Transcript of public session: Mr C Elliott and Ms J Berry of the Police Federation of England and Wales

Wednesday, 31 March 2004
10.30 am

Sir William Morris: Good morning, everyone, and can I first of all, in opening the inquiry this morning, say welcome to you, Mr Elliott, and indeed your colleague. Can I first of all thank you very much for accepting our invitation to attend the Inquiry to give evidence, and for letting us have your written submission which we found extremely helpful.

I appreciate that for some of our witnesses, any process of this nature may seem somewhat of a daunting task, so I thought it would be helpful if I set out very briefly how we propose to conduct the hearing.

But first, let me introduce myself and the other members of the panel. I am Sir Bill Morris, recently retired General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, and I have been asked to chair the Inquiry. As you can see, there are two other panel members: first, Sir Anthony Burden, who recently retired as the Chief Constable of South Wales Constabulary after a long and distinguished career in the police service; and next is Miss Anesta Weekes QC, who is an eminent barrister, who works as a recorder and part-time chair of the employment tribunals. She was also counsel to the Lawrence Inquiry.

Mr Elliott, as you know, we have been tasked by the Metropolitan Police Authority to conduct an independent inquiry into the professional standards and employment matters in the Metropolitan Police Service. Let me emphasise, as I do with all witnesses, that our focus is in fact the MPS as an organisation and not the individuals who make up the organisation.

The inquiry we are conducting is inquisitorial and is not adversarial in character or in nature. We are very keen to enquire into the issues raised by our terms of reference, so we can make appropriate recommendations for the further good practice of the MPS, rather than concentrating on making criticisms of the MPS as an organisation, or the individuals in it.

To help us in our task, we are very keen to hear from all our witnesses not just what is wrong with the Metropolitan Police Service but what is right with it, but more importantly, we are seeking suggestions from all our witnesses as to how matters can be put right.

A transcript is being taken so that we have a proper record of the evidence given by all witnesses. This will be posted on our website later today.

At the end of these introductory remarks, I will lead on the questions to you, to be followed by my colleagues, first Miss Weekes, and then followed by Sir Anthony Burden, and any supplementary questions that I might find necessary. At the conclusion of our questions, I will offer you the opportunity for a brief closing statement.

You have very helpfully provided us with a written submission which will be posted on the website following your evidence today. But in your written submission, you have indicated one or two matters that I just want to identify for the record. You have given us a broad overview of the role of the Police Federation, you have given comments on Fairness at Work, dispute resolution, regulations and learning lessons from employment tribunals, and you have also offered a view on the office of constable. You have talked about disciplinary procedures, including monitoring, and of course the Police Federation in total terms.

We would like to ask you some questions about the information that you have already provided, and seek your views on a number of other matters which we think will be of interest, but before we raise these issues, for the benefit of the transcript, I wonder whether you would mind formally introducing yourself and, of course, your colleague.

Mr Elliott: Thank you for that introduction, Sir William. My name is Clint Elliott. I am a police officer, a police sergeant with the Cleveland Constabulary, and I am currently the General Secretary of the Police Federation of England and Wales.

My colleague is Jan Berry. Jan is the chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales and I should say the reason we have come together is because we do split some responsibilities in the Police Federation in slightly different ways to perhaps some other representative organisations, and that Jan should be an integral part of the evidence, because I think it would be more helpful to you if that is the case, Sir William. So Jan is here in her capacity as the chair, which is effectively the public voice of the Police Federation; I am more in the negotiation and consultation area.

Sir William Morris: Thank you for that. How you present your evidence is a matter for you of course. We look forward to what you say, rather than who makes the presentation, but thank you anyway, and welcome to you, Jan.

Questions by Sir William Morris

Sir William Morris: Mr Elliott, you represent the national Federation, and so does Jan. To assist our inquiry, let me share with you part of our plans. We do plan to make a visit to Greater Manchester, Merseyside and indeed the West Midlands police service. Can I ask you to let us know whether the main issues which affect your members nationally – whether they are the same issues affecting your members in the Metropolitan Police Service, and can you say what those issues are?

Mr Elliott: I think that the issues affecting the service are national and not just confined to the Metropolitan Police. The Metropolitan Police amounts to around about somewhere over 20 to 25 per cent of our total membership, so quite clearly, the issues that come from the Metropolitan Police are important to us, because they are such a large number of our members.

The Metropolitan Police does have specific problems, obviously policing the capital, there are issues that do not affect other forces. But predominantly the issues of Fairness at Work and the issues around pay and conditions and the work/life balance issues are all the same across the different forces, as they affect the Metropolitan Police. I think that is about fair to say.

Sir William Morris: Okay. I note that you have attached the Federation's policy on diversity to your submission. Can you give us one or two examples as to how this policy has benefitted underrepresented groups within the Federation?

Ms Berry: The policy tries to treat everybody exactly the same way, but I think we recognise that some groups and some people do not feel they have exactly the same access to the services or systems from the Police Federation.

We also recognise that whilst the Police Federation is an organisation that every police officer is a member of, and the vast majority of police officers are subscribing members of, that other support organisations have been established. I think that one of the things the Federation has done in recent years is to set up, I hope, a good working relationship at a national level with these bodies in order for us, if we did not already have an understanding of what the issues were for different groups, that we could gain that understanding.

I think the other thing we have done is that for the police service to be able to do its job properly, it needs to represent the communities that it serves, and for the Police Federation to be at its most effective, it needs to be representative of the police service.

In the past, the Police Federation has not monitored the breakdown of its members and its representatives, and that is something which we have now said that we will do; we have a new set of elections coming up in November of this year, and we will be monitoring the make-up of the Federation representatives, and that will enable us, if we are underrepresented in any areas, to be able to target those particular areas far better than maybe we have been able to do in the past.

Sir William Morris: Thank you very much for that. Can I just pick up your comments in terms of the importance of the police service reflecting the community it serves? Does the Federation's structure achieve that objective?

Ms Berry: I do not think the police service is in a position to say it mirrors society, and in the same way, I do not think the Police Federation is in a position to say that it mirrors the police service, and that is why we have to look at other measures to ensure that when we represent the views and the interests of all the members of the Police Federation, that we do not just rely on democracy and the electoral process to achieve that.

Sir William Morris: I take your point that it would be extraordinary if all our institutions mirrored society, that is perhaps a hope too many, but what I am not clear about is the extent to which the Federation's structure is in any way – or if it is representative of its membership, in terms of the bodies. I am not expert at all in your structure, I am just seeking to explore what is the position from the point of view of diversity.

Ms Berry: The Police Federation is set up as 43 separate organisations, and is also subdivided into three ranks, so the complexity of that is divided into 43 separate forces, and then there are three separate ranks also within the Federation.

Within each branch board, there are Federation reps: in most forces, the way that this works out is it is done on a divisional basis or it is done on a command unit basis, and there will be one representative for each rank for each of those areas.

In addition to that, there are representatives who take account of detectives; there are specialist interests: people who look after headquarters personnel, people who look after, at the moment, traffic, road policing, and also there is a reserve seat position which comes from the Equal Opportunities Act for underrepresentation of women.

In our evidence to the DTI recently, we invited the government to make a similar provision within the Race Relations Act so that we would legally be able to reserve a position on all of our branch boards for an ethnic minority member. I understand that has not been put into the Race Relations Act, or the amendment to the Race Relations Act, which has not helped our process.

So in the absence of the legal provision, at a national level, we have set up liaison meetings with all national bodies representing different ethnic minorities and other interest groups, such as the British Association of Women Police, the National Black Police Association, the Muslim Police Association, the Gay Police Association; where there are national groups, we have set those up at national level.

Then we have encouraged all of our branch boards to be very clear on what support groups there are at a force level, and to establish good working relationships and understandings at a force level with all of those groups.

Mr Elliott: I think I should make it plain, Sir William, that our constitution is statutory. It is a statutory framework that we have to work within. The Act goes back some years, and it has been tweaked every now and again, but effectively, it is a statutory framework, so we get the framework that is in the Act, and that is why we were so keen to see that the DTI tried to change some legislation, because the government obviously will not change our regulations to reflect that without the change in the parent Act, so really we have double the regulations.

Sir William Morris: Yes, I recognise the limitation that the statute places on you, and that is a reality within which you have to work. But there are two stages, as I see it: firstly, there is the policy of the Federation, and the policy of the Federation is then advanced, I think, to government or the competent authority in terms of the statutory change which you might see.

You can help us if you can sort of just tell us what is the current national policy of the Federation to ensure that within your governance structure, whether it is your executive council or whatever it is, there is a reflection of your membership.

Ms Berry: Sorry, I do not think I quite understand. Within the statute, there is no provision for –

Sir William Morris: I know that there is a problem about the statute.

Mr Elliott: I think what we have tried to do –

Sir William Morris: What I want to hear about is the policy of the Federation, rather than the statute.

Mr Elliott: I think Jan has tried to explain our policy is we have tried to get legislative change and that has not been successful to date, and we will continue to push for legislative change.

I think what we also try to do is to highlight to colleagues that they can actually come into the Federation, and we try to push for ethnic minorities and others to come forward to be part of the process, and we will do that with a push this year because it is election time at the end of the year, so it is a really good time to do that.

So we are actually putting together some paperwork and some articles for our police magazine; we have offered to go on the road as it were, Jan and I, to encourage all sections of the police service to – of the rank and file to actually join us, so that is one of the things we are doing in that process.

In addition, Jan did explain we do have a relationship with the National Black Police Association and others who we regularly meet to talk about equality issues and the decisions we make about the various issues that affect them and their members and our members. That is a fairly regular, five times a year, sort of meeting; usually timed in with the decision-making process that we have at the national executive, which is effectively the 30 (inaudible) committee members.

Sir William Morris: Do you monitor the profile of your governance body from a diversity perspective?

Mr Elliott: I think Jan touched on this question: we considered monitoring two or three years ago, and we have got the thing in a position where we have got some – we are designing a form to monitor this year's elections.

This will be the first year we have done this in any great depth, although we do monitor our claims process, we started to monitor our claims process about 18 months ago. Although effectively, that information does not have history enough to actually be much use at the moment, but as we build up a history, then that will improve, so we are monitoring – we are hoping to monitor the elections this year.

We are designing a form now with the help of whoever is prepared to help us in designing the form, which effectively is – we need some statistical people. We need some people who understand the questions we need to ask about race and diversity, including sexual orientation.

Sir William Morris: You have touched on the support groups, different groups, the black police officers' association and the women's association. At the last count, in terms of this Inquiry, we counted up to about 14, I think it was, 14 groups, and they are, how can I put it, representing what I will describe as the ethnic pluralism of the MPS.

Why do you think it is necessary to have all these groups when there is a national trade union called the Federation that is supposed to be representing their interests?

Mr Elliott: That is a good question, it is one we ask ourselves.

Sir William Morris: Because they are members, after all.

Mr Elliott: Absolutely. The fact of the matter, Sir William, they all continue to be our members, but they feel they need some additional support. This is an area where I think we need to improve. I mean, the fact that the groups exist means that we probably need to improve our representation in this area, and that is one of the reasons we are speaking to the National Black Police Association and others.

We have seen them very much as a support group to our colleagues, and also feeding in information to us, that is the way we have seen them currently.

Ms Berry: I think it would also be true to say that the police service moves pretty slowly on occasions, and is not seen to be supporting people who have got particular issues; that might be because of their ethnicity, it might be because of their religion, it might be because of their family circumstances, it could be a whole host of different things. And the police service in general tends to be a very slow moving organisation, and not able to support the particular interests.

The real challenge, I think, for the police service in the years to come is being able to be this representative body and to be able to offer terms and conditions that will attract people that will be representative of the community.

I do not think the police service will survive on offering conditions of service which mean that you work an eight hour shift every day or a ten hour shift: so the real challenge for the police service is to look at how it can attract people who have got something to offer. It might be because their work – it has actually taken ten years to really understand how part-time working can be an investment for the police service, rather than being a noose around the service's neck.

So I think that is a real challenge for us in the future, and to a certain extent, I think the support groups have been set up because the service in general, and the Police Federation, to a degree, as well, have been slow to recognise the needs of all these different bodies.

Sir William Morris: But it is a challenge for the trade unions as well.

Ms Berry: Absolutely.

Sir William Morris: Because there must be some confusion within the Metropolitan Police Service about who is representing whom?

Ms Berry: I think that is why we have tried to set up a dialogue and understanding with the national bodies, in order that we can have a consensus view about who is representing.

In the worst case scenario – the way that that works out practically – if we take a person who goes to employment tribunal, the Black Police Association may well be providing advice to the officer; the Police Federation may also be providing advice, they may be also funding legal representation for the officer. What we need to ensure, and what we are working through some protocols on with the different support groups, is to ensure there is no misunderstanding; that the officer receives the best advice and support.

What very often happens in practice is that they play one person off against another, and I think it is important that we are not backward in understanding what their needs are. But at the same time, all organisations need to work together to ensure the person gets the best advice and support they can get.

Sir William Morris: First of all, there is the whole concept of the strength of the trade union movement in the workplace, but could not the cynics say that the existence of all these groups is perhaps an expression that they have lost confidence in their trade union to represent them?

Mr Elliott: The cynics could say that, and I think some cynics do. I think what Jan is saying and what I am saying is we are constrained by the regulations and we are a fairly conservative organisation in terms of movement and change, and we have been constrained by the regulations in some respect, and I think we were initially quite slow to pick up some of the vibes from people who felt disillusioned by some issues.

Also, I do not think we actually sell ourselves as well as we could. I mean, we have had some fantastic successes in terms of representing our ethnic minority colleagues that we have not sold very well. And I think we should have done that a lot better, but there is no good going over old ground, we should be looking to the future.

I agree with you that while there are a plethora of organisations around, unity would be better. You know, the signal for us is we would like as much unity as is possible.

Sir William Morris: I can see your problem in respect of the regulations, statutory regulations; I cannot see it, nevertheless, in respect of the policy and the representation issues for any of your members. There is no regulation that I am aware of which interferes with whether they have a solicitor to represent them of your choice or their choice, and sometimes, as Jan has indicated, they will take the advice which suits them – if the Federation is giving advice and the BPA is giving advice, they will take the advice which they are most comfortable with.

Mr Elliott: Well yes, I think that is the same with anybody. They will go to get the advice they think they want.

Sir William Morris: Who pays is the issue.

Mr Elliott: Yes, well, we pay. The fact of the matter is we do pay; at the end of the day, we do try to take cognisance of what the member wants in those circumstances.

If there is any suggestion here that we do not represent all our members and support all our members, that is not true, we do. We think we provide an equitable service to all ranks and all the people we represent.

I mean, there is an issue about – there is always a tension between the ranks in the service, as well as tension between individuals in the service. So what we try to do is provide an equitable service; a service based on the best legal advice we can get in all the circumstances. We have a firm of solicitors who I think are fairly well-known in union circles as well as Police Federation circles who provide that service, in terms of discipline, injuries and accidents at work. And in terms of employment tribunal, where we can, which is predominantly in equality issues.

Sir William Morris: Let us just move on to paragraphs 17 to 23 of your submission, where you cover the Federation's view of the importance of the Crown Servant office of constable, and there you make the following comments, in paragraph 19:

"The status of the office of constable has been considered and confirmed by several Royal Commissions and inquiries into policing. Whilst this Inquiry is focused on the internal processes and procedures of the Metropolitan Police, the findings of the Inquiry will undoubtedly have wider impact on the service as a whole."

Can I ask: why do you believe that exploring and perhaps achieving even, at the end of the day, a better employment protection regime for your members through some new structure of employment law would damage the status of the office of constable?

Mr Elliott: You put that question in a very interesting way, Sir William, which is hard for me to resist saying that we would love to see better employment conditions and throw away the status of the office of constable, but I think it is not quite as simple as that.

I think that what police officers do appreciate and what the public appreciate is the independence of policing in the United Kingdom. Independent police officers based in the community is one of those things that I think is at the heart of British policing. The status issue of the office of constable helps to guarantee that independence, which I think is very much appreciated by the public.

Now if you are talking about improved employment conditions, well, I for one would be prepared to talk about improved employment conditions. I do not know that it necessarily affects the office of constable, and I would use as an example the fact that – despite the fact that members do have the office of constable, employment tribunals are still open to them in a variety of different areas, so we do have, to a degree, either employment conditions equivalent to or similar to other employees in various areas. I could go on to talk about discipline and other areas, where the conditions we have are similar to but not necessarily identical to other employees.

So I think there are – to tie these two questions in together, it may be a little oversimplistic, but I think the office of constable issue is about independence and about no political interference in the police and all the sorts of issues that are basic to British policing.

Sir William Morris: Let me sort of put on the record very clearly that we have heard no solutions from anyone, indeed the contrary is true, that would interfere with or seek to undermine the status, the ethos of the office of constable. Indeed, every submission that we have heard on that point emphasises the protection of the office of constable; so let me just place that on the record.

But you yourself have identified the fact that life is moving on, there is an evolutionary process taking place, for example, the development of protective legislation in respect of discrimination, and your members now have the right, on certain aspects, to access the law to protect them, in terms of the discrimination issues.

That has been so for a little while, and I see no evidence – perhaps if I am wrong on this, you will tell me – that it has in any way (a) undermined the office of constable, or (b) impacted on the independence of the police service, or the individual police officer.

So I am not sure to what extent the natural and legitimate concerns which the Federation holds and promotes, to what extent that should be a constraint to afford even greater protection to the membership and maintain the tradition, status and ethos of the office of constable, and the independence from any political interference.

Mr Elliott: It depends how you see some of the proposals that appear to be being made to you about moving towards employment status. There seems to be, in some of the evidence, a suggestion that police officers might have some parts of employment status legislation but not others, and there is some evidence about – outside of this room, that managers like some bits of employment legislation better than they like others; in other words, they like some bits of legislation that limit some of our protections, as well as those that do not.

I mean, I could talk perhaps a little bit about discipline. I mean, discipline – the discipline procedure in the police service I think recognises the position of constable – not the position of constable, the position police officers are in, and it has been regularly discussed over a period of time to try and modernise it in a way that is acceptable both to the members and to the management. There has been quite a lot of talk in this room about the discipline procedure, as though we had not just gone through a whole process of reconsultation or negotiation over it.

The discipline process has changed recently in 1998/1999 by consent and by discussion, through the Police Advisory Board, and the introduction of the Independent Police Complaints Commission; that for instance has just been spent, I think, two to three years discussed at the Police Advisory Board, and all the people who have given evidence to you from senior management, and from the police authorities, including the MPA, have all had an opportunity to input into that debate about change.

I do not remember in any of those debates that they were recommending sweeping changes along the lines that have been suggested in some of the debates you have had, Sir William. So I think that if police officers do have a limited employment status, which they have now, that they have to have some faith in the national negotiation and consultation machinery. That faith means that those people who are involved in it do not come out of the body and criticise heavily the agreement we have just reached over a new system.

That seems to be partly what is going on here in some respects, so I think that if we want to talk about improved employment status for police, then let us do that; but I am not sure that that is exactly what is on the table.

Sir William Morris: Well, let me just pick up that point, because your trade union instincts are coming to its fore.

Firstly, it is a new day, the IPCC is a reality today, but I am not sure where opinions are being formed; please accept from us that we have received no firm, cut and dried, clearcut proposals in respect of any change. The only comments in terms of a contribution which we have had in specific terms was the Commissioner indicating that he believes that we should examine the proposition for employment law status, and he emphasised greatly the protection of the status of constable.

So there is no proposal on the table. What is canvassed is a principle, and as a seasoned negotiator, you have made reference to the necessity for consultation, and you would naturally be putting your proposals forward if you felt and if your members felt, and if it was a policy position for change, then that change would be very much within the purview of the Federation's influence. And I have seen the Federation at work, in terms of taking it or leaving it, as a judgment, so I am not persuaded that the Federation and constables would be under great threat in a dialogue in looking at this issue.

Mr Elliott: I think one of the points I should make about change is that the more change there is, the more difficult it is for people to actually appreciate the change and the direction of the change, and be able to manage that process.

I think that in some of these changes, the service is not well educated and signalled the change to people at supervisory level, and they get misconfident about some of the processes. If a process has been in for a long time, people are comfortable with that. But we changed discipline, for example, in 1998 and we are changing it again in 2004.

Now these might only be tweaks – I think it is probably more than that, but then there needs to be a message to people about how far they can go in the disciplinary process and what is expected of line managers, and I think this is a key area in lots of the debates we are having in your Inquiry.

How comfortable do line managers feel with the process? How well educated are they about the process? How confident are they about the process? And does change improve that, that confidence, or does it work against that? And if we do get change, how well do we signal the change and how well do we deliver the change? I think these are some of the questions where I think we get to the nub of what may be the problem in the Met and other forces.

Sir William Morris: Would you agree with me that the status quo can never be the option forever?

Mr Elliott: I think we have – that is absolutely right. You know, I think we have a good record in the service of looking for change. Just describing the discipline changes is one. You know, we had a major change in 1984/1985, a major change in 1999, a major change in 2004, moving towards more independence in the discipline procedure, which we fully support.

But you, I think, must recognise that that has to have an impact on how discipline is treated inside the service. That is probably why discipline inside the service is not as straightforward as it is in some other industries; because we have that outside influence, outside setting some standards for us, and that is bound to, I think, make the system slightly more bureaucratic. It is also, on occasions, likely to make some managers less confident about the decisions they make when they have somebody overlooking that system. So I think that is a matter of fact.

We are looking forward. We are quite happy to move forward, and we have been a major supporter of the IPCC, for instance.

Ms Berry: Can I just maybe add something to that? I think change is inevitable, and we all have to learn from what has gone before, to make sure, if it is a mistake, we do not repeat the mistake in the future. Several years ago we recognised that so much was changing in policing; not just about the communities that we police, the need for us to be able to be far more representative in the make-up of the service, but also the fact that there were new demands as far as policing a multi-cultural society, and with regard to policing international crime in a different way than has ever been done before.

The Police Federation said very clearly that everything is changing, we need to have a thorough review of what is happening in policing, how it should be structured for the future, how it can meet the challenges of the future. We said it should be a Royal Commission – I understand that a Royal Commission tends to be a very long time in delivering in results – but that did not necessarily receive too much political support.

What we have had in its place now are a series of – not quite ad hoc, but different inquiries into policing, many of which are overlapping. Your own Inquiry is looking specifically obviously at the Me. We also have the CRE formal investigation into racism in the police service. We have the Bichard Inquiry, which is looking at particular aspects of data protection. There are other police reform inquiries taking place both within the Cabinet Office, Queen Anne's Gate, 10 Downing Street, and many of these things are overlapping.

I think there is a general confusion within the service as to what direction the police service is going in. We recognise there has to be change, the Police Federation recognises there has to be change; and I think what people are looking for is some vision about where we want to be going to in the future.

Sir William Morris: Yes, but let us take the positive view, and the fact that there is a debate going on, and you have made reference to the different inquiries, different debates, different terms of reference; does that not emphasise the importance of the police service to our national life?

Mr Elliott: I think you are absolutely right. I mean –

Sir William Morris: We should not be frightened –

Mr Elliott: No, we should not be constrained or frightened by that, but I think that change management is an important issue. It is not a straightforward issue, change management. You know, we want obviously to retain the skills of people who are older in the service, and as the service expands, that becomes even more important. I think what we are saying is we are up for change, but let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

There is some stuff that we have got in the police service that is there for a reason, that we have talked about for the last 5, 10, 15 years; we have talked recently – I think discipline is a good example. I think there is other examples in the service where we have been continually talking about how to improve the way that works. So you know, you are right, it is an opportunity as well as a challenge, I understand that.

Sir William Morris: Jan touched on your proposal for a Royal Commission, and I think not to misquote you, Jan, but you have identified that Royal Commissions are very long-life tools for change. Somebody once said the length of a Royal Commission is the height of the grass, it is equivalent.

But in this changing world, when our movement, the trade union movement, our public services are having to face up to change in terms of renewal, because it has to serve a new constituency, you have talked about the demographics of a multi-racial society, so change is very much part of our daily lives; could you explain to me why, in a collective bargaining arena, as you do, you bargain for pay, conditions in that context; why would it need a Royal Commission to take, as you put it in your submission, policing into the 21st century?

With the vitality of your negotiating process, and as I have said, we have watched your work, where necessary, and support your activity; why does it need a Royal Commission to make change to basic terms and conditions?

Ms Berry: I do not think the Royal Commission that we were looking towards would be to look at our terms and conditions, although I think that would be part of it. At the moment, we have a police service that is made up of 43 forces. There have been big questions about the capacity of 43 forces to handle the different things that are required in that.

At the moment, we have a service that is made up of a certain number of ranks; we have a service that is made up of police officers and support staff, and there are lots of questions about: what is the role of a police officer? What is the role of a support staff? Is the dividing line the use of police powers or otherwise?

So there are a lot of issues at the moment that are going on with civilianisation, with the number of police forces and their ability to deliver services both at a local level – the requirement of policing at a national level. We have the new organisation. The White Paper announced this week, with regard to the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, and how will all of these things complement each other, co-operate with each other?

So I think it is the bigger picture with regard to policing, and not just focusing on terms and conditions, that the Police Federation was putting forward as an idea.

Sir William Morris: Okay. And just one final question: it has been suggested to us that our Inquiry has an unenviable task; well, be that as it may, we have to produce a report, and our report will affect your members in the largest branch of your union, the jewel in the crown, the Metropolitan Police Service.

As chairperson and general secretary of your organisation, you are aware of all the problems, and you know all the upsides and the downsides, and you have a view about policing for the future, and the role of the Federation and the contribution of the Federation in it.

We have to write a report. If we were to invite you to write a chapter of our report, what would it say?

Mr Elliott: I am not sure we would actually write a whole chapter.

I mean, I think we would be talking about making things happen rather than changing things again, and that is about – I think it is about giving people confidence in the current procedures, and that confidence is about training and support, that confidence is about understanding, and understanding has to be again about training and support, rather than attacking the system; supporting people who have to make decisions, particularly at sergeant and inspector level, where I think we have neglected their training in what I would term personnel matters.

I mean, we have some very good can-do people, some good operators, but I think probably they are not as good as they could be in personnel matters, which are grievance, discipline, and all those sorts of things, and perhaps go back a little bit to the old days where sergeants and inspectors were able to say to people, "You have done this wrong, let us put it right", and not get recriminations about all of that.

I think some of that has gone out of the service, and that is looking back to the future, as it were. Because I think you have to have confident, committed, well trained first and second line supervisors; and for me, that is one of the problems the service has built up, not just in terms of training, but also in terms of numbers. Numbers have declined.

Ms Berry: I agree with much of what Clint said. I think we have to be seen to be a learning organisation. I think at the moment, we are seen to be too much stick and not enough carrot. You need stick on occasions, but I do not think we properly develop the investment in the people that we have, and I would much rather see there be more development of officers, lifelong development; we talk about it, we have seen all the commitments on pieces of paper and the glossy brochures throughout the service.

The point that Clint made is I think we would like to see some action on some of the promises, rather than just a rebadging of some of the promises we have seen.

Sir William Morris: Thank you very much, both of you. Could I invite Sir Anthony Burden to put his questions to you himself?

Sir Anthony Burden: Thank you very much.

Questions by Sir Anthony Burden

Sir Anthony Burden: I would like, if I may, to get into more detail around discipline, because it is a very important issue for us. Although we are dealing obviously with the Metropolitan Police, I have no doubt that this would reflect the situation countrywide, the picture that we are drawing together here.

Of course, we have submissions not only from organisations and representative bodies but from individuals. What we are seeing is a pretty worrying pattern, really. If you deal with delay, I can quote an example of one officer suspended for four years, who eventually pleaded guilty and was reprimanded. In terms of suspension, we have heard from two officers who have been suspended for seven years. One submission came in just this morning from an officer who has been suspended for eight years.

Disproportionality: there is a real question over whether certain officers are dealt with in a proportionate way through the discipline process, and the whole bureaucracy that surrounds this.

But I would want to add to that a real concern for many that they do not think the IPCC and the new regulations will make much of a dent in many of those issues. We have heard from the IPCC themselves, saying their resources are limited, the number of inquiries they will be able to take on personally is relatively small, and therefore, much will still be left in the hands of professional standards departments to deal with.

That is why, when the chairman introduced this, and why I am continuing with this, it is such an important bit of what we do, because you are members are the recipients of all of this, and people say, "You know, surely to goodness if we sat down with a fresh sheet of paper and designed something, we would not design what we are now left with". So could I ask for your comments on that?

Mr Elliott: It is interesting that you talk about some of the issues that we have been talking about for some considerable period of time. I mean delays, for instance, in the system: I can remember talking about inordinate delays 20 years ago. I mean, I have been doing Police Federation discipline representation for over 20 years, so the delay problem is one that has got worse rather than better.

And that includes the suspension issue, which I think is – I mean, it is disgraceful that people are suspended for eight years; absolutely disgraceful. We have been taking some cases to the courts, and winning them on abuse of process. Now that is in nobody's interest, for us to win a case on abuse of process, because at the end of the day, the question is not answered, either for the complainant or for the officer.

I suppose I might have a significantly different view about delays to many senior officers, but I think people more recently have lost the ability to draw lines under inquiries, when the time has come to start to judge about what the cost benefit in all this is.

I am not talking about corruption here, I am talking about some inquiries that just go on and on, and nobody appears to be able to say, "We have got to stop here, because we are not going to get anything more out of this inquiry"; in other words, sometimes when you get into certain inquiries, they seem to go on and on.

If you take a criminal inquiry, there are some judgments made; we throw the right amount of resources at the thing to try and investigate it early on, and then if we do not get a quick result, we make some judgments as we go through the process about what is it worth doing in the future, based on almost a cost/benefit sort of analysis. I think none of that exists in the discipline scenario.

I think also that because first line managers are not prepared to make decisions as they perhaps used to, that more stuff goes into formal procedure than should. Once it gets into formal procedure, then I am afraid everybody gets in their trenches and wants legal support and all sorts of stuff, which is not in our interest any more than in managers' interest, because it costs both of us. We are currently trying to encourage all our representatives to actually try and find a solution.

The other problem with legal representation is probably that police officer friends have less time available to support officers; that is another reason why people perhaps fall back on the legal position.

So despite the fact that over the years, we have introduced things like the ability for officers to accept informal resolution, and all those sorts of things, I think that has not been accepted well by some officers; despite that, I think the layers are still there, the bureaucracy is still there, but I think it needs managing quite a lot better; it needs managing within time constraints and cost constraints. Somebody needs to make judgments about that. This is exactly the evidence we gave to Taylor, after the –

Sir Anthony Burden: Sure. I think what you say has been borne out here, that managers are reluctant to manage, and therefore, they make it official and push it up to, in Met terms, the DPS to deal with.

It has gone further than that, in our evidence, because it has even been suggested now that that is disproportionate, because race has become an issue; you have got frontline managers who are frightened to manage black and minority ethnic staff. Can I ask your views on a national basis whether that is something you are coming across?

Mr Elliott: I think that is true. I mean, it is anecdotal evidence at the moment, but I think that is true.

I think what disappointed us was that some time ago, the Home Office did suggest it would look at disproportionality in discipline for ethnic minority people. Two meetings took place, and the last one was in 2003. I think this goes to the point that we do not have good information on personnel matters in the police service.

I mean, I am surprised – more surprised the higher up the organisation I go how poor is the information in terms of quality about personnel matters. There is quality stuff about numbers, plain numbers; but there is very few forces until recently, and there is even very few forces now, do things like entry interviews and exit interviews, and virtually nobody can give you any figures, real figures, on disproportionality in discipline cases. So we collect all sorts of quantitative stuff, but I am afraid not very much qualitative stuff in this area.

Ms Berry: Just to add to that, I think it is easy to keep the figures, and I think the service is getting better at keeping the figures, but it has to start examining those figures. Not just going for the headlines but actually looking at what the quality of that information is saying, and I do not think the service is very good at doing that at the moment.

Sir Anthony Burden: I mean, you cannot blame managers not wishing to manage if the culture of an organisation is such that if you get it wrong, you yourself are criticised. So there is something about the environment within which management takes place, is there not?

Mr Elliott: Yes, I mean, I just – people keep denying this, but I just think we never moved away from a blame culture. You know, somebody has to be at fault, and there is all sorts of reasons for that. First of all, we are a disciplined organisation. Secondly there is a press speculation: every time there is a problem in the press, somebody has to be at fault, and I think we never quite moved away from that.

It is a point I have made consistently about the blame culture. If you look at some other organisations, they look to put people on the right track first; you know, if you make a genuine mistake. I think in some enlightened areas, people do that; if they make a genuine mistake, some enlightened managers will forgive a genuine mistake, if it is an effort to do something right. But I think there is a blame culture in the organisation, and it is not just inside, it is what comes in from outside.

And I think that is a difficulty for managers at all levels, but support, I think, is the key issue; support training – and just occasionally saying to people, "If you get it wrong, we will try and support you if it is a genuine error".

Sir Anthony Burden: So taking your position on this, and from your submission, you would say, I think, that wholesale reform once again of discipline regulations, we would question the benefit; it is about management of the processes, and it is getting the right climate in which managers can manage and feel confident about exercising some discretion.

Mr Elliott: Yes, it is not just top managers, it is actually line managers –

Sir Anthony Burden: No, it is right the way down –

Mr Elliott: I think it is really interesting, in the bureaucracy report that came out, that Sir David O'Dowd started to talk about intrusive supervision. You know, that is something that used to exist probably in the 1970s, and the fact that he actually mentioned it means that he recognised there was a problem there, and the problem might have been created by all sorts of issues, not least of which was running down the numbers of sergeants and inspectors while police numbers went down.

Police numbers have come back up, way beyond where they were before, and we are still trying to find the right people in those areas to promote, and to encourage them to be promoted. Because they got out of the habit of wanting to be promoted as we were running numbers down. So there are quite a lot of issues there.

Ms Berry: If I can just add to that, I think the earlier you resolve these difficulties in the process the better, and that works for discipline, it works for grievances. The further up the line it goes, then I think people lose any responsibility or ownership of the problem in the first instance.

Sir Anthony Burden: Yes. It comes down, I suppose, to the quality of the people you are looking to promote to management positions and give this authority to.

Mr Elliott: Yes, I am sure that is true. I think it might be slightly worse in the Met, but I am sure the Met people will address you on this, because of the distance between senior management and frontline supervision, which in a smaller force, might be easier to impose your personality on – you know, a Chief Constable can do that, in a small force, and perhaps encourage some of this process, if he really believes in it, and that will affect the whole of a small force; whereas in a large force like this, it is a bit like turning a tanker at sea, it is a little harder to do that. You can be committed from the top, but it does not necessarily affect the first line supervisors immediately.

Sir Anthony Burden: On the thorny issue – and I know it will be a thorny issue for you – of the pool of people available from whom we promote and draw frontline and senior managers, is the current system still robust enough, or is there really an argument now for multi-point entry, for a two tier service, where we are looking at different skills from those required for frontline operational policing?

Mr Elliott: We are not convinced by multi-point entry. I am still unconvinced by multi-point entry. I think one of the key factors certainly at inspector level is police experience, understanding how the job is done. It is far easier to put people back on the right track than just coming in at that level and not understanding policing, so we are not convinced by multi-point entry.

We are convinced that the current way people get promoted is probably not right. The OSPRE exam has come in for some criticism, and I think it is not just the OSPRE exam, it is the plethora of systems that exist beyond the OSPRE exam in various forces. I am not quite sure how it is in the Met, but I am sure Met colleagues will tell you what it is. Lots of people have to pass the exam and then go through another set of hoops, and sometimes they do not think it is worth it for the extra experience and not that much more money.

So we are not convinced by multi-point entry. We are convinced that the current system could work better.

Sir Anthony Burden: Just to pursue that to the final, I think we have had several pleas, "Whatever you do, for goodness sake, do not add to our training commitment, because we have got training coming out of our ears and insufficient time to do it".

What is the Federation's view now on the expectation that particularly senior managers, senior middle managers, must take some responsibility for ensuring that they keep their own knowledge levels to the right level, and they are, in that respect, professionally qualified and up to date in what is expected of them?

Mr Elliott: I think our view is balanced on this, which is that what formal training does give you is it not only gives you some confidence and some ability, but actually gives you a singular interpretation of how the organisation wants to deliver its service. So one of the pluses about formal training is that you deliver more than training: you deliver a corporate message.

To allow people to go away and just do their own thing in that, it reduces that effect. But I think all police officers, to a greater or lesser degree, do try to keep abreast of developments, and for instance, in order to get promoted, you need to pass an exam which you do in your own time at the lower levels, and at the higher levels, I would have thought that people would have been interested in this sort of inquiry, and that was something they would do in their own time. There are lots of things I think police officers do in their own time to keep them abreast of developments inside and outside the service.

Sir Anthony Burden: Finally, can I just pursue one point that Sir Bill raised earlier, and that is about the representation you are able to give to an increasingly diverse workforce, and the fact that you value – and you have shown this by your representations to the DTI; you value diversity within the Federation. Do you feel if you were to get agreement within the Federation that in the absence of statutory provision – that is not coming, not for a while, you keep lobbying, but it is not coming – that you would be happy to work within the voluntary code of having additional representation? I do not see that there would be a Chief Constable or Commissioner in the country that would resist that if you were to put it to them.

Ms Berry: It is already happening in a number of branch boards, on an informal basis. There are certainly some gay officers and there are some black officers who are additional members of the local branch boards.

Sir Anthony Burden: And that is with the chief officers' agreement locally?

Ms Berry: Yes, it is an informal arrangement. It provides them as being part of the actual branch board, but you also need to ensure you have other vehicles. What I am also very mindful of is that if you look at the profile of the Police Federation representatives, the age profile is towards the end of your service, and for the Federation to be representative, you have got to look at people who are just coming into the service, what their needs are, and we need to have – other than the electoral process, to get into these people and understand whether we are providing the level of service that they want today.

Mr Elliott: I do not think we can afford to give up to try to attract the whole range of people to actually be full representatives of the Police Federation, because if we do not, we will wither on the vine. I always see these things as temporary measures, because I think we have got to attract people from across the entire age spectrum, sex and race spectrum, to be proper representatives in the organisation, because I think that is the only way we are ever going to reflect the service.

Sir Anthony Burden: Sure, I think –

Mr Elliott: And this has only got to be –

Sir Anthony Burden: Looking at the Met, when 10,000 Met officers are black or visible ethnic minorities and 49 per cent of them or 50 per cent of them are female, and all the other groups are represented, then no problem, because issues will take care of themselves, but I am really looking to assist you in finding some interim solution, because if you do not remain representative, as you say, you will wither on the vine.

Mr Elliott: I understand that.

Sir William Morris: I am going to suggest that we take a very short break, about five or seven minutes, to give our transcript writer a due tea break.

11.40 am
(A short break)
11.50 am

Sir William Morris: Just to recommence, I will hand you straight over to Miss Weekes for her series of questions that she would like to put to you.

Questions by Miss Weekes

Miss Weekes: Thank you. Can I, if I may, come back to some of the matters that you have touched on in relation to management skills and personnel skills, and I want to concentrate on extending some of the things you have said in your submissions on learning the lessons. I am going to have a look at the relationship between police staff and police officers when things go wrong.

Please forgive me for perhaps dealing with it in this way: we have received a huge amount of evidence of what is wrong with management, and why disputes are not resolved, and why you get employment law cases. We have received lots of evidence about what does not happen; training is one of the things, better training.

But there really is precious little assistance to us as to real practical suggestions for change, and I listened very carefully to your answers to both my colleagues, and if it is an unfair comment, I know you will tell me, but I could not quite picture the practical solutions that you are giving us about how you do not go down the line of change in the statute, but you go to your management and you get them to change.

If I had to go today to four of your managers who have just got it wrong on how they handled a woman or an ethnic minority person, what is it that you are practically going to say to them about the way they handled those individuals? What are the real suggestions for change?

Now let me give you an example so you can help me. We know that of the cases that go to employment tribunals, the majority are race and sex, and sex discrimination tips the numbers. So a lot of women are not happy about the way they are treated at work. Two of the reasons given to us yesterday were, "The way I am dealt with in terms of appraisals, my promotion chances, and I perceive I am not treated equally to men".

Now you represent the national view of the Federation, so you would understand it from both sides; the manager and the worker.

If you do not want a radical change, but you want to go back to managers must manage – your words are "confident, committed supervisors" – what practically can you do to help that manager?

Mr Elliott: Well, that is a good question. The first thing is that we only need to support people in race and sex employment tribunals because that is the only employment tribunals we can go to as police officers, race and sex, although there is an avenue for health and safety, where we are covered by health and safety legislation. But I do not think we have ever taken anything on health and safety yet.

I think that is a good – the practical issues for me is that people do not – people complain, for instance, that they do not understand police regulations, they do not understand some of the discipline stuff, and I just think that what we have not done is include any real practical advice to people on those issues.

What we try to do in some areas is produce these small booklets. I think these have been produced before you before.

Miss Weekes: I think you have, in the documentation.

Mr Elliott: With some more information. We think it would be much better if some of the stuff that came out of the Home Office and other places was much simpler, much more practically based. Although that does not mean you will not be working from regulations and determinations necessarily – because we have just rewritten the whole regulations and determinations, which effectively are police conditions – you just actually try to simplify them in the way we have done for our members.

So simple information about how to operate grievance, how to operate discipline would be one of those areas, instead of the complex stuff that comes out of the Home Office that is difficult to understand.

Miss Weekes: Well, can I deal with that point? What is it that managers are not understanding: how to do it?

Mr Elliott: I think there is two things. First of all, they do not understand fully all the regulations that apply, or the net effect of that, across a range of issues.

Ms Berry: Can I just maybe add something here? I think there is an issue around interpersonal skills and not having an understanding of a different viewpoint to their own.

The police service has gone from being mainly white and male to being – well, I think we have 19 or 20 per cent female officers now, a growing number of ethnic minority officers, and I think there was an assumption that everybody thinks and does things the same way, and I think managers, particularly higher up in the service, have had to see that people have got different demands, different requirements.

I heard what Sir Anthony said with regard to that we have enough training in the service, but there is huge difficulties. If you want to progress in the service, and you have got a family, and you have got a 32 or 40 hour prelearning pack in order to advance, there are real tensions there within the service. I do not think that the service has necessarily an understanding of the different requirements that different members of staff have now or may require to have in the future.

And in the past, the answer has been, "Well, just do it", and I think these days, people need to have a better understanding of what it is and why they have got difficulties in doing it.

A very simple example came to me recently, where a single mother was at home, her daughter was unwell, she asked if she could have a shift change because she could not do night duty, and she was told, "No, if I let you do that, everybody has got to do it". It is just the broad brush approach, that we have to look at managing the individual requirements of the people who are delivering the service and, at the same time, recognise that you have to balance that with the fact that we still have to deliver a police service at the end of the day.

Miss Weekes: Well, I follow that entirely, but the status quo seems to me to be that those who are in the supervisory position, the first line managers, are either not getting it right because they cannot, or they will not.

Ms Berry: I think a lot of first line managers do get it right, but we do not get to hear of the people who get it right. The telephone calls that I get are only ever the ones where it has gone wrong, and I think we have to pinch ourselves sometimes and realise that there are a lot of people who are doing a really good job out there; because they are doing a good job, we do not get to hear about it.

That said, where there are people who are not getting it right, I think they have to be encouraged to do things slightly different; they need to have access to information that can assist them to get it better; they need to have role models and they need to see role models within the service who are getting it right.

Sometimes it takes a long time for it to get through the different levels. To a certain extent, I am not sure – we have had a huge change over the last 18 months in the ACPO ranks in the service. I would suggest it is probably in the region of about 40 per cent turnaround; that is probably the biggest change for a great number of years.

We have got more women in those senior positions now, we now have the first black chief officer, and I think when you start seeing role models who have maybe got a different way of dealing with things, getting into the senior ranks, then that will filter down and it will give, I hope, officers in the middle ranks – and Clint made reference to the first and second line supervisors. They are the ones who can really drive change on the ground, and make a difference.

Miss Weekes: Well, if I were a black woman in a police force, or black male, or black Asian, I am not so sure I would want to wait that long for the change. I would want my line manager to be managing me now, today, with the right attitude, so are you suggesting that they just wait for this change to filter down?

Ms Berry: No, I am not, and I think that is why you need to have grievance procedures, you need to have the formal procedures, and you also need to have – I think the point was made earlier on about intrusive supervision. I think proactive supervision would be better. You need to have the confidence that your boss, your next supervisor has got the skill to do that.

Mr Elliott: I think while we all want change now, I think the question I sometimes ask myself is: if we go down the line of actually changing all the regulations, does that improve the situation or worsen the situation, if it is actually about the attitude of people at the frontline?

My argument is, actually, it is attitudinal change you want, not necessarily structural, back of the house type – you know, wholesale renewal of regulations and things – because that is going to slow the process down rather than speed the process up.

In other words, concentrating on the back end takes your eye off where the problem is, which is very much at the interpersonal relationships between people at – probably at constable, sergeant, inspector level.

Miss Weekes: Mr Elliott, there are two things, are there not, that come out of your submissions today? Many managers are still saying, and the majority of the evidence that we have is that the statutory provisions and regulations are too complicated. They lead busy lives, they have many responsibilities. They want a simplified bullet point that they can understand.

It is clear you think that, because that is why you have produced that simplified document.

Mr Elliott: Yes, I suppose at the end of the day, to deliver that as a training and a support facility is a plus, but the regulations – we have not got regulations, we have regulations and determinations; we have got some regulations on discipline – are supposed to be there to give terms and conditions for people that are not wide open to wide interpretation. So it is difficult to actually formulate conditions, contracts or regulations or whatever in that simplistic term that is not open to wide interpretation.

This is just an aide memoire to what are effectively police officers' terms and conditions. I do not think many police officers would thank me for writing very simplistic terms and conditions that were open to wide interpretation, because currently, they are interpreted differently, slightly differently, from force to force. We try to get a single position in terms of contracts for police officers, and I do not think it can be done.

The holy grail of very simple regulations I do not think is ever going to be achieved, because they are terms and conditions and contracts, effectively, but I think more simplistic information about what they mean in real terms is achievable.

Miss Weekes: In your overall view, because you cover England and Wales, how is best practice disseminated? Because I take on board your colleague's view that there must be and there is and are many good managers. How do you disseminate good practice for others to take on board? Because I sense that is a difficulty, inside the Met and outside the Met, because the Met does not block assimilating best practice from the outside. We have talked about it with one or two other colleagues of heads of department. How do you disseminate it?

Ms Berry: Are we talking about within the Police Federation or generally?

Miss Weekes: Well, both, really.

Ms Berry: Generally I think the police service is pretty poor at disseminating good practice. It is poor in the first instance of actually identifying that it is good practice, what template you might place on something to agree something is good practice or not.

Within the Police Federation, then we have equality liaison officers at every branch board, they come together three times a year for meetings, where we try and gauge what is happening around the forces, but importantly, where there are cases which have taken place or there are procedures which have particularly worked well, then we will use those opportunities for every force to be made aware of that, and then those people go back to the force and hopefully introduce that at a local level.

One of the reasons I do not think the service has learnt necessarily from the number of different cases that have taken place is sometimes, we are not a learning organisation. At the end of a case, people sit back and do not necessarily reflect objectively what has taken place. They sit back and justify why they have taken the action they have, and unless you try and open up the organisation to say, "Well okay, we have got it wrong, let us see how we can make sure we get it right next time", then we will not become a learning organisation, which is why we have invested so much in trying to get this "learning the lessons" project underway to having a conference in a couple of months' time.

Miss Weekes: I think that is your conference in May 2004.

Ms Berry: That is right.

Miss Weekes: I have looked at your recommendations.

This is not meant to be a criticism, but those recommendations, and I am sure it will come out at the conference, but presently, in the way they have been formatted, it does not deal with the nitty-gritty of how you get a manager to behave differently and to improve interpersonal skills. I am right, am I not? It does not really address that.

Ms Berry: It goes into a little bit more detail in the document itself, but you are absolutely right, the interpersonal skills aspect of that is highlighted there, but it is not dealt with.

Miss Weekes: All right. One other aspect, again dealing with learning the lessons: in some public authorities, public organisations, if a manager proves to be not a good manager but an exceptionally good professional, he just does not manage any more, his managerial role is taken away. Because if you maintain a bad manager who upsets a number of workers, you get more employment tribunal claims, and the thing just does not work: does that happen in police forces?

Ms Berry: I think the police service would be more inclined to discipline in that type of situation than to develop the individual. I do not think.

Miss Weekes: Some people just cannot be developed, because they are just not good at it.

Ms Berry: I agree with you, but I am answering how the police service deal with it at the moment, not necessarily how it would be better to deal with it. In general, I think we use this stick approach and not the carrot approach and do not necessarily look that some people have got better skills than others. That said, there are positions – I think there are situations and people who we do find the right place for them to work and put, you know, square pegs into square holes, et cetera, but there are others, I think, where there is an expectation that they can cover the range, and that is not necessarily true.

What the police service, I think, is beginning to invest a little bit more time in is performance development reviews. Now I have been a police officer for a number of years, and I do not think that any of the appraisal systems, the development reviews, whatever we want to call it – the system itself is never at fault, and the point that you have made very, very well – it is not the system who is at fault, it is the people who are operating it, and I think you need to have some investment in encouraging people to fairly and equitably assess the qualities of the people that they are working with.

Mr Elliott: Could I just add, I think Jan is absolutely right in what she says, and I do not think it does happen, but there is a facility for it to happen, it is called the incapability procedure which we negotiated as part of the – effectively, it is part of the discipline procedure. I think that is a wrong place for it to be, to be honest. But it is an incapability procedure which allows a series of first and second warnings, and an opportunity for people to improve.

This is something where you have had evidence from people before that people are not happy to work with for whatever reason. The forces do not operate it well. Some forces do not operate it at all. Now we are not calling for people to be dismissed because of poor performance, but the facility is there which actually is a stage process which seeks warnings and improvements, warnings and improvements, with the ultimate being either reduction in rank or to be dismissed, and that process could actually add to the point you are making about poor managers.

I think that some people are excellent cops, and then they get to be a sergeant and suddenly cannot handle it, but they are still excellent cops. I think that loses the enthusiasm of the individual as well. So I think there is a big question there, that this was intended to tackle and has not tackled.

Miss Weekes: It goes back to Sir Anthony's point about multi-point entry, does it not, which, Mr Elliott, you disagreed with. But if you concede that not all officers are going to be good at management – it is not their fault, that is just not their talent. Their talent lies somewhere else.

Mr Elliott: It is an interesting argument, I am not swayed by it yet. And we are discussing this nationally, because I know this is on the agenda. My argument is that we have sufficient people of the calibre to be good managers, it is just a question of selecting the right people and supporting the right people, that is my argument.

My argument is you are a better manager for understanding what you are supposed to be managing, in other words the processes at – certainly at sergeant level and almost certainly at inspector level, so I think that is an argument I am making.

Miss Weekes: Again nationally, is there a process of collecting the trends that come out of employment tribunal cases, and doing something with your knowledge of why people go to employment tribunals?

Ms Berry: No, and I think that is probably the motivation for the learning the lessons project.

Miss Weekes: So the answer is no, it does not happen?

Ms Berry: There is nothing there at the moment. There were some promises about two or three years ago – I think in fact Sir Anthony was probably chairing the equality sub-committee in those days – where a database was going to be used at Bramshill to facilitate that. That never happened. So the "learning the lessons" project – my understanding is that the capacity for that now to happen will happen within the ACPO equality sub-committee.

But for that to happen, people have to have some honesty about really what goes wrong with these cases, and the whole motivation for learning the lessons is to put the emphasis on a very early resolution. The earlier you can get resolution, the more likely you are to get the resolution, and also for mediation skills to be used far more widely within the service.

Miss Weekes: Yes. It is clear why I asked the question, because it falls squarely within our terms of reference, about employment tribunal cases. What is your suggestion for change to make the forces, not just the Met, get together and look at why people are unhappy?

They might say it is race discrimination, but it might actually be something else, or it may be a combination of other things that then results in the genuine belief of unfair treatment on the grounds of race, but it does require somebody to look at it; so what is the recommendation for how we might help you do that?

Ms Berry: Well certainly, we believe – there are clearly trends that come out, and when we see a trend, if it is a particular force, then we can advise the branch board and they can deal with that at a force level, but I have to say that it is very rarely a particular force that has a problem. The issues go across the board, and it is normally with regard to interpersonal skills.

I think also if you look at the statistics within the police service, most cases with regard to sex discrimination and race discrimination have actually had what I would class as reverse logic; in other words, the white male officer has been more successful at employment tribunal than the female officer has, and very similarly, with black officers, because there is very often positive discrimination as opposed to positive action, and I do not think there is very much clarity within the service, in many areas, as to what the difference between the two is.

Miss Weekes: We have heard that white officers recently – I say recently, maybe it is five or six years – have begun to take cases to the employment tribunal claiming race discrimination and citing black officers as the comparator. Is this something that you have picked up around the country?

Ms Berry: During the last 12 months, I think there have been cases – in particular following the Secret Policeman programme in Greater Manchester Police, there were some allegations made that there was disparity in how soon cases were being dealt with there.

Again, there have been some suggestions, I think in the Metropolitan Police, where a similar allegation – but a lot of these things are said maybe in a – not in a press statement, but in a press comment, they receive some publicity, but you do not then actually see them coming through into employment tribunals.

Miss Weekes: So is there any substantial evidence –

Ms Berry: We have no proved substantial evidence at the moment, no.

Miss Weekes: Any ideas on best practice, again just really in relation to resolution of disputes generally, informal resolution of disputes, connected to Fairness at Work, because that is clearly where it would be?

Ms Berry: My personal experience and my observations, both at a very local level and at a national level, is that the quicker that you resolve the differences, the better, and you need to bring all parties together.

I think Sir William mentioned at the very beginning, this is not an adversarial type of event, and I think police officers, because of the nature of our job, are sometimes very used to an adversarial type of structure. So we need to resolve any differences very quickly; they need to be resolved at the very local level, and it needs to be done, in many cases, through mediation.

And that will need, for some people, to have some mediation skills, because it is not a prerequisite at the moment, as far as looking for sergeants, first line supervisors, I do not think that is necessarily a prerequisite as one of the skill factors to be a sergeant or to be an inspector. So that would be an important factor.

I would not want to see that responsibility put on to a human resource person or a personnel manager, because it takes responsibility away from that first line supervision, and I think where that has happened, it has actually made it very disjointed and not assisted the process.

Mr Elliott: Can I make a point about the process? Jan is absolutely right about trying to solve things very early on in the process and I think also – do not take this in any way personal, but the sooner the lawyers get involved, the harder it gets to solve this problem.

Miss Weekes: That is true, I happen to agree with you.

Mr Elliott: One of the issues I think we have got is we are trying to convince our equality reps to actually try and solve things early on.

Unlike discipline, where, in actual fact there is a degree of support in the legislation for people to get duty time to assist people in discipline, there is no similar provision in equality. So many forces do actually offer a grievance friend's time, but some do not. I think one big signal would be if ACPO were to sign up to doing that in a positive way, so people did not have to walk straight down the road to a lawyers, and we had experienced grievance friends in the forces that the chiefs supported. That would be a big signal, I think, to help the process on in that way.

Miss Weekes: One final point on representation of your members, and again, this is your national view, if I may ask it: you split, in the Federation, by way of rank; why?

Mr Elliott: That is what the regulations say.

Ms Berry: It is the way it was set up in 1919.

Mr Elliott: It is an unfair –

Miss Weekes: Just a second, I know that is what the regulation says, but can I just ask practically: I know what the regulation says, but do you need to do that?.

Mr Elliott: This really goes into the history of the Police Federation, and we were set up in 1919 following a strike, the way we were. It was probably set up to fail or certainly to balance out the radicals in the organisation, so that, you know, I suppose that was the theory behind it all. And we have had to make that work over the years, because the only real way of doing business is on a joint basis.

However, you know, there are people who still have some investment in the rank structure as well, so it is one of these things it would be difficult to change, but whether it is good or bad for us is something we discuss on a fairly regular basis. I mean, you can imagine the tensions that are involved in all that, but – and in 66 order to change, we would need to make a case to government to change the regulations.

Ms Berry: With regard to the employment tribunals, it actually has some benefit as well, because from a confidentiality point of view, it is important that we deal with all funding of legal cases from the centre, both legal advice and representation. The reason we do that is to ensure that the officer in Cumbria has exactly the same service as the officer in the Metropolitan or whoever else; so the size and funding of the local organisation will not determine what service provision you will get.

So having the different bodies nationally means that for an employment tribunal, we can actually separate the papers, they have separate access to a person who is making the decision on the funding, and that has never ever – from a confidentiality point of view, never goes across to the perpetrators or the complainant, so they are always separated.

Now I know that other organisations manage that, but it is a neat way for us to be able to keep the two things separate from the Federation point of view and maintain confidentiality.

Miss Weekes: Do the junior ranks feel that you deal fairly with their request for funding and representation when it is a senior rank whom they are making the complaint against? Is there a conflict there?

Ms Berry: I do not think that particular part of the complaint has ever really been an issue for the Federation, because they would all be dealt with in exactly the same way. If a constable is making a complaint about a sergeant, then we would look at the constable's complaint on the merit of the case, it would be judged by both ourselves and our legal advisors on the merits and the benefits of the case, and the last thing we would take account of is the cost of actually taking action. So each of those would be dealt with quite separately, and it would not matter what rank the person being complained of was.

Miss Weekes: Thank you both very much.

Sir William Morris: Right, well, Mr Elliott and Ms Berry, can I first of all thank you for your help? We have finished the questions that we want to put to you as a panel, but you will recall that in my opening statement, I said that I would offer you the opportunity at the end of our questioning to make a brief comment, should you so wish. If you do wish to make that closing comment, then now is your time.

Mr Elliott: I just want to briefly talk to you about the Police Federation and its role, and then go on to talk a little bit about employment status, and I will be brief.

The Police Federation by regulations is responsible for efficiency as well as welfare, and that means we do try to look to how the service operates balanced against the welfare of our members.

We have had some difficult times with changes to conditions of service recently, when we had quite a lot of quite angry members who wanted total employment status, not just limited employment status. When we look at employment status, the questions we ask ourselves are: are chief officers really serious about giving us a carte blanche on employment status, including things like health and safety, things like our restrictions to our private life, business interests and off duty positions, in terms of discipline.

One of the difficulties, if I can go in part of the way to employment status, however far that part is – I think there would be a drive from our members to want to go all of the way, including full employment rights and other things, and we have to ask ourselves whether that balanced the welfare and efficiency argument in the service. So I think this is the difficulty we are going through internally, on that particular issue. But if we get partial employment status, there will be some people, I think quite a lot of people, who will demand much more than partial employment status, much greater rights.

Ms Berry: Can I just conclude by saying that I think we recognise that whilst an awful lot goes right for the police service, we are a very transparent organisation, and things do go wrong, and so the type of work that you are undertaking is important because it brings an independent review of the processes and procedures which are important.

We accept things cannot stay the same, but we do need to have some real solutions to how the service can learn some lessons without continually battering itself around the head, and so we look forward to the results of your work.

Sir William Morris: Well, thank you both very much indeed. Can I just say as a closing comment for the record that as with all our witnesses, it may be possible that once we have heard from other people, we may want to ask you some more questions, either in writing or to ask you to come back and share your thoughts with us at a future hearing.

If we do decide to do so, then obviously we will do it in a way which minimises the inconvenience to you, and that is to be seen, insofar as the Inquiry progresses.

But for the moment, all I need to do on behalf of my colleagues and myself is to thank you very much indeed, both of you, for coming along and sharing your thoughts this morning, and for the overall contribution that you are making to our Inquiry. Thank you very much.

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	Archive note Important note: This is an archive of the website that was formerly at www.morrisinquiry.gov.uk. It is being hosted on the MPA website for archival purposes only and may contain out-of-date information. Page summary This resource is from the Transcripts section. This section contains a transcript of the public session with Mr C Elliott, Police Federation of England and Wales, on 31 March 2004. Sections available here: Transcript of public session: Mr C Elliott and Ms J Berry of the Police Federation of England and Wales Questions by Sir William Morris Questions by Sir Anthony Burden Questions by Miss Weekes Alternative versions This transcript is also available with original line and page numbering. Content Transcript of public session: Mr C Elliott and Ms J Berry of the Police Federation of England and Wales Wednesday, 31 March 2004 10.30 am Sir William Morris: Good morning, everyone, and can I first of all, in opening the inquiry this morning, say welcome to you, Mr Elliott, and indeed your colleague. Can I first of all thank you very much for accepting our invitation to attend the Inquiry to give evidence, and for letting us have your written submission which we found extremely helpful. I appreciate that for some of our witnesses, any process of this nature may seem somewhat of a daunting task, so I thought it would be helpful if I set out very briefly how we propose to conduct the hearing. But first, let me introduce myself and the other members of the panel. I am Sir Bill Morris, recently retired General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, and I have been asked to chair the Inquiry. As you can see, there are two other panel members: first, Sir Anthony Burden, who recently retired as the Chief Constable of South Wales Constabulary after a long and distinguished career in the police service; and next is Miss Anesta Weekes QC, who is an eminent barrister, who works as a recorder and part-time chair of the employment tribunals. She was also counsel to the Lawrence Inquiry. Mr Elliott, as you know, we have been tasked by the Metropolitan Police Authority to conduct an independent inquiry into the professional standards and employment matters in the Metropolitan Police Service. Let me emphasise, as I do with all witnesses, that our focus is in fact the MPS as an organisation and not the individuals who make up the organisation. The inquiry we are conducting is inquisitorial and is not adversarial in character or in nature. We are very keen to enquire into the issues raised by our terms of reference, so we can make appropriate recommendations for the further good practice of the MPS, rather than concentrating on making criticisms of the MPS as an organisation, or the individuals in it. To help us in our task, we are very keen to hear from all our witnesses not just what is wrong with the Metropolitan Police Service but what is right with it, but more importantly, we are seeking suggestions from all our witnesses as to how matters can be put right. A transcript is being taken so that we have a proper record of the evidence given by all witnesses. This will be posted on our website later today. At the end of these introductory remarks, I will lead on the questions to you, to be followed by my colleagues, first Miss Weekes, and then followed by Sir Anthony Burden, and any supplementary questions that I might find necessary. At the conclusion of our questions, I will offer you the opportunity for a brief closing statement. You have very helpfully provided us with a written submission which will be posted on the website following your evidence today. But in your written submission, you have indicated one or two matters that I just want to identify for the record. You have given us a broad overview of the role of the Police Federation, you have given comments on Fairness at Work, dispute resolution, regulations and learning lessons from employment tribunals, and you have also offered a view on the office of constable. You have talked about disciplinary procedures, including monitoring, and of course the Police Federation in total terms. We would like to ask you some questions about the information that you have already provided, and seek your views on a number of other matters which we think will be of interest, but before we raise these issues, for the benefit of the transcript, I wonder whether you would mind formally introducing yourself and, of course, your colleague. Mr Elliott: Thank you for that introduction, Sir William. My name is Clint Elliott. I am a police officer, a police sergeant with the Cleveland Constabulary, and I am currently the General Secretary of the Police Federation of England and Wales. My colleague is Jan Berry. Jan is the chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales and I should say the reason we have come together is because we do split some responsibilities in the Police Federation in slightly different ways to perhaps some other representative organisations, and that Jan should be an integral part of the evidence, because I think it would be more helpful to you if that is the case, Sir William. So Jan is here in her capacity as the chair, which is effectively the public voice of the Police Federation; I am more in the negotiation and consultation area. Sir William Morris: Thank you for that. How you present your evidence is a matter for you of course. We look forward to what you say, rather than who makes the presentation, but thank you anyway, and welcome to you, Jan. Questions by Sir William Morris Sir William Morris: Mr Elliott, you represent the national Federation, and so does Jan. To assist our inquiry, let me share with you part of our plans. We do plan to make a visit to Greater Manchester, Merseyside and indeed the West Midlands police service. Can I ask you to let us know whether the main issues which affect your members nationally – whether they are the same issues affecting your members in the Metropolitan Police Service, and can you say what those issues are? Mr Elliott: I think that the issues affecting the service are national and not just confined to the Metropolitan Police. The Metropolitan Police amounts to around about somewhere over 20 to 25 per cent of our total membership, so quite clearly, the issues that come from the Metropolitan Police are important to us, because they are such a large number of our members. The Metropolitan Police does have specific problems, obviously policing the capital, there are issues that do not affect other forces. But predominantly the issues of Fairness at Work and the issues around pay and conditions and the work/life balance issues are all the same across the different forces, as they affect the Metropolitan Police. I think that is about fair to say. Sir William Morris: Okay. I note that you have attached the Federation's policy on diversity to your submission. Can you give us one or two examples as to how this policy has benefitted underrepresented groups within the Federation? Ms Berry: The policy tries to treat everybody exactly the same way, but I think we recognise that some groups and some people do not feel they have exactly the same access to the services or systems from the Police Federation. We also recognise that whilst the Police Federation is an organisation that every police officer is a member of, and the vast majority of police officers are subscribing members of, that other support organisations have been established. I think that one of the things the Federation has done in recent years is to set up, I hope, a good working relationship at a national level with these bodies in order for us, if we did not already have an understanding of what the issues were for different groups, that we could gain that understanding. I think the other thing we have done is that for the police service to be able to do its job properly, it needs to represent the communities that it serves, and for the Police Federation to be at its most effective, it needs to be representative of the police service. In the past, the Police Federation has not monitored the breakdown of its members and its representatives, and that is something which we have now said that we will do; we have a new set of elections coming up in November of this year, and we will be monitoring the make-up of the Federation representatives, and that will enable us, if we are underrepresented in any areas, to be able to target those particular areas far better than maybe we have been able to do in the past. Sir William Morris: Thank you very much for that. Can I just pick up your comments in terms of the importance of the police service reflecting the community it serves? Does the Federation's structure achieve that objective? Ms Berry: I do not think the police service is in a position to say it mirrors society, and in the same way, I do not think the Police Federation is in a position to say that it mirrors the police service, and that is why we have to look at other measures to ensure that when we represent the views and the interests of all the members of the Police Federation, that we do not just rely on democracy and the electoral process to achieve that. Sir William Morris: I take your point that it would be extraordinary if all our institutions mirrored society, that is perhaps a hope too many, but what I am not clear about is the extent to which the Federation's structure is in any way – or if it is representative of its membership, in terms of the bodies. I am not expert at all in your structure, I am just seeking to explore what is the position from the point of view of diversity. Ms Berry: The Police Federation is set up as 43 separate organisations, and is also subdivided into three ranks, so the complexity of that is divided into 43 separate forces, and then there are three separate ranks also within the Federation. Within each branch board, there are Federation reps: in most forces, the way that this works out is it is done on a divisional basis or it is done on a command unit basis, and there will be one representative for each rank for each of those areas. In addition to that, there are representatives who take account of detectives; there are specialist interests: people who look after headquarters personnel, people who look after, at the moment, traffic, road policing, and also there is a reserve seat position which comes from the Equal Opportunities Act for underrepresentation of women. In our evidence to the DTI recently, we invited the government to make a similar provision within the Race Relations Act so that we would legally be able to reserve a position on all of our branch boards for an ethnic minority member. I understand that has not been put into the Race Relations Act, or the amendment to the Race Relations Act, which has not helped our process. So in the absence of the legal provision, at a national level, we have set up liaison meetings with all national bodies representing different ethnic minorities and other interest groups, such as the British Association of Women Police, the National Black Police Association, the Muslim Police Association, the Gay Police Association; where there are national groups, we have set those up at national level. Then we have encouraged all of our branch boards to be very clear on what support groups there are at a force level, and to establish good working relationships and understandings at a force level with all of those groups. Mr Elliott: I think I should make it plain, Sir William, that our constitution is statutory. It is a statutory framework that we have to work within. The Act goes back some years, and it has been tweaked every now and again, but effectively, it is a statutory framework, so we get the framework that is in the Act, and that is why we were so keen to see that the DTI tried to change some legislation, because the government obviously will not change our regulations to reflect that without the change in the parent Act, so really we have double the regulations. Sir William Morris: Yes, I recognise the limitation that the statute places on you, and that is a reality within which you have to work. But there are two stages, as I see it: firstly, there is the policy of the Federation, and the policy of the Federation is then advanced, I think, to government or the competent authority in terms of the statutory change which you might see. You can help us if you can sort of just tell us what is the current national policy of the Federation to ensure that within your governance structure, whether it is your executive council or whatever it is, there is a reflection of your membership. Ms Berry: Sorry, I do not think I quite understand. Within the statute, there is no provision for – Sir William Morris: I know that there is a problem about the statute. Mr Elliott: I think what we have tried to do – Sir William Morris: What I want to hear about is the policy of the Federation, rather than the statute. Mr Elliott: I think Jan has tried to explain our policy is we have tried to get legislative change and that has not been successful to date, and we will continue to push for legislative change. I think what we also try to do is to highlight to colleagues that they can actually come into the Federation, and we try to push for ethnic minorities and others to come forward to be part of the process, and we will do that with a push this year because it is election time at the end of the year, so it is a really good time to do that. So we are actually putting together some paperwork and some articles for our police magazine; we have offered to go on the road as it were, Jan and I, to encourage all sections of the police service to – of the rank and file to actually join us, so that is one of the things we are doing in that process. In addition, Jan did explain we do have a relationship with the National Black Police Association and others who we regularly meet to talk about equality issues and the decisions we make about the various issues that affect them and their members and our members. That is a fairly regular, five times a year, sort of meeting; usually timed in with the decision-making process that we have at the national executive, which is effectively the 30 (inaudible) committee members. Sir William Morris: Do you monitor the profile of your governance body from a diversity perspective? Mr Elliott: I think Jan touched on this question: we considered monitoring two or three years ago, and we have got the thing in a position where we have got some – we are designing a form to monitor this year's elections. This will be the first year we have done this in any great depth, although we do monitor our claims process, we started to monitor our claims process about 18 months ago. Although effectively, that information does not have history enough to actually be much use at the moment, but as we build up a history, then that will improve, so we are monitoring – we are hoping to monitor the elections this year. We are designing a form now with the help of whoever is prepared to help us in designing the form, which effectively is – we need some statistical people. We need some people who understand the questions we need to ask about race and diversity, including sexual orientation. Sir William Morris: You have touched on the support groups, different groups, the black police officers' association and the women's association. At the last count, in terms of this Inquiry, we counted up to about 14, I think it was, 14 groups, and they are, how can I put it, representing what I will describe as the ethnic pluralism of the MPS. Why do you think it is necessary to have all these groups when there is a national trade union called the Federation that is supposed to be representing their interests? Mr Elliott: That is a good question, it is one we ask ourselves. Sir William Morris: Because they are members, after all. Mr Elliott: Absolutely. The fact of the matter, Sir William, they all continue to be our members, but they feel they need some additional support. This is an area where I think we need to improve. I mean, the fact that the groups exist means that we probably need to improve our representation in this area, and that is one of the reasons we are speaking to the National Black Police Association and others. We have seen them very much as a support group to our colleagues, and also feeding in information to us, that is the way we have seen them currently. Ms Berry: I think it would also be true to say that the police service moves pretty slowly on occasions, and is not seen to be supporting people who have got particular issues; that might be because of their ethnicity, it might be because of their religion, it might be because of their family circumstances, it could be a whole host of different things. And the police service in general tends to be a very slow moving organisation, and not able to support the particular interests. The real challenge, I think, for the police service in the years to come is being able to be this representative body and to be able to offer terms and conditions that will attract people that will be representative of the community. I do not think the police service will survive on offering conditions of service which mean that you work an eight hour shift every day or a ten hour shift: so the real challenge for the police service is to look at how it can attract people who have got something to offer. It might be because their work – it has actually taken ten years to really understand how part-time working can be an investment for the police service, rather than being a noose around the service's neck. So I think that is a real challenge for us in the future, and to a certain extent, I think the support groups have been set up because the service in general, and the Police Federation, to a degree, as well, have been slow to recognise the needs of all these different bodies. Sir William Morris: But it is a challenge for the trade unions as well. Ms Berry: Absolutely. Sir William Morris: Because there must be some confusion within the Metropolitan Police Service about who is representing whom? Ms Berry: I think that is why we have tried to set up a dialogue and understanding with the national bodies, in order that we can have a consensus view about who is representing. In the worst case scenario – the way that that works out practically – if we take a person who goes to employment tribunal, the Black Police Association may well be providing advice to the officer; the Police Federation may also be providing advice, they may be also funding legal representation for the officer. What we need to ensure, and what we are working through some protocols on with the different support groups, is to ensure there is no misunderstanding; that the officer receives the best advice and support. What very often happens in practice is that they play one person off against another, and I think it is important that we are not backward in understanding what their needs are. But at the same time, all organisations need to work together to ensure the person gets the best advice and support they can get. Sir William Morris: First of all, there is the whole concept of the strength of the trade union movement in the workplace, but could not the cynics say that the existence of all these groups is perhaps an expression that they have lost confidence in their trade union to represent them? Mr Elliott: The cynics could say that, and I think some cynics do. I think what Jan is saying and what I am saying is we are constrained by the regulations and we are a fairly conservative organisation in terms of movement and change, and we have been constrained by the regulations in some respect, and I think we were initially quite slow to pick up some of the vibes from people who felt disillusioned by some issues. Also, I do not think we actually sell ourselves as well as we could. I mean, we have had some fantastic successes in terms of representing our ethnic minority colleagues that we have not sold very well. And I think we should have done that a lot better, but there is no good going over old ground, we should be looking to the future. I agree with you that while there are a plethora of organisations around, unity would be better. You know, the signal for us is we would like as much unity as is possible. Sir William Morris: I can see your problem in respect of the regulations, statutory regulations; I cannot see it, nevertheless, in respect of the policy and the representation issues for any of your members. There is no regulation that I am aware of which interferes with whether they have a solicitor to represent them of your choice or their choice, and sometimes, as Jan has indicated, they will take the advice which suits them – if the Federation is giving advice and the BPA is giving advice, they will take the advice which they are most comfortable with. Mr Elliott: Well yes, I think that is the same with anybody. They will go to get the advice they think they want. Sir William Morris: Who pays is the issue. Mr Elliott: Yes, well, we pay. The fact of the matter is we do pay; at the end of the day, we do try to take cognisance of what the member wants in those circumstances. If there is any suggestion here that we do not represent all our members and support all our members, that is not true, we do. We think we provide an equitable service to all ranks and all the people we represent. I mean, there is an issue about – there is always a tension between the ranks in the service, as well as tension between individuals in the service. So what we try to do is provide an equitable service; a service based on the best legal advice we can get in all the circumstances. We have a firm of solicitors who I think are fairly well-known in union circles as well as Police Federation circles who provide that service, in terms of discipline, injuries and accidents at work. And in terms of employment tribunal, where we can, which is predominantly in equality issues. Sir William Morris: Let us just move on to paragraphs 17 to 23 of your submission, where you cover the Federation's view of the importance of the Crown Servant office of constable, and there you make the following comments, in paragraph 19: "The status of the office of constable has been considered and confirmed by several Royal Commissions and inquiries into policing. Whilst this Inquiry is focused on the internal processes and procedures of the Metropolitan Police, the findings of the Inquiry will undoubtedly have wider impact on the service as a whole." Can I ask: why do you believe that exploring and perhaps achieving even, at the end of the day, a better employment protection regime for your members through some new structure of employment law would damage the status of the office of constable? Mr Elliott: You put that question in a very interesting way, Sir William, which is hard for me to resist saying that we would love to see better employment conditions and throw away the status of the office of constable, but I think it is not quite as simple as that. I think that what police officers do appreciate and what the public appreciate is the independence of policing in the United Kingdom. Independent police officers based in the community is one of those things that I think is at the heart of British policing. The status issue of the office of constable helps to guarantee that independence, which I think is very much appreciated by the public. Now if you are talking about improved employment conditions, well, I for one would be prepared to talk about improved employment conditions. I do not know that it necessarily affects the office of constable, and I would use as an example the fact that – despite the fact that members do have the office of constable, employment tribunals are still open to them in a variety of different areas, so we do have, to a degree, either employment conditions equivalent to or similar to other employees in various areas. I could go on to talk about discipline and other areas, where the conditions we have are similar to but not necessarily identical to other employees. So I think there are – to tie these two questions in together, it may be a little oversimplistic, but I think the office of constable issue is about independence and about no political interference in the police and all the sorts of issues that are basic to British policing. Sir William Morris: Let me sort of put on the record very clearly that we have heard no solutions from anyone, indeed the contrary is true, that would interfere with or seek to undermine the status, the ethos of the office of constable. Indeed, every submission that we have heard on that point emphasises the protection of the office of constable; so let me just place that on the record. But you yourself have identified the fact that life is moving on, there is an evolutionary process taking place, for example, the development of protective legislation in respect of discrimination, and your members now have the right, on certain aspects, to access the law to protect them, in terms of the discrimination issues. That has been so for a little while, and I see no evidence – perhaps if I am wrong on this, you will tell me – that it has in any way (a) undermined the office of constable, or (b) impacted on the independence of the police service, or the individual police officer. So I am not sure to what extent the natural and legitimate concerns which the Federation holds and promotes, to what extent that should be a constraint to afford even greater protection to the membership and maintain the tradition, status and ethos of the office of constable, and the independence from any political interference. Mr Elliott: It depends how you see some of the proposals that appear to be being made to you about moving towards employment status. There seems to be, in some of the evidence, a suggestion that police officers might have some parts of employment status legislation but not others, and there is some evidence about – outside of this room, that managers like some bits of employment legislation better than they like others; in other words, they like some bits of legislation that limit some of our protections, as well as those that do not. I mean, I could talk perhaps a little bit about discipline. I mean, discipline – the discipline procedure in the police service I think recognises the position of constable – not the position of constable, the position police officers are in, and it has been regularly discussed over a period of time to try and modernise it in a way that is acceptable both to the members and to the management. There has been quite a lot of talk in this room about the discipline procedure, as though we had not just gone through a whole process of reconsultation or negotiation over it. The discipline process has changed recently in 1998/1999 by consent and by discussion, through the Police Advisory Board, and the introduction of the Independent Police Complaints Commission; that for instance has just been spent, I think, two to three years discussed at the Police Advisory Board, and all the people who have given evidence to you from senior management, and from the police authorities, including the MPA, have all had an opportunity to input into that debate about change. I do not remember in any of those debates that they were recommending sweeping changes along the lines that have been suggested in some of the debates you have had, Sir William. So I think that if police officers do have a limited employment status, which they have now, that they have to have some faith in the national negotiation and consultation machinery. That faith means that those people who are involved in it do not come out of the body and criticise heavily the agreement we have just reached over a new system. That seems to be partly what is going on here in some respects, so I think that if we want to talk about improved employment status for police, then let us do that; but I am not sure that that is exactly what is on the table. Sir William Morris: Well, let me just pick up that point, because your trade union instincts are coming to its fore. Firstly, it is a new day, the IPCC is a reality today, but I am not sure where opinions are being formed; please accept from us that we have received no firm, cut and dried, clearcut proposals in respect of any change. The only comments in terms of a contribution which we have had in specific terms was the Commissioner indicating that he believes that we should examine the proposition for employment law status, and he emphasised greatly the protection of the status of constable. So there is no proposal on the table. What is canvassed is a principle, and as a seasoned negotiator, you have made reference to the necessity for consultation, and you would naturally be putting your proposals forward if you felt and if your members felt, and if it was a policy position for change, then that change would be very much within the purview of the Federation's influence. And I have seen the Federation at work, in terms of taking it or leaving it, as a judgment, so I am not persuaded that the Federation and constables would be under great threat in a dialogue in looking at this issue. Mr Elliott: I think one of the points I should make about change is that the more change there is, the more difficult it is for people to actually appreciate the change and the direction of the change, and be able to manage that process. I think that in some of these changes, the service is not well educated and signalled the change to people at supervisory level, and they get misconfident about some of the processes. If a process has been in for a long time, people are comfortable with that. But we changed discipline, for example, in 1998 and we are changing it again in 2004. Now these might only be tweaks – I think it is probably more than that, but then there needs to be a message to people about how far they can go in the disciplinary process and what is expected of line managers, and I think this is a key area in lots of the debates we are having in your Inquiry. How comfortable do line managers feel with the process? How well educated are they about the process? How confident are they about the process? And does change improve that, that confidence, or does it work against that? And if we do get change, how well do we signal the change and how well do we deliver the change? I think these are some of the questions where I think we get to the nub of what may be the problem in the Met and other forces. Sir William Morris: Would you agree with me that the status quo can never be the option forever? Mr Elliott: I think we have – that is absolutely right. You know, I think we have a good record in the service of looking for change. Just describing the discipline changes is one. You know, we had a major change in 1984/1985, a major change in 1999, a major change in 2004, moving towards more independence in the discipline procedure, which we fully support. But you, I think, must recognise that that has to have an impact on how discipline is treated inside the service. That is probably why discipline inside the service is not as straightforward as it is in some other industries; because we have that outside influence, outside setting some standards for us, and that is bound to, I think, make the system slightly more bureaucratic. It is also, on occasions, likely to make some managers less confident about the decisions they make when they have somebody overlooking that system. So I think that is a matter of fact. We are looking forward. We are quite happy to move forward, and we have been a major supporter of the IPCC, for instance. Ms Berry: Can I just maybe add something to that? I think change is inevitable, and we all have to learn from what has gone before, to make sure, if it is a mistake, we do not repeat the mistake in the future. Several years ago we recognised that so much was changing in policing; not just about the communities that we police, the need for us to be able to be far more representative in the make-up of the service, but also the fact that there were new demands as far as policing a multi-cultural society, and with regard to policing international crime in a different way than has ever been done before. The Police Federation said very clearly that everything is changing, we need to have a thorough review of what is happening in policing, how it should be structured for the future, how it can meet the challenges of the future. We said it should be a Royal Commission – I understand that a Royal Commission tends to be a very long time in delivering in results – but that did not necessarily receive too much political support. What we have had in its place now are a series of – not quite ad hoc, but different inquiries into policing, many of which are overlapping. Your own Inquiry is looking specifically obviously at the Me. We also have the CRE formal investigation into racism in the police service. We have the Bichard Inquiry, which is looking at particular aspects of data protection. There are other police reform inquiries taking place both within the Cabinet Office, Queen Anne's Gate, 10 Downing Street, and many of these things are overlapping. I think there is a general confusion within the service as to what direction the police service is going in. We recognise there has to be change, the Police Federation recognises there has to be change; and I think what people are looking for is some vision about where we want to be going to in the future. Sir William Morris: Yes, but let us take the positive view, and the fact that there is a debate going on, and you have made reference to the different inquiries, different debates, different terms of reference; does that not emphasise the importance of the police service to our national life? Mr Elliott: I think you are absolutely right. I mean – Sir William Morris: We should not be frightened – Mr Elliott: No, we should not be constrained or frightened by that, but I think that change management is an important issue. It is not a straightforward issue, change management. You know, we want obviously to retain the skills of people who are older in the service, and as the service expands, that becomes even more important. I think what we are saying is we are up for change, but let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is some stuff that we have got in the police service that is there for a reason, that we have talked about for the last 5, 10, 15 years; we have talked recently – I think discipline is a good example. I think there is other examples in the service where we have been continually talking about how to improve the way that works. So you know, you are right, it is an opportunity as well as a challenge, I understand that. Sir William Morris: Jan touched on your proposal for a Royal Commission, and I think not to misquote you, Jan, but you have identified that Royal Commissions are very long-life tools for change. Somebody once said the length of a Royal Commission is the height of the grass, it is equivalent. But in this changing world, when our movement, the trade union movement, our public services are having to face up to change in terms of renewal, because it has to serve a new constituency, you have talked about the demographics of a multi-racial society, so change is very much part of our daily lives; could you explain to me why, in a collective bargaining arena, as you do, you bargain for pay, conditions in that context; why would it need a Royal Commission to take, as you put it in your submission, policing into the 21st century? With the vitality of your negotiating process, and as I have said, we have watched your work, where necessary, and support your activity; why does it need a Royal Commission to make change to basic terms and conditions? Ms Berry: I do not think the Royal Commission that we were looking towards would be to look at our terms and conditions, although I think that would be part of it. At the moment, we have a police service that is made up of 43 forces. There have been big questions about the capacity of 43 forces to handle the different things that are required in that. At the moment, we have a service that is made up of a certain number of ranks; we have a service that is made up of police officers and support staff, and there are lots of questions about: what is the role of a police officer? What is the role of a support staff? Is the dividing line the use of police powers or otherwise? So there are a lot of issues at the moment that are going on with civilianisation, with the number of police forces and their ability to deliver services both at a local level – the requirement of policing at a national level. We have the new organisation. The White Paper announced this week, with regard to the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, and how will all of these things complement each other, co-operate with each other? So I think it is the bigger picture with regard to policing, and not just focusing on terms and conditions, that the Police Federation was putting forward as an idea. Sir William Morris: Okay. And just one final question: it has been suggested to us that our Inquiry has an unenviable task; well, be that as it may, we have to produce a report, and our report will affect your members in the largest branch of your union, the jewel in the crown, the Metropolitan Police Service. As chairperson and general secretary of your organisation, you are aware of all the problems, and you know all the upsides and the downsides, and you have a view about policing for the future, and the role of the Federation and the contribution of the Federation in it. We have to write a report. If we were to invite you to write a chapter of our report, what would it say? Mr Elliott: I am not sure we would actually write a whole chapter. I mean, I think we would be talking about making things happen rather than changing things again, and that is about – I think it is about giving people confidence in the current procedures, and that confidence is about training and support, that confidence is about understanding, and understanding has to be again about training and support, rather than attacking the system; supporting people who have to make decisions, particularly at sergeant and inspector level, where I think we have neglected their training in what I would term personnel matters. I mean, we have some very good can-do people, some good operators, but I think probably they are not as good as they could be in personnel matters, which are grievance, discipline, and all those sorts of things, and perhaps go back a little bit to the old days where sergeants and inspectors were able to say to people, "You have done this wrong, let us put it right", and not get recriminations about all of that. I think some of that has gone out of the service, and that is looking back to the future, as it were. Because I think you have to have confident, committed, well trained first and second line supervisors; and for me, that is one of the problems the service has built up, not just in terms of training, but also in terms of numbers. Numbers have declined. Ms Berry: I agree with much of what Clint said. I think we have to be seen to be a learning organisation. I think at the moment, we are seen to be too much stick and not enough carrot. You need stick on occasions, but I do not think we properly develop the investment in the people that we have, and I would much rather see there be more development of officers, lifelong development; we talk about it, we have seen all the commitments on pieces of paper and the glossy brochures throughout the service. The point that Clint made is I think we would like to see some action on some of the promises, rather than just a rebadging of some of the promises we have seen. Sir William Morris: Thank you very much, both of you. Could I invite Sir Anthony Burden to put his questions to you himself? Sir Anthony Burden: Thank you very much. Questions by Sir Anthony Burden Sir Anthony Burden: I would like, if I may, to get into more detail around discipline, because it is a very important issue for us. Although we are dealing obviously with the Metropolitan Police, I have no doubt that this would reflect the situation countrywide, the picture that we are drawing together here. Of course, we have submissions not only from organisations and representative bodies but from individuals. What we are seeing is a pretty worrying pattern, really. If you deal with delay, I can quote an example of one officer suspended for four years, who eventually pleaded guilty and was reprimanded. In terms of suspension, we have heard from two officers who have been suspended for seven years. One submission came in just this morning from an officer who has been suspended for eight years. Disproportionality: there is a real question over whether certain officers are dealt with in a proportionate way through the discipline process, and the whole bureaucracy that surrounds this. But I would want to add to that a real concern for many that they do not think the IPCC and the new regulations will make much of a dent in many of those issues. We have heard from the IPCC themselves, saying their resources are limited, the number of inquiries they will be able to take on personally is relatively small, and therefore, much will still be left in the hands of professional standards departments to deal with. That is why, when the chairman introduced this, and why I am continuing with this, it is such an important bit of what we do, because you are members are the recipients of all of this, and people say, "You know, surely to goodness if we sat down with a fresh sheet of paper and designed something, we would not design what we are now left with". So could I ask for your comments on that? Mr Elliott: It is interesting that you talk about some of the issues that we have been talking about for some considerable period of time. I mean delays, for instance, in the system: I can remember talking about inordinate delays 20 years ago. I mean, I have been doing Police Federation discipline representation for over 20 years, so the delay problem is one that has got worse rather than better. And that includes the suspension issue, which I think is – I mean, it is disgraceful that people are suspended for eight years; absolutely disgraceful. We have been taking some cases to the courts, and winning them on abuse of process. Now that is in nobody's interest, for us to win a case on abuse of process, because at the end of the day, the question is not answered, either for the complainant or for the officer. I suppose I might have a significantly different view about delays to many senior officers, but I think people more recently have lost the ability to draw lines under inquiries, when the time has come to start to judge about what the cost benefit in all this is. I am not talking about corruption here, I am talking about some inquiries that just go on and on, and nobody appears to be able to say, "We have got to stop here, because we are not going to get anything more out of this inquiry"; in other words, sometimes when you get into certain inquiries, they seem to go on and on. If you take a criminal inquiry, there are some judgments made; we throw the right amount of resources at the thing to try and investigate it early on, and then if we do not get a quick result, we make some judgments as we go through the process about what is it worth doing in the future, based on almost a cost/benefit sort of analysis. I think none of that exists in the discipline scenario. I think also that because first line managers are not prepared to make decisions as they perhaps used to, that more stuff goes into formal procedure than should. Once it gets into formal procedure, then I am afraid everybody gets in their trenches and wants legal support and all sorts of stuff, which is not in our interest any more than in managers' interest, because it costs both of us. We are currently trying to encourage all our representatives to actually try and find a solution. The other problem with legal representation is probably that police officer friends have less time available to support officers; that is another reason why people perhaps fall back on the legal position. So despite the fact that over the years, we have introduced things like the ability for officers to accept informal resolution, and all those sorts of things, I think that has not been accepted well by some officers; despite that, I think the layers are still there, the bureaucracy is still there, but I think it needs managing quite a lot better; it needs managing within time constraints and cost constraints. Somebody needs to make judgments about that. This is exactly the evidence we gave to Taylor, after the – Sir Anthony Burden: Sure. I think what you say has been borne out here, that managers are reluctant to manage, and therefore, they make it official and push it up to, in Met terms, the DPS to deal with. It has gone further than that, in our evidence, because it has even been suggested now that that is disproportionate, because race has become an issue; you have got frontline managers who are frightened to manage black and minority ethnic staff. Can I ask your views on a national basis whether that is something you are coming across? Mr Elliott: I think that is true. I mean, it is anecdotal evidence at the moment, but I think that is true. I think what disappointed us was that some time ago, the Home Office did suggest it would look at disproportionality in discipline for ethnic minority people. Two meetings took place, and the last one was in 2003. I think this goes to the point that we do not have good information on personnel matters in the police service. I mean, I am surprised – more surprised the higher up the organisation I go how poor is the information in terms of quality about personnel matters. There is quality stuff about numbers, plain numbers; but there is very few forces until recently, and there is even very few forces now, do things like entry interviews and exit interviews, and virtually nobody can give you any figures, real figures, on disproportionality in discipline cases. So we collect all sorts of quantitative stuff, but I am afraid not very much qualitative stuff in this area. Ms Berry: Just to add to that, I think it is easy to keep the figures, and I think the service is getting better at keeping the figures, but it has to start examining those figures. Not just going for the headlines but actually looking at what the quality of that information is saying, and I do not think the service is very good at doing that at the moment. Sir Anthony Burden: I mean, you cannot blame managers not wishing to manage if the culture of an organisation is such that if you get it wrong, you yourself are criticised. So there is something about the environment within which management takes place, is there not? Mr Elliott: Yes, I mean, I just – people keep denying this, but I just think we never moved away from a blame culture. You know, somebody has to be at fault, and there is all sorts of reasons for that. First of all, we are a disciplined organisation. Secondly there is a press speculation: every time there is a problem in the press, somebody has to be at fault, and I think we never quite moved away from that. It is a point I have made consistently about the blame culture. If you look at some other organisations, they look to put people on the right track first; you know, if you make a genuine mistake. I think in some enlightened areas, people do that; if they make a genuine mistake, some enlightened managers will forgive a genuine mistake, if it is an effort to do something right. But I think there is a blame culture in the organisation, and it is not just inside, it is what comes in from outside. And I think that is a difficulty for managers at all levels, but support, I think, is the key issue; support training – and just occasionally saying to people, "If you get it wrong, we will try and support you if it is a genuine error". Sir Anthony Burden: So taking your position on this, and from your submission, you would say, I think, that wholesale reform once again of discipline regulations, we would question the benefit; it is about management of the processes, and it is getting the right climate in which managers can manage and feel confident about exercising some discretion. Mr Elliott: Yes, it is not just top managers, it is actually line managers – Sir Anthony Burden: No, it is right the way down – Mr Elliott: I think it is really interesting, in the bureaucracy report that came out, that Sir David O'Dowd started to talk about intrusive supervision. You know, that is something that used to exist probably in the 1970s, and the fact that he actually mentioned it means that he recognised there was a problem there, and the problem might have been created by all sorts of issues, not least of which was running down the numbers of sergeants and inspectors while police numbers went down. Police numbers have come back up, way beyond where they were before, and we are still trying to find the right people in those areas to promote, and to encourage them to be promoted. Because they got out of the habit of wanting to be promoted as we were running numbers down. So there are quite a lot of issues there. Ms Berry: If I can just add to that, I think the earlier you resolve these difficulties in the process the better, and that works for discipline, it works for grievances. The further up the line it goes, then I think people lose any responsibility or ownership of the problem in the first instance. Sir Anthony Burden: Yes. It comes down, I suppose, to the quality of the people you are looking to promote to management positions and give this authority to. Mr Elliott: Yes, I am sure that is true. I think it might be slightly worse in the Met, but I am sure the Met people will address you on this, because of the distance between senior management and frontline supervision, which in a smaller force, might be easier to impose your personality on – you know, a Chief Constable can do that, in a small force, and perhaps encourage some of this process, if he really believes in it, and that will affect the whole of a small force; whereas in a large force like this, it is a bit like turning a tanker at sea, it is a little harder to do that. You can be committed from the top, but it does not necessarily affect the first line supervisors immediately. Sir Anthony Burden: On the thorny issue – and I know it will be a thorny issue for you – of the pool of people available from whom we promote and draw frontline and senior managers, is the current system still robust enough, or is there really an argument now for multi-point entry, for a two tier service, where we are looking at different skills from those required for frontline operational policing? Mr Elliott: We are not convinced by multi-point entry. I am still unconvinced by multi-point entry. I think one of the key factors certainly at inspector level is police experience, understanding how the job is done. It is far easier to put people back on the right track than just coming in at that level and not understanding policing, so we are not convinced by multi-point entry. We are convinced that the current way people get promoted is probably not right. The OSPRE exam has come in for some criticism, and I think it is not just the OSPRE exam, it is the plethora of systems that exist beyond the OSPRE exam in various forces. I am not quite sure how it is in the Met, but I am sure Met colleagues will tell you what it is. Lots of people have to pass the exam and then go through another set of hoops, and sometimes they do not think it is worth it for the extra experience and not that much more money. So we are not convinced by multi-point entry. We are convinced that the current system could work better. Sir Anthony Burden: Just to pursue that to the final, I think we have had several pleas, "Whatever you do, for goodness sake, do not add to our training commitment, because we have got training coming out of our ears and insufficient time to do it". What is the Federation's view now on the expectation that particularly senior managers, senior middle managers, must take some responsibility for ensuring that they keep their own knowledge levels to the right level, and they are, in that respect, professionally qualified and up to date in what is expected of them? Mr Elliott: I think our view is balanced on this, which is that what formal training does give you is it not only gives you some confidence and some ability, but actually gives you a singular interpretation of how the organisation wants to deliver its service. So one of the pluses about formal training is that you deliver more than training: you deliver a corporate message. To allow people to go away and just do their own thing in that, it reduces that effect. But I think all police officers, to a greater or lesser degree, do try to keep abreast of developments, and for instance, in order to get promoted, you need to pass an exam which you do in your own time at the lower levels, and at the higher levels, I would have thought that people would have been interested in this sort of inquiry, and that was something they would do in their own time. There are lots of things I think police officers do in their own time to keep them abreast of developments inside and outside the service. Sir Anthony Burden: Finally, can I just pursue one point that Sir Bill raised earlier, and that is about the representation you are able to give to an increasingly diverse workforce, and the fact that you value – and you have shown this by your representations to the DTI; you value diversity within the Federation. Do you feel if you were to get agreement within the Federation that in the absence of statutory provision – that is not coming, not for a while, you keep lobbying, but it is not coming – that you would be happy to work within the voluntary code of having additional representation? I do not see that there would be a Chief Constable or Commissioner in the country that would resist that if you were to put it to them. Ms Berry: It is already happening in a number of branch boards, on an informal basis. There are certainly some gay officers and there are some black officers who are additional members of the local branch boards. Sir Anthony Burden: And that is with the chief officers' agreement locally? Ms Berry: Yes, it is an informal arrangement. It provides them as being part of the actual branch board, but you also need to ensure you have other vehicles. What I am also very mindful of is that if you look at the profile of the Police Federation representatives, the age profile is towards the end of your service, and for the Federation to be representative, you have got to look at people who are just coming into the service, what their needs are, and we need to have – other than the electoral process, to get into these people and understand whether we are providing the level of service that they want today. Mr Elliott: I do not think we can afford to give up to try to attract the whole range of people to actually be full representatives of the Police Federation, because if we do not, we will wither on the vine. I always see these things as temporary measures, because I think we have got to attract people from across the entire age spectrum, sex and race spectrum, to be proper representatives in the organisation, because I think that is the only way we are ever going to reflect the service. Sir Anthony Burden: Sure, I think – Mr Elliott: And this has only got to be – Sir Anthony Burden: Looking at the Met, when 10,000 Met officers are black or visible ethnic minorities and 49 per cent of them or 50 per cent of them are female, and all the other groups are represented, then no problem, because issues will take care of themselves, but I am really looking to assist you in finding some interim solution, because if you do not remain representative, as you say, you will wither on the vine. Mr Elliott: I understand that. Sir William Morris: I am going to suggest that we take a very short break, about five or seven minutes, to give our transcript writer a due tea break. 11.40 am (A short break) 11.50 am Sir William Morris: Just to recommence, I will hand you straight over to Miss Weekes for her series of questions that she would like to put to you. Questions by Miss Weekes Miss Weekes: Thank you. Can I, if I may, come back to some of the matters that you have touched on in relation to management skills and personnel skills, and I want to concentrate on extending some of the things you have said in your submissions on learning the lessons. I am going to have a look at the relationship between police staff and police officers when things go wrong. Please forgive me for perhaps dealing with it in this way: we have received a huge amount of evidence of what is wrong with management, and why disputes are not resolved, and why you get employment law cases. We have received lots of evidence about what does not happen; training is one of the things, better training. But there really is precious little assistance to us as to real practical suggestions for change, and I listened very carefully to your answers to both my colleagues, and if it is an unfair comment, I know you will tell me, but I could not quite picture the practical solutions that you are giving us about how you do not go down the line of change in the statute, but you go to your management and you get them to change. If I had to go today to four of your managers who have just got it wrong on how they handled a woman or an ethnic minority person, what is it that you are practically going to say to them about the way they handled those individuals? What are the real suggestions for change? Now let me give you an example so you can help me. We know that of the cases that go to employment tribunals, the majority are race and sex, and sex discrimination tips the numbers. So a lot of women are not happy about the way they are treated at work. Two of the reasons given to us yesterday were, "The way I am dealt with in terms of appraisals, my promotion chances, and I perceive I am not treated equally to men". Now you represent the national view of the Federation, so you would understand it from both sides; the manager and the worker. If you do not want a radical change, but you want to go back to managers must manage – your words are "confident, committed supervisors" – what practically can you do to help that manager? Mr Elliott: Well, that is a good question. The first thing is that we only need to support people in race and sex employment tribunals because that is the only employment tribunals we can go to as police officers, race and sex, although there is an avenue for health and safety, where we are covered by health and safety legislation. But I do not think we have ever taken anything on health and safety yet. I think that is a good – the practical issues for me is that people do not – people complain, for instance, that they do not understand police regulations, they do not understand some of the discipline stuff, and I just think that what we have not done is include any real practical advice to people on those issues. What we try to do in some areas is produce these small booklets. I think these have been produced before you before. Miss Weekes: I think you have, in the documentation. Mr Elliott: With some more information. We think it would be much better if some of the stuff that came out of the Home Office and other places was much simpler, much more practically based. Although that does not mean you will not be working from regulations and determinations necessarily – because we have just rewritten the whole regulations and determinations, which effectively are police conditions – you just actually try to simplify them in the way we have done for our members. So simple information about how to operate grievance, how to operate discipline would be one of those areas, instead of the complex stuff that comes out of the Home Office that is difficult to understand. Miss Weekes: Well, can I deal with that point? What is it that managers are not understanding: how to do it? Mr Elliott: I think there is two things. First of all, they do not understand fully all the regulations that apply, or the net effect of that, across a range of issues. Ms Berry: Can I just maybe add something here? I think there is an issue around interpersonal skills and not having an understanding of a different viewpoint to their own. The police service has gone from being mainly white and male to being – well, I think we have 19 or 20 per cent female officers now, a growing number of ethnic minority officers, and I think there was an assumption that everybody thinks and does things the same way, and I think managers, particularly higher up in the service, have had to see that people have got different demands, different requirements. I heard what Sir Anthony said with regard to that we have enough training in the service, but there is huge difficulties. If you want to progress in the service, and you have got a family, and you have got a 32 or 40 hour prelearning pack in order to advance, there are real tensions there within the service. I do not think that the service has necessarily an understanding of the different requirements that different members of staff have now or may require to have in the future. And in the past, the answer has been, "Well, just do it", and I think these days, people need to have a better understanding of what it is and why they have got difficulties in doing it. A very simple example came to me recently, where a single mother was at home, her daughter was unwell, she asked if she could have a shift change because she could not do night duty, and she was told, "No, if I let you do that, everybody has got to do it". It is just the broad brush approach, that we have to look at managing the individual requirements of the people who are delivering the service and, at the same time, recognise that you have to balance that with the fact that we still have to deliver a police service at the end of the day. Miss Weekes: Well, I follow that entirely, but the status quo seems to me to be that those who are in the supervisory position, the first line managers, are either not getting it right because they cannot, or they will not. Ms Berry: I think a lot of first line managers do get it right, but we do not get to hear of the people who get it right. The telephone calls that I get are only ever the ones where it has gone wrong, and I think we have to pinch ourselves sometimes and realise that there are a lot of people who are doing a really good job out there; because they are doing a good job, we do not get to hear about it. That said, where there are people who are not getting it right, I think they have to be encouraged to do things slightly different; they need to have access to information that can assist them to get it better; they need to have role models and they need to see role models within the service who are getting it right. Sometimes it takes a long time for it to get through the different levels. To a certain extent, I am not sure – we have had a huge change over the last 18 months in the ACPO ranks in the service. I would suggest it is probably in the region of about 40 per cent turnaround; that is probably the biggest change for a great number of years. We have got more women in those senior positions now, we now have the first black chief officer, and I think when you start seeing role models who have maybe got a different way of dealing with things, getting into the senior ranks, then that will filter down and it will give, I hope, officers in the middle ranks – and Clint made reference to the first and second line supervisors. They are the ones who can really drive change on the ground, and make a difference. Miss Weekes: Well, if I were a black woman in a police force, or black male, or black Asian, I am not so sure I would want to wait that long for the change. I would want my line manager to be managing me now, today, with the right attitude, so are you suggesting that they just wait for this change to filter down? Ms Berry: No, I am not, and I think that is why you need to have grievance procedures, you need to have the formal procedures, and you also need to have – I think the point was made earlier on about intrusive supervision. I think proactive supervision would be better. You need to have the confidence that your boss, your next supervisor has got the skill to do that. Mr Elliott: I think while we all want change now, I think the question I sometimes ask myself is: if we go down the line of actually changing all the regulations, does that improve the situation or worsen the situation, if it is actually about the attitude of people at the frontline? My argument is, actually, it is attitudinal change you want, not necessarily structural, back of the house type – you know, wholesale renewal of regulations and things – because that is going to slow the process down rather than speed the process up. In other words, concentrating on the back end takes your eye off where the problem is, which is very much at the interpersonal relationships between people at – probably at constable, sergeant, inspector level. Miss Weekes: Mr Elliott, there are two things, are there not, that come out of your submissions today? Many managers are still saying, and the majority of the evidence that we have is that the statutory provisions and regulations are too complicated. They lead busy lives, they have many responsibilities. They want a simplified bullet point that they can understand. It is clear you think that, because that is why you have produced that simplified document. Mr Elliott: Yes, I suppose at the end of the day, to deliver that as a training and a support facility is a plus, but the regulations – we have not got regulations, we have regulations and determinations; we have got some regulations on discipline – are supposed to be there to give terms and conditions for people that are not wide open to wide interpretation. So it is difficult to actually formulate conditions, contracts or regulations or whatever in that simplistic term that is not open to wide interpretation. This is just an aide memoire to what are effectively police officers' terms and conditions. I do not think many police officers would thank me for writing very simplistic terms and conditions that were open to wide interpretation, because currently, they are interpreted differently, slightly differently, from force to force. We try to get a single position in terms of contracts for police officers, and I do not think it can be done. The holy grail of very simple regulations I do not think is ever going to be achieved, because they are terms and conditions and contracts, effectively, but I think more simplistic information about what they mean in real terms is achievable. Miss Weekes: In your overall view, because you cover England and Wales, how is best practice disseminated? Because I take on board your colleague's view that there must be and there is and are many good managers. How do you disseminate good practice for others to take on board? Because I sense that is a difficulty, inside the Met and outside the Met, because the Met does not block assimilating best practice from the outside. We have talked about it with one or two other colleagues of heads of department. How do you disseminate it? Ms Berry: Are we talking about within the Police Federation or generally? Miss Weekes: Well, both, really. Ms Berry: Generally I think the police service is pretty poor at disseminating good practice. It is poor in the first instance of actually identifying that it is good practice, what template you might place on something to agree something is good practice or not. Within the Police Federation, then we have equality liaison officers at every branch board, they come together three times a year for meetings, where we try and gauge what is happening around the forces, but importantly, where there are cases which have taken place or there are procedures which have particularly worked well, then we will use those opportunities for every force to be made aware of that, and then those people go back to the force and hopefully introduce that at a local level. One of the reasons I do not think the service has learnt necessarily from the number of different cases that have taken place is sometimes, we are not a learning organisation. At the end of a case, people sit back and do not necessarily reflect objectively what has taken place. They sit back and justify why they have taken the action they have, and unless you try and open up the organisation to say, "Well okay, we have got it wrong, let us see how we can make sure we get it right next time", then we will not become a learning organisation, which is why we have invested so much in trying to get this "learning the lessons" project underway to having a conference in a couple of months' time. Miss Weekes: I think that is your conference in May 2004. Ms Berry: That is right. Miss Weekes: I have looked at your recommendations. This is not meant to be a criticism, but those recommendations, and I am sure it will come out at the conference, but presently, in the way they have been formatted, it does not deal with the nitty-gritty of how you get a manager to behave differently and to improve interpersonal skills. I am right, am I not? It does not really address that. Ms Berry: It goes into a little bit more detail in the document itself, but you are absolutely right, the interpersonal skills aspect of that is highlighted there, but it is not dealt with. Miss Weekes: All right. One other aspect, again dealing with learning the lessons: in some public authorities, public organisations, if a manager proves to be not a good manager but an exceptionally good professional, he just does not manage any more, his managerial role is taken away. Because if you maintain a bad manager who upsets a number of workers, you get more employment tribunal claims, and the thing just does not work: does that happen in police forces? Ms Berry: I think the police service would be more inclined to discipline in that type of situation than to develop the individual. I do not think. Miss Weekes: Some people just cannot be developed, because they are just not good at it. Ms Berry: I agree with you, but I am answering how the police service deal with it at the moment, not necessarily how it would be better to deal with it. In general, I think we use this stick approach and not the carrot approach and do not necessarily look that some people have got better skills than others. That said, there are positions – I think there are situations and people who we do find the right place for them to work and put, you know, square pegs into square holes, et cetera, but there are others, I think, where there is an expectation that they can cover the range, and that is not necessarily true. What the police service, I think, is beginning to invest a little bit more time in is performance development reviews. Now I have been a police officer for a number of years, and I do not think that any of the appraisal systems, the development reviews, whatever we want to call it – the system itself is never at fault, and the point that you have made very, very well – it is not the system who is at fault, it is the people who are operating it, and I think you need to have some investment in encouraging people to fairly and equitably assess the qualities of the people that they are working with. Mr Elliott: Could I just add, I think Jan is absolutely right in what she says, and I do not think it does happen, but there is a facility for it to happen, it is called the incapability procedure which we negotiated as part of the – effectively, it is part of the discipline procedure. I think that is a wrong place for it to be, to be honest. But it is an incapability procedure which allows a series of first and second warnings, and an opportunity for people to improve. This is something where you have had evidence from people before that people are not happy to work with for whatever reason. The forces do not operate it well. Some forces do not operate it at all. Now we are not calling for people to be dismissed because of poor performance, but the facility is there which actually is a stage process which seeks warnings and improvements, warnings and improvements, with the ultimate being either reduction in rank or to be dismissed, and that process could actually add to the point you are making about poor managers. I think that some people are excellent cops, and then they get to be a sergeant and suddenly cannot handle it, but they are still excellent cops. I think that loses the enthusiasm of the individual as well. So I think there is a big question there, that this was intended to tackle and has not tackled. Miss Weekes: It goes back to Sir Anthony's point about multi-point entry, does it not, which, Mr Elliott, you disagreed with. But if you concede that not all officers are going to be good at management – it is not their fault, that is just not their talent. Their talent lies somewhere else. Mr Elliott: It is an interesting argument, I am not swayed by it yet. And we are discussing this nationally, because I know this is on the agenda. My argument is that we have sufficient people of the calibre to be good managers, it is just a question of selecting the right people and supporting the right people, that is my argument. My argument is you are a better manager for understanding what you are supposed to be managing, in other words the processes at – certainly at sergeant level and almost certainly at inspector level, so I think that is an argument I am making. Miss Weekes: Again nationally, is there a process of collecting the trends that come out of employment tribunal cases, and doing something with your knowledge of why people go to employment tribunals? Ms Berry: No, and I think that is probably the motivation for the learning the lessons project. Miss Weekes: So the answer is no, it does not happen? Ms Berry: There is nothing there at the moment. There were some promises about two or three years ago – I think in fact Sir Anthony was probably chairing the equality sub-committee in those days – where a database was going to be used at Bramshill to facilitate that. That never happened. So the "learning the lessons" project – my understanding is that the capacity for that now to happen will happen within the ACPO equality sub-committee. But for that to happen, people have to have some honesty about really what goes wrong with these cases, and the whole motivation for learning the lessons is to put the emphasis on a very early resolution. The earlier you can get resolution, the more likely you are to get the resolution, and also for mediation skills to be used far more widely within the service. Miss Weekes: Yes. It is clear why I asked the question, because it falls squarely within our terms of reference, about employment tribunal cases. What is your suggestion for change to make the forces, not just the Met, get together and look at why people are unhappy? They might say it is race discrimination, but it might actually be something else, or it may be a combination of other things that then results in the genuine belief of unfair treatment on the grounds of race, but it does require somebody to look at it; so what is the recommendation for how we might help you do that? Ms Berry: Well certainly, we believe – there are clearly trends that come out, and when we see a trend, if it is a particular force, then we can advise the branch board and they can deal with that at a force level, but I have to say that it is very rarely a particular force that has a problem. The issues go across the board, and it is normally with regard to interpersonal skills. I think also if you look at the statistics within the police service, most cases with regard to sex discrimination and race discrimination have actually had what I would class as reverse logic; in other words, the white male officer has been more successful at employment tribunal than the female officer has, and very similarly, with black officers, because there is very often positive discrimination as opposed to positive action, and I do not think there is very much clarity within the service, in many areas, as to what the difference between the two is. Miss Weekes: We have heard that white officers recently – I say recently, maybe it is five or six years – have begun to take cases to the employment tribunal claiming race discrimination and citing black officers as the comparator. Is this something that you have picked up around the country? Ms Berry: During the last 12 months, I think there have been cases – in particular following the Secret Policeman programme in Greater Manchester Police, there were some allegations made that there was disparity in how soon cases were being dealt with there. Again, there have been some suggestions, I think in the Metropolitan Police, where a similar allegation – but a lot of these things are said maybe in a – not in a press statement, but in a press comment, they receive some publicity, but you do not then actually see them coming through into employment tribunals. Miss Weekes: So is there any substantial evidence – Ms Berry: We have no proved substantial evidence at the moment, no. Miss Weekes: Any ideas on best practice, again just really in relation to resolution of disputes generally, informal resolution of disputes, connected to Fairness at Work, because that is clearly where it would be? Ms Berry: My personal experience and my observations, both at a very local level and at a national level, is that the quicker that you resolve the differences, the better, and you need to bring all parties together. I think Sir William mentioned at the very beginning, this is not an adversarial type of event, and I think police officers, because of the nature of our job, are sometimes very used to an adversarial type of structure. So we need to resolve any differences very quickly; they need to be resolved at the very local level, and it needs to be done, in many cases, through mediation. And that will need, for some people, to have some mediation skills, because it is not a prerequisite at the moment, as far as looking for sergeants, first line supervisors, I do not think that is necessarily a prerequisite as one of the skill factors to be a sergeant or to be an inspector. So that would be an important factor. I would not want to see that responsibility put on to a human resource person or a personnel manager, because it takes responsibility away from that first line supervision, and I think where that has happened, it has actually made it very disjointed and not assisted the process. Mr Elliott: Can I make a point about the process? Jan is absolutely right about trying to solve things very early on in the process and I think also – do not take this in any way personal, but the sooner the lawyers get involved, the harder it gets to solve this problem. Miss Weekes: That is true, I happen to agree with you. Mr Elliott: One of the issues I think we have got is we are trying to convince our equality reps to actually try and solve things early on. Unlike discipline, where, in actual fact there is a degree of support in the legislation for people to get duty time to assist people in discipline, there is no similar provision in equality. So many forces do actually offer a grievance friend's time, but some do not. I think one big signal would be if ACPO were to sign up to doing that in a positive way, so people did not have to walk straight down the road to a lawyers, and we had experienced grievance friends in the forces that the chiefs supported. That would be a big signal, I think, to help the process on in that way. Miss Weekes: One final point on representation of your members, and again, this is your national view, if I may ask it: you split, in the Federation, by way of rank; why? Mr Elliott: That is what the regulations say. Ms Berry: It is the way it was set up in 1919. Mr Elliott: It is an unfair – Miss Weekes: Just a second, I know that is what the regulation says, but can I just ask practically: I know what the regulation says, but do you need to do that?. Mr Elliott: This really goes into the history of the Police Federation, and we were set up in 1919 following a strike, the way we were. It was probably set up to fail or certainly to balance out the radicals in the organisation, so that, you know, I suppose that was the theory behind it all. And we have had to make that work over the years, because the only real way of doing business is on a joint basis. However, you know, there are people who still have some investment in the rank structure as well, so it is one of these things it would be difficult to change, but whether it is good or bad for us is something we discuss on a fairly regular basis. I mean, you can imagine the tensions that are involved in all that, but – and in 66 order to change, we would need to make a case to government to change the regulations. Ms Berry: With regard to the employment tribunals, it actually has some benefit as well, because from a confidentiality point of view, it is important that we deal with all funding of legal cases from the centre, both legal advice and representation. The reason we do that is to ensure that the officer in Cumbria has exactly the same service as the officer in the Metropolitan or whoever else; so the size and funding of the local organisation will not determine what service provision you will get. So having the different bodies nationally means that for an employment tribunal, we can actually separate the papers, they have separate access to a person who is making the decision on the funding, and that has never ever – from a confidentiality point of view, never goes across to the perpetrators or the complainant, so they are always separated. Now I know that other organisations manage that, but it is a neat way for us to be able to keep the two things separate from the Federation point of view and maintain confidentiality. Miss Weekes: Do the junior ranks feel that you deal fairly with their request for funding and representation when it is a senior rank whom they are making the complaint against? Is there a conflict there? Ms Berry: I do not think that particular part of the complaint has ever really been an issue for the Federation, because they would all be dealt with in exactly the same way. If a constable is making a complaint about a sergeant, then we would look at the constable's complaint on the merit of the case, it would be judged by both ourselves and our legal advisors on the merits and the benefits of the case, and the last thing we would take account of is the cost of actually taking action. So each of those would be dealt with quite separately, and it would not matter what rank the person being complained of was. Miss Weekes: Thank you both very much. Sir William Morris: Right, well, Mr Elliott and Ms Berry, can I first of all thank you for your help? We have finished the questions that we want to put to you as a panel, but you will recall that in my opening statement, I said that I would offer you the opportunity at the end of our questioning to make a brief comment, should you so wish. If you do wish to make that closing comment, then now is your time. Mr Elliott: I just want to briefly talk to you about the Police Federation and its role, and then go on to talk a little bit about employment status, and I will be brief. The Police Federation by regulations is responsible for efficiency as well as welfare, and that means we do try to look to how the service operates balanced against the welfare of our members. We have had some difficult times with changes to conditions of service recently, when we had quite a lot of quite angry members who wanted total employment status, not just limited employment status. When we look at employment status, the questions we ask ourselves are: are chief officers really serious about giving us a carte blanche on employment status, including things like health and safety, things like our restrictions to our private life, business interests and off duty positions, in terms of discipline. One of the difficulties, if I can go in part of the way to employment status, however far that part is – I think there would be a drive from our members to want to go all of the way, including full employment rights and other things, and we have to ask ourselves whether that balanced the welfare and efficiency argument in the service. So I think this is the difficulty we are going through internally, on that particular issue. But if we get partial employment status, there will be some people, I think quite a lot of people, who will demand much more than partial employment status, much greater rights. Ms Berry: Can I just conclude by saying that I think we recognise that whilst an awful lot goes right for the police service, we are a very transparent organisation, and things do go wrong, and so the type of work that you are undertaking is important because it brings an independent review of the processes and procedures which are important. We accept things cannot stay the same, but we do need to have some real solutions to how the service can learn some lessons without continually battering itself around the head, and so we look forward to the results of your work. Sir William Morris: Well, thank you both very much indeed. Can I just say as a closing comment for the record that as with all our witnesses, it may be possible that once we have heard from other people, we may want to ask you some more questions, either in writing or to ask you to come back and share your thoughts with us at a future hearing. If we do decide to do so, then obviously we will do it in a way which minimises the inconvenience to you, and that is to be seen, insofar as the Inquiry progresses. But for the moment, all I need to do on behalf of my colleagues and myself is to thank you very much indeed, both of you, for coming along and sharing your thoughts this morning, and for the overall contribution that you are making to our Inquiry. Thank you very much. Internal links On this website: Evidence: Mr C Elliott Evidence provided by and documents referred to by Mr C Elliott in his appearance at the Inquiry.
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Transcripts > Police Federation (31 Mar 04)
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