your views on a range of matters of interest to us.
 3           But first, before we raise these issues, for the
 4       benefit of the transcript note, I wonder if you would
 5       mind just formally introducing yourself to the inquiry.
 6   LORD HARRIS:  Thank you very much.  My name is Toby Harris,
 7       I am the Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority.
 8       I am accompanied by Reshard Auladin, who is a member of
 9       the Police Authority and chairs our Professional
10       Standards Committee, and also by Cecille Wright, who
11       chairs our Equal Opportunities and Diversity Board.
12                 Questions by SIR WILLIAM MORRIS
13   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Thank you very much.  We are very
14       interested, Lord Harris, in the relationship between the
15       MPA and the MPS.  Perhaps we would invite you just to
16       say how you would categorise the relationship in general
17       terms.  Would it be one of a distance overseer, or one
18       of a cousin who is tolerated, offering advice and
19       improvements?  In what category would you put those?
20   LORD HARRIS:  To some extent, it depends who you would ask,
21       on that question.  I think we like to see ourselves as
22       a critical friend.  We take our statutory
23       responsibilities, in terms of the oversight of the
24       police service and the importance of delivering for the
25       people of London an efficient, effective and fair police
 
     5
 1       service, extremely seriously.
 2           I suspect that that, on occasions, means that we
 3       pose questions or press on issues that the Met finds
 4       difficult or perhaps inconvenient to address at that
 5       time, but we see that as our role, and it is one that we
 6       would wish to safeguard and to pursue as vigorously as
 7       we can.
 8   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Could you offer us your view about the
 9       professional relationship between the PCA and the
10       Metropolitan Police Service, and in particular its
11       department for professional standards, and how that has
12       worked in practice?
13   LORD HARRIS:  Again, that is clearly governed by the
14       statutory relationships and the formal relationships
15       which govern it.  I suspect that the relationship has
16       been one that has varied from individual case to
17       individual case, in terms of the way in which the
18       inquiries and supervision of those inquiries have been
19       handled.  I do not know whether Reshard wants to comment
20       on the basis of closer involvement in that?
21   MR AULADIN:  Well, from my point of view, I think the
22       relationship has been one which has had a degree of
23       tension; not destructive tension, but I think it is
24       tension that has been, in a sense, necessary for the two
25       bodies to be able to carry out their functions properly.
 
     6
 1           In terms of the relationship between the Met and the
 2       PCA, I think it has been, from my understanding, a very
 3       good working relationship.  Over the last year, there
 4       has been a problem in terms of timescales, in looking at
 5       cases and being able to deal with those within the time
 6       limits that they were supposed to be dealt with, but on
 7       the whole I think that relationship has been
 8       a reasonably good one for working.
 9   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  At this point in the relationship,
10       recognising that it is relatively new, 2002 exists in
11       time, what do you see as your own authority's priorities
12       for the Met, in respect of improvements around issues
13       about service quality, and just fulfilling its own
14       mission?  What is your priority?  What is the MPA's
15       priority for that?
16   LORD HARRIS:  The priorities we have been following, and
17       will continue to follow in the future, clearly are
18       focused on delivering the best possible police service
19       to the people of London.  Part of that is about the
20       level of resources that is provided, in terms of
21       increasing the number of police officers and police
22       staff, police community support officers, who are
23       available to provide services to the public.  That is
24       something where we reversed a long term trend of decline
25       to one of what I hope will be continued growth for the
 
     7
 1       next few years.
 2           There is then our desire to ensure that resources
 3       are used in the best possible way.  One of the things as
 4       an Authority we were very keen to do when we took over
 5       responsibility in 2000 was to ensure that the Met had
 6       the financial systems and the financial mechanisms in
 7       place that an organisation of that scale needed.
 8           When we first took over, one of the first things
 9       that happened to us was to receive a report from the
10       internal audit function which informed us that the Met
11       did not have a system for ensuring that it did not pay
12       bills more than once.  Clearly, in an organisation with
13       a budget of £2.5 billion, that required serious work to
14       address it.  We have been doing that, and what we have
15       been doing in the past three and a half years, and will
16       continue in the future, are a series of efficiency and
17       effectiveness reviews, designed to ensure that the Met
18       delivers best value in those areas.
19           The third major area of work which I have referred
20       to is that about the quality and nature of the service
21       that the Met gives to the public of London.  It is
22       important that that is a service which is delivered
23       fairly, a service where there is a mutual degree of
24       respect between the police and the communities that they
25       serve, and a degree of effectiveness in terms of the
 
     8
 1       quality of work that is done.
 2           So that means that crimes are investigated properly,
 3       that there is a result, but that people also feel that
 4       as users of the service, they have been treated properly
 5       and fairly.  So those have been major areas of work, and
 6       to deliver that effectively it is also important that
 7       the Met itself works well internally, and that means
 8       addressing issues of fairness, of having a workforce
 9       which is balanced, which is reflective of the
10       communities of London; those are all, if you like, major
11       areas of activity that we would see as being essential
12       to our mission.
13   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  The Commissioner, Sir John Stevens,
14       told us last week that the Met is probably the most
15       accountable police service anywhere in the world, and it
16       is evidence that the political stakeholding constituency
17       is an expanding one.  In addition to the Home Secretary,
18       we have the MDA, we have the office of the Mayor, we
19       have the Greater London Authority, and, of course, we
20       have the PCA and soon to be the IPCC, and the boroughs
21       of course.  It is a very wide stakeholding political
22       constituency that the Commissioner and his colleague has
23       to address at different levels.
24           In your view, do you think different layers of
25       political accountability lead to an overregulated MPS,
 
     9
 1       in accountability terms, in governance terms?
 2   LORD HARRIS:  I think it is very easy to say that the Met is
 3       overregulated and overaccountable, but the reality is
 4       that the formal lines of accountability and regulation
 5       are fairly clear, and these are the same for any police
 6       service, whether it is a small county or the
 7       Metropolitan Police.
 8           There is an accountability to the Police Authority,
 9       and there is an accountability to the Home Office.  Now
10       in London, yes, there is the Mayor, yes, there is the
11       GLA, but their responsibilities are limited, and the
12       prime line of accountability is with the Police
13       Authority.
14           Any police service, particularly one which is
15       responsible for providing services to a capital city, is
16       going to have a large number of stakeholders.  The art
17       of being a top police officer is working with those
18       stakeholders, carrying those stakeholders along, as it
19       would be for somebody running any other large service,
20       delivered to a large population in that way.
21           There are many stakeholders, the Met has to work
22       with all of them, but the formal lines of accountability
23       are, as part of the tripartite arrangement laid down in
24       successive Police Acts, to the Police Authority and to
25       the Home Office.
 
    10
 1   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Yes, the statute is clear, but you said
 2       the art of being a good police officer is to manage
 3       different relationships, and that is true, but do you
 4       not think it is an equal art of transferring
 5       responsibility, if the propensity is as great as it is;
 6       how do you identify precisely who is responsible for
 7       a particular set of actions or a particular decision?
 8           What I am basically saying is there are so many
 9       different strands of accountability in one way or
10       another, the whole context of accountability can get
11       somewhat diffuse; would you share that view?
12   LORD HARRIS:  Well, no, I would not share the view, because
13       I think that the formal accountability lines are clear.
14       There are plenty of people who are ready to take the
15       credit when things go well.
16   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  That is true.
17   LORD HARRIS:  And many of those would like to say that the
18       police service in London is accountable to them.  There
19       are rather fewer who are ready to take responsibility
20       when things are more difficult, and that is why I say
21       the formal lines of accountability are primarily to the
22       Police Authority, with an overall responsibility for
23       policing with the Home Secretary.
24   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Is the budget-making process impeded in
25       terms of efficient budget-making by all these different
 
    11
 1       lines?  The Mayor's office, the GLA, your Authority; it
 2       appears to us it is not as clean-cut and clear as you
 3       are indicating.  I put budget-making as just one
 4       example.
 5   LORD HARRIS:  I think budget-making is the one area where
 6       the statute is more complicated than it is in other
 7       parts of the country.  However, the reality is that the
 8       budget is developed by the Police Authority; there is
 9       then a process of negotiation with the Mayor in terms of
10       the nature of the final budget precept, and the Mayor
11       ultimately then presents that budget.
12           The reality of this is that it is the MPA which
13       formally proposes a budget to the Mayor; there is then
14       a process of negotiation, and I suspect that is not
15       dissimilar from the sorts of arguments that arise in any
16       other area when budgets are set.
17           We have our own committee structure which looks very
18       closely at that area, indeed we have committees which
19       monitor very closely all sorts of activities of the Met
20       and the work that it does; that is part of the public
21       accountability structure that we have put in place.
22   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Let me just take the governance issue
23       into management.  I think it is perhaps common ground
24       that the job of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner is
25       probably the most challenging policing job in the
 
    12
 1       United Kingdom.  He or she has to deliver executive
 2       strategic management, leading a service of some 43,000
 3       people, including officers and staff; that is on the one
 4       hand.
 5           On the other hand, the Commissioner has also got to
 6       provide executive strategic operational leadership, in
 7       an environment which has changed quite significantly.
 8       The beat of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner or the
 9       patch has extended now because some of the issues
10       evolving -- the issues of terrorism, for example, so it
11       is no longer the borough boundaries of London; in some
12       instances, it extends well beyond that, with new issues.
13           In the context of those two key areas, strategic
14       executive managerial leadership and strategic executive
15       operational leadership, do you as an Authority see any
16       competing priorities here?
17   LORD HARRIS:  Necessarily, the task of being Commissioner is
18       an extremely complicated and an extremely difficult one.
19       You are right to say that there are many different
20       facets of that.  Part of it is leading the police
21       service and leading the professionalism of the police
22       service; part of it is ensuring that the police service
23       is effectively managed; part of it is ensuring the
24       discussion with the many stakeholders who we discussed
25       a moment ago.
 
    13
 1           In that role, the Commissioner of the Met has the
 2       support of the Deputy Commissioner, who is the second
 3       most senior police officer in the country, not just in
 4       terms of the Met, and between them they are able to, in
 5       practice, divide up some of these responsibilities and
 6       some of these functions; clearly the Commissioner holds
 7       the ultimate responsibility, but he has the support of
 8       a deputy, and if you like, when the Commissioner is
 9       performing a leadership role in one aspect, that enables
10       the deputy to perform the leadership role or the
11       management role in another area of activity.
12   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Well, in the light of the changing
13       role, and it is a changing role -- it is expanding as
14       I have tried to indicate -- do you think the correct
15       model, where these two key roles or functions reside in
16       the hand of a single person, do you think that needs any
17       revision in the light of, if you like, the 21st century
18       evolution?
19   LORD HARRIS:  I would have thought that anyone who was
20       Commissioner would want to decide precisely how they
21       wanted to use both the deputy and their senior
22       management team to make the best use of the skills
23       available, and to delegate responsibilities for various
24       activities appropriately.
25           There is a civilian director of resources who leads
 
    14
 1       a business team; there is a civilian director of human
 2       resources, of procurement, IT and so on; all of those
 3       are functions which are represented in the management
 4       team, along with the professional areas of policing, in
 5       terms of operational policing, serious crimes,
 6       specialist operations, and so on, who are also part of
 7       that senior management team.  Anyone in charge of
 8       an organisation has to decide how best to make use of
 9       that senior team.
10   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  So you would not see a situation where
11       the role is divided into two: a managerial chief
12       executive, chief operating officer, call him or her what
13       you will, but with responsibility for managing the
14       resource, minding the shop as I put it last week, on the
15       one hand, and the Commissioner or whoever giving the
16       strategic operational leadership which brings him or her
17       much closer to the serving police officers and staff,
18       and a bit more responsive in the day-to-day demands.
19       Can you see that role at all?
20   LORD HARRIS:  I think that is probably the way it develops
21       de facto.  What I am not sure about is whether it is
22       sensible to, if you like, legislate for it and say,
23       "This is the division that must always apply in this
24       particular sense".  What I am trying to get at is that
25       any Commissioner will have a deputy, plus other members
 
    15
 1       of his or her senior management team, to provide
 2       support, and the precise division of responsibilities
 3       between them will presumably depend on the strengths of
 4       the individuals who are available at that time and
 5       holding those various offices.
 6           I think you would be right to say that it is
 7       important that those delegations and those areas of
 8       responsibility are clearly defined, in terms of who is
 9       responsible for what, and how things matter.
10           What I am slightly reluctant to do would be to go
11       along the line that says, "You will define in statute
12       that this is the system of senior management structure
13       that you adopt at any one time".
14   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Let me just ask: does the MPA have any
15       responsibility for the use and indeed deployment of the
16       MPS resource, how it uses its resource? 
17   LORD HARRIS:  The answer to that, in my view, is yes, but
18       that does not extend to the management of individual
19       operations, or the use of resources for very precise
20       purposes, but we have a responsibility in terms of
21       managing the budget, in terms of our responsibility for
22       ensuring that there is an efficient and effective
23       service, for looking at the way in which resources are
24       deployed.
25           Ultimately, these are operational matters which rest
 
    16
 1       within the Met's management, but we would expect to be
 2       able to influence that by drawing together the way in
 3       which resource decisions are taken.
 4           We have taken the lead, for example, on developing
 5       a more transparent formula for allocating resources
 6       between different borough commands.  That was introduced
 7       following the arrival of the MPA, and is now subject to
 8       a very thorough review in the light of experience, to
 9       try and ensure that so far as the public are concerned,
10       they see they are getting the best possible use of
11       resources.
12   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Have you seen and looked at the latest
13       HMIC report?
14   LORD HARRIS:  Yes.
15   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Within that, my colleagues and I have
16       identified some managerial weaknesses, to put it in
17       those terms, about resource accountability and
18       a recognition of how those are used.
19           In the light of that -- I do not know whether you
20       have identified any -- are you satisfied that the
21       management structure which currently operates -- and
22       I have shared my thoughts in respect of models; are you
23       satisfied that the current model is serving to best
24       effect?
25   LORD HARRIS:  I think there has been enormous progress in
 
    17
 1       the last three and a half years, in terms of the way in
 2       which the Met's resources are managed and the efficiency
 3       with which they are used.  As I said, when we took over
 4       responsibility from the Home Office, we inherited
 5       an organisation where there was, frankly, an absence of
 6       financial controls and financial systems.
 7           When we asked for financial information, what the
 8       Met were able to draw together was not of the detail or
 9       the quality you would expect in an organisation of that
10       size.
11           That has moved forward enormously in the last three
12       and a half years; however, to say that I am satisfied
13       would probably be taking things too far.  You know, in
14       terms of the quality of the financial management and
15       structures available, it was probably running at about
16       one out of 10 in 2000; it might now be up to 4 or 5 out
17       of 10, and we want to get it up to 8 out of 10 or 10 out
18       of 10, so there is still work to be done as far as that
19       is concerned.
20   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  In paragraph 62 of your submission,
21       Lord Harris, you say, and I quote:
22           "The MPS's policy is rich but implementation poor."
23           Could you explain precisely what you mean by that
24       statement?
25   LORD HARRIS:  In my view, the Met is wonderful about
 
    18
 1       adopting policies.  It will have strategies for all
 2       sorts of things.  The follow-through, in terms of
 3       ensuring that those strategies are translated into
 4       action, and the follow-through in ensuring that those
 5       strategies are understood and acted upon at every level
 6       of the organisation, I think, is a problem area.  It is
 7       one of the things that we have emphasised, in terms of
 8       our discussion over the years with HMIC, about the
 9       importance of there being proper follow-up to
10       recommendations which emerge from strategic
11       considerations.
12           It came as something of a surprise to me when
13       I became Chair of the Police Authority; I had assumed
14       that in a uniformed, disciplined, hierarchical
15       organisation, if there was a decision to do something,
16       that something happened at the other end.  Clearly,
17       there is a -- it does not work as smoothly as that
18       within the Metropolitan Police, and one of the issues
19       that we believe needs to be addressed is ensuring that
20       policies are translated into real action at the
21       practical level further down the organisation.
22   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Just a final question, from me anyway:
23       this failure of transmission that you just identified,
24       do you see it as a managerial failure or is it
25       an organisational failure?
 
    19
 1   LORD HARRIS:  I think it is a weakness of the organisational
 2       culture.  There is -- what makes you a successful police
 3       officer is not necessarily the same as what makes you
 4       a successful manager, and you can be promoted -- this is
 5       an issue which we have raised with the Met.  You can be
 6       promoted to become a borough commander with a very
 7       substantial level of resources under your command and
 8       control without ever having had much in the way of
 9       formal management training, or the resources to enable
10       you to manage that role effectively, both in terms of
11       the staff you have under your control, the financial
12       resources and other resources that you have under your
13       control.  That, I think, is a real problem.
14           That, I think, then leads to a culture in which
15       making change happen is not something that comes
16       naturally to police managers, because their experience
17       is one of giving an order rather than of managing
18       things, and that is, I suspect, one of the issues that
19       impedes the implementation of policies in the
20       organisation.
21   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Thank you very much indeed,
22       Lord Harris.  I will ask my colleague,
23       Sir Anthony Burden, to put one or two questions to you.
24                 Questions by SIR ANTHONY BURDEN
25   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Thank you.  I am going to deal mainly
 
    20
 1       with the people management side of things, but can
 2       I firstly just ask you about an issue, following on from
 3       what Sir Bill said earlier, in attempting to understand
 4       relationships between the MPA and the MPS because I
 5       think that is a crucial area for me.
 6           In your submission, I think you quite rightly, in my
 7       opinion, identified many of the key issues relevant to
 8       this Inquiry.  If the Authority has that level of
 9       understanding, are there issues in relationship terms
10       which put obstacles in the path of your attempts to put
11       in place an action plan with the MPS to attempt to
12       correct many of these issues?
13   LORD HARRIS:  I think the obstacles come back to the
14       question of the culture.  I sense, quite frequently,
15       a frustration amongst senior management in the Met, the
16       most senior officers in the Met, that mirrors our
17       frustration, that having developed a view, developed
18       a diagnosis of a problem, and perhaps having developed
19       a policy or a strategy to address it, that it then does
20       not happen very quickly or very well, and that is
21       because there is almost a disconnect between what
22       happens at the most senior level, the views expressed
23       there, and ensuring that things happen at the lowest
24       possible levels.
25           So when we ask for follow-up, and when we ask for
 
    21
 1       action plans, sometimes there is a delay before anything
 2       comes back, which I suspect reflects a problem within
 3       the organisation, of trying to get material back in the
 4       same sort of way.
 5   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Yes, thank you.
 6           In people management terms, are you content that
 7       your human resources committee is afforded sufficient
 8       opportunity to undertake its function of monitoring
 9       human resource management?
10   LORD HARRIS:  I think I am satisfied that we receive a lot
11       of data, a lot of material, a lot of information.
12       I think there is still a frustration expressed by
13       members of that committee, in terms of our ability to
14       get to the heart of issues, and to be satisfied that at
15       the end of the day the changes that are necessary have
16       really taken place.
17           I do not know whether Cecille Wright, who sits on
18       that committee, would like to comment?
19   MS WRIGHT:  I feel that sometimes we get too much
20       statistics, and to get to the heart of the matter,
21       I think for HR it needs someone who is looking at police
22       regulations, and coming to -- actually advising members,
23       because sometimes the blockage is that there are
24       regulations which stop the Authority from getting the
25       information, so, you know, there is something to be said
 
    22
 1       for the Authority getting to grips with the regulations
 2       and what is perceived as blockages.
 3   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Thank you.  Can I ask you a rather
 4       subjective question, but it is important to me: do you
 5       get a sense, however, that there is a full understanding
 6       of people management issues within the departments that
 7       are responsible for managing those issues?
 8   MS WRIGHT:  In the central HR, yes.  When you go to
 9       boroughs, that is a different matter.
10   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Right.  There is a follow-up I was
11       going to ask later, perhaps it is opportune to ask it
12       now: we are aware of the pilot operating in two
13       boroughs, we believe, where personnel professionals have
14       been seconded into those boroughs.  That seems to be
15       a rather lengthy pilot, in terms of pilots I have been
16       used to, without a positive outcome.
17           Would it be the MPA's view that you would wish to
18       see that pilot implemented fully as a policy that there
19       will be personnel professionals out on the boroughs,
20       assisting borough commanders with people management
21       issues?
22   MS WRIGHT:  I think before the MPA made that decision, we
23       would want to see the palace (?) evaluate it.
24   LORD HARRIS:  I think it is fair to say that our general
25       approach is that the more that responsibility for
 
    23
 1       personnel and financial resources can be devolved to
 2       command unit level, the better that would be, in terms
 3       of most effective use of resource at that level, so
 4       therefore, our feeling -- obviously, we would like to
 5       see this demonstrated by the pilots, but our feeling is
 6       that the weakness of the structure is that there is HR
 7       policy over here, developed centrally, and that is not
 8       being translated at local level.
 9           That is not a criticism of the individual borough
10       commanders or OCU commanders, it is simply that it is
11       not there available to them, and it is very unlikely
12       they have had the previous life experience that would
13       enable them to look implement that.
14   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Thank you, that is very helpful, but in
15       terms of your responsibilities as an Authority and your
16       role in monitoring human resource and training
17       strategies, there is a gap at the moment between what
18       you would like, in terms of being able to undertake your
19       function, effectively, and what is being delivered.
20   LORD HARRIS:  I think we are getting the monitoring
21       information which is alerting us to the fact that there
22       is a real problem.
23   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Yes, thank you.  Can I move on to the
24       handling of employment tribunals?  In your submission,
25       you expressed concern over the way that employment
 
    24
 1       tribunals are handled, and in particular, the handling
 2       of cases which you say have taken over 400 days to
 3       resolve.
 4           Can I ask you, Lord Harris, just to elaborate on
 5       your concerns, if that is possible?
 6   LORD HARRIS:  Well, our concern is that this is totally
 7       unacceptable in terms of the length of time that this is
 8       going on for.  It is unacceptable in terms of the
 9       organisation and the amount of resources that are put
10       into it; it is unacceptable in terms of the people who
11       are raising the grievances or taking the cases forward.
12       I do not know whether, Reshard, you want to comment
13       further on that?
14   MR AULADIN:  Well, just to share the same view.  I think it
15       is the process which leads to those delays which is of
16       great concern to us.  That is the area where I think we
17       need to be concentrating in the future.
18   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Thank you.  The responsibility for
19       managing employment tribunals is currently housed within
20       the professional standards directorate.  You do comment
21       on that in your report, but could you just for the
22       purpose of the public hearing express your views about
23       where employment tribunals are handled, and how
24       effective you feel that is, or ineffective?
25   LORD HARRIS:  I think our concern -- and Reshard can
 
    25
 1       elaborate on this, but our concern is that by housing
 2       that responsibility in the same area that deals with
 3       professional standards, it produces a professional
 4       standards type response to individual cases, in terms of
 5       investigation and confrontation around those issues,
 6       rather than looking at resolving matters at a much
 7       earlier stage, which it might be if it was dealt with in
 8       a different way.
 9   MR AULADIN:  I agree with that.
10   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Thank you.  And a related issue,
11       I think, you certainly relate it within your submission;
12       you make comment about legal services provided to the
13       MPS.  Many decisions appear legally driven, you say, and
14       legal advice tends to be overly defensive and
15       insensitive to community relations.
16           This obviously is a real concern for you to put it
17       in your submission.  Is there an alternative, do you
18       think, faced with the sort of situation that might
19       appertain, that is that the organisations that represent
20       officers obviously are legally represented themselves,
21       and I guess that sets up a sort of scene where you have
22       got lawyers on both sides dealing with these issues.
23           Does that, in effect, sort of negate the opportunity
24       to deal with these issues in a less formal way?
25   LORD HARRIS:  I think it is inevitable that the Met will
 
    26
 1       need to be legally represented and have legal advice
 2       under those circumstances.  I think our concern is that
 3       too often -- or our perception is that in too many cases
 4       the legal advice that is provided is overtly defensive,
 5       which leads perhaps to an approach that you pursue
 6       litigation to the exclusion of a genuine effort to
 7       settle.
 8           I suspect, and this is my perception, that there is
 9       a problem with the way in which the client function is
10       handled within the organisation.  I am not sure -- it
11       may be a natural tendency of police officers that if
12       they receive legal advice they assume that is the law
13       and therefore you have to act on it, and it may well be
14       that if the question was posed in a different way, you
15       would recognise that this was simply advice, rather than
16       a statement that this needs to be pursued to the next
17       level or to the next point of action.
18           I think also too the general remit of legal services
19       within the Met is about defending the organisation at
20       all costs.  Now I am not decrying that, or decrying the
21       individuals involved in that; what I am saying is that
22       sometimes you need to take a step back, take
23       a dispassionate view and say: what in fact are the
24       issues here?  Is the legal principle we are fighting for
25       one that really matters in the broader context?  That,
 
    27
 1       I suspect, the organisation is not very good at doing,
 2       and that is partly about the client function, in terms
 3       of what is asked of the solicitors.
 4   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  So lawyers should advise and managers
 5       should manage?
 6   LORD HARRIS:  That is a very succinct way of putting what
 7       I was trying to say.
 8   MR AULADIN:  I was just going to say that I think the remit
 9       of the legal services for me is the real issue.  It is
10       the need to look at the framework and the terms of
11       reference within which they operate.  You could argue,
12       for example, that the Met and MPA has a mission -- has
13       a vision and a set of values, and whether the department
14       of legal services, when they are discharging their
15       duties, whether they are doing so within that overall
16       mission.  I think the connection between the mission and
17       all parts of what the Met is doing is an important one.
18   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Thank you.
19           My colleague, Miss Weekes, I know will deal with
20       proportionality per se, but can I still within this area
21       of people management refer to what you say about black
22       and minority ethnic officers and staff that they feel at
23       the moment they are treated unfairly.
24           Is there, to your knowledge, evidence to actually
25       support this claim?
 
    28
 1   LORD HARRIS:  I think it is certainly possible to
 2       demonstrate that there is a disproportionality in terms
 3       of the number of cases which are progressed in various
 4       ways, and I suspect that part of the difficulty is the
 5       way in which the Met responds when there are issues of
 6       race, or indeed other diversity issues, involved in
 7       particular cases.
 8           There is a sense that, you know, the rabbit is
 9       frozen in the headlamps, and as a result there is
10       an overcompensation, "We must review this really
11       thoroughly, we must do more", rather than, again,
12       managing things at the earliest possible stage in the
13       way any good manager would try and resolve issues and
14       deal with them appropriately.
15   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Would that be your solution to trying
16       to reinstate -- in this particular area, trying to
17       reinstate trust and confidence from black and ethnic
18       minority officers?
19   LORD HARRIS:  You must always be able to demonstrate that
20       management is acting in a way which is fair and
21       reasonable, but you must at the same time manage issues
22       rather than simply falling back to very bureaucratic
23       processes and procedures, which inevitably have the
24       effect of spinning things out for a very long period.
25   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Thank you.  Can I move on to the status
 
    29
 1       of constable, and what you refer to as attempting to
 2       adopt unifying conditions of service between police and
 3       police staff.  We have heard quite a lot about the
 4       office of constable as Crown servants, and also the need
 5       to move in this modern environment towards possibly
 6       contracts of employment for police officers.  I think
 7       you, in your submission, have taken it that one step
 8       further, suggesting this unifying of conditions of
 9       service; in other words, "one service, one set of
10       conditions", in effect, I guess is what you are
11       suggesting.
12           Do you think this would be achievable, and would it,
13       in practice, reduce some of the difficulties that we are
14       seeing at the moment, where that status of constable as
15       a Crown servant does seem to create some obstacles when
16       it comes to managing officers and staff in this modern
17       environment, with modern management legislation?
18   LORD HARRIS:  It will become increasingly difficult to
19       sustain two completely separate sets of terms and
20       conditions.  It will become increasingly difficult to
21       sustain as the number of police community support
22       officers grows, as the use of police staff in areas
23       which have in the past been activities which have been
24       solely carried out by police officers; as that
25       increasingly becomes the norm, as the Police Reform
 
    30
 1       Programme rolls forward, then it would be very difficult
 2       to sustain two completely different strands of
 3       employment and terms and conditions.
 4           I also suspect that it would be better within the
 5       organisation if there was seen to be more parity.
 6       I think because police regulations are so different from
 7       everything else, that means that the number of people
 8       who can legitimately specialise in them and understand
 9       the law that relates to them is narrower, and I think
10       that makes the whole process much more opaque and much
11       more difficult.
12   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Thank you.  We have already spoken
13       about putting out to boroughs expertise in specialist
14       areas of people management.  That applies, of course,
15       throughout the Metropolitan Police Service, equally at
16       the centre, people managing the corporate areas.
17           There must be an issue, I guess, in London about
18       paying the right rate for the right level of skills, for
19       people to do the job well.  Are salary levels
20       constrained by salary payments paid to senior police
21       managers, maybe properly so, maybe artificially so?
22       Would you see anything wrong in having two sets of
23       salary scales, maybe where the right professionals
24       coming in to the Metropolitan Police, for example to
25       deal with finance, for example to deal with people
 
    31
 1       management, actually breached the salary levels paid to
 2       the chief officer team, police team?
 3   LORD HARRIS:  I might be relaxed about it; whether the
 4       officers concerned would be quite so relaxed is a
 5       different matter.
 6   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  I am sure they would have a different
 7       view.
 8   LORD HARRIS:  I think in any organisation it becomes very
 9       difficult when specialist posts, who have a line
10       management responsibility to someone more senior,
11       because of market conditions, have to be paid more.
12       I think that is a very difficult situation, but it is
13       one which other organisations have had to manage and had
14       to cope with, and it may be something that the police
15       service has to cope with.
16   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  I would have thought -- maybe this is
17       more of a statement, but not only do you wish to employ
18       those very skilled specialist people, but you want to
19       retain them.
20   LORD HARRIS:  You want to retain them, and you want to have
21       the best that are available, yes.
22   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Thank you.  You speak about the
23       outcomes of grievance procedures and complaints, and you
24       in your submission state that they should be reached
25       impartially, after a timely and fair process.  The
 
    32
 1       Commissioner last week spoke about using arbitration or
 2       an ombudsman; in other words, if it cannot be resolved
 3       at first level, then rather than getting bogged down in
 4       the organisation, it should go outside for this
 5       independent assistance, some system which uses the
 6       benefits of mediation.
 7           Would you favour such a system?
 8   LORD HARRIS:  We would certainly favour the use of
 9       mediation, we would certainly favour the use of informal
10       resolution where it is possible to do so.  You can get
11       into a very messy process whereby you have to go through
12       an attempt to resolve things informally before you can
13       take things forward formally, but it is our view that
14       many of the matters that end up being bogged down in
15       very formal grievance procedures or disciplinary
16       processes could have been resolved at an earlier stage
17       in an informal way.
18   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  And the use of an outside organisation
19       to facilitate that, you would see no difficulties?
20   LORD HARRIS:  We would see no difficulty with that in
21       principle at all.
22   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  And finally from me, you refer to the
23       Northern Ireland model, where the police board can hold
24       the Chief Constable to account for a wider area of
25       police performance.  Indeed, within your terms of
 
    33
 1       reference, the Authority can, of course, hold the Chief
 2       Constable to account in human resource and training
 3       terms, but would you wish to see that extended in line
 4       with the Patten Report recommendations, and indeed the
 5       way those have been implemented in Northern Ireland?
 6   LORD HARRIS:  I think in terms of clarifying lines of
 7       accountability, and avoiding artificial distinctions,
 8       then I believe that would be helpful.  My own personal
 9       background is somebody who was a local authority member
10       for many years, and is used to a slightly different
11       relationship between the elected politicians or the
12       Authority and chief officers and the officer structure.
13           I believe that a structure which enables there to be
14       clearer accountability and an opportunity -- not to
15       involve in the minutiae of managerial decisions or
16       operational decisions, but a clarity about
17       responsibility for allocation of resources and so on,
18       I think that would be an improvement on the current
19       arrangements.
20   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Thank you very much indeed.
21   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Thank you, Sir Anthony.
22           Before I invite Miss Weekes to put some questions to
23       you, Lord Harris, I am going to suggest that we adjourn
24       for five to ten minutes, to give the stenographers
25       a chance to stretch their fingers.
 
    34
 1   LORD HARRIS:  Thank you.
 2   (11.25 am)
 3                         (A short break)
 4   (11.35 am)
 5   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Okay, Lord Harris, everybody is back in
 6       place, so I will invite Miss Weekes to put some
 7       questions to you.
 8                     Questions by MISS WEEKES
 9   MISS WEEKES:  Thank you.  Good morning, everyone.
10           Can I start with the statutory framework which
11       underpins your relationship with the Metropolitan Police
12       Service?  I am going to talk a little bit about what
13       your views are about the statutory provisions
14       underpinning the MPS on complaints; then I want to move
15       on, if I may, to some of the comments you have made
16       about high-profile cases; then I will move to how
17       officers are treated during the process of complaints;
18       and I would like to come back to one or two issues in
19       relation to the IPCC and resolution of complaints.
20       I just thought I would set out those areas for you.
21           Can I turn to -- and it might be helpful if we had
22       this up on the screen, it is at page 11 of your report,
23       MPA 11, paragraph 26.  I have concluded, and correct me
24       if I am wrong, that you are not very happy, in fact,
25       with the regulatory controls on the MPA and the
 
    35
 1       subsequent relationship that you then have as what
 2       I call overseer of public complaints and indeed internal
 3       complaints for the MPS.  Am I right in saying that you
 4       are not happy?
 5   LORD HARRIS:  Yes, we are not happy.  We feel that the
 6       role -- I think we express it as a duty to remain
 7       informed without any related duty to hold to account or
 8       seek to improve -- is very unsatisfactory; obviously we
 9       strain against those boundaries, but it is
10       an unsatisfactory wording.
11           Our feeling, frankly, is that the regulations which
12       relate to police discipline need a complete overhaul,
13       and as we get into more detail with them, we discover
14       problems which chafe at all sorts of levels.
15   MISS WEEKES:  I am going to come back to that word
16       "overhaul", because you are not the first witness to
17       this Inquiry who has said that.  I think it might be
18       helpful for those who are here, the members of the
19       public, if I read a little bit of that paragraph.  I am
20       sorry, if we can go back to it:
21           "The wording of the statutory duty, like much of the
22       relevant enactments and regulations relating to
23       complaints and discipline, is not exactly helpful.  The
24       Police Authority is required 'to keep themselves
25       informed as to the workings of the relevant sections of
 
    36
 1       the 1996 Act which bite on the handling and
 2       investigation of complaints.  A duty to remain informed
 3       without any related duty to hold to account or seek to
 4       improve is neither onerous nor satisfying.  The MPA has,
 5       like most other police authorities, interpreted
 6       section 77 as requiring the Authority to exercise
 7       a regular and fairly close monitoring regime in respect
 8       of management information relating to the overall
 9       handling of complaints, reinforced by dip sampling
10       random closed complaint cases as a quality assurance
11       mechanism.'"
12           Before I come to your views about the overhauling of
13       the statutory underpinning for complaints for the MPS,
14       is your unhappiness rooted in what you would consider to
15       be the need for the MPA to have a more controlling role
16       over complaints per se?
17   LORD HARRIS:  I think I would be unhappy with the word
18       "controlling".  I think we --
19   MISS WEEKES:  What word would you choose?
20   LORD HARRIS:  I think we would look for a word more like
21       "supervising", or "overseeing", which was the word you
22       used earlier.  It is not for the MPA to be involved in
23       the day-to-day minutiae of the handling of complaint or
24       the handling of investigation, or handling the
25       disciplinary inquiry, but I think it is important that
 
    37
 1       there is this arm's length oversight over what is
 2       happening, and the oversight of that should include the
 3       individual cases, rather than the totality taken over
 4       a period of time.
 5   MISS WEEKES:  In that case can I take you, then, to page 26,
 6       and see how that fits with what you say at paragraph 70,
 7       which I will read:
 8           "The Authority considers that there may be a case
 9       for a fundamental structural reform to put the
10       investigation of professional standards matters at arm's
11       length from the management of the force, and to
12       underline its independence by making it directly
13       accountable to the MPA."
14           Now maybe I should read the whole of that paragraph
15       to ensure that that is put within its context:
16           "Although the Independent Police Complaints
17       Commission will enhance the independence of
18       investigation of some complaints for the near future,
19       the vast majority of complaints against police and
20       internal allegations will be investigated by the MPS
21       itself.  Redefining the relationship of the
22       investigating unit to the Authority could boost
23       community confidence in the complaints process,
24       complementing the role of the IPCC."
25           Now I have read it in full to ensure that I did not
 
    38
 1       unfairly pick one bit of the paragraph and not the
 2       other.  I want to understand the first part of that
 3       paragraph, where your suggestion is that we should, as
 4       a Panel, myself and my colleagues, consider bringing the
 5       management of professional standards matters directly
 6       accountable to the MPA.  Can you explain that?
 7   LORD HARRIS:  What we are trying to say is that the
 8       Police Authority should be in a position to hold the
 9       force to account for the way in which cases are dealt
10       with, individual cases are dealt with; not
11       retrospectively, when it is too late, it has gone too
12       far, it has gone on too long, damage has been done, but
13       in real time, and so as to be able to give guidance to
14       influence the turn of events we should not be compelled
15       to sit on the sidelines as a passive observer.
16           That does not mean saying, "You must do this, you
17       must do it in this particular way", but for us, as
18       people -- coming back to the phrase I used right at the
19       beginning, being the critical friend, saying, "Are you
20       sure this is what you want to do?  Are you sure this is
21       the best way of doing it?  Have you considered these
22       matters?"
23   MISS WEEKES:  How practically, Lord Harris, is this going to
24       work?  Because the Metropolitan Police Service have
25       a very good concept and idea and strategy of
 
    39
 1       professional standards itself.  The practicalities of it
 2       are another thing, but they clearly do have that worked
 3       out well, do they not; would you agree?
 4   LORD HARRIS:  We would certainly agree that the commitment
 5       to the highest possible professional standards, the
 6       clear statement that integrity is not negotiable, are
 7       absolutely central to an effective police service, and
 8       that is something that the Met has -- perhaps "led the
 9       world" would not be too far removed, in terms of trying
10       to address those problems in the last ten years or so.
11   MISS WEEKES:  So how do you think they would cope, and would
12       they be comfortable about the more involved role, "Do
13       you think this is really the way you want to do it?"
14       How do you think the MPS would react to that?
15   LORD HARRIS:  I think they would find it challenging.  As
16       I said before, being challenged is not always
17       comfortable, but I hope there would be a recognition
18       that perhaps we were adding value because of the fact
19       that we are outside the police service, and not directly
20       part of the Met.  We have changed the guard again, I do
21       not know whether Reshard wants to --
22   MISS WEEKES:  Just before you come in, can I ask you both to
23       consider this?  Part of the make-up of the MPA,
24       undoubtedly, some may say, is political.  A number of
25       your members are elected.  Would the MPS feel
 
    40
 1       comfortable about this more involved role that you have,
 2       bearing in mind your make-up, which is understandable as
 3       to why you are made up in that way, but I am raising it
 4       so that you can help me as to whether or not that might
 5       be an element of concern with this suggested more
 6       involved role that you want.
 7   LORD HARRIS:  I should make it clear I am an elected
 8       politician, just in case there is any suggestion that
 9       I have not made that clear.
10   MISS WEEKES:  Yes, I do know you are.
11   LORD HARRIS:  I mean, what we are trying to define here is
12       not where MPA members, whether they are elected,
13       independent or magistrate members, are directly changing
14       the way in which things are done.  What we are saying is
15       that it is about a process of challenge and holding to
16       account, and trying to improve the process.
17           But it would be possible to define in different
18       ways -- I am flanked by two colleagues who are
19       magistrate members.  It would be perfectly possible, if
20       people needed reassuring that there was no nasty
21       political influence -- I use the word "nasty" to
22       caricature what some might feel -- that could be
23       addressed by making the oversight explicitly the
24       responsibility of magistrate members of the MPA, if
25       people felt more comfortable with that.
 
    41
 1           I do not know, Reshard, whether you want to say
 2       more?
 3   MR AULADIN:  Going back to the paragraph in the submission
 4       itself, there are two strands to this; one which is
 5       continuing some of the work that we already do, which is
 6       oversight of professional standards in general.  What we
 7       are not suggesting is taking over professional standards
 8       as a whole, completely; we are looking only at the
 9       investigation side of things, which is already
10       happening, say, for example with the PCA now, and will
11       happen with the IPCC in the future, where they will be
12       able to have an officer of the IPCC managing or
13       supervising an investigation, to bring about
14       independence.
15           The suggestion or proposal is to do with
16       investigation only at this stage, where investigation
17       has been carried out by a unit which is at arm's length
18       from the Met; hopefully then engendering confidence from
19       complainers and people who have been complained of.
20       Again, it will not be day-to-day management of the
21       investigation itself, but it would be to have
22       an oversight, as the Chairman was talking about earlier
23       on, which is about supervision and oversight of that
24       process.
25           Discipline itself will remain with the Commissioner,
 
    42
 1       it always has been and will be, even when the IPCC takes
 2       control.  When they have carried out an investigation,
 3       it will be something they will pass to the Commissioner
 4       for discipline matters to be dealt with, so it is only
 5       to do with investigation.
 6           The other strand I was talking about, which is the
 7       oversight of professional standards in general, it is
 8       being a little bit more proactive; the Chair has already
 9       talked about us not sitting on the sidelines, but having
10       a say in the direction that certain processes are
11       taking; reviewing processes, and also evaluating the
12       processes that are already there and being able to make
13       changes to those.
14   MISS WEEKES:  One gets the feeling that here is yet another
15       set of individuals to be involved in a decision on
16       complaints, because at the moment many of our witnesses
17       have said, "It is complex, it has to go through many
18       people for many decisions"; are you not adding yet
19       another process?
20   MR AULADIN:  I think we are substituting one.  Instead of
21       the accountability being directly to the command
22       structure within the Met, you are looking at a different
23       structure.  The discipline would be as it is now.
24   LORD HARRIS:  Could I just draw a couple of analogies, which
25       is about where lines of accountability and lines of
 
    43
 1       responsibility go within the organisation.  At the
 2       moment, the internal audit function for the Met is
 3       located as accountable within the MPA.  The purpose for
 4       that is to have an arm's length relationship with the
 5       rest of the organisation.
 6           We are currently in discussion about how best to
 7       manage responsibilities for health and safety, for very
 8       similar reasons, about the need to be in an arm's length
 9       relationship, so as to avoid -- I am not suggesting this
10       would happen, but avoid a situation in which the line
11       management, the operational line management pressures
12       override what might be important audit or health and
13       safety judgments; suggesting something similar in
14       respect of this area of activity.
15   MISS WEEKES:  Is it not important, I suggest, simply to
16       challenge and understand your reform, that the
17       Metropolitan Police stand on its own and create its own
18       independency, to give the message to the public that it
19       can deal with its own professional standards, and when
20       those standards slip, that it can deal with the slippage
21       without having to move a department under the umbrella
22       of the MPA?
23   LORD HARRIS:  I think the problem that the Met or any police
24       service has is that it is still regarded as the police
25       investigating themselves, and this -- I agree with you
 
    44
 1       that the outcome must be clear, it must be seen that
 2       issues have been dealt with appropriately and firmly,
 3       but the process of investigation, which will often
 4       produce a result which says there is no case to
 5       answer -- if that is seen to be done slightly at arm's
 6       length, then that would be helpful to public confidence.
 7   MISS WEEKES:  Okay.  Can I move to the second half of your
 8       first comment, which was the overhaul of the statutory
 9       provisions, regulations, policies, guidance,
10       underpinning the MPS dealing with complaints, both
11       external and internal?  I am going to come to the IPCC
12       in a moment.
13           You are not the first witness who has used the term
14       "overhaul"; how long have you felt that those statutory
15       provisions were in need of being overhauled?  How long
16       have you felt this?
17   LORD HARRIS:  I think we have felt it since the point at
18       which we began to try and make use of them.
19   MISS WEEKES:  When was this, in terms of years?
20   LORD HARRIS:  Well, in terms of the first major case that
21       the MPA had to deal with since it was set up in 2000.
22       I mean, Reshard has been involved throughout, first as
23       deputy chair and now chair of the relevant committee.
24       I do not know if you want to answer that.
25   MR AULADIN:  Well, there are two points here again.  If we
 
    45
 1       can be specific about one aspect of our work, which is
 2       looking at complaints for chief police officers, this
 3       has been a minefield for us in that not many other
 4       police authorities have experience of dealing with
 5       complaints against chief police officers, and trying to
 6       make the regulations work has been a very difficult
 7       problem for us.  I think to this day we still have
 8       problems in making the regulations -- or rather, trying
 9       to understand the regulations.
10   MISS WEEKES:  Who have you discussed this problem with?  We
11       as a Panel are receiving this feeling and these views
12       all the time, and one does wonder: well, how long have
13       you known of it, and who have you talked to about it,
14       and what attempts have been made to remedy this?
15   MR AULADIN:  There are a number of attempts we have made.
16       First of all, we have sought legal advice, and we have
17       to say that we have had different advice from different
18       firms, in terms of clarity of other regulations.
19   MISS WEEKES:  Lawyers are a bit like that, are they not?  So
20       you have had different legal advice about how to
21       simplify and reform the complexity.
22   MR AULADIN:  We have also taken our concerns to the
23       Association of Police Authorities, to see whether they
24       have experience of dealing with those things, and they
25       have reported really the same sort of problems that we
 
    46
 1       have had.  We have made, through the clerk to the
 2       Authority, representations to the Home Office on
 3       a number of occasions, and I know at one stage there was
 4       a working party looking at these regulations; if I am
 5       not wrong, they are still looking at these regulations.
 6   MISS WEEKES:  Can you just give me the name of that working
 7       party?  Is it a Home Office working party?
 8   MR AULADIN:  It is a Home Office process, yes.  I am not
 9       sure of the name.
10   MISS WEEKES:  And this has been since 2000 that these
11       different processes of trying to find a solution has
12       been going on?
13   MR AULADIN:  Yes.  I think we also made submissions to the
14       Police (Reform) Act when it was being considered by
15       Parliament.
16   MISS WEEKES:  So really to date no breakthrough of any clear
17       way ahead?
18   MR AULADIN:  To date, not really, no.
19   MISS WEEKES:  I think again for the benefit of the public,
20       we should put this discussion against the background
21       that there is a major Act coming into place in April,
22       that is the Police (Reform) Act 2002, and it will bite
23       in April.  Well, it is already enacted, but the majority
24       of those provisions will come in, and one of the
25       principal reforms, of course, is the Independent Police
 
    47
 1       Complaints Commission, what we call the IPCC.
 2           But that does not get rid of the remaining
 3       regulations that still exist for the treatment of senior
 4       officers who receive complaint, the treatment of other
 5       officers, the difference with police staff and police
 6       officers, the numerous guidances and numerous policies;
 7       am I correct?  It does not actually get rid of that, the
 8       2002.
 9   MR AULADIN:  I do not think it does.  From our point of
10       view, I think it is an opportunity missed, but there are
11       a number of submissions that various bodies made,
12       including the Association of Police Authorities, sadly
13       that were not included in that Act.
14   MISS WEEKES:  Do you know why they were not?
15   MR AULADIN:  I am afraid that I do not know.
16   LORD HARRIS:  I think it was put in the "too difficult"
17       pile.
18   MISS WEEKES:  The "too difficult" pile.  That is part of the
19       inertia that you have probably mentioned.  Forgive me
20       for asking these questions, but we have to grapple with
21       this, because everybody who comes to us says, "Too many,
22       too difficult, too complex"; it is making life difficult
23       for officers, it is making life difficult for the
24       service to deal with what will always be on their table,
25       which is complaints.  You are never going to get rid of
 
    48
 1       them.
 2           So if you can identify any document that might
 3       assist us, myself and my colleagues, that contains the
 4       best resolution for this particular issue, we would be
 5       grateful, because we have not necessarily read some of
 6       the things that you have just kindly referred me to.
 7   LORD HARRIS:  We will see whether we can submit a further
 8       paper to the Inquiry on those points.
 9   MISS WEEKES:  If you did find any of the lawyers' advice
10       helpful and you could, without breaching privilege, give
11       us that, we would also be grateful.
12   LORD HARRIS:  We will see what we can provide.
13   MISS WEEKES:  Can I then move on to the difference between
14       the way senior officers are treated -- I know you
15       oversee ACPO officers.  Why is there a need for the
16       difference of approach to the way officers of ACPO rank
17       are treated when they receive complaints, and other
18       police officers and police staff?  There probably is
19       a very good reason for such a naive question, so please
20       forgive me for asking, because there are different
21       regulations and different guidance; whenever I pick up
22       a paper on senior officers I have to remind myself that
23       it is completely different to ordinary officers.  Is it
24       necessary?  There must be a good reason.
25   LORD HARRIS:  I assume that the origin is in terms of the
 
    49
 1       differing processes for appointment of officers, in the
 2       sense that the more senior officers, the ACPO ranks, are
 3       appointed by police authorities as opposed to it simply
 4       being an internal process.  Whether that justifies the
 5       difference in the regulations, I would need to be
 6       convinced.
 7   MISS WEEKES:  I was just about to ask that very question.
 8       I do not know whether your colleague -- does it justify
 9       it?
10   MR AULADIN:  I do not think it does.  I think it is purely
11       for the sake of the people who are working for the
12       organisation; I think they do ask questions about the
13       different strands of the discipline process, but to
14       a certain extent, the advent of the IPCC will address
15       some of that, or they will be responsible for chief
16       police officers' complaints as well, although we may
17       still be responsible for carrying out investigations and
18       so on, but in terms of oversight and supervision they
19       will be responsible, so there is a degree of
20       standardisation taking place there.
21   MISS WEEKES:  Do I understand, will the 2002 Act revoke or
22       get rid of these different regulations that I keep
23       looking -- will they be gone?  I think that is what you
24       are saying.
25   MR AULADIN:  I do not think they will go completely, but in
 
    50
 1       terms of oversight, the IPCC will be taking oversight of
 2       all complaints cases.
 3   LORD HARRIS:  I think it will be simplified quite
 4       significantly.
 5   MISS WEEKES:  All right.  High-profile cases: you have
 6       mentioned the lessons to be learnt from the Lancet
 7       Review, and we have read that, my colleagues and I, and
 8       many other individuals have mentioned it.
 9           I would like to specifically look at two aspects of
10       high-profile cases.  A high-profile case often simply
11       becomes high-profile because the press are interested,
12       and they write about it a lot.  It might have to do with
13       the profile of the officer concerned; it may not.  It
14       might have to do with the conduct complained of.
15           Do you have any views or comments or recommendations
16       about the role of the press in terms of the press
17       attached to the overseeing of the MPS, and how often
18       things do get into the press domain, because undoubtedly
19       it does affect the investigation, does it not?
20   LORD HARRIS:  I think there are several aspects to this.
21       I mean, one is that I would be very reluctant if there
22       were some sort of blanket prohibition on the press
23       reporting such matters, because it is about public
24       confidence.
25   MISS WEEKES:  I should think you would see yourself in the
 
    51
 1       High Court very quickly if you did.
 2   LORD HARRIS:  And the impact on community confidence of
 3       these cases is potentially very large, so there needs to
 4       be a transparency.
 5           We are concerned that whether formally or, we rather
 6       suspect, informally, often details of cases emerge in
 7       the public domain in a way which is inappropriate, and
 8       that -- I mean, it appears to be not uncommon in police
 9       services that the hotline to the local journalists who
10       tell them of interesting burglaries that have taken
11       place over the weekend seems to extend to all sorts of
12       activities.
13           In our view, it is the case that it appears that
14       there has been briefing for or against individuals, or
15       in respect of individual high-profile cases, to the
16       press; I am sure that is not done formally, but it is
17       certainly happening informally, and that is obviously
18       very unhelpful in that it is designed to create more
19       public debate, or put pressure on the way in which
20       things are resolved in a particular incident.
21   MISS WEEKES:  I would like to just touch on two aspects of
22       that answer.  Getting early sensitive information into
23       the press domain does not help resolution, clearly,
24       because there would then be naturally an obligation on
25       the MPS to ensure that they are defended or they are
 
    52
 1       defending their reputation; is that reasonable to expect
 2       that that is a reaction?
 3   LORD HARRIS:  Well, it is not just a question of the Met,
 4       I think any of the individuals involved would wish to
 5       defend their position and their reputation.
 6   MISS WEEKES:  How can we improve on that?
 7   LORD HARRIS:  Well, I think it should be in the same way
 8       that a very firm line is taken on integrity in other
 9       aspects of police work; integrity in terms of releasing
10       confidential information or information which applies to
11       a particular disciplinary or investigation should be
12       taken extremely seriously.
13   MISS WEEKES:  Which department do we go to to deal with this
14       particular aspect, within the MPS?
15   LORD HARRIS:  Well, there is the Directorate of Public
16       Affairs which is responsible for media relations, but
17       I think it is also a question of the way in which
18       discipline is applied to officers who are thought to
19       have leaked sensitive information.  It may not be
20       officers, it may be staff, and, of course, the leaks may
21       have come from other sources as well.
22   MISS WEEKES:  Thank you for that.  Again, as you are the
23       overseer of a number of these complaints, if a case does
24       become high-profile, do you see any evidence that
25       decisions made, procedures adopted, discretion carried
 
    53
 1       out, is affected by the fact that it has become
 2       high-profile?
 3   LORD HARRIS:  I talked earlier on about the rabbit in the
 4       headlights syndrome; I think that applies in respect of
 5       high-profile cases, and necessarily, I think that
 6       influences the way in which work is carried on.
 7           At another level, it impacts on the Authority and
 8       other organisations in terms of the way in which the Met
 9       decides when and how to involve members of the
10       Authority, or members of independent advisory groups or
11       community figures in oversight of particular cases, and
12       our own view is that this is done in a very informal
13       way, and without necessarily a clear set of guidelines
14       as to when it is appropriate to involve external people
15       for oversight; nor is there a clear protocol as to how
16       that is done, either in respect of the Authority or
17       indeed of other bodies, in terms of calling on that
18       expertise.
19   MISS WEEKES:  Do I understand you -- you clearly want
20       a clear protocol, but you would want to keep flexibility
21       and informality about when you do employ outside
22       independent agencies; is that right?
23   LORD HARRIS:  Well, there is a need very clearly for
24       a protocol in respect of members of the Authority,
25       because we do not want to be in a position where our
 
    54
 1       independence is compromised, or the statutory
 2       responsibility we might subsequently have in respect of
 3       cases is compromised, but I suspect the gains that the
 4       Met has had from involving lay people in gold groups or
 5       particular investigations has been very substantial; we
 6       would not want to throw any of that away.
 7           What we do think is that it ought to be
 8       systematised, to the extent that there is a clear
 9       decision trail, an audit trail, as to why decisions were
10       taken to involve this person rather than that person, or
11       to involve people in the particular parts of the
12       process; that has not always been very clear.
13   MISS WEEKES:  Is there anything else that either of the
14       three of you would like to assist us with on
15       high-profile cases?  I note what you have said in your
16       paragraph 36.  I do not know whether there is anything
17       else that you might be able to assist us on?
18   LORD HARRIS:  I think just one point I would want to make is
19       that we are very conscious of the level of resources
20       that end up being devoted to some of these cases.
21       Sometimes those levels of resources are very difficult
22       to explain to the public; that may simply be a statement
23       about the cost of police investigations per se, but it
24       is part of -- I would see our responsibility, in terms
25       of delivering an efficient and effective police service,
 
    55
 1       that we ask those questions about resources and we are
 2       probably informed about those, in terms of the decisions
 3       which are taken to deploy resources at that level, the
 4       proportionality of those resources.
 5   MISS WEEKES:  I have not touched a great deal upon the
 6       proportionality point, because you deal with it very
 7       well, and as a Panel we should welcome and anticipate
 8       that the IPCC will follow the Lancet Review in having
 9       clear terms of reference for each case, and a review
10       frequently upon the proportionality that turns up for
11       the whole of the process, not just at the beginning or
12       at the end.  Have I summarised that correctly?  We
13       cannot anticipate it, we have to hope that it is going
14       to work.
15   LORD HARRIS:  Yes, I mean, certainly we have had some
16       initial discussions with the IPCC, and we are keen to
17       pass on to them what we think are our conclusions about
18       the way in which the system works, and they will make
19       their own judgment about how best to organise their own
20       work.
21   MISS WEEKES:  What is the most important message you would
22       want publicly to say to the work that the IPCC is going
23       to take into account?  I note what you say about delays,
24       but is there anything that particularly is on your mind
25       in terms of lessons to be learnt for the IPCC?
 
    56
 1   LORD HARRIS:  I am very conscious of the lessons that the
 2       Met has learnt since the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry about
 3       managing critical incidents, working with communities,
 4       supporting families, and I think it is important that
 5       the IPCC applies those same lessons, in terms of the way
 6       in which they handle some of the high-profile incidents,
 7       or indeed any incident that is referred to them.
 8   MISS WEEKES:  Okay.  I want to ask about how officers are
 9       treated during the process of a complaint, especially if
10       the complaint takes two or three years before
11       resolution.  Is there an agreed policy?  Is there
12       someone who oversees how officers are treated in terms
13       of the stress that they will receive, because not all
14       officers will be found guilty of a piece of conduct.
15       Some will, some will not.  How are they treated in terms
16       of coming back to work when they have missed two or
17       three years, and several new policies have been put on
18       the table in their absence?  Those sorts of things; who
19       looks after officers?
20   LORD HARRIS:  My impression is that this is very ad hoc.  We
21       have been conducting some work as a police authority on
22       fatal incidents and police suspensions, and I remember
23       quite vividly a focus group we had with firearms
24       officers, and the descriptions that they gave us of the
25       way in which some of those people in that room had been
 
    57
 1       treated after serious incidents; the length of time, the
 2       lack of information, lack of information to their
 3       families.
 4           That certainly leads me to believe that there needs
 5       to be a very clear policy in terms of support of the
 6       officers, just as much as there needs to be family
 7       support for victims of incidents and so on.
 8           That is a lesson that has not been applied
 9       internally, but is much better now applied externally in
10       terms of high-profile cases.
11           In some of the cases where I have been individually
12       involved, where an officer has returned to work, I am
13       aware of the complexities and difficulties of ensuring
14       that that re-entry process is managed sensitively,
15       fairly and appropriately.  That is not easy, and it is
16       probably a specialist requirement that there be people
17       within the organisation who understand how best to do
18       that.
19   MISS WEEKES:  But what is clear is that you are not aware of
20       any accepted policy for the Met, and indeed for other
21       forces?
22   LORD HARRIS:  I am not aware of it.  There may be one
23       somewhere, but as we have said, the Met is policy-rich
24       but not always terribly good at implementing those
25       policies.
 
    58
 1   MISS WEEKES:  That moves me conveniently on to what you
 2       think of the fairly new Fairness at Work process, which
 3       came about in April 2003, or certainly has been enacted
 4       in April 2003, so it is still quite new, and there will
 5       not be a huge amount of results and cases for us to look
 6       at, but there will be some.
 7           Are you happy that this new procedure is going to
 8       effectively deal with all the complaints about the past
 9       grievance procedure which was used by the MPS?
10   LORD HARRIS:  I think we certainly see it as a substantial
11       step forward.  I think we need to see a little bit more
12       how it is implemented in practice, the extent to which
13       people understand its use, both at managerial level and
14       in terms of those who might use the system, to assess
15       whether or not it has effectively dealt with all the
16       concerns that have been expressed about the grievance
17       procedure in the past.
18   MISS WEEKES:  It raises two things for me, on my reading of
19       it.  The resolution of workplace conflicts with staff
20       and officers still rests with supervisors and line
21       managers, so it still remains that you are going to be
22       lucky if you have a good one, or you are going to be
23       lucky if you have one trained in personnel management;
24       am I right?
25   LORD HARRIS:  I think that is a fair statement, although
 
    59
 1       I think it is important that most matters are dealt with
 2       at the line management level on that point.  What it
 3       raises for us are issues about the extent to which
 4       sufficient training, sufficient emphasis is put on
 5       equipping those who are given management
 6       responsibilities with the skills that they need.
 7           I commented earlier about the very difficult
 8       position that borough commanders are in.  Borough
 9       commanders have an almost impossible range of
10       responsibilities.  I am concerned that they are not
11       provided with the support and training to enable them to
12       be as effective as they should be in those roles, and
13       they are being asked to carry out very complicated, very
14       difficult roles without those support structures and
15       without necessarily the full range of training that they
16       need.
17   MISS WEEKES:  I have read the Fairness at Work quite
18       carefully, and I might be wrong, but I see nowhere
19       within the document a detailed guidance at resolution of
20       a dispute, and how an officer approaches the resolution
21       of a dispute, because you are, I think, right -- my
22       personal view is that you are right.  We do have to make
23       line managers and supervisors resolve it.
24   LORD HARRIS:  I think there is a sort of assumption that you
25       will recognise it when you see it, in terms of
 
    60
 1       a satisfactory resolution; well, in terms of management,
 2       that may well not be the case.  People have to have an
 3       understanding as to what is an appropriate resolution.
 4   MISS WEEKES:  Well, if you agree that it is not within the
 5       document, where are line managers getting the
 6       understanding of how they should resolve disputes?
 7   LORD HARRIS:  I suspect it is by osmosis.  I think Reshard
 8       wanted to come in.
 9   MR AULADIN:  I think, to be fair, the Professional Standards
10       Directorate within the Met over the last three or four
11       years has made considerable progress in looking at some
12       of these issues.  They carried out a best value review
13       in, I think, the year 2000, and as a result of some of
14       the recommendations of that review, they have changed
15       their own structure of dealing with complaints, and
16       their management structure and so on.
17           Part of that change is what is happening in the
18       boroughs now.  If, for example, there is a conflict
19       which a borough commander is passing on to the
20       Professional Standards Directorate, the person
21       responsible will look at that problem and decide whether
22       this is something that should go back to the borough
23       commander in terms of informal resolution, and they are
24       doing so in two or three ways; one which is giving
25       people guidance; there is also a great deal of
 
    61
 1       co-ordination between professional standards staff and
 2       borough commander staff, and there is also a great deal
 3       of training that is taking place.
 4           In terms of training their own people, again, to be
 5       fair, they are now doing a better job of training
 6       investigating officers, and they have better systems in
 7       place in looking at timescale and time management when
 8       they are dealing with complaints.
 9   MISS WEEKES:  Thank you very much for that.  I just want to
10       move on, I think, to the last area, which will be local
11       resolution and alternative ways of dealing with
12       complaints, a matter that my colleague, Sir Anthony,
13       touched on.
14           I am simply going to read from the Police Complaints
15       Authority booklet on justice in police complaints; you
16       have probably all read it.  I do not have the system
17       number for it, but it might help if I simply read it.
18           They outline, quite helpfully, some principles of
19       fairness, and I know you have just now very helpfully
20       summarised what the Metropolitan Police are now doing.
21       I just want to find out whether you agree that this is
22       embedded in what you have just told us:
23           "Three principles of fair process: Engagement.
24       Involving individuals in decisions that affect them by
25       asking for their input and allowing them to refute the
 
    62
 1       merit of one another's idea and assumptions."
 2           Is that within this new approach?
 3   MR AULADIN:  I think we come back to regulations, where some
 4       of the problems will continue to exist, because I think
 5       there is, on occasion, police officers' willingness to
 6       actually deal with things informally, but there is that
 7       fear that if they start talking openly, that material
 8       could be used against them, either in criminal or
 9       disciplinary matters.  It is about looking at it for
10       a resolution first and foremost, in a framework that
11       does not have consequences further down the line.  And
12       in certain situations, you have to serve police officers
13       with a regulation notice before you start interviewing
14       them, for example, so these are problems that I think
15       need to be resolved before we are fully capable of going
16       down the line of informal resolution.
17           But I think we are already asking the Met to do some
18       of that; we have talked about carrying out a couple of
19       pilot schemes, where we are going to get police officers
20       and complainants who are willing to look at informal
21       resolution; even, if necessary, to bring third parties
22       in as volunteers, to act as mediators to deal with
23       informal resolution.  That is at a very early stage, and
24       we are watching this space with a great deal of
25       interest.
 
    63
 1   MS WRIGHT:  And it is true to say that in some boroughs,
 2       borough commanders are inviting the Director of
 3       Professional Standards to come and talk to their senior
 4       management team, so they are locally -- I am not going
 5       to say every borough is doing that, but some borough
 6       commanders are being very proactive in the way they want
 7       to deal with things locally, and are actively seeking
 8       advice.
 9   MISS WEEKES:  Right.  And the second explanation:
10           "Everyone involved and affected should understand
11       why final decisions are made as they are.  Creates
12       a powerful feedback loop that enhances learning."
13           And if I may add to that, both the public and the
14       officer complained of has a right to know about the
15       stages and decisions that are being made as the
16       complaint progresses.
17           So that section, do you think that has helpfully now
18       been taken forward by the MPS, or is there still room
19       for improvement?
20   MR AULADIN:  I do think there is still room for improvement.
21       It is something that I think the MPS would accept
22       themselves, that it is not quite right, in terms of
23       informing police officers, as well as members of the
24       public who have complained.  They have some processes in
25       place, but we have not got it quite right.
 
    64
 1   MISS WEEKES:  What is not quite right about it, so we can
 2       make sure we understand you?
 3   MR AULADIN:  I think it is about the interval at which
 4       people hear information, but also it is about management
 5       of information that you already have; maybe the need to
 6       have better training as to at what stage a certain
 7       amount of information has become something that you can
 8       disclose to parties that are interested.
 9           And if we do go along the route of informal
10       resolution, you could set a framework at the very start
11       of a particular case, terms of reference which all
12       parties will abide by, including sharing information at
13       a later stage.
14   MISS WEEKES:  Lastly:
15           "Expectation; Clarity.  Once decisions are made, new
16       rules are clearly stated, so employees understand new
17       standards and penalties for failure."
18           Has that been adequately adopted, do you think?
19   MS WRIGHT:  I would not say right across the board.  Again,
20       there are pockets of good practice.
21   MISS WEEKES:  That brings me finally on to mediation, early
22       resolution, local resolution, restorative justice; they
23       sort of really fit under one umbrella, and it is the
24       principle I want to go to.
25           I have not yet read, but it may exist, of a very
 
    65
 1       clear guidance policy that indicates the categories of
 2       cases that are clearly suitable for local
 3       resolution/early resolution, and that must go through
 4       early resolution process; the category of cases that are
 5       not suitable, because sometimes it is not suitable, if
 6       an officer is charged with a criminal serious offence,
 7       for there to be early resolution; and finally, the
 8       process by which you early resolve, because some cases
 9       are more suitable to other forms than not.
10           I have summarised what I think this policy document
11       would look like; does it exist?
12   MR AULADIN:  I do not think it does at this stage.  There
13       are some strands of work that I think are being
14       developed, I have not seen those, but there is, I think,
15       clearly a need for that; it is something that the
16       Authority itself, through its Professional Standards
17       Committee, is asking for, which is to look at ways of
18       dealing with more cases by way of informal resolution,
19       and for us to be able to do so, we need that protocol
20       that you have talked about.  Clearly, it is something
21       that I think further work needs to be done on.
22   MISS WEEKES:  Because, of course, we could not ourselves
23       recommend which kind of cases should -- it is really
24       a matter for the profession, is it not, to put that
25       category clearly in, but if there was a clear protocol
 
    66
 1       and policy, then at least officers and line managers
 2       would have something to work to; do you agree?
 3   MR AULADIN:  We agree, yes.
 4   MISS WEEKES:  One final question: not everything that is
 5       done by lawyers is good, but I am going to share
 6       something with you that you might think you want to
 7       consider, not necessarily adopt.
 8           Lord Woolf brought forward some rather important
 9       reforms in relation to how civil cases should be
10       resolved, and an important reform was that in every case
11       that comes to the High Court, the parties are asked to
12       go away and settle and resolve it, and to adopt
13       mediation where it is helpful.
14           That has resulted in at least 35 per cent of cases
15       not coming to court, and far less money for lawyers, and
16       less work in the High Court, because people just do not
17       lodge cases any more.
18           If, in this new protocol, you considered almost
19       statutory, but not quite, the mandatory approach, "These
20       cases must be mediated, must be resolved", would that
21       work for the Metropolitan Police Service?
22   MR AULADIN:  There are two points here; one which is about
23       case management, which is very similar to what happens
24       in the courts.  I would see a case where parties have to
25       submit their evidence to a case management court or
 
    67
 1       tribunal, if you like, to look at what the evidence is,
 2       to look at what the aspects of that case are, to look at
 3       what the complaint is all about, and to make a decision
 4       as to whether this is something that should go back to
 5       the parties in terms of resolution.
 6           If there is a very strong case for informal
 7       resolution, then directions would be given, and as you
 8       are suggesting, that case could be so resolved, but
 9       I think you are looking at a way of managing cases first
10       of all, that is how the protocol will feed into it, but
11       also the way you manage every single case; it is about
12       looking at the case from the very starting point.
13   MISS WEEKES:  And who is going to draft this protocol for us
14       to look at?
15   MR AULADIN:  Well, we are hoping the IPCC would do that.
16   MISS WEEKES:  I am very grateful.  Thank you very much for
17       your assistance.
18   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Thank you very much indeed,
19       Lord Harris, for your response, and indeed your
20       colleague.  Can I just say that we have come to the end
21       of the formal questions that we wanted to ask you, but
22       you will recall that in my opening statement, I said
23       that we would offer you the opportunity, and indeed your
24       colleagues, for a brief closing comment, should you wish
25       to make one.  If you do, then now is your time.
 
    68
 1   LORD HARRIS:  Okay.  I mean, I will be very brief, it is
 2       really just to emphasise some of the points that we have
 3       made.  Firstly, I think the Met has made gigantic
 4       strides in managing diversity in relation to the
 5       delivering of policing to the community since the
 6       Lawrence Inquiry report; there are still some large
 7       areas of concern, but in terms of community relations
 8       and the management of critical incidents, the Met has
 9       done very well and is at the leading edge, but the
10       lessons learnt there have not been applied to other
11       organisational problems.
12           It is certainly our view that the HR function in the
13       Met is undervalued and underresourced, especially at
14       borough command unit level, though it would apply to
15       other operational commands.  This lack of professional
16       support, combined with lack of training for line
17       managers in dealing with difficult HR issues, has
18       resulted in the sort of pressure cooker situation we
19       have referred to in our evidence.
20           Issues fester until they blow, because there is no
21       will or no ability to resolve them.  The Met is
22       sometimes too oriented to investigation and not oriented
23       to problem solving on difficult HR issues.
24           We recognise the need to balance the thoroughness of
25       investigation with speed of resolution, especially where
 
    69
 1       issues of corruption are involved.  We believe that the
 2       balance is not yet right.
 3           One other point which I just want to come back to is
 4       the question of the status of police officers as
 5       officers of the Crown, and I think that this Inquiry
 6       will do a great service if it just looks at what that is
 7       about, and whether that adds something in the modern
 8       world, and whether, if we could get to a position where
 9       the discipline of police officers was put on to the same
10       footing as in general employment law, with the
11       safeguards and protections of unfair dismissals and ETs,
12       but not the wrapping round it of court martial-like
13       procedures, I think that would be of great benefit.
14           We, as an Authority, will make some further
15       submissions; you have specifically asked questions
16       around the regulations and how they could be improved.
17       I think we have promised you a draft protocol for the
18       involvement of ourselves in oversight of sensitive
19       cases, and a copy of our revised protocol for complaints
20       and discipline cases for ACPO level officers to reflect
21       the new IPCC regime.
22   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Thank you very much.  We naturally look
23       forward to receiving the documentation that you have
24       just referred to.  Just one final comment --
25   MS WRIGHT:  I actually wanted to make a comment, because
 
    70
 1       I do not think that the Inquiry will be complete, in my
 2       humble opinion, unless we talk about something about
 3       race and diversity.  Although we accept that the MPS has
 4       made great strides, that does not translate into the
 5       feeling of its black staff, and I think somewhere in
 6       this report, there must be something about the
 7       perception of black and ethnic minority staff within the
 8       force, about how they are treated, and whether they are
 9       valued, and whether their contribution to policing in
10       London is valued.
11   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Can I just clarify, when you use the
12       word "staff", are you making reference to police
13       officers, as we understand the term, or are you making
14       reference to --
15   MS WRIGHT:  I am saying police officers and staff, because
16       the perception of black and ethnic minority people,
17       depending on who you talk to, is a bit skewed and
18       I think people would -- I myself, as a member of the
19       Authority, would want to see something about the
20       acceptance or the realisation that a lot of problems
21       stem from the way people feel about how they are dealt
22       with as an ethnic minority person.
23   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Does your colleague want to say
24       anything?
25   MR AULADIN:  No, thank you.
 
    71
 1   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Just before we conclude, can I just say
 2       that as with all our witnesses, it may be necessary that
 3       once we have heard from other witnesses, we might want
 4       to ask you to come back for a few more questions, or
 5       indeed we may ask you to submit further documentation
 6       that you have volunteered, documentation additional in
 7       any event, but whatever we determine, we will seek to
 8       minimise any inconvenience that it may cause to you in
 9       providing us with further information.
10           For the moment, all that remains is for me, on
11       behalf of my colleagues and myself, to thank you for
12       your written submission and indeed your oral
13       contribution this morning to the work of the Inquiry.
14       Thank you very much to you and your colleagues.
15   LORD HARRIS:  Thank you.
16   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  It is my intention to adjourn the
17       Inquiry until 2.00 pm this afternoon.  Could I ask
18       members of the public to remain seated while the witness
19       and the members leave the room, please?  Thank you very
20       much.  We stand adjourned until 2.00.
21   (12.30 pm)
22                     (The short adjournment)
23
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