1
 1   (2.30 pm)
 2   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Welcome back, everyone.  Welcome back,
 3       Mr Hogan-Howe.  We resume with the questions from
 4       Sir Anthony Burden, and we will go straight into the
 5       questioning.
 6   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  Sir William, would you mind -- Miss Weekes
 7       asked a question right at the end of this morning which
 8       I did not think I gave a full answer to, and on
 9       reflection, just by checking something, I have a bit
10       more information, which may not answer it but at least
11       I thought I would offer it, if you had time, briefly.
12   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Of course.
13   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  You made the point, which is a very fair
14       point, well, if there is a problem about female
15       representation, particular for ethnic minorities at
16       senior level, then what have you done to find out
17       something about it?
18           And I did not have a ready answer at the end of this
19       morning, but there are two things that we are doing: one
20       is that the diversity directorate are leading work with
21       seminars with senior women, and those who are junior, to
22       find out what are those blockages, so some attempt is
23       being made to discover it.
24           The second thing we are doing, certainly in terms of
25       recruitment, we have got the London Metropolitan
 
     2
 1       University, who have started some research in terms of
 2       what are the public expectations of the police service,
 3       and then from April onwards, we will be doing interviews
 4       with community and business representatives, focus
 5       groups including pupils and staff in local schools and
 6       colleges, and interviews with head teachers and careers
 7       advisors about what they believe are the blockages.
 8           So I am not saying it is a full answer, but I did
 9       not explain that those things were in train, and to be
10       fair, I could not recall them at the time of answering
11       the question, but I thought it was fair to at least
12       offer that, and we might provide more information,
13       should you want it, at a later stage.
14   MISS WEEKES:  Thank you for making that effort.
15   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Thank you very much.  Sir Anthony?
16                 Questions by SIR ANTHONY BURDEN
17   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Thank you.  Mr Hogan-Howe, can I ask
18       you just one linked question to what my colleague was
19       discussing with you this morning?  It relates, really,
20       to the relationship between your department and the
21       Employment Tribunals Unit, which is in DPS.  Because
22       this is all a personnel function, could I ask what
23       involvement you have in resolving employment tribunals
24       and what relationship you have got with that unit in
25       trying to resolve problems?
 
     3
 1   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  Neither I nor we have a direct involvement
 2       in trying to resolve the employment tribunals.  What we
 3       do do is DPS lead a committee, if you like, a group of
 4       people who meet to consider ETs alongside Fairness at
 5       Work issues, and George actually sits alongside ET --
 6       sorry, the employment tribunals department, so they
 7       physically are core located, so we have an involvement
 8       at an operational level.
 9           In terms of my personal involvement or our personal
10       involvement in resolving ETs generally, the answer would
11       be we do not get involved in resolving ETs.  The only
12       caveat we put on that is following recent events,
13       certainly one of the issues that certainly the Black
14       Police Association raised was some particular cases they
15       had got concerns about that had not been resolved.
16           My director of personnel, Martin Tiplady, who
17       I referred to earlier, has become involved in -- if you
18       forgive me, I will get the numbers wrong, it is
19       something in the order of 14 or 15 cases, he has been
20       actively trying to resolve those particular cases.
21           So in general, we do not get directly involved, but
22       in those particular cases, most recently, that seems to
23       have proved quite effective from what I hear, in terms
24       of coming to some resolution with those particular
25       cases.
 
     4
 1   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  I have a slight difficulty with that,
 2       in as much as your whole purpose is to manage people and
 3       manage people well.  The Directorate of Professional
 4       Standards is really to see issues through to
 5       a satisfactory conclusion as they see it.  The chairman
 6       did ask you this morning what the whole object is; is it
 7       resolution or is it to defend, and defend the reputation
 8       of the Metropolitan Police?
 9           But how can the Directorate of Professional
10       Standards, in a professional way, do what your
11       department does, and that is deal with these issues as
12       people issues?
13   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  I think it is a dilemma, and there are
14       points in timing in organisations where the answer to
15       the question, "Where should it sit?", can be answered
16       differently.  In my view, it possibly got to a time in
17       our organisation's history where probably it could move
18       over to HR.
19           I say that for two particular reasons.  One, in
20       terms of the director of HR that I have, Martin Tiplady,
21       in my view, he is a very good person at his job, he is
22       a very good professional, and I know from seeing the
23       evidence that he has been offered -- in fact some of the
24       support associations have found his help particularly
25       helpful, because he comes from a wider perspective than
 
     5
 1       just the police service.  He looks to try and find out
 2       whether you can resolve something, not whether you take
 3       sides.  So I think actually we have got a skill there
 4       that we can make best use of.
 5           My only concern about doing it that way would be
 6       that I would not want the Fairness at Work process
 7       affected badly by bringing the employment tribunals
 8       towards it, as opposed to the distance that they have
 9       got now, but I think that could be resolved differently.
10           So if it was to move to us, then it seems to me it
11       would probably be something that would be more common in
12       other organisations, and I would be happy with it.
13       I think we have actually got the skills now that two
14       years ago, when it was moved, we did not necessarily
15       have.  And I do not condemn the people then, but we have
16       got an expert there who I think has got good experience
17       of negotiating and resolving things to a good solution.
18   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Because you could be excused for
19       believing that because it sits in DPS, it is about
20       conflict, it is about complaints, it is not about
21       resolving my problem with the least difficulty, which is
22       more inclined towards the Fairness at Work concept than
23       the complaints corruption raison d'etre of DPS.
24   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  I think there is certainly more danger of it
25       being perceived, at least, as a legalistic approach and
 
     6
 1       a legalistic defence of the organisation, than
 2       an attempt to resolve something, and, you know, we in HR
 3       do not pretend to be perfect by any means, but probably
 4       there is a better chance of it being perceived as
 5       a positive issue for helping people if it was with us.
 6           So certainly I would be content to see it move
 7       across, I think it is as good a time as any for that to
 8       happen, but I would not condemn or say it was the wrong
 9       decision two or three years ago, for the reasons I have
10       described.
11   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  No, sure.  Perhaps Mr McAnuff would
12       like to comment on this particular aspect as well,
13       because he has been working with Fairness at Work for
14       some time now.  We have had several submissions that
15       have spoken about a need for an external element, in
16       fact you referred to it yourself, but we have had
17       several other submissions that have come in very
18       strongly on the need for an external element.
19           Some of those submissions have also commented, and
20       I would like to come back to this in a moment, about the
21       inadequacy of some middle managers to be able to deal
22       with Fairness at Work adequately.
23           Can I just ask your views, please, on some external
24       element -- I will enlarge on a possible model in
25       a moment, but the concept of external involvement?
 
     7
 1   MR McANUFF:  I would certainly support that, and I guess it
 2       depends on the definition of "external".  The approach
 3       we have taken within Fairness at Work is to actually
 4       remove the responsibility from the management chain.
 5           Mr Hogan-Howe spoke earlier on about our OCUs being
 6       fairly large, so it allows us the opportunity to appoint
 7       someone who will have had no involvement in the process,
 8       and who, in many cases, will not actually know the
 9       parties involved.
10           We also have the opportunity for actually appointing
11       someone from another sphere within the organisation.
12       I think the important point is that the process does
13       allow the originator of a concern and the person who is
14       the subject of the concern to raise any reasonable
15       objections around the person who has been appointed to
16       deal with the case, and I think for us, that is
17       an important part of how the process operates.
18   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  So to bring in somebody from outside of
19       the MPS, you would not object to that, in your
20       experience of the scheme?
21   MR McANUFF:  Not at all.  And just to add to that point, our
22       policy does explicitly state that we recognise that
23       there will be occasions where that would be appropriate,
24       so it is something that the policy does actually
25       recognise.
 
     8
 1   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  So the policy recognises that.  If
 2       I might suggest to you there are probably two elements:
 3       a last resort, which might be something like
 4       an ombudsman, who would be there to resolve conflict, to
 5       make sure that it does not go beyond a reasonable
 6       period, but it is fair to say we are also looking at
 7       an interim involvement of external people, so you do not
 8       lose that sort of golden hour opportunity to resolve
 9       something in a very informal way, and after that, people
10       just get locked in, as we heard from Miss Weekes this
11       morning, and then it becomes irresolvable, basically.
12           So that sort of golden hour intervention, if a model
13       were produced that suited the way the organisation
14       works, that would allow that sort of intervention, and
15       maybe some community intervention as well, if it were
16       right, and if it were proper, that might work?
17   MR McANUFF:  Yes, I mean, if it was right, and it was
18       proper -- it is certainly something we would not rule
19       out, and I would like to think that one of the pluses of
20       Fairness at Work is flexibility within the process, so
21       yes, we would certainly support that if it was
22       appropriate.
23   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  I think one thing we have not asked you
24       yet, as an individual, having worked with this, it has
25       been your sort of baby for a while, is: to your
 
     9
 1       knowledge, how many cases that have been dealt with
 2       under Fairness at Work to date have actually been
 3       successfully resolved within the scheme?
 4   MR McANUFF:  Can I just say, I think it depends on the
 5       definition of "successfully resolved".  I have made the
 6       point within my submission that what Fairness at Work
 7       should achieve is a fair and correct outcome.  That
 8       outcome will not always be the resolution the originator
 9       is seeking, so I think that is an important point to
10       make.
11           Having made that point, the majority of the cases
12       thus far have actually been resolved to the satisfaction
13       of the originator.  I cannot recall the percentage off
14       the top of my head, but it is very high.
15   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Okay.  Can I just finally with you, if
16       I may: if we were to go from here to a police station,
17       not too far away, this afternoon, and get a handful of
18       police staff and police officers, and ask them whether
19       they know about the Fairness at Work policy and do they
20       understand it, what do you think the answer would be?
21   MR McANUFF:  I think the answer would be they would be aware
22       of Fairness at Work; whether or not they fully
23       understand its intentions, I cannot honestly answer, but
24       what I would say, in an organisation such as ours,
25       I think we have to acknowledge that there are occasions
 
    10
 1       where some of our staff will not always access
 2       information that is in fact readily available to them.
 3       But I think the large majority -- I would hope that all
 4       of them would certainly be aware of the fact that
 5       Fairness at Work has replaced our old process.
 6       I recognise they might not know the significant details
 7       within the process.
 8   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  And if we were to move on to a group of
 9       middle managers, sergeants and inspectors, and ask them
10       whether they had been trained and whether they had the
11       confidence to use the Fairness at Work policy, what do 
12       you think the response would be then?
13   MR McANUFF:  I would certainly expect managers to have
14       received some form of training.  I would also expect the
15       large majority of managers to feel confident enough to
16       actually deal with issues which I would suggest are
17       actually part of their role in any event.  I would hope
18       that would be the case.
19   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  What, in your opinion, then, is causing
20       so many of these managers to move straight into
21       a confrontational mode?  It would appear, from the
22       people who have the grievance; it becomes very formal,
23       very official, and sometimes not too conciliatory in the
24       way it is being handled.
25   MR McANUFF:  I am not sure my experiences under Fairness at
 
    11
 1       Work would fully support that.  My experience of the new
 2       process would actually indicate that, in many instances,
 3       the decisions that have been made by first line managers
 4       have actually been vindicated under Fairness at Work,
 5       but clearly, there has been a cause of concern for the
 6       originator.
 7           If I can talk about the learning that has derived
 8       from that, in many instances, it has actually been about
 9       poor communication, so the scenario may well be that
10       a manager has made a perfectly valid and fair
11       decision -- there may be some issues around how that was
12       communicated to the originator, and that is why,
13       ultimately, Fairness at Work was initiated.
14   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Yes, thank you.  That is very helpful.
15       Could I come back then to more general things, and that
16       really is something which interests us greatly, and that
17       is about policy implementation.
18           I know this was touched on this morning, but
19       I really do want to bottom this on behalf of the panel,
20       if I may, because, from a very graphic description by
21       the Police Authority about the organisation being policy
22       rich and implementation poor, it has been a comment in
23       quite a few submissions that policies are often well
24       written, but it is about the implementation, and it is
25       about the communication of the policies where the
 
    12
 1       organisation does seem to let itself down.
 2           Could I just use -- because my colleague Miss Weekes
 3       has dealt so adequately with Fairness at Work, but can
 4       I just use it as an example, if I may, just as a case
 5       study?
 6           The policy on Fairness at Work was written in draft
 7       form, consulted and then formally circulated.  Could
 8       I just ask, please: in terms of the way it was
 9       communicated, and the way in which knowledge of policies
10       is communicated, what main methods do you rely upon to
11       get that message out to the staff at local police
12       stations?
13   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  I think in this particular instance, if you
14       use that as a case study, I think there are probably
15       three or four mechanisms.  I think the first one is the
16       written word, so clearly it is written down and there
17       are notices distributed, and also on the intranet, which
18       is quite a good intranet in terms of the MPS, then
19       obviously people have got an opportunity to consult
20       there.  We get it out at that level.
21           The second major issue to point out -- or
22       opportunity is that I think -- George may help with the
23       numbers, but I think it was over 400 people who were
24       trained as Fairness at Work advisors, and then another
25       70 people who were trained as appeal -- people who
 
    13
 1       would, you know, be Fairness at Work appeal advisors.
 2       So there were about 500 people around the organisation
 3       who actually got the work to take out.
 4           The personnel managers who, as I mentioned, we meet 
 5       together once a month, they had the policy explained to
 6       them, and people came and gave them an explanation of
 7       that, and each of the OCU commanders, that is the
 8       Chief Superintendents or the head of a police staff
 9       unit, meets together with the Commissioner, I think it
10       is about every six weeks, in fact there is one this
11       afternoon as we speak, so that means 100 leaders of the
12       different bits of the organisation together with him.
13       So we can take the opportunity to push the message out
14       there.
15           Now if the feedback at this tribunal is in fact more
16       could have been done on this occasion, then perhaps we
17       do need to do more, but I would say that is fairly
18       representative of how we try to do the majority.  In
19       some respects, because we had about 500 people who had
20       been trained and went out hopefully as good ambassadors
21       and advocates of this system, we are probably in
22       a better position than frankly, some of the policies we
23       have to put out without doing that.
24           So I would have thought they are the major means,
25       and I would not lose sight of, even though it is
 
    14
 1       informal, it is really powerful, the unions, the
 2       Federation, the Superintendents Association, when they
 3       have been consulted at policy level, are pretty good at
 4       getting out to their representatives what this new
 5       policy means, because the first point of contact quite
 6       often is for the individual, if they are not sure how to
 7       deal with management, is to refer to a representative.
 8           So we found it pretty useful in the past to make 
 9       sure they are aware, and the Federation, as I say, are
10       a big part; unions are another.  And they have been
11       pretty well informed about how that system works, to the
12       point where, as we have said earlier, sometimes the 
13       challenge is about whether they agree with it.
14           So I think they are the major routes in this case,
15       and you could argue, sir, because of the advocates, that
16       is probably in a better position than many of the
17       policies, but it is a real challenge; if you really want
18       to turn round and change an organisation with so many
19       people and so many units, how much of that can do and
20       how often.  We do have to prioritise, and that is not
21       always an easy judgment to make.
22   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  But can I ask how you monitor then the
23       outcome -- you spoke about outcomes and performance this
24       morning, but the outcome of how successful the Fairness
25       at Work policy is being out there, and how -- you know,
 
    15
 1       how you are doing that.
 2   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  I think there are two ways: one, I mentioned
 3       the HR evaluation team and the COMSTAT process, and we
 4       went quickly through it, but it is, you know, they would
 5       go and look at files, they would go and see whether or
 6       not things appear to follow the process, so it is not
 7       just a tick in a box, and it is not just to get 53 or
 8       54, it is trying to look at the quality of what that
 9       intervention was.
10           And the second person is clearly obviously George's
11       role, because he has actually -- I mean, I think there
12       were around 159 in the first year of operation, which is
13       one every other day, which is a lot, but allows him at
14       least to have a view of all those cases, and allows us
15       to keep -- at least on those that are recorded.
16           Now it is a bit more difficult where people have not
17       registered them, I accept that, but it does help us to
18       see: one, were the advisors used, if they did, how did
19       it work, how many times were certain advisors appealed
20       against?
21           George could possibly offer a view as to how he
22       feels that bit is working, but I think, again, probably
23       Fairness at Work is probably better represented, because
24       this is a manager and a very small group of people who
25       are dedicated to trying to get that right, and at least
 
    16
 1       one to one with some managers who, frankly, at times,
 2       even when you have explained it, struggle to see how
 3       that applies to certain circumstances.
 4           So those would be the major ways.  It may be it
 5       needs more, but those are probably the major ones where
 6       we have tried to make sure it works as well as we had
 7       hoped it would.
 8   MR McANUFF:  Can I just add, just with regards to marketing
 9       around Fairness at Work, when it was first introduced,
10       what we also had was a briefing at New Scotland Yard
11       which was available to all members of staff across the
12       organisation; we made use of our internal newspaper.  As
13       Mr Hogan-Howe has quite rightly said, we made
14       considerable use of the intranet.
15           Part of my role was to actually use local HR
16       managers as a conduit in terms of ensuring that there
17       was some marketing around the policy locally.
18       I actually know some OCUs who actually ensured that
19       there was specific training in relation to Fairness at
20       Work provided to each member of staff.  I recognise that
21       that was not the case across all OCUs, but it was
22       certainly the case amongst some.
23           Whilst the process was being developed, there was
24       involvement from HR managers on a monthly basis, as part
25       of our local HR managers' process.
 
    17
 1   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Thank you.  I suppose, the key really
 2       is making sure that every middle manager has
 3       an acceptable minimum knowledge and standard of dealing
 4       with these issues.
 5           Does that appear anywhere in relation to the annual
 6       appraisal system that you have recently implemented --
 7       a national system, I know, but is there anything that
 8       requires middle managers to get ticks against core
 9       requirements to do their job well?
10   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  That particular role is not explicit within
11       it.  We would expect, I think, for the reasons George
12       said earlier, that a good manager and a good supervisor
13       would have informed themselves about policy, and, where
14       they have got questions, to challenge and come to us and
15       ask for explanation.
16           But I could not say to you honestly that there is
17       an explicit part where you would tick that box, and I am
18       not saying that is necessarily a good or a bad thing,
19       except that one of the challenges we have had, I am sure
20       you may understand, is that from time to time, there are
21       so many priorities, if we were to put too many ticks in
22       that box, it could be a long list, and this last year,
23       health and safety would have been a major one; Fairness
24       at Work could have been; the promotion process -- you
25       know, there are a lot.
 
    18
 1           That is just dealing internally, let alone things
 2       that we have to do to make sure we deliver the service
 3       on the ground, so I would not reject it as an idea, but
 4       the difficulty may be just how many of those issues we
 5       were to list, but it is not there at the moment.
 6   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  But it would not be a bad thing, would
 7       it -- I mean, people are a very important part of this
 8       organisation -- to expect a middle manager to have dealt
 9       successfully with a Fairness at Work case which would
10       give them the confidence to actually deal with future
11       situations, and maybe for a supervisor just to oversee
12       that, that is more or as much about the training and
13       management of those middle managers as it is about their
14       ability to do it, I suppose.
15   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  Yes, I mean, it certainly is something that
16       if it was felt -- and it may be that this Inquiry
17       decides that, is it is something that really there is
18       not enough understanding of at middle management level,
19       then that is one of the mechanisms we could use, and
20       there is no doubt writing it down and asking people,
21       "Did you do it?", is a very good mechanism, and I am
22       only just flagging up, there could be others that would
23       go on that list, but that is not to stop -- to say this
24       was the only one on the list.  So yes, it is certainly
25       an option, but it is not there now.
 
    19
 1   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  No.  Can I just clarify one thing?
 2       That relates to personnel experts on boroughs.  It is
 3       the comments by the HMI, when he last visited, about
 4       personnel experts on boroughs, at 4.3.  In fact, he was
 5       carrying forward an issue that actually had featured in
 6       the previous HMI inspection in 2000, and you were
 7       piloting personnel experts on boroughs to support
 8       borough commanders.  I think the HMI is commenting there
 9       that this seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of
10       time to actually get the policy through, and experts out
11       on boroughs.  Is that now happening?
12   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  I think there has been some confusion about
13       this as I have read through the transcript.  Can I just
14       explain what I think has happened here?  As I arrived
15       two and a half years ago, there had been an attempt --
16       just a bit of context first.
17           I have mentioned the huge growth we have had during
18       the last three years in the Met.  But in the two to
19       three previous years to that, the Met had been leaking
20       people.  It had leaked them in two respects: one, we
21       could not get enough police officers, so we were 1,000
22       short, and we had also lost some of our best police
23       staff, and the reason for that, in my view -- because
24       these were the things that were put in place
25       afterwards -- was we were not paying them enough and our
 
    20
 1       terms and conditions were not satisfactory, and in what
 2       is a competitive market in London, we were losing
 3       people.
 4           So one of the things that was put in place was to
 5       try and identify better personnel managers to try and
 6       attract people from the outside.  That had been put in
 7       place probably 18 months -- probably in 2000, is my
 8       understanding, and five sites had been selected for
 9       that.
10           Unfortunately, during that time, the terms and
11       conditions got no better, and our stars left, so
12       although those pilots in principle were still there, the
13       stars that had been selected to fill the five pilot
14       posts had moved on, and by the time I arrived, it was
15       not clear whether the pilot was still happening.
16           We looked to see whether or not we could find more
17       money to actually do something about this, and at the
18       time, that was not possible.  So that is what I think
19       happened, and that is what that point of referral is to,
20       and I do not think that pilot ever really got kicked off
21       the ground.
22           What has happened more recently is that first of
23       all, we had -- and I have seen it referred to, I think,
24       in the unions' response, is we had our Hay pay review
25       for police staff.  It was imperfect in some ways, but,
 
    21
 1       having not been as experienced in pay reviews as I am
 2       now, I have to say that I am not sure anybody can easily
 3       deal with these things without causing some angst, and
 4       there was certainly some angst around that.
 5           But what it managed to do was to get our average
 6       level of pay, if you like -- the public sector median in
 7       London was about here, and we were down here, and what
 8       Hay did was it got it up here, so while we are not the
 9       best payers, we have certainly got to be competitive in
10       the London market.
11           That managed to get us, I think, to a level of
12       keeping some of the stars that we still had and
13       attracting some good people in.  I am not trying to
14       avoid your question, because I think I am giving the
15       best answer I can --
16   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  I will not allow you to, it is all
17       right.
18   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  Well, the first point, which I think was my
19       honest answer, what I think happened in terms of this
20       pilot, but I wanted to do was I did not think was I did
21       not think Hay was good enough really; it was good enough
22       for average, if all we wanted to cope with was average.
23           So what I have kicked off -- together with the
24       Police Authority, we have got now developed in very late
25       draft form what I call the medium-term pay strategy, and
 
    22
 1       my attempt is to get what you might say is the critical
 2       pulse, of which we might argue Purcell (?) are one, but
 3       there are others, I would aim for us to at least get to
 4       the upper quartile of the public sector within London,
 5       and that is something we will do something about this
 6       year.
 7           So I am not trying to avoid your answer, I am trying
 8       to give you a full answer.  I think that pilot never
 9       really got the chance to work.  We have some good
10       personnel managers now who are CIPD trained.  It may
11       well be we could invest more, and some of them have got
12       some pretty taxing jobs, but if you went outside in
13       industry, some people would say, if we were employing
14       this number of people, we would not have a personnel
15       manager.
16           In fact, I do not know if you have had the chance to
17       look at the HR review that was carried out in 2000: the
18       challenge was we actually employed too many personnel
19       people compared to the number of staff we had got, so we
20       had to deploy our resources better.
21           So I think that is where we are, in terms of
22       personnel managers.  George has just pointed out that in
23       fact what we are doing at the moment is we have just
24       selected 14 business managers for 14 of the boroughs,
25       and the idea there is to draw finance and personnel
 
    23
 1       together to one sort of chief executive, if you like,
 2       within a borough or within an OCU, to try to pull
 3       together those two links, personnel and money, to make
 4       sure we have got the right level of performance.
 5           So we are not sure about the pilot, some work
 6       happened in terms of pay, now looking to the future
 7       about public sector upper quartile, and one aspect of
 8       that is getting these business managers in, but there
 9       have got to be more to come.
10           But there are some good people there, but I think,
11       over time, we lost some of our best and we were not in
12       a position to attract the best.
13   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Particularly in relation to the
14       30 borough commanders, basically they are still
15       struggling on, in personnel terms, without any expertise
16       alongside them.
17   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  I do not think that is fair.  I think in the
18       32 boroughs, each have got a personnel manager, and
19       there are some excellent people, they are CIPD trained,
20       which to be fair, I am not, but they are, and I think
21       they are good personnel professionals.  We can always
22       get better.
23           And those personnel managers are supported by two,
24       three, in some cases five, workers.  I think, again,
25       just to provide a bit of context, as I arrived, we had
 
    24
 1       an IT system that had no one single database for the
 2       43,000 people, so what you had was 100 separate computer
 3       systems on someone's desk, not linked, with all the 
 4       confusion that produces.
 5           This last six months, we have actually implemented
 6       a -- what it is called MET-HR, but is an HR database.
 7       But if you bear in mind, those people who were
 8       supporting the personnel manager were doing very
 9       tactical -- well, lists, put simply, making sure things
10       were getting done, not really doing what I think we
11       might all agree might be more professional personnel
12       work.
13           So I think what is a real opportunity with the
14       database in place, good quality data that we can rely
15       on, and in the past we have not always been able to, to
16       take away some of those routine tasks, that now you can
17       press a button, and previously you had to produce
18       a list, is an opportunity to feed some of the money that
19       we have attributed to the fairly basic tasks towards the
20       personnel manager role.
21           But I could not agree that we have not got that
22       support; it could be improved, I am sure, but we have
23       got some excellent people there who really support some
24       of our people --
25   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  At borough level?
 
    25
 1   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  Yes, certainly.  In fact, just one piece of
 2       evidence to show that -- you know, to support what I am
 3       saying.  We have taken some of those people to work in
 4       the centre, because we have been so impressed by them.
 5       Some we have recruited at the centre from outside.
 6           Martin was mentioned as a best example -- well,
 7       certainly a senior example, but there are some other
 8       good people recruited from outside, but we have taken
 9       some of the quality people as well from the boroughs, so
10       they are there, they have got the talent, but probably
11       there could be more of them.
12   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Are police managers referring to these
13       personnel managers and staff, in terms of seeking
14       advice, if they get a Fairness at Work issue that they
15       do not feel confident to deal with?  It just seems to me
16       that we are dealing with individual submissions that
17       would indicate to the contrary, I must say.
18   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  I think first of all, all the personnel
19       managers are involved in the senior management team on
20       each of the OCUs, so they are actually sat at the table,
21       and they are able to take part.
22           I suppose it will be variable how much some have
23       clout in terms of their professional ability, how much
24       interpersonal skills they have got in making sure the
25       personnel perspective is appreciated and taken into
 
    26
 1       consideration.
 2           But my experience is that, generally, they are
 3       involved, they do have the opportunity to influence;
 4       I suppose the difficulty at times is sometimes you can
 5       get a strong leader of a particular business unit or
 6       a borough, and they may not be heard as well as in other
 7       places, and sometimes there are other priorities that
 8       people pray in aid, just in terms of getting the job
 9       done.
10           But broadly they are sat at the table, they are
11       people of ability, it is always possible they could be
12       allowed to speak more loudly and the culture should
13       allow them to say more, but broadly, they do seem to be
14       involved.
15   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Would you expect those individuals at
16       the table each morning to be aware that, for example,
17       there were three Fairness at Work issues raised
18       yesterday that need to be resolved, and that process
19       needs to be monitored through, as I am the personnel
20       expert on this OCU, and it is my responsibility to the
21       borough commander to make sure that that is a tight
22       process; you would accept that should be part of their
23       role?
24   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  Yes, that -- certainly my experience has
25       been there is good evidence that is happening.  Clearly,
 
    27
 1       you may be finding evidence it is not happening
 2       everywhere, but clearly it is happening.  As
 3       a management board, the Commissioner takes a full
 4       management board round -- every time we have a formal
 5       management board, we go round the organisation.
 6       I cannot remember where exactly the next one -- I think
 7       it might be the crime academy at Hendon, and the last
 8       one was at a borough.
 9           We split after we have had the formal meeting, and
10       then I meet with the personnel manager and say, are
11       there any problems we are causing them, or is there
12       anything that they need us to look at?
13           Certainly when I have been talking to them about,
14       "What are your present problems?", some of the Fairness
15       at Work issues do come up, where they are trying to
16       resolve one; sometimes they are chronically difficult to
17       resolve.  Sometimes, you know, even with a perfect
18       process, people are -- it is very difficult to agree on
19       a way forward, and they often share it as trying to get
20       some way forward, really.
21           So certainly I get the impression they are engaged,
22       and I have talked to borough commanders, and
23       occasionally I will ring them about -- you know, one of
24       the ones that crop up are the ones on the live forum.
25       You get ones where somebody says, I have tried to get
 
    28
 1       a manager to resolve this, probably a part-time work
 2       issue; and you ring them, or one of my staff does, and
 3       you do get a sense they know about it, although they may
 4       have not resolved it.
 5           So I do get a sense of engagement; they are not not
 6       caring about people, they are not dismissing it as
 7       a minor detail.  Whether or not it is working every time
 8       I would not argue for, but certainly my experience, as
 9       I have gone round the organisation, is people are
10       getting involved and realise it is part of their job, it
11       is not just about catching burglars, it is about looking
12       after the people.
13   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Well, you mentioned part-time working,
14       that brings me on to a comment which the unions have
15       raised with us.  That is about the culture which they
16       say still exists in the MPS.  They say:
17           "Although work/life balance policies, quite rightly,
18       are in place, there is a macho culture which expects
19       staff to show their commitment by working the hours
20       necessary to complete the job.  In operational areas,
21       shift workers are expected to start and end work at the
22       same time, and people who ask for part-time working,
23       flexible working patterns or time off for family reasons
24       are considered to lack commitment to the organisation.
25       These attitudes affect men as well as women but have
 
    29
 1       a greater impact upon women because of their role as
 2       primary carers."
 3           What do you think can be done to improve such
 4       a situation?  Because it really gets to the core, it
 5       seems to me, of the culture that we are dealing with.
 6   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  Just to provide a little context on that,
 7       and then come back to that point, I have indicated the
 8       growth, and I do not use that as an excuse or defence,
 9       I just observe that that has been happening in the last
10       three years in the Met.
11           The other thing that has been happening is that
12       since 2001, the events in New York have impacted
13       directly on London, and there has been a huge amount of
14       work, together with street crime, that we have been
15       pushed to try and resolve, which has meant there are
16       parts of this organisation that have creeped in two
17       ways, I would suggest.
18           One is creep, just because of the pure volume of
19       work that we have been expected to do, and the second is
20       there has been creep because of the growth that has been
21       fed in at a rate which is ever so hard to cope with.
22           Therefore, where things have not worked perfectly,
23       I sometimes do understand, so I think I will just put
24       that context in, because from what I can pick up, from
25       the Met's history, it has never grown at the rate it has
 
    30
 1       for the last three years.  It may have been
 2       operationally challenged, for example, in terms of Irish
 3       terrorism in the past, in the past, but not in quite the
 4       same way that we have found over these last few years.
 5           I do not think anybody in this organisation's
 6       history have felt it at that pace.  So whether or not
 7       that is fed out in some of these issues, I do not know.
 8           In terms of what I can do better, one is that
 9       I think what we can allow is that the unions and the
10       Federation are good people -- I mean, I have used the
11       term "red card" before, but they are a great opportunity
12       to turn round to managers, or to us at the centre and
13       say, "This is a case which ought to be resolvable, and
14       flexible working is possible".
15           Certainly the Fairness at Work co-ordinators have,
16       you know, intervened directly, we have managed to get
17       some good resolution.  I know Esme, in her statement, in
18       terms of the employment tribunals, has said how she has
19       intervened in some cases directly, and that seems to
20       work.  I think the unions can play a part in that.
21           We actually had -- I am not going to say the live
22       forum is the answer to everything, but we had one
23       dedicated to flexible working.  We asked for people to
24       come forward with, "Where are you having problems?
25       Where would you like us to help?"  On both occasions, we
 
    31
 1       have tried it, we have not actually got an awful lot of
 2       feedback.  I do not know what that means, I do not know
 3       if they do not trust the forum, or that they do not
 4       trust that we are going to intervene in a way that
 5       manages their needs.  So those are probably the major
 6       things.
 7   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Can I just come back there?  Going back
 8       on my time in the police service -- this is a culture
 9       that goes back about 26 years -- the sort of first
10       person to go home, you know, let the organisation down.
11           In terms of family friendly policies, part-time
12       working in particular, these are workers' rights in law.
13       If the culture is preventing people from coming forward
14       and even asking for the right to work part-time, then
15       that is going to impact negatively on staff relations,
16       it seems to me, and also on the degree of commitment and
17       loyalty that people are going to give to the
18       organisation, so there is an immediate knockback in
19       organisational terms, but it does seem to be
20       a suggestion that you have middle managers out there who
21       people feel are unapproachable on these issues, so the
22       policies that you have got in place, you know, people
23       just are not enacting those policies.
24   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  There is a danger of it.  I mean, there is
25       some evidence -- as you said, on the police side,
 
    32
 1       probably flexible working policies have not been there
 2       for as long as they have been for employees, and they
 3       came along more lately, but I think, in terms of police
 4       officers, we have got about 1,000 officers who are
 5       working part-time at the moment.  In terms of police
 6       staff, we have got far more numbers who are already
 7       working flexible working.
 8           The only thing I was trying to get over, in terms of
 9       the context of the demand, I do not think any of us
10       could underestimate -- I mean, the police service has
11       its failings, and you may be about to discover some that
12       we could do far better, but one of the things it is
13       dedicated to doing is making sure it does its best to
14       deliver.
15           Now that can manifest itself in making unreasonable
16       demands on the people who work for us, and there is
17       a possibility, in the period of demand we have got at
18       the moment, and the demands made from us by others,
19       because what we do know is that if we put forward, "We
20       need our staff to go home", if we put forward, "We need
21       our staff to have more flexible working", it is not
22       a readily accepted argument by those who expect us to
23       achieve the target on robbery, or expect us to achieve
24       the target on other things.
25           I do not say that in an offensive way, but there has
 
    33
 1       been a great pressure, quite properly, for us to
 2       deliver, so we are delivering, but that can manifest
 3       itself at the most junior ranks in the organisation as
 4       being unreasonable pressures.
 5           So I hope we have got some mechanisms in place to
 6       help.  I think the unions, the Federation are strong and
 7       are able to make their case for their members, but
 8       I could not honestly say that the pressure we are under
 9       broadly does not manifest itself at times in middle
10       managers, the point we made earlier, feeling they do not
11       know which way to turn.
12           They are expected to deliver, and they are expected,
13       for their staff, to get their rights, and that can be
14       a pretty hard place to be.  Easy for me to make the
15       policy; hard for them to implement.  If you have got
16       a unit of four people, and one person wants to do
17       something slightly different, that is a quarter of your
18       staff you may consider you have lost, or not in the same
19       way, and it may take time to resolve.
20           I understand why it happens, and I am not defending
21       it, but we have got a mechanism in place to try and get
22       people coming through, to get those flexible working
23       policies.  There is some evidence of success; we may
24       need to do more.
25   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  But for those middle managers, it just
 
    34
 1       will not sort of move into this new modern era of
 2       management; life is going to continue to get
 3       increasingly difficult, is it not, and uncomfortable,
 4       because quite simply, these are workers' rights?
 5           If you just keep stacking up the employment
 6       tribunals, showing the Metropolitan Police cannot get it
 7       right, then nobody wins, basically, it seems to me.
 8   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  I think there are two things.  I think one
 9       thing is that what we are pushing, and have done for the
10       last couple of years, is to get more devolution of
11       management.  What that means is that people have to take
12       responsibility for managing the resources both in money
13       and people; mainly people, but money obviously is a very
14       important thing.  And that therefore we are expecting
15       them -- we can have the policies, but we have to, at
16       some point, release them to actually manage that
17       situation.
18           Now the dilemma is: at what point of the balance do
19       you allow them to make mistakes?  At what point do you
20       allow them to deliver?  In an organisation this size,
21       which is charged at the centre with making sure we
22       deliver, releasing that control is a risky business.
23           It may be that, at times, that release is not there,
24       you find in certain people, and it certainly manifests
25       itself in certain ways when we do take that risk and
 
    35
 1       release too much.  Getting that balance right has proved
 2       particularly problematic for the Met, and I think, over
 3       the last two years, we have shown that we have made
 4       progress there.
 5           And the other thing I would challenge is whether or
 6       not all the employment tribunal cases are always to do
 7       with flexibility in terms of deployment.
 8   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  No, sure.
 9   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  I think there are some cases in there,
10       numerically small, given the size of the workforce, no
11       less valuable or no less worthy for consideration, but
12       if I was to give my view, my gut reaction, professional
13       view of whether or not that is where the majority of the
14       problems lay, I would think less so, and if it was to be
15       a problem, and more so on the police side, I think
16       police managers and police officers have been less
17       imaginative when it comes to deploying resources perhaps
18       than it has on the police staff side, but the unions may
19       have a different view.
20   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  But I mean, the position is -- and
21       I will make this point and then move on, but even if,
22       heaven forbid, the Metropolitan Police found itself
23       dealing with the extreme of policing demands, around
24       terrorism, and you may be there, but the fact is, you
25       cannot push aside as a consequence a whole raft of
 
    36
 1       people management legislation that actually deals with
 2       that.
 3           Are we not sort of left with that agreement; that
 4       the law on employment has to be complied with?
 5   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  Yes, it has to be that we have to comply
 6       with the law.  Just to give an example of the dilemmas
 7       that that poses, if you looked at post September 2001 in
 8       London, we actually moved something of the order --
 9       I think it was nearly 3,000 police officers into the
10       centre of London.  There was no easy way to do that
11       without explaining to people very quickly that they had
12       to move.
13           That has happened since about street crime: we moved
14       hundreds of officers out of traffic and moved them to
15       work on street crime.  Now the great joy of that is
16       flexibility, from outside the organisation's
17       perspective, unless you are the individual who is having
18       the flexibility demanded of them.
19           So the great joy is that we are able to be flexible,
20       but I have to agree with you, because it is what the law
21       says, we must give people their rights.  It is pretty
22       difficult at times for middle managers.
23   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  The alternative is those 1,000 people
24       you employ on part-time working resign, and all the good
25       you have done in recruitment terms disappears out
 
    37
 1       through the door because they say, "It is no good being
 2       employed by the Metropolitan Police because part-time
 3       working and policing does not mix", and that would be
 4       a disaster, I guess.
 5   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  I agree.  As I said, I think in terms of
 6       overall problems, the flexibility -- I do not know
 7       whether it is the main one, but certainly our turnover
 8       generally is relatively low.  I mean, we are high in
 9       terms of the police service generally, but there are
10       some structural reasons why that happens.  We are still
11       only about 5 per cent of the 30,000 we have, we are
12       talking about 1,400 people left us this year,
13       resignations, retirements and transfer.  So 5 per cent
14       in any organisation is low; in terms of our police
15       staff, who are the people who live in London, it is
16       something in the order of 8 to 9 per cent.
17           Now if you had Martin here, he would tell you there
18       is a healthy level of turnover in any organisation to
19       get new people in and encourage to get new ideas, so
20       I do not think we have got a huge amount of evidence
21       that we are necessarily a bad employer, but certainly
22       obviously it is always a challenge; if we get that
23       wrong, we have the position, say three or four years
24       ago, where we were leaking people.
25   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Can I move on to the recent review of
 
    38
 1       diversity taken by Mr Tarique Ghaffur, and just ask you
 2       what you feel of his recommendations are the main issues
 3       for you as a directorate?
 4   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  I think there were quite a few
 5       recommendations.  I would isolate them in particular to
 6       ones about, you know, in particular, HR and recruiting.
 7       I thought there were two things.  I thought it was
 8       a good wake-up call, in terms of how we check the
 9       quality of the people that we actually get hold of.
10           Obviously Tarique's work was following on, in
11       particular, from the Secret Policeman programme that was
12       so shocking, and that happened somewhere else, but we
13       were not confident, you know, if they looked at us, how
14       would we have responded?  And we thought there were two
15       things: one, we had to make sure the quality of people
16       coming in, and the second thing is we had to be
17       reassured that if someone got in who we do not want,
18       a racist or anybody else who displayed bad behaviour,
19       are people confident to come forward and let us know
20       that we have got them, either externally or internally?
21           So that is where we focused our attention in
22       particular as a result of Tarique's work, and I thought
23       we picked up some really good pointers on that, and that
24       was really helpful.
25           I thought the second thing is, and it may be
 
    39
 1       something that we are to discuss, which is about --
 2       given the level of recruitment and the numbers going
 3       through Hendon have been pretty phenomenal, are we
 4       looking after people well enough while they are there,
 5       and are we losing too many in that process?
 6           We have had to look again about how we support
 7       people there, about whether Hendon is the best way to
 8       deliver probational training, and the types of support
 9       that we have in place to make sure we deal with people
10       properly, so I thought for me, those were the two big
11       areas, but clearly obviously it was a bit more wide
12       ranging than just those two.
13   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  That leads me on nicely to Hendon, and
14       perhaps bring in Mr Hussain here on one or two issues.
15       Can I just firstly look at those wastage figures, if
16       I may, the reference that we have here?  Paragraph 4.36.
17       That refers basically to concerns expressed by the HMI
18       in his recent inspection of the Metropolitan Police at
19       4.36 there, where it says wastage rates at Hendon are
20       currently running at nearly 12 per cent, but for visible
21       ethnic minority staff, running at 13 per cent.
22           Could I just ask you and perhaps Mr Hussain what
23       your understanding of those statistics are, particularly
24       the disproportionately high statistic, I would suggest,
25       in relation to visible ethnic minority recruits?
 
    40
 1   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  Certainly, possibly, if I could start, first
 2       of all, it is a relatively high figure; the reverse of
 3       that, of course, is that nearly 90 per cent of the
 4       people who are attending Hendon are getting through, but
 5       this is a relatively high figure.
 6           The only thing I would ask is that when we compare,
 7       as you may want to do, with the rest of the country,
 8       that we compare like with like.  I say that because it
 9       was a surprise when I came to the Met, I always thought
10       that in fact Centrex trained for the entire country,
11       only to find that the Met trains its own and then
12       Centrex trains for the other 42 forces.
13           One of the things that -- because when I arrived,
14       I think the overall wastage rate was something in the
15       order of 7 per cent, 7 to 9, and I thought that was
16       relatively high, and the answer I got was that first of
17       all, in terms of Hendon -- and we do two things: we both
18       train our people and we are their managers.  So we tend
19       to make the decision about whether or not we intend to
20       employ them, whereas Centrex have one decision, which is
21       whether or not they actually think they can get through
22       the training.  The second decision is about whether the
23       force wants to employ them when they return to the
24       force.
25           The comparable figure for Centrex, for their
 
    41
 1       probation training, is something in the order of
 2       2 per cent, so people at the training school, it is
 3       2 per cent.  By the time they have concluded their
 4       two years probation, the average in the country is
 5       something in the order of 6 per cent have left as well,
 6       so something getting up to 8 to 9 per cent at the end of
 7       the two years has left.
 8           Our comparable figure by then is about -- I think if
 9       you take our present rates, it is about 9 per cent
10       wastage, but we then lose a further 4 per cent during
11       the two years.  So we have a high wastage rate at
12       Hendon, and a slightly lower rate when it comes out on
13       to actually doing the full two years.  So they are
14       slightly different tests.
15           But in terms of that wastage rate, it is higher than
16       we have had in the past, and it is disproportionately
17       high, so far as minority groups are represented.  We did 
18       do some research, and Shabir did some good work, we
19       actually got some independent people in as well to see
20       what that meant, and whether we treated people properly.
21           There was some evidence that we had actually changed
22       the acceptance grade for a certain candidate -- well,
23       for certain candidates, and that seemed to have been
24       intended as a helpful gesture, to try and get people in
25       who there might be some doubt about but we could support
 
    42
 1       during Hendon, and, frankly, it had not worked out as
 2       well as we had all hoped; I would not say that is all
 3       the answer for it, but certainly that wastage rate is
 4       relatively high.  We have got it down to about
 5       9 per cent now, and we would intend to keep it getting
 6       lower.
 7   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Mr Hussain, do you have any comments to
 8       add on the general figures?
 9   MR HUSSAIN:  I have.  We have been running larger class
10       sizes than Centrex.  It is the same debate in the
11       educational segment, when you have larger class sizes,
12       the tutor cannot give the same degree of intervention to
13       those people who need it most.
14           So Centrex, for example, have been running roughly
15       about 16 members of -- recruits to one tutor for the
16       last few years, that has now risen to about 18.  We have
17       been running at the high 20s; we recently got it down to
18       18, it is now creeping up to 21.
19           So if you couple a lowering of the recruit standard
20       with high class sizes, it is hardly surprising that
21       people do drop out.
22           Secondly, whilst the organisation has increased my
23       asset base for recruiting people, we have fished the
24       North London pond dry, and North London has the lowest
25       ratio of police officers compared to establishments, so
 
    43
 1       the organisation is trying to move people, sometimes
 2       against their will, from South London to North London,
 3       and the operational base will say I should not recruit
 4       any more people from the North London base, because all
 5       I am doing is making it much worse.
 6           So if the emphasis is on operational frontline
 7       policing, which is what the public would like, then it
 8       is hardly surprising that I am running slightly less.
 9       So to reverse it, we tried to open a South London base,
10       a mirror image of Hendon.  The finance was not there, so
11       what we have done is utilise our existing estate, so we
12       have opened -- rather than having a South London
13       training school with X number of classrooms, we have
14       opened just one classroom in Sunbury, where we do have
15       a training establishment.  The next plan is we are going
16       to open one in Orpington, which is south-east London in
17       May, and then to go round all points round the compass, 
18       so attracting staff from different parts of London,
19       other than North London, to get the class ratios down.
20           And if I use some other benchmarks, New South Wales,
21       in a way, is not too dissimilar, it has the same common
22       law heritage.  They have a wastage rate turnover of
23       about 20 per cent, and they have a higher academic
24       criteria than mine, within the Met standard, and so
25       I can find lots of benchmarks, some which put Hendon in
 
    44
 1       a worse light, some which put Hendon in a better light.
 2           The fire service, for example, across the nation is
 3       round about 10 per cent.  NFE college in London, 15 per
 4       cent for the academic element.  So I cannot find a ready
 5       benchmark between Hendon and adult education turnover.
 6           Now I have mentioned the staffing ratios between
 7       tutors and recruits, or tutors and students, but the
 8       staffing ratios between junior management and their
 9       trainers is much higher at Hendon as well, so one
10       inspector can oversee about 20 members of staff and up
11       to 300 trainees, 300 recruits, and given that some of
12       those 300 are going to have problems adapting to life in
13       London, first time away from home, or problems with the
14       academic element of the course, they might be giving
15       less oversight to their own staff, whereas the ratios
16       within Centrex and within the police service in Northern
17       Ireland are far more generous, the relationship between
18       an inspector and their trainee staff.
19   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  And all those reasons are
20       understandable, but is it true that you are also
21       struggling with a culture at Hendon where the behaviour,
22       on occasions, involves sexist behaviour, racist
23       behaviour, bullying?
24   MR HUSSAIN:  We are not struggling with any culture.
25       I would certainly rebut what Commander Allen had
 
    45
 1       mentioned.  I mean, he had not shared his concerns with
 2       us prior or since that remark.
 3           It is very easy to take issues at Hendon out of
 4       context.  We have 1,200 people there at any given time,
 5       which is larger than some forces, as you know from your
 6       own experience.  When we compare Hendon's discipline
 7       record with large OCUs within the Met, it is not too
 8       dissimilar, so if we compare it with, let us say,
 9       Lambeth and Southwark, you would actually expect it to
10       be higher, because these people are still getting to
11       grips with a professional code, they are coming from
12       a different environment where perhaps they have
13       a different attitude towards discipline.
14           Where we have had issues, which predate the Secret
15       Policeman, students have had the confidence in senior
16       management to complain, and have seen those complaints
17       actioned upon very quickly, so we have outplaced people
18       for sexist behaviour, and we are talking about one
19       member of staff last year.
20           Post Secret Policeman, recruits made representations
21       to their trainers, having seen the programme themselves,
22       and having seen the context of the programme, would then
23       say, "Well, you know, my colleague X is indulging in not
24       too dissimilar behaviour, I wish to disassociate myself
25       from him".  We are talking about three people in that
 
    46
 1       first week, three out of 1,200, and I think from memory
 2       we are talking about six or seven from the training
 3       school at Manchester, which certainly had far lower
 4       figures.
 5           Post Secret Policeman, because the RIPR rules do not
 6       allow internal undercover surveillance, I posted what
 7       I called an overt discipline officer; the Federation did
 8       not agree with my understanding of the law, but the
 9       point was this person was not covert, and since this
10       person made himself known to everyone, he was not in
11       breach of those regulations.
12           That person discovered four instances where the
13       recruits were -- what is the word -- challenged and
14       asked, "Is there anything you wish to tell me?  If you
15       do not want to tell me anything, it does not really
16       matter either", so they were not put under any pressure.
17           That person discovered four instances.  We were
18       aware of three of them already, but the recruits did not
19       know we were already aware of the three, so we
20       discovered one extra incident in that process, and that
21       was one extra incident which was out of time because the
22       individuals had moved on.
23           So that reassured me that we actually had a culture
24       where people would report things to us, no matter how
25       unpalatable, knowing that we will act upon them.
 
    47 
 1   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  I mean, it was not only Mr Allen who
 2       told us that, it was Mr Roberts, the DPS as well.
 3   MR HUSSAIN:  The advice I had from the DPS prior to this
 4       process was that they were talking about the increase in
 5       levels of criminality, so attitudes towards soft drugs,
 6       criminal damage, and I would say part of it is the
 7       increase in numbers: there is a numerical increase, but
 8       they would argue there is a percentage increase.  But
 9       given that we have had an independent evaluation into
10       probational training, we have had a Metropolitan Police
11       Authority internal audit look at probational training,
12       none of them have put this forward.
13           What I would say is, it is very easy to get a small
14       focus group that will give you one version of events,
15       and when I hold a focus group, I get a contrary version
16       of events.  I am sure when Mr Ghaffur held his focus
17       group, he had another version of events.  That is not to
18       say each is disingenuous, but this is what focus groups
19       do.
20   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Would it come as a surprise to you,
21       then, that there are representative bodies,
22       organisations or individuals within the
23       Metropolitan Police who hold the view, or have the
24       perception, that not everything is right with the
25       culture at Hendon?
 
    48
 1   MR HUSSAIN:  Well, it is no surprise to me, I am well aware
 2       of their views, but when I have asked them for what make
 3       up these perceptions, I get an empty response.  So I am
 4       very keen to find out what people think, and how we can
 5       impact on this, and I do not certainly wait for BBC
 6       documentaries to react.  We have an ongoing situation.
 7       If we discover things, we will try and remedy or
 8       investigate them.
 9           So no one can share their perceptions with me, and
10       I think it is just because it attracts a lot of comment;
11       you know, it is a focal point, it is a large focal
12       point, and all I ask people to do is to revert to their
13       basic training which is establish the facts, rather than
14       going by gut feeling or whatever.
15           If we look at the records concerning misconduct at
16       Hendon, as I say, of a 40-odd scenario, I think 10
17       relate to professional misconduct of a minor matter;
18       these are written warnings.  We certainly have not found
19       any which give us a disproportionate view about bullying
20       or sexism.
21           The only worrying thing, I would say, is that half
22       of our recruits are over 22, so they are becoming more
23       mature, so you cannot put it down to immaturity and
24       people finding -- you know, it is their first job, or
25       their first time away from home.  But this is what -- we
 
    49
 1       recruit from all sections of society, and we have to 
 2       live with that, but the point we would make is if they
 3       transgress a misconduct code, then they have to enter
 4       that misconduct code, but we do not automatically refer
 5       minor cases instantly to the misconduct code, it is only
 6       the more serious matters, and if we can advise at
 7       a lower level, going back to this morning's discussions,
 8       we will.
 9   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Can I ask how you undertake your exit
10       interviews in relation to recruits who leave you
11       prematurely?
12   MR HUSSAIN:  Well, there is a three-stage process.  The last
13       stage was introduced last autumn, upon the initiative of
14       the current Chief Superintendent, but the first stage is
15       the recruit manager will speak to the said recruit to
16       find out, you know, is there some hidden issue that we
17       need to be aware of.
18           The second stage is one stage removed, which is the
19       Chief Inspector who runs the recruit school, so not
20       personally engaged with the recruit, one step distant,
21       and then a new stage is they will meet with either of
22       the two superintendent ranks to determine, you know,
23       what are the real reasons.
24           Some people will not wish to share the real reasons,
25       and some people have been dissuaded from resigning, they
 
    50
 1       have been offered extra assistance, and given that we
 2       have adverse class ratios, providing the extra
 3       assistance is easier said than done.  But some people
 4       have -- what is the word -- coped and passed out.
 5           If I can contrast today's scenario with what we are
 6       hoping to do with the modernisation programme, which is
 7       to remove the time limit, so at the moment, you must
 8       achieve a standard within 18 weeks at Hendon, 15 weeks
 9       at Centrex.
10           If you do not achieve that standard, you get
11       recoursed; there is a course every ten weeks, and you
12       get recoursed.  Whereas the new goals, something that we
13       are driving in conjunction with Centrex, is there should
14       not be a strict upper limit.  It cannot be infinite, you
15       cannot be a perpetual student at Hendon throughout your
16       adult life, so I am getting to grips with the
17       legislation, but it is far more flexible, so people can
18       study at their own pace.  Another development is, you
19       know, can we export the academic element into the FE
20       centre?
21           So if you are a mature student and you need to study
22       at a different pace than someone who has just left a
23       further education college, or just left university, you
24       can study at your own pace, and when you are confident
25       that you know your law and procedure, then you arrive at
 
    51
 1       Hendon to apply that knowledge.
 2           Then those people should actually have an advantage,
 3       on the grounds that they have undertaken some life
 4       skills, they have got some experience of previous
 5       employment, whereas at the moment it is a sheep dip
 6       element: you have to cope with the pace, and if you
 7       cannot cope, then you get remedial lessons or you get
 8       recoursed.
 9   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Yes, that sounds interesting.  Just on
10       this exit interview issue, has any thought been given
11       to, once the recruits have left the influence of Hendon
12       as a centre and have gone back to the home environment,
13       having some external exit interview undertaken, once
14       people are back in their own sort of safe environment,
15       if you like, not conducted by senior police managers,
16       whilst they are still at Hendon, to see whether there
17       are any underlying reasons which have not been given.
18           I mean, this is a big issue, is it not?  Because
19       this is something which just will not lie down, if you
20       like, because there is this perpetual feeling that
21       something is not right with the culture at Hendon.  I am
22       not saying it is endemic, I am not saying it runs
23       throughout the whole of the student or staff body there,
24       but there is something which still niggles away and
25       means that you get this disproportionate wastage.
 
    52
 1           I would have thought maybe it is such an important
 2       issue; if what you say is right, this is speculation, it
 3       is rumour, it is not fact.  You need something as hard
 4       evidence to actually kill off this speculation, or prove
 5       that it is right and deal with it.
 6   MR HUSSAIN:  Well, if I reverse them, talking about
 7       speculation and hard evidence, the evidence that I have
 8       provided is not palatable to people.  We have had an
 9       independent study looking at the PRT schools by
10       ethnicity, and the point the researcher made was we do
11       not compare like with like.  So we compare all ethnicity
12       from one group against another group.  What we do not do
13       is compare a white graduate with a nonwhite graduate.
14       We are comparing the opposite.  We are comparing a white
15       graduate with someone who is not white who is not
16       a graduate, and vice versa.  A black graduate with
17       someone who has left school with, you know, very few
18       qualifications.
19           So the hard evidence is then -- I will speak up,
20       I just noticed the note saying "inaudible".
21           The hard evidence shows that we are not analysing
22       people's educational aptitude and their educational
23       qualifications when they enter the recruitment process,
24       and then looking at disproportionality as a consequence
25       thereof, so if two like graduates from two different
 
    53
 1       ethnic backgrounds arrive and one gets treated
 2       differently to the other, then I would say there is hard
 3       evidence of adverse treatment at Hendon.
 4           The current research does not show that, but it was
 5       a very small sample, about 235.  We have hired the same
 6       researcher to go through as many records as they can,
 7       and we are looking at many thousands.  So separating
 8       that from your earlier point, it is an excellent
 9       example, and something I would seriously pursue.
10   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Sure, but --
11   MR HUSSAIN:  But we have not.  Your answer was we have not
12       given any consideration -- and the reason I had not
13       given any consideration is because I am aware of those
14       facts when we have analysed the entry qualifications,
15       what is the level entry point of the people coming in.
16           The reason why we place an emphasis on PRT, and I am
17       in a minority here, because some people say it is
18       disproportionate, is because we do not insist upon
19       educational qualifications, you may have people who are
20       intrinsically bright, capable of studying, but who have
21       not, for whatever reason, achieved any educational
22       qualifications, and I do not think they should be
23       discriminated against, so the PRT assessment centre, the
24       police admission recruitment tests, give us an
25       indication of their aptitude to absorb knowledge.
 
    54
 1           I am sure Miss Weekes would not disagree with me;
 2       I mean, law is written by one bright set of graduates
 3       for another bright set of graduates to deconstruct in
 4       a court of law, and in between we are expecting people
 5       with no formal qualifications to assimilate law.
 6           And I would argue at the end of their probationary
 7       period, they are not far off a degree standard.  They
 8       have to assimilate it to a very high degree of
 9       confidence.
10   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  I entirely understand and I agree with
11       that in the intellectual world of a training
12       establishment such as yours, but can I just take it out
13       of that scenario for a moment?  Because I would put it
14       this way: that Hendon is the shop window of the culture
15       of the Metropolitan Police Service. 
16           You are fighting hard and you have hard-won recruits
17       coming into the organisation; female and black and
18       minority ethnic applicants, in their very first
19       interface with the Metropolitan Police, and their first
20       opportunity to gauge the culture, that they intend to
21       work with for the next 30 years is with you.
22           Now in the classroom, under that academic
23       intellectual environment, is one thing, but you are also
24       beleaguered by the bar room conduct at Hendon, off duty,
25       when those students are together, or students and staff
 
    55
 1       are together, and perceptions are gained as much in
 2       those social settings as in the formal classroom
 3       settings.  I mean, would you agree with me?
 4   MR HUSSAIN:  I would agree with you, but it is about volume
 5       and degree.  So one person can have an adverse
 6       perception which is shared amongst others, and that does
 7       not necessarily tar the whole place, and going back to
 8       my earlier point, when you analyse the misconduct
 9       statistics,
10           We do not find people to be -- what is the word --
11       disciplinary advised for excessive adverse behaviour
12       under the influence of alcohol.
13           Yes, there have been, I would say, about two or
14       three incidents I can recall personally in the last
15       year, I would say it is two or three out of 1,200, and
16       yes, it is a shop window, and the press make much play
17       of it.
18           But going back to what you said about the culture,
19       you are quite right, there is an academic element to it,
20       and there is a cultural element to it.  I have been at
21       the forefront of trying to abolish drill, as has the
22       Assistant Commissioner; the organisation does not wish
23       to dispense with that aspect.  Some people find it
24       a very militaristic environment and their view is,
25       "Well, I have not joined the armed services", which is
 
    56
 1       why we have a few who leave within the first week.
 2           So if I had a free hand completely, I mean, I would
 3       change it completely; Her Majesty's Inspectorate
 4       training and I have the same voice here, which is we
 5       should delay attestation (?) towards the end of the
 6       course, and treat people like students, adult students,
 7       take them out of the police regulation procedure, and be
 8       no different to any other further education college,
 9       albeit it is a private college.  Then people can
10       gradually be assimilated into police culture, and, if we
11       are making that comparison as an adult place of
12       learning, is it much worse than any other place of adult
13       learning, albeit we have no direct statistics, but just
14       relying on perceptions, I would say that behaviour at
15       Hendon is infinitely better than at some other places of
16       learning.
17   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  But the standards at Hendon must be
18       different than any technical college, surely, because
19       the standards you expect are higher.
20   MR HUSSAIN:  Very much so, but there is a transitional
21       period, when they arrive as raw civilians, of taking
22       their oath, and if we apply those standards very
23       strictly, you know, an awful lot of people would be
24       leaving in week one.  You have to make some allowances
25       for the fact that we, as managers, appreciate that step
 
    57
 1       change in their attitudes, they may not appreciate them
 2       themselves.
 3           But an imprecise way of gauging people's
 4       behaviour -- and I do stress "imprecise", but I found it
 5       very useful -- is to debrief cab drivers.  They are the
 6       people who bring them back after a night out on the
 7       town, and I have yet to find a single cab driver who can
 8       give me an adverse report.  The last one mentioned they
 9       all behaved as gentlewomen and gentlemen, and I cannot
10       see any cab driver wishing to give me a false
11       perception, given that, if they are misbehaving, they
12       are probably going to be the first cohort to be on the
13       receiving end of loutish behaviour.
14   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  Could I just add a point of emphasis to
15       something Shabir was saying?  It seems to me that,
16       although the point he makes about the objectiveness of,
17       you know, as you say, the academic approach to training,
18       I think there are many points he makes there that are
19       wise.  I think what we have to acknowledge is that, when
20       we are putting 10,000 people through what previously,
21       I think -- you have the figures for police recruitment
22       over the last ten years in the Met, but I think the
23       lowest was something in the order of 670-odd went
24       through Hendon.  For the last two years, 3,500 a year
25       went through, so just the order of scale.  It seems to
 
    58
 1       me, that causes a risk.  When the trainers do not arrive
 2       at the rate that we all would have hoped, there is
 3       another risk because clearly there are fewer trainers
 4       than we would all ideally like to see.
 5           When we have together what generally seems to be,
 6       because the majority are white, men, a male-dominated
 7       culture, let us put it that way, and then, because they
 8       live on site, a group culture can develop.  There is
 9       always a risk, and we would be foolish to say that there
10       is not that risk that is there and if, on occasions,
11       there has been behaviour that none of us would celebrate
12       and all of us would condemn, then we have tried to
13       intervene in that with discipline.  We are now putting
14       in place things that we think will be really supportive.
15       At a simple level -- and Shabir has mentioned about taxi
16       drivers, but we have actually put a sergeant on the gate
17       to check people's behaviour as they re-enter the site.
18       There is a bar on site; we are making sure that we make
19       sure that the behaviour in that bar is okay.
20           So every time there is a bad experience, and there
21       have been some, then we have tried to challenge it, we
22       have tried to put better practice in place afterwards,
23       but it has been a pretty high-risk environment, some of 
24       the behaviour, on occasions, has disappointed us, but
25       what is quite reassuring is that, when we have left
 
    59
 1       Hendon, the judgment that has been made by those
 2       officers to who they start to work with has been that
 3       the quality of the candidate has not gone down.
 4           So I think, you know, by the time they have left
 5       Hendon, we have made a judgment of who should be
 6       a police officer, but it is a pretty challenging
 7       environment there.  Today there would be something in
 8       the order of 1,200 officers there training, and it
 9       should be said, that is bigger than probably up to ten
10       police services in this country.  They are on site, that
11       is a lot of people, trying to keep control -- if that is
12       the right word -- introducing them to adult behaviour,
13       encouraging them to be adult, is quite a challenge, and
14       I think the way forward is the way that is described in
15       terms of Sunbury and some of the satellite sites; living
16       off site but attending a day college, if you like, and
17       making sure that we manage them into the culture of the
18       organisation appropriately.
19           Hendon, it seems to me, has been a great shop window
20       for the Metropolitan Police, but over the last few
21       years, it has been a real challenge to make sure we keep
22       all our standards up.  I could not say it has got to be
23       the place that -- you know, we do not condemn, but there
24       have been occasions when we have not liked it, and we
25       have done our best to try and resolve that, it has been
 
    60
 1       a real challenge for all the staff and they have been
 2       incredibly flexible.  They are now working shifts, for
 3       example, people might think, "Well, police officers work
 4       shifts", but trainers do not generally, so the way we
 5       could get those people through was to use the classrooms 
 6       twice on the same day.  It puts incredible pressure on
 7       the people there; on the estate there is one bar, there
 8       was one canteen.  You can use the classrooms twice, but
 9       we had to get some more bedrooms off-site, and that has
10       caused its own pressures as well.
11           So I think all the points Commander Hussain makes
12       are very valuable.  I think we have to acknowledge that
13       there have been significant risks in that time and we
14       have had to do things to improve behaviour.
15   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  Because the last thing that the police
16       service can tolerate, I guess, is that every time one of
17       those groups of youngsters hits the streets, if there is
18       any prospect of there being sexists, racists or bullies
19       amongst them.
20   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  It is just not acceptable.  I mean, the
21       things that we put in place are, for example, we have
22       provided accommodation on site now for the support staff
23       association to be on site.  We have said that we will
24       now pay for a full-time member of their staff to be
25       there as another conduit for anybody who might be being
 
    61
 1       bullied or does not like the behaviour of the scene,
 2       looking at putting the DPS contact on site, something
 3       else that we think will be helpful, we are going to have
 4       a pastoral unit to actually learn more about them as
 5       people, rather than just as trainees, or whether we --
 6       whatever we call them, we intend to call them students
 7       in the future, so all things that are intended to help
 8       the vulnerable, however that is described.
 9           It does not matter about age, it does not
10       necessarily matter about background, it can be that any
11       of us, when starting police training, it is a pretty
12       daunting environment.  It is a pretty daunting job; it
13       is a pretty daunting job particularly in London, so we
14       know we have had to continue to improve.  We help people
15       through their academic work, in terms of some of the
16       support they need there, but I think it is something
17       about looking after the whole person and making sure
18       that the vulnerable, however described, are not lost in
19       what is a huge, teeming mass of people just trying to
20       use a site that was never designed for it.
21   MR HUSSAIN:  Two other things.  When we have held focus 
22       groups with the staff, they do not recognise what people
23       are saying about Hendon and they find it pretty
24       offensive that people will take things out of isolation.
25       And the other point is, going back to the on site bar,
 
    62
 1       we actually charge market rates, there is no element of
 2       subsidised alcohol, you know, to encourage people to
 3       drink more than they ordinarily would.
 4   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  I am not so much worried about
 5       behaviour subject to drink, I am worried about cultural
 6       behaviour in a social setting.
 7   MR HUSSAIN:  Again, it is very low figures.  I would say it
 8       is better than people who pass out; it is greater
 9       control.
10   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  So to those organisations that are held
11       in concern to us, in the areas I have described, your
12       response would be, "Sorry, looked at that, this is
13       a non-issue, and I have got the evidence to support what
14       I am saying"?
15   MR HUSSAIN:  Well, I would not say it was a non-issue
16       because I recognise people have --
17   SIR ANTHONY BURDEN:  It is always an ongoing issue, but the
18       allegations that are being made.
19   MR HUSSAIN:  What I would say is, I mean, give me the
20       evidence, give me any information, it does not have to
21       be to the evidential standard, and we will deal with it,
22       but what I find is vague assertions which are not very
23       helpful.
24           Going back to your earlier suggestion about exit
25       polling people after they have left Hendon, what we have
 
    63
 1       tended to do is, some people are not keen to share their
 2       views while they are at Hendon, because they do not want
 3       any adverse inference drawn about what they are telling
 4       us, but we do -- and they prefer it this way -- act upon
 5       it, once they have left, for minor matters, where it is
 6       a case of, you know, the way people are behaving.
 7           So going back to your opening remark, if people are
 8       willing to share this information with me, then I will
 9       do something with it, but all I get are very vague
10       feelings.
11   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  I have one or two supplementary points
12       that I would just like to -- air my thoughts about some
13       of the areas that we have traversed earlier,
14       Mr Hogan-Howe.  But before Commander Hussain leaves us,
15       I think we can all be very assured that the old pattern
16       of Hendon, in terms of behavioural concerns, is probably
17       displaced, because the evidence, you say, is not there
18       to support the allegation, and we take that at its face
19       value.  And we are now confident that the Secret
20       Policeman could never happen at Hendon.  That is
21       a corollary of what you say.
22           But just moving forward, one aspect which is not in
23       doubt, because the HMIC has provided us with the
24       evidence, and we have actually secured a costing from
25       Centrex, is in fact the drop-out rate: 11 per cent for
 
    64
 1       the indigenous population and 13 per cent for ethnic
 2       minority recruits.  That is a significant figure as
 3       a drop-out figure.
 4           Could I ask: what steps are you taking to reduce
 5       that to an acceptable proportion?  Or it may be
 6       acceptable, I do not know.
 7   MR HUSSAIN:  First, I would not say by corollary "the Secret
 8       Policeman could not happen at Hendon."
 9   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Those are my words.  I said we can be
10       assured; it is my perception.
11   MR HUSSAIN:  Because the point I made when I was interviewed
12       by ITN -- I cannot read people's minds, I do not know
13       what they get up to in the privacy of their rooms, and
14       the law allows recruits privacy.  But if it comes to our
15       notice, then we will deal with it.
16           Going to what steps we have taken, where someone has
17       passed their recruitment tests and they need extra
18       assistance, we will provide extra assistance, so there
19       are study clubs, which were recently endorsed as good
20       practice in an internal inspection, and there is extra
21       support if people need one-to-one tuition, so the last
22       thing we want to do is outplace someone because they are
23       struggling.  So you know somebody has to repeatedly fail
24       their exams, or their practical assessments, or their
25       written work which will be not exams, so there is a lot
 
    65
 1       of threshold points where staff and students engage to
 2       assist them to develop before we consider dispensing
 3       with their services.
 4           What tends to happen is people tend to offer their
 5       resignation before they get to that stage, because they
 6       did not appreciate how difficult the academic work was.
 7           But historically, going back to the fact -- when we
 8       recruited people who, on reflection, should not have
 9       joined, because we dropped the recruitment standards to
10       the point where they could not cope with the academic
11       standard -- I mean, the independent study showed a very
12       high correlation between a low PERT score and failure at
13       Hendon, so for some people, who are not academically
14       gifted or have no aptitude for academic element of law,
15       there is not much we can do.
16           What we have changed now is -- the new national
17       recruitment standards have increased the threshold for
18       passing by 20 per cent, so some people are saying that
19       is unfair, but I would say this is an objective national
20       study, led by the Home Office, which has now decided
21       a threshold commensurate with the complexity,
22       academically and practically, of being a police officer
23       is at this level, that is going to remove the bottom
24       20 per cent cohort, those are the people who are
25       struggling with their studies.
 
    66
 1           So it will be easier for us to teach people coming
 2       through the new recruitment criteria, because they have
 3       a better aptitude.
 4   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  But whether it is recruitment or giving
 5       training, a drop-out loss of 12 or 13 per cent is quite
 6       a significant cost, unit cost, and we are interested in
 7       value for money as part of workplace issues, because we
 8       say that the more resources you have, the more police
 9       officers you can employ, so what I am really trying to
10       elicit from you is what steps, whether at recruiting or
11       indeed training, are being taken to reduce the numbers
12       who do not make it to the point of being a probation
13       officer, going out on the beat for completion?
14   MR HUSSAIN:  Perhaps I have been a little bit too
15       circumspect here.  I would say that the main steps are
16       that we are recruiting the people who will pass their
17       training.
18   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  So we can expect a significant
19       reduction in the drop-out figures going forward?
20   MR HUSSAIN:  If I do not see a significant reduction, I will
21       be most alarmed, because if we are not getting that
22       bottom 20 per cent cohort, then our wastage rate should
23       improve significantly.  I would agree with you, I mean,
24       it is about £10,000 all in, with wages and uniform, and
25       that was one of the reasons why I said to recruitment
 
    67
 1       they should complete that experiment very quickly,
 2       because it was costing the service £1.6 million
 3       per annum in wastage rates.
 4           And it is not fair on the individual, you know, if
 5       we give them one perception, that they are capable of
 6       being a police officer, and yet, in practice, they are
 7       not.  They have wasted an element of their lives going
 8       through a difficult selection process and a more
 9       difficult training process.
10   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Thank you very much indeed.
11           Could I just ask Mr Hogan-Howe one or two very brief
12       questions on the Fairness at Work issue?  Can I ask
13       whether the Federation, the Police Federation, and the
14       other representative organisations were consulted about
15       Fairness at Work before its introduction?
16   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  Yes, certainly, they were.  And I think
17       probably we saw that within their responses, that they
18       were involved in that process.  As Miss Weekes
19       highlighted, they could not agree with part of the
20       implementation, but broadly they supported its approach
21       and the policy, and I know they actually helped us with
22       the launch as well.
23   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Secondly, how does the practice measure
24       against ACAS's code of practice?
25   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  As far as I am aware, and I do not pretend
 
    68
 1       to be an expert regarding ACAS's code of practice, but,
 2       so far as I can make out, it seems to be consistent with
 3       that code of practice.  It built an element of
 4       independence, although not complete.  It is relatively
 5       simple, a few stages, and it seems to mirror what they
 6       would regard as best practice, but I would seek advice
 7       if someone thought that was wrong, but certainly, that
 8       is my advice; that it seems to mirror best practice.
 9   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Okay.  And the other question is:
10       setting aside issues of -- which may obviously give rise
11       to perhaps criminal charges, do you see Fairness at Work
12       making a contribution to the whole aspect of officers'
13       code of conduct, in terms of discipline?  Obviously
14       where there are obvious issues which may give rise to
15       criminal proceedings, that is a different matter, but
16       setting that aside, do you think Fairness at Work has
17       a contribution to make, in respect of conduct and
18       discipline for police officers?
19   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  Yes, certainly, because I think what it
20       should be is, if we are treating each other in an
21       appropriate way, we probably will treat the public in an
22       appropriate way, and if we get that wrong, it leaks out
23       in many places.  So certainly the standards that are
24       implied -- not implied -- are actually implemented
25       internally must be the sort of standards that we would
 
    69
 1       expect to treat people externally, so there is a direct
 2       read-across.  One of the dilemmas, I think, in Fairness
 3       at Work, that people get confused, is a discipline
 4       process, what happens if -- and we have heard some
 5       examples today, where issues are raised which might be
 6       discipline, then we have Fairness at Work and people
 7       say, "Well, do we deal with it formally or informally?"
 8           There can be dilemmas there, but broadly I would
 9       expect that the same principles in Fairness at Work is
10       the way in which we deal with each other and the public.
11   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Yes, but one of the reasons which makes
12       me ask you that question, that I am trying to
13       rationalise in my mind, is some of the conduct and
14       disciplinary issues flow from complaints from the
15       public.  If Fairness at Work was to apply, say, for
16       criminal proceedings, then you are into almost a new
17       situation of restorative justice, because the
18       complainant would have to be brought into the debate.
19   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  It is certainly a possibility.  I think
20       there was certainly one force -- I think, Thames
21       Valley -- who tried that approach, and I think also --
22       I cannot remember the other force, but certainly Thames
23       Valley because they have been so associated with --
24   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Associated with --
25   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  -- restorative justice, they have applied,
 
    70
 1       as well as internally, they have also applied it to
 2       complaints from the public, so it is certainly
 3       an approach that might work -- I think you alluded
 4       earlier to the fact that informal resolution complaints
 5       from the public are not always seen as the most
 6       effective mechanism, so certainly that type of approach
 7       is certainly worth a try if the people are not satisfied
 8       with what we have.
 9   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  My final point, and I just sort of
10       leave you with a perception and thought that has been
11       canvassed to us, is that there is inconsistency within
12       the Metropolitan Police Service as to how it responds in
13       terms of the penalties for almost a like for like
14       transgression of rules.
15           The way it has been suggested, as a sort of graphic
16       explanation, is that there is a range of punishment
17       tools, from a feather duster to a sledgehammer, and, for
18       certain groups of MPS' employees, inevitably, it is the
19       sledgehammer that comes down, which then read-across
20       gives you disproportionate treatment.
21           How would you respond to that?
22   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  I only hope it is not happening, but if
23       their perception is it is, then that is a serious
24       concern.  I would hope that -- I just hope that, you
25       know, discipline always seems to me to be -- there are
 
    71
 1       not that many of our people who need to be disciplined.
 2       There are people who need advice.  I am not sure, if you
 3       asked me in percentage terms, 1 per cent or something of
 4       that order, it is certainly not something we should race
 5       to, because it is a formal process that is a serious
 6       mark against someone, and certainly something at the
 7       extreme, not the usual, so if that was happening, that
 8       would be not very fortunate for me.
 9   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  I hope that we could have moved beyond
10       hope, because, if you look at the proportionality issue
11       in respect of ethnic minority groups of officers, and
12       perhaps some staff as well, but the officers are more
13       visible upfront, the statistics indicate that there is
14       disproportionality, so something is happening, and what
15       is being canvassed to us, as I have said, is a range of
16       tools; one group gets the feather duster and the other
17       group gets the sledgehammer, which is the perception
18       that these people have.
19   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  I have to accept that perception, and if the
20       facts show that there is that kind of problem, then we
21       have to acknowledge we need to do something about it.
22       I certainly would not accept it with equanimity and
23       expect that things carried on as they are, if that is
24       what is happening.
25   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Well, can I ask you to look at the
 
    72
 1       statistics overall, in terms of the different groups,
 2       and perhaps, before we conclude, you might just give us
 3       your views and the statistics as they present
 4       themselves.
 5   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  Certainly.
 6   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Thank you very much.  Okay, well, can
 7       I, first of all, say that we have arrived at the point
 8       where we want to conclude this session of the hearing,
 9       and most importantly, I want to thank you for your
10       contribution, but you will recall that in my opening
11       statement this morning, I said that I would offer you,
12       and your colleagues in particular, the opportunity for
13       brief closing comments.  I now invite you to do so, if
14       you wish.
15   MR HOGAN-HOWE:  First of all, thank you for that
16       opportunity, and for the way I have been dealt with
17       today.  Just two things.  Some more general points, and 
18       then just to enhance, I just thought a little on what
19       Shabir was saying because your reasonable challenge
20       about, "Well, how can we be reassured that, if there is
21       disproportionality and wastage, what we are doing about
22       it?"
23           I think we had already drawn attention to the work
24       that is starting, in terms of the pastoral unit,
25       a sergeant looking at behaviour on return to the site,
 
    73
 1       the fact that we have somebody starting, or started,
 2       a pilot, and we will roll it out and make sure that we
 3       have new sites for the future.
 4           We could have talked a bit more perhaps about the
 5       behavioural contracts we have drawn up, which are for 
 6       staff and for members of the recruits, which they are
 7       expected to read and sign at the beginning of their
 8       course.  That is not to say they do everything, but they
 9       could not be left in any doubt about what we expect, and
10       that is in very clear language and not meant to be
11       strategic policy or anything but the sort of things that
12       are acceptable and are not.
13           We have re-asserted the fact that there is
14       a helpline available to report bad behaviour, and
15       I think that is something that DAC Roberts may have
16       mentioned.  We are going to get support staff on site,
17       the Support Staff Association, of which we now have
18       around 18, we are to have somebody full-time on site.
19           We recognise that, even if the stats or the facts
20       make us think, "Well, what is this problem?" it is
21       another opportunity to get some information, if nothing
22       else.  And we have looked as well at whether or not, you
23       know, we are setting the right hurdle in terms of people
24       getting into the organisation.  I think Shabir makes
25       a fair point, which is, if we set it at a lower level
 
    74
 1       and then challenge them in Hendon, that does no one any
 2       good, so therefore we have got the right level and we
 3       have looked to actually higher that over the last few
 4       months, so I think there is more reassurance that people
 5       who are more able are getting now than perhaps, for
 6       a period, was the case.
 7           I think the only final thing I would just like to
 8       say in terms of generality, there are probably five
 9       things I wondered about in terms of things you may
10       consider, in terms of context, which obviously you will
11       have to consider at the end of the Inquiry.
12           The first thing is that, in terms of the growth of
13       the organisation, for any organisation to grow at the
14       rate we have is a significant challenge, and it is
15       something that can be said quickly, but not fully
16       understood.  What has happened is we have got more money
17       for people, police officers, not necessarily the rest,
18       but certainly for police officers.  So on the police
19       staff side we commented on, you know, getting the
20       flexibility of deployment that we would like, but we
21       have got money for another 5,000 police officers.  We
22       did not get an awful lot more resources for anything
23       else.  I do not condemn, we cannot complain for years
24       that we did not need police officers -- sorry, we needed
25       more police officers, somebody gives you the money, they
 
    75
 1       tend to want you to recruit police officers.
 2           It is a political necessity, we accept that, but the
 3       buildings did not spring up at the same rate and nor did
 4       some of the support functions, some of those are carried
 5       out by people.
 6           I think we have made massive strides in terms of
 7       minority representation, but we are not there yet, but
 8       in that context, I just ask you to consider, if we are
 9       to carry on recruiting, even at all the targets that we
10       have, and if we recruited at the rate for police
11       officers, at the rate of their representation in the
12       London community, it could take us 12 years to get
13       representation, and that does not feel, like, quick
14       enough.  So what can we do radically, whether it be
15       through your Inquiry's conclusions or our own, that
16       moves it on?
17           Because that rate of one in three recruits,
18       replacing at around 1,500 a year, to get to the targets
19       we have been set, quite properly, we do not get there
20       for a long time, and in between, people ask very
21       reasonable questions about representation, seniority,
22       some of the things; if we are doing it the way we have
23       always done it, we are not going to get there at the
24       time that we need to, which is now, or as near as we
25       can.
 
    76
 1           And probably just two other things.  One is that we
 2       are a two-tier organisation.  Your questions very
 3       carefully and fairly focused on, "Well, how do you move
 4       from idea to implementation, and how does it affect
 5       43,000 people?"  It is a constant challenge.  I think
 6       you have also looked -- certainly I have seen in
 7       previous questions that you have posed, "Well, how do
 8       you manage something of this scale?"  There are not many
 9       organisations as big.  It does have 43,000 people, and
10       it does have assets of about 2.5 billion.  There are not
11       many major companies that have that.  It is a real
12       challenge to deliver from the top to the deliverers, and
13       it is a constant one we have.
14           We just ask you perhaps to reflect on that, and the
15       various options there are for actually dealing with that
16       can become, if not a chasm, but certainly a gap, in
17       terms of making that happen.
18           I think the final thing for me is that we are always
19       faced with this dilemma, and it has come up a little
20       during this morning and this afternoon, is that
21       an organisation that wants genuinely to devolve
22       responsibility, to empower, at what point do you allow
23       people to be empowered to such a level that in fact you
24       are disappointed by the results rather than celebrate
25       the risk they took?
 
    77
 1           That is a real dilemma, particularly in a job like
 2       ours, where people take some pretty big risks on our
 3       behalf every day, and it is not a safe environment in
 4       many respects physically, but also it is quite
 5       a challenging political one.
 6           It is a challenge to us, it is a challenge to our
 7       middle managers and supervisors as well.  Perhaps we
 8       need to support them more all the time, but it is not
 9       an easy place for them to be, and sometimes we reflect
10       that we would prefer different decisions were made, but
11       they are not in an easy place sometimes.
12           Those were just some reflections I had from today,
13       and from some of the evidence I was able to offer to
14       this Inquiry.
15   SIR WILLIAM MORRIS:  Thank you very much.  Can I just say
16       finally that, as with all our witnesses, it may be that
17       once we have heard from others, we will want to ask you
18       a few more questions, either in writing or we might want
19       to ask you to come back and share your thoughts with us
20       at a future hearing.
21           In any event, if we choose to seek further
22       information from you, we will do so in a form which
23       causes the least inconvenience.  It just remains, on
24       behalf of my colleagues and myself, to thank you very
25       much indeed for your contribution to our Inquiry, and to
 
    78
 1       say that this Inquiry now stands adjourned until 10.30
 2       tomorrow morning.  Thank you very much.
 3   (4.07 pm)
 4      (Hearing adjourned until 10.30 am the following day)
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