Transcript of public session: Mr Kevin Boyle, Ms Jo Poole, and Mr Mahommed Mahroof of the Staff Support Associations

Tuesday, 6 April 2004
10.30 am

Sir William Morris: Well, good morning, everyone, and a special good morning to you, Mr Boyle, Ms Poole and Mr Mahroof. Can I say welcome and thank you very much indeed for accepting our invitation to attend the Inquiry this morning.

In saying that, I do appreciate that for some of our witnesses, the process might seem somewhat daunting, so I thought it would be helpful if I set out just briefly how we propose to conduct the hearing this morning.

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 members of the panel: first, on my right, is Sir Anthony Burden. Sir Anthony recently retired as Chief Constable of the South Wales Constabulary, after a very long and distinguished career in the police service. And on my left is Miss Anesta Weekes QC; Anesta is an eminent barrister who sits as a recorder and part-time chairperson of employment tribunals. She was also counsel to the Lawrence Inquiry.

As you all know, we have been asked by the Metropolitan Police Authority to conduct an independent inquiry into professional standards and employment matters in the Metropolitan Police Service. Our focus is the MPS as an organisation and not the individuals who make up the organisation.

The inquiry that we are conducting is inquisitorial and not adversarial in nature or indeed in character. We are extremely keen to hear about the issues raised by our terms of reference so that we can make appropriate recommendation for further good practice within the Metropolitan Police Service, rather than to make criticisms of the organisation.

To help us in our task, we are keen to hear from all our witnesses not just what is wrong with the Met, if there is anything wrong with it, or what is right with it, but most importantly, we are seeking suggestions as to how we can make it better.

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

We have already heard from some very key individuals as witnesses, including those staff organisations that have made formal written submissions to our Inquiry. However, we want to hear from other organisations who represent staff, and we thought that a round table discussion would enable us to do so without inconveniencing too many people.

We are keen to listen to the unique experience of working within the family of the MPS that each of you brings on behalf of your organisations. We are particularly interested in hearing any suggestions that you may have, and any practical proposals that you may have that we might want to consider when we come to determining our recommendation. But as I have indicated, it is about enhancing the experience of working for the Metropolitan Police Service.

I propose to get the discussion going by asking you to comment on various issues, and I will be followed in that fashion and methodology by my panel members, first Miss Weekes and then Sir Anthony. If I have any supplementary comments that I wish to make, I will follow on.

At the conclusion of our discussion this morning, I will offer each of you the opportunity for a brief closing comment if you so wish. But by way of introduction, I wonder if I could start off by going somewhat clockwise and ask you to introduce yourselves and your organisation to the Inquiry for the benefit of the transcript.

Mr Boyle: My name is Kevin Boyle, I am a Metropolitan Police Detective Sergeant with almost 27 years' police experience. Four years ago, I was asked to become involved in the Gay Police Association, which was obviously quite late on in my career, and I am now one of the joint Met co-ordinators for the GPA.

Sir William Morris: Thank you very much. Ms Poole?

Ms Poole: My name is Jo Poole, I am a crime prevention officer for Trident, I have been in service for 10 years. I started the Jewish Police Association because of experiences that I had had when I first started and I wanted to encourage more Jewish people within the police service, as there are so very few within the service.

Sir William Morris: Mr Mahroof?

Mr Mahroof: Good morning to you. My name is Mahommed Mahroof, I am the secretary general of the Association of Muslim Police. I am one of the founding members of the association, which was, in a very loose way, formed back in 1994 as a very informal organisation.

We have been existing as a formalised structured body for several years now. The bulk of our membership comes from the Metropolitan Police area, although we do have members dotted right the way across the country.

Sir William Morris: Thank you very much, thanks for the introduction, and again, welcome to you all.

Questions by the Panel

Sir William Morris: What I want to attempt, with your help, is to have an open discussion about various issues which I will try and flag up to form the basis around which we can explore the conversation. My colleagues and myself obviously want this to be as informal as possible, but to make it just a little bit easier for the stenographers, could I just make one request of you, that you each speak in turn, because if you do not, then you will be talking across each other, and your valuable contribution might not get recorded as we would like it to be.

So we all want everyone to say what they wish to; we are not rushed for time, we want to ensure proper conversation and look forward to your contribution.

First of all, could I just raise what I call the culture of the organisation? We have heard a lot about the culture of the Met. We have heard evidence from a significant number of witnesses about the various aspects of the Metropolitan Police culture that need to be changed.

We have been told, for instance, that there is a blame culture, where officers are afraid of making mistakes because they think any mistake will be held against them for the rest of their career.

We have also been told of a pervasive macho culture, dominated by white men, that is not always open to recognise the valuable contribution from officers of different backgrounds. And it has been said to us that as part of the culture, there is a sort of legalistic approach; the values are legalistically dependent particularly on operational policing issues, and there is a high degree of insensitivity in managing the employees.

So I have sort of tried to share with you the sort of culture which has been offered to us: a blame culture, a pervasive macho culture, a culture which is enhancing of the legalistic values approach to operational policing, the insensitivity of managing people.

That, I think, is a fair summary of what we have picked up, and in turn, I just perhaps want to pause here and ask each of you to respond and to say whatever you wish as to whether or not there is any validity in those points that have been offered to us in the evidence we have received so far.

Mr Boyle: I can certainly, with almost 27 years' police experience, recognise all of those areas that you refer to, certainly the blame culture, the machismo which is all pervasive in certain sections of the police, and the rather alarming degrees of insensitivity which can be shown in managing certain situations.

Being a bit of not quite the eternal optimist, I would like to think that the culture is changing, and that I remember instances of many years ago, where this was absolutely par for the course, this is what would happen, and if you showed any degree of sensitivity towards any difference in the composition of your colleagues or whatever, you were certainly hounded, there was no doubt about that. That was not the sort of thing that police officers recognised in their colleagues at all.

Things have changed, things have got better in certain respects, but I do think now that there is a bit of a backlash, and it seems that the more minority groups within the police service are seen and make themselves heard over issues, then this really can be quite as dynamite under the broad white male heterosexual officer.

I am quite sure that when Sir John does go on his roadshows round the Met, he must feel very encircled at times, because I know that there is a common denominator in the questions which are hurled at him about the efforts that he is making, and the pandering that he is making towards minority groups – because officers are encouraged, in those circumstances, to be fairly anonymous and speak their minds, I think that this then sets off in people's minds the whole idea that the minority groups are getting a little bit too big for themselves.

But I would certainly recognise degrees of that now, as a bit of a backlash to what has been tried over the last couple of years.

Sir William Morris: Yes. Ms Poole, do you recognise the culture?

Ms Poole: Well, I have to agree with Kevin here, I think we have made huge inroads. In the ten years I have been in the service, I have seen things from most unacceptable to huge improvements, especially within the staff associations and the encouragement of it.

I cannot think of anywhere in the world that has such diverse staff associations, and where people from different cultures are linking and talking to each other, that does not actually happen anywhere else.

So within our own groups, we are growing and we are improving and making changes within senior ranks. It does not necessarily mean that it is hitting the lower ranks, but things are improving, it is very slow. Blame culture; I cannot really go into that, because people blame each other anyway. The macho culture has always been there; I really do not have a great deal to say until we have more discussion.

Sir William Morris: Yes. Mr Mahroof?

Mr Mahroof: One thing that concerns me is that we talk about culture, and the blame culture, but what I want to talk about is what gives rise to blame in the first place.

You see, in culture, we need to split that from blame, because it is that culture we need to explore. Out there in society, we have so many cultures and so many communities, and we recruit from those societies that are out there, and they come in, and they are told that they belong to one police family; well, they do not.

They belong to whole different groups of families within the police family, and that is what we need to recognise, that everybody comes in with different experiences, different frames of reference, and different, if you like, values that they bring in. Some are in there, they need to talk to one another and speak to one another and communicate with one another, and perhaps sometimes we expect too much from people.

We say to people, "Here you have one police family", but you do not. I bring in my values, and I do not want to leave them at the door when I step in through the police building, or when I step into uniform; I do not want to leave them there. But I am told to leave them there every day I walk in, "You are part of this organisation now, you are part of this one universal soldier, all embracing, all encompassing, this so-called equal opportunities".

We do not want equal opportunities. We want opportunities for people, and opportunities regardless of their colour, their creed, their race, their orientation, whatever you want. We want to be recognised for our diversity, and it is that diversity that is difficult for people to accept, because they are being indoctrinated, "You belong to one police family".

As long as we recognise that we all come in from society and are all different, as long as we do not infringe upon other people's rights and their right to do things – we do not have to agree with them. I will never agree with the beliefs of other religions, and other religions, I do not expect them to agree with my beliefs, but when we come in together, we value the fact that they have the right to be what they are and who they are, but we do not have to agree with them.

If we can get that right, then half of these blames will not need to be there.

Sir William Morris: Let me just ask a slightly different point here, because we have had a number of groups that have given evidence to us, and there are, as I understand it, about 14 staff support groups within the Met, which is way, way outside any experience that I have had, and I have been around in industry for a very long time.

People have issues, they have needs, and all these have to be recognised and provided for, but there is a recognised, well established, long established trade union within the police service, the Police Federation, and some of the issues that have been canvassed before us are frankly bread and butter issues that I would expect, and my colleagues would expect, drawing on their experience, the representative organisation to deal with within the workplace.

Why is it therefore necessary for 14 staff groups representing a whole range of interest, not special interest, but legitimate interest? Why is it necessary to have these groups when a recognised trade union should pick these issues up and promote them and involve people and build on the richness of the membership? Because it is, as Ms Poole has said, and Mr Mahroof, and your good self, a very, very diverse group of people coming together, 46,000, you would have thought that the common thread would have given it its inherent strength. Can you help us there, about the necessity for all these groups?

Mr Mahroof: Well, you say we have 14 different representative bodies; well, they have been counted, because we begin to represent things which are different from other people's interests.

You see, there have been many, many more representative bodies representing people's interests, whether it is a tiddlywinks interest, or the darts interest, or the snooker interest, or the pub interest or whatever interest, they have all been there, and they have been there as long as the police have been there.

But the thing is, when you start taking an interest in your own culture, your own faith, that is when you get counted.

You see, we came together as the Association of Muslim Police because we have interests which are unique to us. We got together because I wanted people who were like me, and acted like me, and had a shared interest; I did not want to go to a church and sing songs or hymns or whatever, I wanted to go to a mosque and join up with other Muslim officers who shared my faith.

As long as I continued going to a church, nobody would count me, but when I come together and go to a mosque, people say, "Ah, you are different". If I joined the tiddlywinks association, and start playing darts, or tiddlywinks, or sports, or swimming or whatever, nobody counts me.

You see, these associations and these interests have been there as long as the police have been there, so when people say there are now 14 representative associations, what is it that we represent? And it is our common interests that we represent, so no one should really have a problem with that.

You talk about the Federation and other trade union organisations and representative bodies and statutory bodies like that; when you look at the front benches of the Federation, we have got 46,000-odd people, or 146,000, whatever you want to call them, and they do not look like you, and they do not act like you, they do not eat like you, they do not worship like you, they do not dress like you; what is the likelihood they will vote you in on the front bench, and how long will it take – you can wait for ever and ever; as long as you are less than 1 per cent of this organisation, you will never get voted, your interests will never get represented there.

So when you come and you see the results now, we have been formalised as a structured body for many years now, and you get the Federation and those very statutory bodies are asking us for help, and for our assistance and for guidance, but where are they? How long will it take for me to get there, onto the front benches? Until we actually have a change of structure and they change their work, and some sort of action to try and get us there, we cannot be represented there.

Sir William Morris: Yes. I understand the logic of your argument and the force it carries, but the reality is that if the organisation is not representing the membership or the employee profile of the service itself, that obviously requires change, something has to change. Now what is the best way of making change to any institution – and I accept the fact that change is not always the fastest vehicle in the world, but nevertheless, the principle of change is important.

Because we have 14 groups, the issues around which change should be advanced and built are not being addressed within the Federation, because the expertise issues – the victims have to be part of the liberating process, and whatever interest you have, you know, whatever needs you have, if you are not in a position, or the opportunities are not there, to seek to change the conventions, change the status quo, challenge the misunderstandings, then really we are condemning forever that organisation to any sort of change, if you follow my drift.

What I am saying is that you are there representing the Sikh community, the Jewish community, the gay community; the Federation is over there, the Federation needs to be confronted with those issues, but if you are not there, nobody is going to put those issues forward, are they?

Mr Boyle: I think, sir, the problem is that it has been a matter of some regret that we, certainly in the GPA, for the last 14 or 15 years, have had to push and push against a fairly closed Federation door. That door has been opened over recent years, and that is very much down to individual Federation officers whom we have had business dealings with, who have been confident and comfortable in dealing with gay-related issues.

Historically, that was something which they did not touch with a bargepole, they had no knowledge, they had no understanding, and it was not seen in any shape or form as any popular vote catcher.

I think the problem is that – the collective name of the staff associations is Samurai, I was not the author of that, and it is a rather belligerent description, but once heard, never forgotten; we do work very well, extremely well, together, but as far as I am aware, there are no formal structures or even informal structures that link in with the Federation.

No matter what, the Federation are the people who do carry considerable influence in the corridors of power. The Federation do have their three days in, I think, Bournemouth this year, to which I know we are being invited, but I am not quite sure who of my colleagues in Samurai are being invited. They are not all just Met organisations, they have a national dimension.

Although things are working out better, and we are doing brisker business with the Federation, I think that that is an area which really ought to be looked at and improved upon, because at the end of the day, the Federation are the people to whom we pay, literally, our dues, and they should be able to grasp all these issues and not run away and hide behind just one individual who might champion a particular issue, because of family connections or a greater degree of sensitivity; that is not how I see a Federation structure as behaving.

Sir William Morris: I am going to bring in my colleagues in a minute on this whole question of the culture, and more importantly, in the end, what we do about it, but I just come back to something Mr Mahroof said, because yes, you are absolutely right, in a social environment, people try and practise different interests. Some swim, some fish, some play golf, some do – and these societies, they exist or do not, in a workplace.

I am not quite sure whether equating the fishing club and the darts club, in terms of the needs, can be on the same footing as equating the legitimate needs or requirements of someone having the employer providing for them to worship, like a proper prayer room, for example. So I make a distinction about the pleasurable pursuits or the sort of interests of an individual as against the broader interests which come within what I would see as the scope of managerial provision, employer provision, to satisfy the diverse needs of their employees.

It is in that context I was indicating that while putting the issue of proper facilities for worship on the collective bargaining agenda is quite legitimate; putting the interests of the fishing club on the collective bargaining agenda is just a little bit different, you might have a social club, or a social committee, and you use that particular route.

So my central point is to strengthen the workplace institution to represent the interests of a diversified community in the Metropolitan Police Service, should the people with the expertise and the knowledge not be helping those who have not got it? And the Federation certainly has not got it; they have to be, if you like, taken on board on the basis of sharing the experience, so that they can understand better and provide for all their members.

Ms Poole: Can I just say something at this point? There is a big difference between the staff associations and the Federation. For one, the Federation deals with the legal side, and we, as support associations, do not.

We should be able to work together, but until the Federation actually understands what our needs are – and just to break it down in simple terms, with no disrespect, sir, your needs are completely different needs to Miss Weekes' needs; if not taking into account faith or your background.

I think we have to recognise the work that the Federation have done; they do a very good job, and as staff associations, we do not in any way put them down for that. They are very important to everybody. I just think that maybe they just need to put that hand out, and welcome us in a bit more, and we will be able to share our knowledge and our experiences and our backgrounds with them, in order for them to facilitate us in a better way. That is all.

Sir William Morris: And everybody will be stronger.

Mr Boyle: Hopefully, indeed, yes.

Sir William Morris: That is my point. Mr Mahroof, and then I will bring my colleagues in.

Mr Mahroof: You raise an issue about existence; when I made references to all these different social events, if you look back to the history of some of these staff associations, they existed because of those social needs and those commonalities that they had together, so I think there is a comparison with some of those sporting clubs that we have and so on, because if we deal with all the legal issues and all the needs that we have within the police environment, the fact is, we will probably still need to exist, because we have shared interests, we come together.

Because otherwise, you are coming to work, and you see that you have nothing in common to discuss with your friends and your colleagues, so you can sit in a panda car all night duty and find that there is nothing that you have in common, so you will still feel you need to go out there and hunt down and look for people like you, so that you can discuss and share and mentor and talk to one another, so there is some analogy there.

Sir William Morris: I will bring one of my colleagues in. Miss Weekes, do you want to debate the culture issue?

Miss Weekes: Thank you, chairman. It may not just be the culture issue.

Can I follow on from the very helpful collective description that you have given of your relationship with the Federation? I certainly am very grateful, because it puts a different complexion on what the Federation have told us; we now have a better balanced view of that relationship.

It is quite clear to me that whilst you all very professionally recognise the good they do and the power that they hold, you wish more recognition, and very dramatically, I think it was Mr Mahroof who said it would be rather helpful to have some of us on the front row, where decisions are made.

We are particularly interested in change, and constructive activities, recommendations to get that change.

What I think may block the change to what you want from the Federation is their statutory basis and the way people are elected onto the front row, so may I have your help on that?

In terms of statutory, what is it that stops each of the three of you sitting on the front row? If I can just take you one at a time. Can I start with perhaps yourself?

Mr Boyle: My honest answer is I do not know. I have not got that amount of knowledge as to what the Federation – well, obviously I know what the Federation does, but the mechanics of how people are elected and so forth has always been a rather nebulous area. It was there – I noticed there was a certain amount of money going out of my pay cheque per month towards the Federation, and there would be cases where they were clearly working in the interests of my colleagues and so forth, and that was basically it.

Apart from dealing individually with some very fine officers who will then help me make decisions in relation to circumstances and issues I have to deal with in relation to gay and lesbian officers, I am not at all familiar with their structures. I am not really, in inverted commas, "a Federation man".

That is sometimes – and was used not so long ago, I think at the formation of the Commissioner's LGBT focus group, when I arrived rather late in the day, I was described as, "Ah, here comes the Federation man", and it was said in a way which was, I think, perhaps – I would like to think humorous, but it was a little bit of a put-down. I then found myself very much on the back foot by saying, "Oh no, I am not a Federation man", and I thought afterwards, well, now, that was really not the right way for me to deal with it, and not the right way for it to be raised with me. All I can say is it is still a little bit of a mystery.

Miss Weekes: No doubt you are not the only one who thinks it is a mystery.

Mr Boyle: I think the Federation is still seen by a lot of people as predominantly men who go down to Bournemouth for three days in the year and have all sorts of junkets and so forth, and then occasionally, when you really need them to act for you, they will act.

Sometimes, they choose not – in terms of battles that the average officer would want them to choose, and then sometimes there are battles which they really should choose to become involved in and they do not, but that is a bit of a generalisation. There are instances where they have been very, very to the fore with ourselves.

Miss Weekes: Can I ask you, because I will ask everybody, what is your rank?

Mr Boyle: Detective Sergeant.

Miss Weekes: We are asking that because I know the Federation operates on rank.

Mr Boyle: Yes, in fact, in the GPA, we do not. We normally say, "It is Paul Cahill from the GPA", or whoever, whoever, and that I find usually gets round any sort of nonsense of being intimidated and knowing your place.

Ms Poole: Just to clarify my rank, I am a police constable. As far as the Federation is concerned, on a one-to-one basis, I have had use of them for non-religious or non-background things, when I have had a problem. I do not think I would ever use them myself if I had an intimidation in relation to my faith. Statutory-wise, I only – as I said, I only know on like a one-to-one basis, I do not know generally what they do.

Miss Weekes: You do not?

Ms Poole: No. I think there is obviously a publicity angle that they need to be looking at there, as to how they should promote themselves, so that we all have an understanding of what their capabilities are.

They do have training to do their job; staff association people do their job out of their hearts and for free.

For us to be working with them, I have not got any legal training, apart from the work as a police officer, not that employment training, so that is all a bit of a mystery, and I really –

Miss Weekes: Do you not know either?

Sir William Morris: Do you get a magazine from them every month?

Ms Poole: No. You get a little book once a year, with lots of advertisements in it, you know, your diary.

Miss Weekes: How much of your money is taken towards the Federation?

Ms Poole: I cannot remember. It just comes out of your salary. When you first join as a recruit, you sit down in this large room and somebody says, "You need to join this, this and this", and you sign your life away with 101 things. You did that ten years ago, and it just comes out of your cheque.

I suppose, generally speaking you should keep your eye on it, maybe other people know, but it is reckless not to be a member, because you never know when you do need them. And I have to say, as I said before, I recognise the work they do, and like in everything, you have good Federation people and not so good Federation people, and I think they work very hard, but possibly some could do better, who knows.

But nevertheless, we have not been invited to join them, but you mentioned a word before, what was it, at the very beginning, when you were speaking about – not "respect", what was it? It has gone from my head.

Miss Weekes: It will come back.

Ms Poole: I cannot remember, but it was quite important at the time.

Miss Weekes: Well, please come back in, because we would like you to. Mr Mahroof, I am particularly interested in how people like yourselves get onto the front row. What is the statutory block; do you understand the mechanism of how you get onto the front row? Because you mentioned having to wait around for others to vote you in.

Mr Mahroof: Well, there are a number of blockages, and one of those is the rank structure that the Federation has.

Miss Weekes: The rank structure?

Mr Mahroof: The rank structure. They are very much rank-based. You have representatives for every rank and so on. So you may have some sort of very acute knowledge of some issue, some culture, something that is very useful, but you cannot get in because you are restricted by your rank, and someone of your rank from that particular locality where you work has already been voted in elsewhere, so you find you are blocked until that person either leaves or resigns or there is another vote somewhere.

Miss Weekes: May I ask your rank?

Mr Mahroof: I am a police officer – a DC, rather. You may find that someone like myself is probably the only person at that station from a minority background. You can have 400 or 500 or 600 police officers at any particular borough, any particular police station, but the number of minority officers you can count on one hand.

And then you have to have an interest in that kind of work to begin with, otherwise you are not going to put yourself forward, and so first of all, you have to have that kind of affinity towards that kind of work, and that interest in that kind of work, and that dedication and that commitment and those sacrifices you have to make, apart from doing a day job, you have to be called in and do all sorts of work, so it is not very appealing in the first place.

If you do find it appealing, you have to then convince all your friends and all your colleagues around you to vote you in, and I go back to my original point, that if they do not like you, they do not like your culture, they hold some prejudices towards you, or anything like that, they are not going to vote you in.

And if you have got nothing to talk to them about, you do not talk to them in the car because they do not want to know about your prayer meetings or this meeting, or what you ate or this or that, they are not going to be interested in you. They are going to be interested in people who they like.

Miss Weekes: All three of you raise what I consider to be a possible dilemma, rather the evidence came from you, and the dilemma I think exists from what you have just said: it is clearly that someone could conclude that the Federation is not truly representative. It cannot be, because none of you sit on the front row to influence decisions; you are not going to take over, but you want to influence the change.

So if the standard, most important representative body does not in fact represent, what step would you like to see that it does become representative?

Mr Mahroof: I want to talk about some of our good experiences first with the Federation, it is not all bad. I mean, right after 9/11, the Muslim Association engaged with senior officers at the Metropolitan Police and asked them, they need to do more to try and protect the Muslim community, as well as other communities who may be victimised as a result of the attacks. That includes our Sikh friends and colleagues and other people who may be targeted because they look like Muslims; and also the backlash against the Jewish community and everything else.

From then, we put out loads and loads of guidance to police officers as to how they can engage, how they can deal with, how they must show their sensitivity towards Muslim communities, and one of those documents I wrote was read by someone very senior in the Federation, who came to one of our meetings called the Muslim safety forum, which is represented by very many senior representatives of the Muslim community from various different backgrounds. They come in once a month and meet the Metropolitan Police, officers from ACPO rank, and the Federation came along, they took a very great interest in the work that we were doing.

What their intention was I do not know, but the end result was they were very pleased, and they wanted to learn more and they wanted to do more, and they invited us on what they called the equality sub-liaison committee, which is held periodically down at their Federation offices in Surbiton, and the Association of Muslim Police was one of the first people to go down from the staff association representatives.

And there we can feed in some of our concerns about the Federation and the representatives that they have, and any concerns that we have; we know that they are fed in. I personally have done some presentations to Federation representatives and so on.

It is not who is on the front bench, it is whether or not your views are represented, that is probably more important, I think. And if we have got champions, they do not have to be like us, they do not have to act like us, they do not have to behave like us, as long as they can champion your cause and your views, that is probably what is important, and if we can win over those hearts and minds on the front bench, I think we are halfway there.

And what we need is more of this dialogue between us, and some trust, and if people begin to trust that we are not there against them, we are there to work with him, and we are very much partners with the Federation – and I can give you anecdote after anecdote, but I do not really want to go into anecdotes about the way we have worked as partners with the Federation.

The Federation give the legal support to our members. Most of our members are also members of the Federation, we encourage that; and our civil staff members are members of civil staff unions, and we encourage that, we want them to become members. We do not want to replicate anything they are already doing.

We just want to make sure that when there are issues that arise, the Federation is seeking the right advice from the right people to do what is right and do justice for their client.

Sometimes we find that the client has not had justice, because the Federation does not know who to talk to. We open up our arms to the Federation and say, "Come to us, talk to us, and we will be able to give you that advice".

Miss Weekes: That is a commendable, balanced view of what you want from the Federation, so as a lawyer, should I really back off from what I think might be put on the table for discussion, which is statutory change about the structure of the Federation? Is that not necessary in your view? Any one of the three of you.

Ms Poole: I think if you force something on someone, it is taken on resentment. I think it should be done because they want to do it, otherwise it is just not going to be effective.

Mr Boyle: I think, yes, it is training, it is awareness, it is winning hearts and minds, and I think if you were to – not quite too sure what kind of statutory framework you were necessarily thinking about, and that could be quite invasive or it may not be, it all depends.

But I think, echoing what has been said, we have good experiences of working with the Police Federation, but I just have this gut feeling it could be a little more formalised and better structured than it is. It really depends on the goodwill of certain individuals who are prepared to work in a spirit of trust and confidence with us.

Miss Weekes: I am sorry, I do have other points. Would you rather hand over to Sir Anthony?

Sir William Morris: Yes, because I want a sort of participation going on. Anyway, we have spent quite a bit on the Federation, but what gave rise to the question was the culture within the Met; I am just going to ask one question and then bring in Sir Anthony. There is a general recognition, I think, that there is an issue around the culture within the Met, whether it is the macho culture or the management sort of culture.

But what is important, because this is why we are here: in the context of your organisation, what do you think we can do to try and change the culture within the Met itself? Forget the Federation, we have explored that. And then I will bring in Sir Anthony.

Mr Boyle: Much as it seems you could say this of almost anything, I think there is some truth in it: training, awareness, leadership, absolutely essential. I dare say we may get on to particular aspects of leadership later on, but one thing which concerns me, and this is an example, the DOIT team in the Met sat down with myself, the Gay Police Association, last November to try to hammer out a training seminar on LGBT awareness issues aimed at senior management level.

Perhaps we had been a long time in the waiting for this, but we had recognised there were other issues certainly raised and gender issues which had taken precedence, and we slotted in, when everybody, I think, was feeling a bit more prepared, relaxed and comfortable with launching this on a very unsuspecting SMT structure.

I remember saying at this particular meeting, "I know what is going to happen, on the day that we set aside for this, the number of superintendents in the main will not be available, they will be off doing something else, and it will be delegated, fast and furiously, down to the sometimes very hard-suffering HR personnel", and what happened? That did happen, to a very large extent. It was then revisited last week, with the same target audience of SMT, and it came down to PC level.

The problem that we have is saying to the organisation, "A lot of the issues dealing with sensitivity and so forth are not at PC level, it is actually that slightly higher chief inspector/ superintendent level", when there becomes, as I refer to it, almost a paralysis of decision-making, when they have to deal with any issues which affect any sort of differences or fear of difference – I read that somewhere, and it is probably quite an apt description.

That was just one example, I thought, of the best intentions are there, and on a personal level, Denise Milani is highly committed, but it does not seem to quite get to ...

Sir William Morris: How does that level of representation fit in with the mantra of diversity that the Commissioner nailed his colours to?

Mr Boyle: Well, it is obviously part of it, it is an aspect of it, but I do not think it is quite getting out, it is not quite percolating through to the people who are the movers and the shakers, and the people who are able to, you know, change situations.

Sir William Morris: Yes, but my point is that diversity is the flagship policy to accommodate this family. You have a very important conference/seminar, whatever the gathering was; you would expect representation at the appropriate rank, if it is that you are going to get the policy accepted throughout the organisation at every level in every borough command.

And if you are not getting the senior decision-makers as part of the discussion, as part of the conversation, then they are not hearing the solutions, and you will not change the culture and you will not change the practice.

Mr Boyle: Well, I did use the line at the time – the example at the time, I said, "This has to be a three line whip here", and we then have to go back to those who came to the meeting – and even 360-degree, the borough or the unit and say, "Well, have things changed since your SMT came to the" – I am not going to say that things will change overnight, clearly, but if you are not sending the appropriate rank person to deal with it, the whole thing then becomes just window dressing, and is a waste of the energy which some dedicated people are putting into it.

So that was, from our point of view, a bit of a disappointment and an opportunity which may not be entirely lost, because I think this is still rolling out as a programme, but is a little bit indicative of just sometimes how the Met fails to deliver at certain levels.

Sir William Morris: Tony?

Sir Anthony Burden: Good morning. Could I ask you, please, what message you would give to us and what message you would give to the Commissioner about his organisation and the lack of sensitivity towards a diverse workforce, and the impact that this actually has on the diverse communities in London, particularly in terms of the massive recruitment drive which is underway at the present time; what image is created out there in London?

Mr Mahroof: When you have got 30,000 police officers coming in from across London, and they are spending eight hours a day at work, and they are spending 16 hours a day out there in society, and their vision and their prejudices are clouded by what is out there in society, and telling them to come in for eight hours and change, change their minds, change their prejudices, change everything else, you know, it is almost like telling someone who is looking at green paint – and saying, "That is not green paint, that is blue paint, and you are going to call it blue because we are telling you it is blue".

And all the prejudices that are out there in society are going to manifest themselves into the policing environment. Time is a great healer, but it is what you do with that time in between.

You see, we have senior officers like Sir John; we do not have a problem with them. In fact, they are very supportive of our work, and the people below him are very good. It is not what is at the senior level, it is what is happening there on the ground, at the front level, where all our bulk of our membership lies, on the frontline, and that is where we need the change.

You see, you can give as much diversity training to anybody you like; at the end of the day, if they are still having those prejudices inside them, because if they have had a dispute with their Muslim neighbour, and they are calling their Muslim neighbour names at home, they are not going to come into work and say, "Well, you are nice people", to their friends and colleagues who happen to be Muslim. We have had experiences of this.

I can go into anecdotes – again, I do not really want to get into anecdotes – which would really shock people and horrify people that this is happening here in the year 2004.

All that goodwill that is up here needs to manifest its way downwards, and really, the answer, how that happens and why it is happening, it really lies up there, the will. You can go out there and you can have as many recruitment campaigns as you like, and say, "We want blacks and Asians", but if you do not deal with their baggage that they bring in, that is a useless campaign.

You can go into a shopping centre and say, "We want Muslims coming into the police service", but as soon as they step through the door, you say, "Well, you cannot pray, you cannot do this, you cannot do this, we want you to be non-Muslim for eight hours a day"; well, that is a useless exercise.

You can go into youth clubs and say, "We want Muslim youth to come in", but there are 500, 600, 1,000, 2,000, 8,000 Muslim youth in a mosque on a Friday; where are the police on a Friday, in these mosques? They shy away from these places.

So you can have your secular Muslims coming in, but when you really want those people to come in with their baggage and their experiences and their values, and people who want to be Muslim, leave them at the door and say, "Leave your baggage there".

We want some commitment from the very top, and we want that commitment to go right the way through the ranks, right down to lower levels, and how that is going to happen; well, the answer really lies with the people up there who are doing it, who are managing it.

Unfortunately, people are afraid to manage. They want to tick boxes when it suits them. Suddenly diversity is a buzz word when promotion time comes around. The number of enquiries we get, "Oh, Mahommed, can you tell us a bit about diversity? I have got my promotion interview tomorrow". That is not what diversity is about.

Sir Anthony Burden: Can I come back to that issue about managers not managing in a moment? Can I just ask Ms Poole?

Ms Poole: I would have to say that I wholly support what Mo has just said. It makes me laugh when he said about people asking him diversity questions, because in my last job, at West End Central, I had a colleague who was gay and very into diversity and very knowledgeable, and whenever they wanted to know about diversity, they used to come and communicate with him, and after that, they did not communicate with him, so just to give you an idea. He found that very amusing.

But going back to what Mo said, I would like to just say thank you to Sir John Stevens for all his work that he has done, and we have to recognise the fact that he has done amazing work and opened his doors on diversity, and you cannot blame everything and lay it all on his door if he is making all the effort and change, and like Mo says, if senior management and very senior management support and are open-minded and want to learn about different backgrounds and effects, that is wonderful, but you still cannot get rid of the fear factor in the lower ranks; and they fear change, they fear difference.

They would fear me because I am a woman, they feared me because I was 40 when I joined the police service, and they feared me because I was Jewish. So I had the three fears.

But over the ten years, things have changed a lot, and particularly in the past couple of years, so we have to thank him for that. But as Mo said, in the lower ranks, inspectors in particular, sergeants, they need to take it on board.

We recognise the fact that we are police officers, and our religion is important to us, but we still have to serve in emergencies, and we still have to deal with working with people who fear that we are a bit different.

And we recognise that, but on the other hand, we need to undo that fear and say, "What is there to fear? We are the same as you. We just need to communicate". This is the problem.

The lack of understanding – I do not mean to sound like mindless whining, but even to the point of, say, food. If you do not eat certain types of food and you are dealing with a riot, or you have been asked to do aid, and in that box is food that you cannot eat, and you have gone along and you have had your feeding and there is food there that you cannot eat at the feeding, except for maybe a banana, then you are going 12 hours without eating.

Now this has not filtered down to – not just police, but you are taking it outside the police to catering. So you have not just got the issue of police officers taking it on board, you have got the civil side to deal with, or the police staff to deal with, so we do not just keep knocking police officers, we need to be looking at the whole holistic problem, and again, senior ranks understand this, but it is not going down. So everything that Mo has said, we all agree on.

Sir Anthony Burden: Of course, those are big issues. It may seem a small issue, but if you are being fed on a 12-hour shift, it is a big, big issue, not only that you have food, but recognising that the organisation has seen the sensitivities around the food that is provided. Those are important messages, are they not, to the workforce?

Ms Poole: It even goes down to the fact that if you are vegetarian – you could be Jewish and vegetarian, or you could be Muslim and vegetarian, you could be gay and vegetarian, but if it is your belief that you do not want to eat meat, you should be facilitated for that, I think. You are still doing your job, you are not affecting policing skills, you are still out there with everybody else, but it is just recognising decency, that is what the person does not want, and you should facilitate it.

Sir Anthony Burden: Can I just ask you this – and you may not be able to answer this, but it might give us some indication as to where the problem lies.

If the Metropolitan Police were meeting with the Muslim community or the Jewish community in a formal setting and there was a buffet lunch, they would go to great extremes, I guess, to make sure that dietary provision was right.

Ms Poole: Well, it is taking quite a while to get it right.

Sir Anthony Burden: I think Mr Mahroof's face says it all.

Mr Mahroof: Some farcical situations have happened.

Ms Poole: There have been some very Carry On menus. We understand it takes a while to bring that change about, and with Mo's help and our help and with the Sikh Association's help, there have been changes. And there is a learning curve, they are learning, they are opening their doors and learning, but it is not filtering down, it is not – yes, here, at New Scotland Yard, they understand it now, but it is not going sideways.

Sir Anthony Burden: In terms of the gay community?

Mr Boyle: Well, I am not too sure we have any particular sort of dietary differences.

Sir Anthony Burden: But in terms of the perception of the Metropolitan Police and the way they are policed.

Mr Boyle: Yes, I think that the perception is that things are getting, obviously, better. The problem, of course, that we have is that we are invisible, and that we have many officers who, for all sorts of reasons, and members of the police staff, choose not to align themselves with the GPA, sadly, sometimes, until something goes seriously wrong at work, and then we will step in and help them.

We do acknowledge the work that Sir John has done and certain other officers, Commander Allen in particular, and Cressida Dick before, Mr Grieve and so forth, in areas of hate crime, and the training of community safety units, and we are and have been quite often involved in major incidents and critical incidents, and I think that message is then fed back to officers, and they then see that they are obviously – they have a contribution, and they are feeling a bit more worthwhile, and then, of course, something crass will happen in the workplace which undoes all the months and months of hard work on everybody's part.

And I dare say that is probably just human nature going a little bit berserk from time to time; or it is, as I am beginning to sense now, I am afraid, a more palpable, discernible sort of shrugging of shoulders and moving away from anything that smacks of diversity.

Whether we have packaged it all wrongly or not, I do not know, but if you pick up the job magazine, which used to just be picked up because there was nothing else to read around the police station, you do hear people – and a lot of people do not actually know who I am. I do not quite go around incognito, but they do not quite know what I do in the GPA, and they are sometimes quite unguarded in their thoughts, and I find it – instead of reeling on them and invoking all sorts of disciplinary things, it all depends what they are saying; it is a bit of a yardstick and a barometer to me as to what is going on.

There is this growing sort of swell now – it was always there, but it seems to be more growing now, that everything is sort of sacrificed at the altar of what is seen to be diversity. Of course, there is ignorance there and so forth, but I think in a way because we are doing so much to promote the ethos that underpins diversity, there are a lot of people out there who are really not interested in either changing their attitudes. Mo says – I think it is so sad that he goes out and drives in a panda car at night or whatever, nobody is really interested in asking him where he goes to pray or whatever.

I would love to go out with somebody who is a little bit different so I could ask them all sorts of questions as to where they come from and what they do, because I am going to deal with the wider community, I need to have some knowledge.

Which brings me on to the handbook, the famous or infamous handbooks which were printed a couple of years ago; the number of officers who were seen to chuck them in the bottom drawers, with the phrases, "We do not need to be told how to treat a Jewish person or a Muslim person" or whatever, and then when you start asking them questions such as, "If you were to go to a mosque to deal with an incident, who do you speak to? How do you address various people? What is the correct way in which you address yourself and so forth?" And even closer to home: what is the difference between a bishop and a Monsignor? They just did not know.

You think, well, what has happened here? Hendon has perhaps given them the best available education to deal with road traffic and stray dogs and so forth, but not when it really comes to – and I thought it was a very, very bold and imaginative way to try to get this across, but unfortunately, even with CRR training as it then was, it did not quite carry the day, I think, for large chunks of officers. I think that is still the problem.

A lot of people feel that they have done well because they have ticked the correct boxes for diversity which appear on every single promotion form.

Sir Anthony Burden: Can I just have a follow-up on this issue of fear? I mean, is there any suggestion that they would not be willing to ask a Muslim officer, a Muslim member of police staff, about their religion, because they are likely to get the rebuff, "Well, you ought to know that, and the fact that you do not know that actually shows how institutionally racist this organisation is", blah blah blah? You note my drift.

Is that an inherent fear, or is it stronger and more worrying than that, that there is now this – you used the term rebuttal, of not wanting to know.

Mr Mahroof: I can tell you, police officers are very brave people. When they want to, they can ask you all the questions they want about Islam. "Why are your people terrorists? What does it say about you? What do you do?" So when it suits them, they can ask you all those questions that they would not turn round and say, "Look, why do black people do this?", because black is something they cannot mention apparently. But they can turn round and say, "Why do you Muslims XYZ?" And believe me, they say this; we get complaints day in and day out from Muslim staff, where people have been insensitive with them.

So they do ask, but it is the wrong kind of questions they ask. They ask when there is something in the headlines, they come down and they ask you, but they still feel that they can ask you questions – that they cannot ask about race, but they can go round and have a go at your religion.

You see, there are a few words I want to get rid of from the vocabularies of middle management, and that is "What if?" You see, it is "what if" that we want to get rid of from their dictionaries, because that is what brings down their fear factor.

You ask for a prayer room, they say, "What if everybody else wants one? Then what am I going to do?" You ask them for halal food, "We cannot do that, what if everybody else wants one?" You see, it is the "what if"s we need to get rid of.

"You cannot wear a hijab, what if people want to wear this and people want to wear that, then what am I going to do?" It is the "what if" we need to get rid of there, from their vocabularies, from their dictionaries, and this is where we need risk takers and we need people to take those risks.

I mentioned the prayer room; the Commissioner was very, very brave on this, I went to see him, and he just did not even see it as an issue, he turned and said, "Right, have you done your homework?" I said, "Yes, I have done my homework"; right, done.

When I asked him about the hijab for Muslim women, he knew there was 12 years of homework behind this; done. But it was difficult for the people at the front level to accept, the middle management, the lower ranks. In 2003, we still have people – last year, we had a Muslim officer walk out there in uniform, in a hijab, and it was virtually pulled off by her inspector, "Who says you can wear this? Where does it say I have to let you wear this?" It is those "what if"s and "where"s and "who"s, those kind of words need to come out of the vocabularies of middle management.

Sir Anthony Burden: Can I just – I mean, the Metropolitan Police has got policies coming out of its ears, it seems that people will not move unless they can refer to a policy that gives them a direction.

There are, I understand – because we have had an individual submission from an officer who was attending Hendon, who was challenged about his dress, but he very quickly realised that there was a policy supporting a liberal approach based on religious belief to appearance and dress, so if only the individual had bothered to look at his own policies in the Metropolitan Police, he would see that this is all catered for in terms of attitude. But you are saying this is still happening, even in relation to wearing a hijab, Muslim members of staff are being challenged about that?

Mr Mahroof: Every month we get enquiries from middle management and personnel officers and everybody about prayer issues, about beards, about hijabs, about dress, about saris, about jewellery, about this, about that. "Can I let a Hindu officer wear a dot on her forehead?" Well, why not? "Where does it say I have to let her do that? It is not in keeping with the uniform".

"Can I let a Muslim officer grow a beard? Well, he must take annual leave for two weeks." Why should he take annual leave for two weeks if he wants to grow a beard? You know, "Where does it say I have to let them do this? Where does it say I have to let them do that?"

One personnel manager rings you up and says, "Look, I have got a member of staff who takes a few minutes out of the day to do their prayers. Can I make that member of staff make up those few minutes at the end of the day?"

We have a very senior member of staff responsible for catering in the Metropolitan Police who tells you he cannot do halal food because he has to go to Botswana to get it, and I told him to pay a visit to Brick Lane.

Sir Anthony Burden: It is closer than Botswana.

Mr Mahroof: You see, it is those "what if"s, and "I cannot do this, I cannot do that", it is that "can't" word. You see, there is this thing called vegetarian; if you cannot do halal food, give them vegetarian. If you cannot do kosher food, give them vegetarian. And that is something we need to deal with, it is that "can't".

Ms Poole: There is obviously a small problem or a big problem – it sounds like I am knocking the police service, but we have had the training for religion and faith, and different backgrounds, which was over two days and concentrated mainly on one issue, and then there has been a big gap.

I think, as we all know, in the next ten years, Central London or the metropolitan area is going to change, and we have to change with it, and it takes a while for this great big lumbering huge machine to move on, and if they are going to make that change and make that difference, then we really need to look at the problem, and the problem is knowledge.

If there is not enough knowledge going into the ranks, then what do we do about it? The answer is maybe we should be speaking to religious people, and not just religious people, the disabled people as well, and find out: how can we make a better training package? Not what might be perceived, but actually speak to officers there, and speak to the community to find out what they think we should be putting into it.

I do not want it to be one of these never-ending consultation processes that never go anywhere; we need to have a very clipped and precise forward-thinking plan. And then when we have developed it, look at it, really, is this going to work, and discuss maybe with other – with all the religions and all the people in the Samurai, and external, whether this is going to work, what changes are required to tighten it up, and then deliver it.

And that is going to cost, because it means taking officers out and training them, and not leaving it another two, three or four years, and forgetting about it, to keep at it.

So maybe, within each borough, there should be a training faith officer or a training Samurai type officer who can then go and make sure it is maintained.

If you have a condition, God forbid, like diabetes or anything like that, you have to keep it checked or you have to visit a doctor, and it is the same with keeping this change correct on the straight line, we have to keep looking at it.

And it is not enough to keep issuing policies, because policies are terribly dull, and people do not really want to read them, so people need to – far better by actually doing than reading something that is boring, and that is what we have got to do. So that is our problem, is to actually really deal with the issue, rather than keep writing policies.

Sir William Morris: Thank you.

Miss Weekes: Can I just come back to perhaps what we are about, our duty to help, our duty to assist in the change. I think all three of you have extremely well elucidated the problem. Not filtering down I think is something that has been repeated by every single one of you, not filtering down to middle management and the lower ranks.

It is quite clear that you all give credit and respect to Sir John Stevens and those around him, every single one of you have.

What would each of you say we should take on board when we write our report about how to get the message to middle management? It is clearly depressing; the tiny catalogue that you gave of the issues raised in your religion, can they wear this, can they eat that, on a regular basis.

Maybe those managers genuinely do not know; some of them do not care, but maybe they genuinely do not know, so we are asking you: how will each of you want to bring about the change of making sure middle management, that deal with all of you daily, know what to do, and do it sensibly?

Mr Mahroof: If I may go first, I brought up this issue earlier on about people not managing. We accept there is going to be ignorance, and that is what we are here for, to help reduce some of that ignorance, to give some of that advice and that guidance. It is not what they do not know, it is what they do once they know they do not know, and if they do not know and they do not know, they need to go to the places where they do know, and they need to be able to turn round and say – be brave enough and say, "Look, I am sorry, I do not have the answer to this, but I need to be human about this".

If you have a woman who says, "I have just broken up with my boyfriend and I am really distressed", "Off you go for a week, have some compassionate leave". If you have a man whose grandmother has died in Pakistan or in the Punjab, for him, it is a very, very significant issue. He needs to go out there and deal with the land issues, he needs to deal with the tribal issues, he needs to deal with the cultural issues, the family issues, he needs to deal with a whole raft of religious issues and everything else.

And if he puts in for a bid for a week off or something like that, it is, "Oh, why, who says, sorry, I cannot, you need to drive the area car, I have got no one to cover the front office, I have got no one to do the CAD room". So it is recognition of the significance of something. What is significant to me may not be significant to my colleagues sitting around me.

As long as these people understand the significance of something to me, and how it might infringe on my ultimate welfare – if my friend sitting next to me is not allowed five minutes to read the bible in the morning, it may or may not have an impact on him or his welfare or her welfare. But if I am not allowed to say my compulsory prayer, I neglect the very essence of our faith, I take myself towards such major sin that I could be leaving the boundaries of Islam, and I will be called a (inaudible), I will be called an unbeliever, I would have to face the punishment in the hereafter.

So the significance of me being denied Friday prayer or this, it is so significant, it impinges on my welfare, my psychological welfare, the welfare of my family, the welfare of my community, my standing within the community and everything else. Whereas the significance may not be recognised, it is all we want them to do, to recognise the significance of what you are asking for, and if they do not know, they need to know where they can go.

Miss Weekes: Can I very quickly interrupt, because we may be having a break now: when you get managers who clearly demonstrate they do not know or they do not care – let us just deal with the ones that do not know. They ring you up, in a week you have had three calls from managers who say, "Look, what about this?" The food issue, the dress issue, jewellery. What do you do? Do you then make a decision to take them aside for a little time, put all three of them together in a group and say, "Over the last month, these are the requests that I have had within this borough, I really would quite like to have just a gentle one-to-one talk".

Have you tried that, and has it worked?

Mr Mahroof: We have tried nearly everything over the last few years. I can tell you now, I have been off for the last couple of weeks, trying to use up my annual leave before I lose it. And in those two weeks there was not a single day when I was not constantly on the phone for significant amounts of time trying to answer questions from people, from management, from individuals, from welfare people, from other people, from recruits at Hendon, about issues which these people should really know about anyway.

All they have to do is just look for the information – they know where to find it, we have got IT, we have got everything else, and a lot of the time we ask them just to be human about this, just be a person. Often all they have to do is ask that individual.

I will give you one example as an anecdote, just to sum this up. One person complained about a member of staff at Hendon, bullying and everything else, last week, using the F word and threatening behaviour, the kind of behaviour that an ordinary member of the public would get arrested for.

Instead of taking that person aside and saying, "Tell me what happened, how do I deal with it, what do you want to do with it?", nobody contacted that person, they contacted people around him. So by contacting people around him, they even further victimised that individual, because the fear factor then crept into that individual, "Why are these people asking questions here, there and everywhere else, but no one is actually asking me?"

They phoned me up at home and asked, "We have this issue, how do I deal with it?". And I said, "Well, deal with it and talk to the person, you are expected to deal with it. All that training you have had as an inspector and all that training you had as a sergeant and all that training you had throughout your career, well, put it to use. Talk to that individual". All we are saying is people need to be human.

Sir William Morris: Thank you very much. As Miss Weekes indicated earlier, I think it is a convenient time for us to have a five minutes or so break so that our stenographers can have a little rest. We will reconvene in about five minutes or so.

11.55 am
(A short break)
12.05 pm

Sir William Morris: Could I just sort of kick off the second half, so to speak, by just raising an issue about consultation? Because we have been told by some groups that have given evidence to us that the consultation, when it takes place, is not fully engaged in the spirit of consultation; nobody comes along and says, "We have got this problem, could we hear your ideas as to how we can resolve it or put it right?" Generally speaking, the consultation is on the basis, "We have got a problem, we have decided, and this is the solution". Is that a fair representation? Do you recognise that sort of, if you like, consultation culture?

Mr Boyle: I think very much so. We are inundated with e-mails usually, and then hard copies, of consultation documents, and we are only given so many hours of duty time with which to deal with staff association matters, which is a cause of some concern and distress to us all, which we may discuss at a later point.

The end result is that the document gets either the most cursory of glances or not even – and I know that there are some people, for example, in DPS who have given up on me replying to them now, because they send us considerable wads of documents on the sort of sanctions, volumes, conduct and so forth, and the revised system of what our views are, and then it is just finding the time to sit down with other people who are able to give some serious input to this, within your own association or collectively as a group.

Because I am not aware that we have ever really had the opportunity to sit down as a group and respond, say, to Mr Ghaffur's thematic inspection on race, which hit us like a whirlwind, and we had only virtually two days to respond to an immensely important document.

So we have a high level of frustration when it comes to consultation.

Sir William Morris: Okay. Can I raise one issue just to again get the conversation going? The relatively new Fairness at Work policy, how is that working at, if you like, the level of the boroughs and the stations? You know, where people do genuinely have grievances, but that has now been encompassed procedurally by what is called Fairness at Work. Could you share your thoughts with us about that, Mr Mahroof?

Mr Mahroof: Sorry, if I may just go back a little bit about consultation, the word that springs to mind is "overload", and "validation" is another word that springs to mind. You see, sometimes we need to be honest about ourselves too.

There are people out there who said, "We do not get consulted", and when they get consulted, they say, "Now we get consulted too much". We need to know what we are there for and what we need to be consulted on, and sometimes we need to say, "Sorry, this is an issue which we feel is not really one for us, and there is enough people out there championing this cause anyway, and we know it is going to be done justice."

We need now just simply to turn round and say, "Okay, these are the things we want to be consulted on, these are the things we do not need to be consulted on. There is plenty of other people who will fight our corner for us". You know, I do not really want to know about anything and everything that goes on in this organisation all of the time.

And if we know issues that affect us and affect our communities, affect our people, affect the welfare of our individuals in the organisation, then yes, we want to be involved in that. If there is some disparity somewhere, we will deal with it; if there is some inequality or discrimination, then that is what we need to be consulted on.

But there are some people now who have misunderstood the whole concept of consultation. They have heard these buzz words, like "staff association", and now they feel that unless they ask us, you know, it is not going to get validated or they are going to get criticised for not asking.

I think, to be fair to them, we have given them that impression as well, collectively. "Don't you dare write anything without asking us", that is the sort of like impression that I get, that we have given them, and I think it is unfair.

People need to be able to go out there and do things without necessarily asking us if it is not an issue that concerns us. And the point that you have just brought up – which I have just forgotten, I have lost my thread.

Miss Weekes: Fairness at Work.

Mr Mahroof: Fairness at Work; you see, when you have all this overload of policy and procedure and everything else, there is a thing called priority, and when you have just been told you have to go to this beat and you have to go to that beat and you have this many burglaries to report and you have that much to do, this is very, very low priority for most people. Most people will never even read the Fairness at Work book or policy or whatever. It is going to be there, it is going to be flagged up on an intranet somewhere, and say, "This is where you can find it".

Even notices, for example: many people do not even get a chance to read the notices, which everybody should read, because it affects them, it affects what is happening. New policies come out, new guidelines come out, but most people do not even get a chance to read that.

I will give you a practical reason why: when computerisation first came in a few years ago, this thing called OTIS; those at the very top level, they had one OTIS terminal for every single individual: the OCU commander had one, the deputy had one, the HR personnel had one, the manager had one, this had one, there was one in every office, the borough liaison officer had one. And every member of the senior staff had one in his office or her office.

500 people shared one computer in the sector office. All the PCs were told to come and share one. So how are they going to read these tonnes and tonnes of documents? They come in at 2.00 on a late turn and there is a whole line of people waiting to go on one computer.

I am glad to say it has changed now, there are now two computers.

Sir William Morris: 100 per cent improvement!

Mr Mahroof: So you see, when you have things like that, it really does not bode well. So priorities like Fairness at Work, you know, for most people, you ask them and they say, "What does that mean? I have got to treat black people with kindness, or I have got to treat Muslims with kindness, I have got to do this, I have got to be sensitive to gay people". That is what people would equate to, reading it, unless it is forced upon them on a training day or something. And then they will sit there, just, you know, disinterested. I think we need to explore this whole issue of training days perhaps if we get time later on.

Miss Weekes: Well, I think we can do it now, because it touches on the very important topic raised by the chair, Fairness at Work. What is your solution, because you really do have the inside knowledge, of how people can understand relevant changes, relevant issues that matter about the relationship of dealing with people, because it is not about whether you are gay, Muslim, Jewish or black, it is about how you treat people.

So how can middle management have access to the up-to-date policies – let us not take policies, the up-to-date useful, effective, sensitive methods of dealing with people, because outside the Met, it is going on all around England, in other public authorities, so what are your solutions?

Mr Mahroof: Well, the whole point of being a middle manager is to manage people, and the whole point of promotion has to be centred around people, but it does not seem to be. It seems to be centred around legislation, it seems to be centred around knowledge, if there is a knowledge of that, and being able to tick this OSPRE box and that OSPRE box. If you are going to be a manager, you need to know how to manage people. I am afraid we do not do enough of that. We pay lip service to people politics.

You see, if you are going to become a sergeant, suddenly you have 30, 40, 50 people underneath you that you suddenly become responsible for, but so little time is given to how to manage all the different issues that people are going to come up with.

When you become an inspector, suddenly you even double or triple those numbers, you have almost 100 people sometimes that you suddenly become responsible for. So it is not just about knowing PACE or the police and criminal procedures or this procedure, it has to be about people politics.

Miss Weekes: Well, how did you do it? You are in a position now where you manage people, are you not, because of your rank? How did you learn?

Mr Mahroof: A lot of this comes from outside of the police experience. I learnt a lot of my people skills from society, I learnt them from home, I learnt them from people, I learnt them from parents, I learnt them from friends, I learnt them from colleagues, I learnt them from everywhere.

But I am able to bring some of those experiences and use them, because I can take risks. We are a semi-independent organisation, some say we are independent, some say we are semi-independent, it matters not. We can do things because we have a certain kind of freedom, because of what we represent and who we are, but I am afraid people do not believe that they can do that.

If you are an inspector, you have to do things in a certain way, you have to tick that box otherwise you can get criticised, you can do this; I do not feel that they actually have enough of the freedom to take some of the risks that they should be able to take as managers. When it comes to religious or cultural or other issues, they need to be able to take some of those risks.

Say I have given that person a week's compassionate leave to go and deal with his granny back home because it is a very significant issue that will infringe upon that individual's welfare in the long run – but people do not feel they can do that. They feel they need to go and talk to the commander and ask, "Look, I have a mate, da da da, can I give him a week off? Do you think I can? Are there any risks there, do you think, guv?" Why do they need to do that?

Miss Weekes: What should happen to bad managers that are repeatedly shown to be bad managers? Can I be radical and suggest something? It may not be remotely practical or right, but should they be sacked? Should they be demoted? Should the role of management be taken away from them? I have given three options.

Mr Boyle: Putting the right people in the right place at the right time, doing the right job – that may not be in the particular order that PR people dreamt it up – but that can be, I am afraid, from my experience, rather laughable.

There is this word which is bandied around, the omni-competent cop, and that is the omni-competent manager who can be dealing with horses one year, then the next year dealing with something to do with traffic, then the next year possibly CID or whatever, and of course there are management issues and people issues which are the same throughout all those different areas of responsibility.

But I have very little regard for the way in which our managers are taught, and are made aware of issues which they should be made aware of, in terms of managing people.

Miss Weekes: For example?

Mr Boyle: Well, speaking from the GPA point of view, I know that if you are promoted to a sergeant, then from sergeant to inspector, the training given to you on your courses is lamentable. I do not think there is any training, possibly now on the inspectors' course, on LGBT issues. There may be something on the sergeants' course. And I know that there was a problem some time ago, it may be historical, and I have to be careful, in case it has been changed, in which the GPA was not even consulted as to how to roll out a sort of training programme.

It was assumed by some well intentioned people in the training world, who may have had a cousin or a next door neighbour or a friend at school who was gay or lesbian, "Well, those are issues, we can put them onto the day's programme". Everybody ticks the box and goes away and feels that they have managed that situation, even though from our point of view, we would look at them and say, "Well, they are very stereotypical, they are not really gaining any benefit from it at all".

I would like to know when the last time was that a superintendent was demoted to chief inspector.

Miss Weekes: You do not remember?

Mr Boyle: I do not think it has ever happened. Well, it may have happened, but I certainly do not remember reading about it, and we all know of situations where there are managers of whatever rank, whether you are looking at chief inspector, superintendent rank or whatever, who are just grossly incompetent.

Miss Weekes: And that is a word you are confident in using?

Mr Boyle: Absolutely. Not in every area, because they are very good at handling horses and very good at handling traffic, but not very good at handling other incidents, because they are just – you know, they have been bored doing this for two years, so they have applied for another job, and in they go, and a certain amount of havoc can then flow from that.

360-degree reporting, which I remember thinking years ago was an excellent idea – I am not quite so sure how that affects the PC, but you can do it laterally, I suppose. There is some talk about it that has been mentioned in this Inquiry, but that is one very forward step, I think, to actually ensuring that the people who are doing the jobs are accountable to everybody whom they are supposed to be doing the jobs for, and you can then say, "Well, actually they are not very good at that department or very good at that", or whatever it may be.

I just do not see that at this point in time, the way the structure – bureaucratic, almost intimidatory structure of the police service – if you go to an inspector and say, "I do not agree with the way you have handled that, it could have been done this way or that way", you can bet your bottom dollar that you are not going to get any particular free rides on that one.

Miss Weekes: So you would want further discussion about what are the sanctions when you have grossly bad managers?

Mr Boyle: Absolutely, because what does happen – and it is the old sort of canteen joke, that they get promoted elsewhere. And you do see that; it is not always just that it is a bit of a joke –

Miss Weekes: The bad management is then perpetuated through the next department.

Mr Boyle: Yes, it is pervasive.

Ms Poole: I think you have to look at the whole – again, dreaded word, holistic problem, because while you have the consideration of Fairness at Work, if you have got a bad middle manager, just say that he is an inspector, and a chief inspector or superintendent recognises that that person is not as good as he or she should be, they still have their hands tied in being able to remove them or put them somewhere else.

Because if you have got police officers who are nervous to come forward to give evidence against that person, because of fear of reprisals from maybe that inspector's colleagues, then you have a blockage there, and the superintendent has a blockage in being able to move them on, because they are in that position for two years, and where do they put them?

I also think that the police service takes in a variety of different people, which I recognise as a good thing. You could be a mature entrant like myself, who was a beauty therapist, or you could be a degree student or whatever. You come from a variety of different backgrounds to join the police service. But it does not necessarily mean that anywhere along the promotional ladder do you get any management training. You are trained to be a police officer, because that is what you are, you are trained to deal with a situation out on the street that is serious, but that does not necessarily mean that they train you to deal with managing people.

Maybe you get bad managers because there is just not the right training for those people, and that needs to be looked at.

Miss Weekes: Okay.

Mr Mahroof: I am very much in favour of making sure that people do not get to the position where they have to be demoted in the first place. You see, I would like to see some sort of an independent process during the promotion process itself: if you are going to be a sergeant on a borough for 15 years, and you have learnt everything there is about the local culture and the local community and everything else, as soon as you get your pips on your shoulder, you are told to move. You move into a borough where you may have no idea about that culture, that community, the whole borough itself, the nature of the politics and the people. That cannot be right.

If you have got people who want to go out there and become people managers, you want to become – from a PC, you want to become a sergeant, but you spend 15 years or 20 years learning about the local issues, the local bodies, the local people, you have learnt about that local – what is the dominant faith, what is the dominant community, and the people that are coming to you; you need to be able to continue with that.

But before they take the next step, there needs to be some sort of an independent process, and I would like to see it coming from outside of the police service altogether, whether it is the MPA or whether it is other bodies, whether it is the Home Office or the local council or the local councillors, it needs to come from there.

You see, you have got police promoting police into the middle management; I do not think that is right. You need to have middle managers who are going to police the local area, and influence the policing of the local area on a borough, and there needs to be some sort of a local influence, whether it is from the local IAG or whatever, and people need to be able to become career officers on the borough they want to become career officers in.

I may join Chelsea borough for a few years, and as soon as I take promotion, I am forced off that ground somewhere else, where I have built up the credibility and everything else with the local community, the local people, I have dealt with all the issues.

We are not helping to fight crime, which is our ultimate aim. All these little families within the police circle, we must not forget our ultimate aim: why are we here? We are here to make London a safer place for the people of London. And how do we do that? By getting the right people in the right places at the right time. And if you have someone who is in the right place at the right time, and suddenly just because he has taken his stripes he is moved, that cannot be right.

Sir William Morris: Sure. Sir Anthony?

Sir Anthony Burden: You have already given one example of an issue at Hendon. Can I ask the three of you, please – because we have been given conflicting views about the culture which exists at Hendon. We are very concerned that the culture is right, because it is the gateway to this organisation, and therefore, it is the future, it is the lifeblood of the Metropolitan Police.

Can I ask you, please, have there been any issues brought to your notice, in your respective positions, which would cause you any concerns over the culture which exists at Hendon in relation to the training of recruits?

Mr Boyle: Could I start off by saying that some time ago, there was a chief inspector, a lady chief inspector, who was in charge of recruitment at Hendon, and while she was there, I think we all enjoyed the healthiest and most positive working relationships with staff and recruits. The number of complaints that we were all receiving was practically negligible, and obviously, this was a little bit too good to be true, so on a little bit of examination of what was going on here, we found that, as with everything else, it is by dint of personality and how you communicate your ideas and so forth.

She would address all the recruits on their first or second day there in the most all embracing way, which was that, you know, there were people there from every conceivable background in life, and that they were going to come through this very difficult process and so forth, and that all their prejudices were to be out on the Hendon Way, and that if anybody fell out of this system of decency and respect for everybody else and so forth, then they would be dealt with.

When she left – and she did also bring in some rather imaginative ideas too about workplaces and marketplaces and getting people to know who we all were and so forth – when she left, it was very noticeable, how things went downhill.

We had more complaints coming into the Gay Police Association, because officers were being told, for example, "When you stand up in class and give this pen portrait of yourself", which some people find very, very difficult – one example was, "Excuse me, love", and this is from one of the instructors, "You have not said, married, single, what is going on?" And she said, "I am single".

She was most unhappy about that, because when she then phoned the GPA, she said, "Well, that is my first lie in the police, because I am not single, I happen to have a same sex partner, but I was not able or prepared or willing to divulge that in those circumstances", and so forth.

That was one example, but there were other things which happened, and we thought, "Well, this is clearly not right".

We then found that the only GPA rep that we had – and it was lamentable that in a place as important as Hendon, there was only one person who was seen as the almost sort of quasi GPA rep, she was still an instructor, was given every indication that she should distance herself, avoid making contact with anybody who came to her to ask for advice; when she decided she would take a few officers down to Hampstead to socialise, to make them feel a bit more relaxed, she was told, "You cannot do things like that, there will be all sorts of allegations being made and so forth", and she felt totally and completely isolated.

When I went to Hendon to raise this with the senior management there, I was received, as nearly always happens, with great respect, and, "This is terrible, we were not aware of this", and nothing was done about it. She has now left Hendon, because she feels completely abandoned, and was almost heading towards illness, in respect of – you know, she was trying to make things easier for everybody, GPA people in particular there, and was not getting anywhere.

Mr Mahroof: Well, Kevin, I sincerely hope it is not the same chief inspector I have been talking to, because that is very – I do not know if it is the same chief inspector, I hope not.

Mr Boyle: Well, she has gone now.

Mr Mahroof: You see, I am very well aware of the fact that this is a very public meeting, and there are things that I can go into which will shock and horrify people right the way across the world that go on at Hendon, so I am not going to go into individual anecdotes.

All I am g

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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 Kevin Boyle, Ms Jo Poole, and Mr Mahommed Mahroof on 6 April 2004. Sections available here: Transcript of public session: Mr Kevin Boyle, Ms Jo Poole, and Mr Mahommed Mahroof of the Staff Support Associations Questions by the Panel Alternative versions This transcript is also available with original line and page numbering. Content Transcript of public session: Mr Kevin Boyle, Ms Jo Poole, and Mr Mahommed Mahroof of the Staff Support Associations Tuesday, 6 April 2004 10.30 am Sir William Morris: Well, good morning, everyone, and a special good morning to you, Mr Boyle, Ms Poole and Mr Mahroof. Can I say welcome and thank you very much indeed for accepting our invitation to attend the Inquiry this morning. In saying that, I do appreciate that for some of our witnesses, the process might seem somewhat daunting, so I thought it would be helpful if I set out just briefly how we propose to conduct the hearing this morning. 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 members of the panel: first, on my right, is Sir Anthony Burden. Sir Anthony recently retired as Chief Constable of the South Wales Constabulary, after a very long and distinguished career in the police service. And on my left is Miss Anesta Weekes QC; Anesta is an eminent barrister who sits as a recorder and part-time chairperson of employment tribunals. She was also counsel to the Lawrence Inquiry. As you all know, we have been asked by the Metropolitan Police Authority to conduct an independent inquiry into professional standards and employment matters in the Metropolitan Police Service. Our focus is the MPS as an organisation and not the individuals who make up the organisation. The inquiry that we are conducting is inquisitorial and not adversarial in nature or indeed in character. We are extremely keen to hear about the issues raised by our terms of reference so that we can make appropriate recommendation for further good practice within the Metropolitan Police Service, rather than to make criticisms of the organisation. To help us in our task, we are keen to hear from all our witnesses not just what is wrong with the Met, if there is anything wrong with it, or what is right with it, but most importantly, we are seeking suggestions as to how we can make it better. A transcript will be taken, so that we have a proper record of the evidence given by all our witnesses, and this will be posted on our website later today. We have already heard from some very key individuals as witnesses, including those staff organisations that have made formal written submissions to our Inquiry. However, we want to hear from other organisations who represent staff, and we thought that a round table discussion would enable us to do so without inconveniencing too many people. We are keen to listen to the unique experience of working within the family of the MPS that each of you brings on behalf of your organisations. We are particularly interested in hearing any suggestions that you may have, and any practical proposals that you may have that we might want to consider when we come to determining our recommendation. But as I have indicated, it is about enhancing the experience of working for the Metropolitan Police Service. I propose to get the discussion going by asking you to comment on various issues, and I will be followed in that fashion and methodology by my panel members, first Miss Weekes and then Sir Anthony. If I have any supplementary comments that I wish to make, I will follow on. At the conclusion of our discussion this morning, I will offer each of you the opportunity for a brief closing comment if you so wish. But by way of introduction, I wonder if I could start off by going somewhat clockwise and ask you to introduce yourselves and your organisation to the Inquiry for the benefit of the transcript. Mr Boyle: My name is Kevin Boyle, I am a Metropolitan Police Detective Sergeant with almost 27 years' police experience. Four years ago, I was asked to become involved in the Gay Police Association, which was obviously quite late on in my career, and I am now one of the joint Met co-ordinators for the GPA. Sir William Morris: Thank you very much. Ms Poole? Ms Poole: My name is Jo Poole, I am a crime prevention officer for Trident, I have been in service for 10 years. I started the Jewish Police Association because of experiences that I had had when I first started and I wanted to encourage more Jewish people within the police service, as there are so very few within the service. Sir William Morris: Mr Mahroof? Mr Mahroof: Good morning to you. My name is Mahommed Mahroof, I am the secretary general of the Association of Muslim Police. I am one of the founding members of the association, which was, in a very loose way, formed back in 1994 as a very informal organisation. We have been existing as a formalised structured body for several years now. The bulk of our membership comes from the Metropolitan Police area, although we do have members dotted right the way across the country. Sir William Morris: Thank you very much, thanks for the introduction, and again, welcome to you all. Questions by the Panel Sir William Morris: What I want to attempt, with your help, is to have an open discussion about various issues which I will try and flag up to form the basis around which we can explore the conversation. My colleagues and myself obviously want this to be as informal as possible, but to make it just a little bit easier for the stenographers, could I just make one request of you, that you each speak in turn, because if you do not, then you will be talking across each other, and your valuable contribution might not get recorded as we would like it to be. So we all want everyone to say what they wish to; we are not rushed for time, we want to ensure proper conversation and look forward to your contribution. First of all, could I just raise what I call the culture of the organisation? We have heard a lot about the culture of the Met. We have heard evidence from a significant number of witnesses about the various aspects of the Metropolitan Police culture that need to be changed. We have been told, for instance, that there is a blame culture, where officers are afraid of making mistakes because they think any mistake will be held against them for the rest of their career. We have also been told of a pervasive macho culture, dominated by white men, that is not always open to recognise the valuable contribution from officers of different backgrounds. And it has been said to us that as part of the culture, there is a sort of legalistic approach; the values are legalistically dependent particularly on operational policing issues, and there is a high degree of insensitivity in managing the employees. So I have sort of tried to share with you the sort of culture which has been offered to us: a blame culture, a pervasive macho culture, a culture which is enhancing of the legalistic values approach to operational policing, the insensitivity of managing people. That, I think, is a fair summary of what we have picked up, and in turn, I just perhaps want to pause here and ask each of you to respond and to say whatever you wish as to whether or not there is any validity in those points that have been offered to us in the evidence we have received so far. Mr Boyle: I can certainly, with almost 27 years' police experience, recognise all of those areas that you refer to, certainly the blame culture, the machismo which is all pervasive in certain sections of the police, and the rather alarming degrees of insensitivity which can be shown in managing certain situations. Being a bit of not quite the eternal optimist, I would like to think that the culture is changing, and that I remember instances of many years ago, where this was absolutely par for the course, this is what would happen, and if you showed any degree of sensitivity towards any difference in the composition of your colleagues or whatever, you were certainly hounded, there was no doubt about that. That was not the sort of thing that police officers recognised in their colleagues at all. Things have changed, things have got better in certain respects, but I do think now that there is a bit of a backlash, and it seems that the more minority groups within the police service are seen and make themselves heard over issues, then this really can be quite as dynamite under the broad white male heterosexual officer. I am quite sure that when Sir John does go on his roadshows round the Met, he must feel very encircled at times, because I know that there is a common denominator in the questions which are hurled at him about the efforts that he is making, and the pandering that he is making towards minority groups – because officers are encouraged, in those circumstances, to be fairly anonymous and speak their minds, I think that this then sets off in people's minds the whole idea that the minority groups are getting a little bit too big for themselves. But I would certainly recognise degrees of that now, as a bit of a backlash to what has been tried over the last couple of years. Sir William Morris: Yes. Ms Poole, do you recognise the culture? Ms Poole: Well, I have to agree with Kevin here, I think we have made huge inroads. In the ten years I have been in the service, I have seen things from most unacceptable to huge improvements, especially within the staff associations and the encouragement of it. I cannot think of anywhere in the world that has such diverse staff associations, and where people from different cultures are linking and talking to each other, that does not actually happen anywhere else. So within our own groups, we are growing and we are improving and making changes within senior ranks. It does not necessarily mean that it is hitting the lower ranks, but things are improving, it is very slow. Blame culture; I cannot really go into that, because people blame each other anyway. The macho culture has always been there; I really do not have a great deal to say until we have more discussion. Sir William Morris: Yes. Mr Mahroof? Mr Mahroof: One thing that concerns me is that we talk about culture, and the blame culture, but what I want to talk about is what gives rise to blame in the first place. You see, in culture, we need to split that from blame, because it is that culture we need to explore. Out there in society, we have so many cultures and so many communities, and we recruit from those societies that are out there, and they come in, and they are told that they belong to one police family; well, they do not. They belong to whole different groups of families within the police family, and that is what we need to recognise, that everybody comes in with different experiences, different frames of reference, and different, if you like, values that they bring in. Some are in there, they need to talk to one another and speak to one another and communicate with one another, and perhaps sometimes we expect too much from people. We say to people, "Here you have one police family", but you do not. I bring in my values, and I do not want to leave them at the door when I step in through the police building, or when I step into uniform; I do not want to leave them there. But I am told to leave them there every day I walk in, "You are part of this organisation now, you are part of this one universal soldier, all embracing, all encompassing, this so-called equal opportunities". We do not want equal opportunities. We want opportunities for people, and opportunities regardless of their colour, their creed, their race, their orientation, whatever you want. We want to be recognised for our diversity, and it is that diversity that is difficult for people to accept, because they are being indoctrinated, "You belong to one police family". As long as we recognise that we all come in from society and are all different, as long as we do not infringe upon other people's rights and their right to do things – we do not have to agree with them. I will never agree with the beliefs of other religions, and other religions, I do not expect them to agree with my beliefs, but when we come in together, we value the fact that they have the right to be what they are and who they are, but we do not have to agree with them. If we can get that right, then half of these blames will not need to be there. Sir William Morris: Let me just ask a slightly different point here, because we have had a number of groups that have given evidence to us, and there are, as I understand it, about 14 staff support groups within the Met, which is way, way outside any experience that I have had, and I have been around in industry for a very long time. People have issues, they have needs, and all these have to be recognised and provided for, but there is a recognised, well established, long established trade union within the police service, the Police Federation, and some of the issues that have been canvassed before us are frankly bread and butter issues that I would expect, and my colleagues would expect, drawing on their experience, the representative organisation to deal with within the workplace. Why is it therefore necessary for 14 staff groups representing a whole range of interest, not special interest, but legitimate interest? Why is it necessary to have these groups when a recognised trade union should pick these issues up and promote them and involve people and build on the richness of the membership? Because it is, as Ms Poole has said, and Mr Mahroof, and your good self, a very, very diverse group of people coming together, 46,000, you would have thought that the common thread would have given it its inherent strength. Can you help us there, about the necessity for all these groups? Mr Mahroof: Well, you say we have 14 different representative bodies; well, they have been counted, because we begin to represent things which are different from other people's interests. You see, there have been many, many more representative bodies representing people's interests, whether it is a tiddlywinks interest, or the darts interest, or the snooker interest, or the pub interest or whatever interest, they have all been there, and they have been there as long as the police have been there. But the thing is, when you start taking an interest in your own culture, your own faith, that is when you get counted. You see, we came together as the Association of Muslim Police because we have interests which are unique to us. We got together because I wanted people who were like me, and acted like me, and had a shared interest; I did not want to go to a church and sing songs or hymns or whatever, I wanted to go to a mosque and join up with other Muslim officers who shared my faith. As long as I continued going to a church, nobody would count me, but when I come together and go to a mosque, people say, "Ah, you are different". If I joined the tiddlywinks association, and start playing darts, or tiddlywinks, or sports, or swimming or whatever, nobody counts me. You see, these associations and these interests have been there as long as the police have been there, so when people say there are now 14 representative associations, what is it that we represent? And it is our common interests that we represent, so no one should really have a problem with that. You talk about the Federation and other trade union organisations and representative bodies and statutory bodies like that; when you look at the front benches of the Federation, we have got 46,000-odd people, or 146,000, whatever you want to call them, and they do not look like you, and they do not act like you, they do not eat like you, they do not worship like you, they do not dress like you; what is the likelihood they will vote you in on the front bench, and how long will it take – you can wait for ever and ever; as long as you are less than 1 per cent of this organisation, you will never get voted, your interests will never get represented there. So when you come and you see the results now, we have been formalised as a structured body for many years now, and you get the Federation and those very statutory bodies are asking us for help, and for our assistance and for guidance, but where are they? How long will it take for me to get there, onto the front benches? Until we actually have a change of structure and they change their work, and some sort of action to try and get us there, we cannot be represented there. Sir William Morris: Yes. I understand the logic of your argument and the force it carries, but the reality is that if the organisation is not representing the membership or the employee profile of the service itself, that obviously requires change, something has to change. Now what is the best way of making change to any institution – and I accept the fact that change is not always the fastest vehicle in the world, but nevertheless, the principle of change is important. Because we have 14 groups, the issues around which change should be advanced and built are not being addressed within the Federation, because the expertise issues – the victims have to be part of the liberating process, and whatever interest you have, you know, whatever needs you have, if you are not in a position, or the opportunities are not there, to seek to change the conventions, change the status quo, challenge the misunderstandings, then really we are condemning forever that organisation to any sort of change, if you follow my drift. What I am saying is that you are there representing the Sikh community, the Jewish community, the gay community; the Federation is over there, the Federation needs to be confronted with those issues, but if you are not there, nobody is going to put those issues forward, are they? Mr Boyle: I think, sir, the problem is that it has been a matter of some regret that we, certainly in the GPA, for the last 14 or 15 years, have had to push and push against a fairly closed Federation door. That door has been opened over recent years, and that is very much down to individual Federation officers whom we have had business dealings with, who have been confident and comfortable in dealing with gay-related issues. Historically, that was something which they did not touch with a bargepole, they had no knowledge, they had no understanding, and it was not seen in any shape or form as any popular vote catcher. I think the problem is that – the collective name of the staff associations is Samurai, I was not the author of that, and it is a rather belligerent description, but once heard, never forgotten; we do work very well, extremely well, together, but as far as I am aware, there are no formal structures or even informal structures that link in with the Federation. No matter what, the Federation are the people who do carry considerable influence in the corridors of power. The Federation do have their three days in, I think, Bournemouth this year, to which I know we are being invited, but I am not quite sure who of my colleagues in Samurai are being invited. They are not all just Met organisations, they have a national dimension. Although things are working out better, and we are doing brisker business with the Federation, I think that that is an area which really ought to be looked at and improved upon, because at the end of the day, the Federation are the people to whom we pay, literally, our dues, and they should be able to grasp all these issues and not run away and hide behind just one individual who might champion a particular issue, because of family connections or a greater degree of sensitivity; that is not how I see a Federation structure as behaving. Sir William Morris: I am going to bring in my colleagues in a minute on this whole question of the culture, and more importantly, in the end, what we do about it, but I just come back to something Mr Mahroof said, because yes, you are absolutely right, in a social environment, people try and practise different interests. Some swim, some fish, some play golf, some do – and these societies, they exist or do not, in a workplace. I am not quite sure whether equating the fishing club and the darts club, in terms of the needs, can be on the same footing as equating the legitimate needs or requirements of someone having the employer providing for them to worship, like a proper prayer room, for example. So I make a distinction about the pleasurable pursuits or the sort of interests of an individual as against the broader interests which come within what I would see as the scope of managerial provision, employer provision, to satisfy the diverse needs of their employees. It is in that context I was indicating that while putting the issue of proper facilities for worship on the collective bargaining agenda is quite legitimate; putting the interests of the fishing club on the collective bargaining agenda is just a little bit different, you might have a social club, or a social committee, and you use that particular route. So my central point is to strengthen the workplace institution to represent the interests of a diversified community in the Metropolitan Police Service, should the people with the expertise and the knowledge not be helping those who have not got it? And the Federation certainly has not got it; they have to be, if you like, taken on board on the basis of sharing the experience, so that they can understand better and provide for all their members. Ms Poole: Can I just say something at this point? There is a big difference between the staff associations and the Federation. For one, the Federation deals with the legal side, and we, as support associations, do not. We should be able to work together, but until the Federation actually understands what our needs are – and just to break it down in simple terms, with no disrespect, sir, your needs are completely different needs to Miss Weekes' needs; if not taking into account faith or your background. I think we have to recognise the work that the Federation have done; they do a very good job, and as staff associations, we do not in any way put them down for that. They are very important to everybody. I just think that maybe they just need to put that hand out, and welcome us in a bit more, and we will be able to share our knowledge and our experiences and our backgrounds with them, in order for them to facilitate us in a better way. That is all. Sir William Morris: And everybody will be stronger. Mr Boyle: Hopefully, indeed, yes. Sir William Morris: That is my point. Mr Mahroof, and then I will bring my colleagues in. Mr Mahroof: You raise an issue about existence; when I made references to all these different social events, if you look back to the history of some of these staff associations, they existed because of those social needs and those commonalities that they had together, so I think there is a comparison with some of those sporting clubs that we have and so on, because if we deal with all the legal issues and all the needs that we have within the police environment, the fact is, we will probably still need to exist, because we have shared interests, we come together. Because otherwise, you are coming to work, and you see that you have nothing in common to discuss with your friends and your colleagues, so you can sit in a panda car all night duty and find that there is nothing that you have in common, so you will still feel you need to go out there and hunt down and look for people like you, so that you can discuss and share and mentor and talk to one another, so there is some analogy there. Sir William Morris: I will bring one of my colleagues in. Miss Weekes, do you want to debate the culture issue? Miss Weekes: Thank you, chairman. It may not just be the culture issue. Can I follow on from the very helpful collective description that you have given of your relationship with the Federation? I certainly am very grateful, because it puts a different complexion on what the Federation have told us; we now have a better balanced view of that relationship. It is quite clear to me that whilst you all very professionally recognise the good they do and the power that they hold, you wish more recognition, and very dramatically, I think it was Mr Mahroof who said it would be rather helpful to have some of us on the front row, where decisions are made. We are particularly interested in change, and constructive activities, recommendations to get that change. What I think may block the change to what you want from the Federation is their statutory basis and the way people are elected onto the front row, so may I have your help on that? In terms of statutory, what is it that stops each of the three of you sitting on the front row? If I can just take you one at a time. Can I start with perhaps yourself? Mr Boyle: My honest answer is I do not know. I have not got that amount of knowledge as to what the Federation – well, obviously I know what the Federation does, but the mechanics of how people are elected and so forth has always been a rather nebulous area. It was there – I noticed there was a certain amount of money going out of my pay cheque per month towards the Federation, and there would be cases where they were clearly working in the interests of my colleagues and so forth, and that was basically it. Apart from dealing individually with some very fine officers who will then help me make decisions in relation to circumstances and issues I have to deal with in relation to gay and lesbian officers, I am not at all familiar with their structures. I am not really, in inverted commas, "a Federation man". That is sometimes – and was used not so long ago, I think at the formation of the Commissioner's LGBT focus group, when I arrived rather late in the day, I was described as, "Ah, here comes the Federation man", and it was said in a way which was, I think, perhaps – I would like to think humorous, but it was a little bit of a put-down. I then found myself very much on the back foot by saying, "Oh no, I am not a Federation man", and I thought afterwards, well, now, that was really not the right way for me to deal with it, and not the right way for it to be raised with me. All I can say is it is still a little bit of a mystery. Miss Weekes: No doubt you are not the only one who thinks it is a mystery. Mr Boyle: I think the Federation is still seen by a lot of people as predominantly men who go down to Bournemouth for three days in the year and have all sorts of junkets and so forth, and then occasionally, when you really need them to act for you, they will act. Sometimes, they choose not – in terms of battles that the average officer would want them to choose, and then sometimes there are battles which they really should choose to become involved in and they do not, but that is a bit of a generalisation. There are instances where they have been very, very to the fore with ourselves. Miss Weekes: Can I ask you, because I will ask everybody, what is your rank? Mr Boyle: Detective Sergeant. Miss Weekes: We are asking that because I know the Federation operates on rank. Mr Boyle: Yes, in fact, in the GPA, we do not. We normally say, "It is Paul Cahill from the GPA", or whoever, whoever, and that I find usually gets round any sort of nonsense of being intimidated and knowing your place. Ms Poole: Just to clarify my rank, I am a police constable. As far as the Federation is concerned, on a one-to-one basis, I have had use of them for non-religious or non-background things, when I have had a problem. I do not think I would ever use them myself if I had an intimidation in relation to my faith. Statutory-wise, I only – as I said, I only know on like a one-to-one basis, I do not know generally what they do. Miss Weekes: You do not? Ms Poole: No. I think there is obviously a publicity angle that they need to be looking at there, as to how they should promote themselves, so that we all have an understanding of what their capabilities are. They do have training to do their job; staff association people do their job out of their hearts and for free. For us to be working with them, I have not got any legal training, apart from the work as a police officer, not that employment training, so that is all a bit of a mystery, and I really – Miss Weekes: Do you not know either? Sir William Morris: Do you get a magazine from them every month? Ms Poole: No. You get a little book once a year, with lots of advertisements in it, you know, your diary. Miss Weekes: How much of your money is taken towards the Federation? Ms Poole: I cannot remember. It just comes out of your salary. When you first join as a recruit, you sit down in this large room and somebody says, "You need to join this, this and this", and you sign your life away with 101 things. You did that ten years ago, and it just comes out of your cheque. I suppose, generally speaking you should keep your eye on it, maybe other people know, but it is reckless not to be a member, because you never know when you do need them. And I have to say, as I said before, I recognise the work they do, and like in everything, you have good Federation people and not so good Federation people, and I think they work very hard, but possibly some could do better, who knows. But nevertheless, we have not been invited to join them, but you mentioned a word before, what was it, at the very beginning, when you were speaking about – not "respect", what was it? It has gone from my head. Miss Weekes: It will come back. Ms Poole: I cannot remember, but it was quite important at the time. Miss Weekes: Well, please come back in, because we would like you to. Mr Mahroof, I am particularly interested in how people like yourselves get onto the front row. What is the statutory block; do you understand the mechanism of how you get onto the front row? Because you mentioned having to wait around for others to vote you in. Mr Mahroof: Well, there are a number of blockages, and one of those is the rank structure that the Federation has. Miss Weekes: The rank structure? Mr Mahroof: The rank structure. They are very much rank-based. You have representatives for every rank and so on. So you may have some sort of very acute knowledge of some issue, some culture, something that is very useful, but you cannot get in because you are restricted by your rank, and someone of your rank from that particular locality where you work has already been voted in elsewhere, so you find you are blocked until that person either leaves or resigns or there is another vote somewhere. Miss Weekes: May I ask your rank? Mr Mahroof: I am a police officer – a DC, rather. You may find that someone like myself is probably the only person at that station from a minority background. You can have 400 or 500 or 600 police officers at any particular borough, any particular police station, but the number of minority officers you can count on one hand. And then you have to have an interest in that kind of work to begin with, otherwise you are not going to put yourself forward, and so first of all, you have to have that kind of affinity towards that kind of work, and that interest in that kind of work, and that dedication and that commitment and those sacrifices you have to make, apart from doing a day job, you have to be called in and do all sorts of work, so it is not very appealing in the first place. If you do find it appealing, you have to then convince all your friends and all your colleagues around you to vote you in, and I go back to my original point, that if they do not like you, they do not like your culture, they hold some prejudices towards you, or anything like that, they are not going to vote you in. And if you have got nothing to talk to them about, you do not talk to them in the car because they do not want to know about your prayer meetings or this meeting, or what you ate or this or that, they are not going to be interested in you. They are going to be interested in people who they like. Miss Weekes: All three of you raise what I consider to be a possible dilemma, rather the evidence came from you, and the dilemma I think exists from what you have just said: it is clearly that someone could conclude that the Federation is not truly representative. It cannot be, because none of you sit on the front row to influence decisions; you are not going to take over, but you want to influence the change. So if the standard, most important representative body does not in fact represent, what step would you like to see that it does become representative? Mr Mahroof: I want to talk about some of our good experiences first with the Federation, it is not all bad. I mean, right after 9/11, the Muslim Association engaged with senior officers at the Metropolitan Police and asked them, they need to do more to try and protect the Muslim community, as well as other communities who may be victimised as a result of the attacks. That includes our Sikh friends and colleagues and other people who may be targeted because they look like Muslims; and also the backlash against the Jewish community and everything else. From then, we put out loads and loads of guidance to police officers as to how they can engage, how they can deal with, how they must show their sensitivity towards Muslim communities, and one of those documents I wrote was read by someone very senior in the Federation, who came to one of our meetings called the Muslim safety forum, which is represented by very many senior representatives of the Muslim community from various different backgrounds. They come in once a month and meet the Metropolitan Police, officers from ACPO rank, and the Federation came along, they took a very great interest in the work that we were doing. What their intention was I do not know, but the end result was they were very pleased, and they wanted to learn more and they wanted to do more, and they invited us on what they called the equality sub-liaison committee, which is held periodically down at their Federation offices in Surbiton, and the Association of Muslim Police was one of the first people to go down from the staff association representatives. And there we can feed in some of our concerns about the Federation and the representatives that they have, and any concerns that we have; we know that they are fed in. I personally have done some presentations to Federation representatives and so on. It is not who is on the front bench, it is whether or not your views are represented, that is probably more important, I think. And if we have got champions, they do not have to be like us, they do not have to act like us, they do not have to behave like us, as long as they can champion your cause and your views, that is probably what is important, and if we can win over those hearts and minds on the front bench, I think we are halfway there. And what we need is more of this dialogue between us, and some trust, and if people begin to trust that we are not there against them, we are there to work with him, and we are very much partners with the Federation – and I can give you anecdote after anecdote, but I do not really want to go into anecdotes about the way we have worked as partners with the Federation. The Federation give the legal support to our members. Most of our members are also members of the Federation, we encourage that; and our civil staff members are members of civil staff unions, and we encourage that, we want them to become members. We do not want to replicate anything they are already doing. We just want to make sure that when there are issues that arise, the Federation is seeking the right advice from the right people to do what is right and do justice for their client. Sometimes we find that the client has not had justice, because the Federation does not know who to talk to. We open up our arms to the Federation and say, "Come to us, talk to us, and we will be able to give you that advice". Miss Weekes: That is a commendable, balanced view of what you want from the Federation, so as a lawyer, should I really back off from what I think might be put on the table for discussion, which is statutory change about the structure of the Federation? Is that not necessary in your view? Any one of the three of you. Ms Poole: I think if you force something on someone, it is taken on resentment. I think it should be done because they want to do it, otherwise it is just not going to be effective. Mr Boyle: I think, yes, it is training, it is awareness, it is winning hearts and minds, and I think if you were to – not quite too sure what kind of statutory framework you were necessarily thinking about, and that could be quite invasive or it may not be, it all depends. But I think, echoing what has been said, we have good experiences of working with the Police Federation, but I just have this gut feeling it could be a little more formalised and better structured than it is. It really depends on the goodwill of certain individuals who are prepared to work in a spirit of trust and confidence with us. Miss Weekes: I am sorry, I do have other points. Would you rather hand over to Sir Anthony? Sir William Morris: Yes, because I want a sort of participation going on. Anyway, we have spent quite a bit on the Federation, but what gave rise to the question was the culture within the Met; I am just going to ask one question and then bring in Sir Anthony. There is a general recognition, I think, that there is an issue around the culture within the Met, whether it is the macho culture or the management sort of culture. But what is important, because this is why we are here: in the context of your organisation, what do you think we can do to try and change the culture within the Met itself? Forget the Federation, we have explored that. And then I will bring in Sir Anthony. Mr Boyle: Much as it seems you could say this of almost anything, I think there is some truth in it: training, awareness, leadership, absolutely essential. I dare say we may get on to particular aspects of leadership later on, but one thing which concerns me, and this is an example, the DOIT team in the Met sat down with myself, the Gay Police Association, last November to try to hammer out a training seminar on LGBT awareness issues aimed at senior management level. Perhaps we had been a long time in the waiting for this, but we had recognised there were other issues certainly raised and gender issues which had taken precedence, and we slotted in, when everybody, I think, was feeling a bit more prepared, relaxed and comfortable with launching this on a very unsuspecting SMT structure. I remember saying at this particular meeting, "I know what is going to happen, on the day that we set aside for this, the number of superintendents in the main will not be available, they will be off doing something else, and it will be delegated, fast and furiously, down to the sometimes very hard-suffering HR personnel", and what happened? That did happen, to a very large extent. It was then revisited last week, with the same target audience of SMT, and it came down to PC level. The problem that we have is saying to the organisation, "A lot of the issues dealing with sensitivity and so forth are not at PC level, it is actually that slightly higher chief inspector/ superintendent level", when there becomes, as I refer to it, almost a paralysis of decision-making, when they have to deal with any issues which affect any sort of differences or fear of difference – I read that somewhere, and it is probably quite an apt description. That was just one example, I thought, of the best intentions are there, and on a personal level, Denise Milani is highly committed, but it does not seem to quite get to ... Sir William Morris: How does that level of representation fit in with the mantra of diversity that the Commissioner nailed his colours to? Mr Boyle: Well, it is obviously part of it, it is an aspect of it, but I do not think it is quite getting out, it is not quite percolating through to the people who are the movers and the shakers, and the people who are able to, you know, change situations. Sir William Morris: Yes, but my point is that diversity is the flagship policy to accommodate this family. You have a very important conference/seminar, whatever the gathering was; you would expect representation at the appropriate rank, if it is that you are going to get the policy accepted throughout the organisation at every level in every borough command. And if you are not getting the senior decision-makers as part of the discussion, as part of the conversation, then they are not hearing the solutions, and you will not change the culture and you will not change the practice. Mr Boyle: Well, I did use the line at the time – the example at the time, I said, "This has to be a three line whip here", and we then have to go back to those who came to the meeting – and even 360-degree, the borough or the unit and say, "Well, have things changed since your SMT came to the" – I am not going to say that things will change overnight, clearly, but if you are not sending the appropriate rank person to deal with it, the whole thing then becomes just window dressing, and is a waste of the energy which some dedicated people are putting into it. So that was, from our point of view, a bit of a disappointment and an opportunity which may not be entirely lost, because I think this is still rolling out as a programme, but is a little bit indicative of just sometimes how the Met fails to deliver at certain levels. Sir William Morris: Tony? Sir Anthony Burden: Good morning. Could I ask you, please, what message you would give to us and what message you would give to the Commissioner about his organisation and the lack of sensitivity towards a diverse workforce, and the impact that this actually has on the diverse communities in London, particularly in terms of the massive recruitment drive which is underway at the present time; what image is created out there in London? Mr Mahroof: When you have got 30,000 police officers coming in from across London, and they are spending eight hours a day at work, and they are spending 16 hours a day out there in society, and their vision and their prejudices are clouded by what is out there in society, and telling them to come in for eight hours and change, change their minds, change their prejudices, change everything else, you know, it is almost like telling someone who is looking at green paint – and saying, "That is not green paint, that is blue paint, and you are going to call it blue because we are telling you it is blue". And all the prejudices that are out there in society are going to manifest themselves into the policing environment. Time is a great healer, but it is what you do with that time in between. You see, we have senior officers like Sir John; we do not have a problem with them. In fact, they are very supportive of our work, and the people below him are very good. It is not what is at the senior level, it is what is happening there on the ground, at the front level, where all our bulk of our membership lies, on the frontline, and that is where we need the change. You see, you can give as much diversity training to anybody you like; at the end of the day, if they are still having those prejudices inside them, because if they have had a dispute with their Muslim neighbour, and they are calling their Muslim neighbour names at home, they are not going to come into work and say, "Well, you are nice people", to their friends and colleagues who happen to be Muslim. We have had experiences of this. I can go into anecdotes – again, I do not really want to get into anecdotes – which would really shock people and horrify people that this is happening here in the year 2004. All that goodwill that is up here needs to manifest its way downwards, and really, the answer, how that happens and why it is happening, it really lies up there, the will. You can go out there and you can have as many recruitment campaigns as you like, and say, "We want blacks and Asians", but if you do not deal with their baggage that they bring in, that is a useless campaign. You can go into a shopping centre and say, "We want Muslims coming into the police service", but as soon as they step through the door, you say, "Well, you cannot pray, you cannot do this, you cannot do this, we want you to be non-Muslim for eight hours a day"; well, that is a useless exercise. You can go into youth clubs and say, "We want Muslim youth to come in", but there are 500, 600, 1,000, 2,000, 8,000 Muslim youth in a mosque on a Friday; where are the police on a Friday, in these mosques? They shy away from these places. So you can have your secular Muslims coming in, but when you really want those people to come in with their baggage and their experiences and their values, and people who want to be Muslim, leave them at the door and say, "Leave your baggage there". We want some commitment from the very top, and we want that commitment to go right the way through the ranks, right down to lower levels, and how that is going to happen; well, the answer really lies with the people up there who are doing it, who are managing it. Unfortunately, people are afraid to manage. They want to tick boxes when it suits them. Suddenly diversity is a buzz word when promotion time comes around. The number of enquiries we get, "Oh, Mahommed, can you tell us a bit about diversity? I have got my promotion interview tomorrow". That is not what diversity is about. Sir Anthony Burden: Can I come back to that issue about managers not managing in a moment? Can I just ask Ms Poole? Ms Poole: I would have to say that I wholly support what Mo has just said. It makes me laugh when he said about people asking him diversity questions, because in my last job, at West End Central, I had a colleague who was gay and very into diversity and very knowledgeable, and whenever they wanted to know about diversity, they used to come and communicate with him, and after that, they did not communicate with him, so just to give you an idea. He found that very amusing. But going back to what Mo said, I would like to just say thank you to Sir John Stevens for all his work that he has done, and we have to recognise the fact that he has done amazing work and opened his doors on diversity, and you cannot blame everything and lay it all on his door if he is making all the effort and change, and like Mo says, if senior management and very senior management support and are open-minded and want to learn about different backgrounds and effects, that is wonderful, but you still cannot get rid of the fear factor in the lower ranks; and they fear change, they fear difference. They would fear me because I am a woman, they feared me because I was 40 when I joined the police service, and they feared me because I was Jewish. So I had the three fears. But over the ten years, things have changed a lot, and particularly in the past couple of years, so we have to thank him for that. But as Mo said, in the lower ranks, inspectors in particular, sergeants, they need to take it on board. We recognise the fact that we are police officers, and our religion is important to us, but we still have to serve in emergencies, and we still have to deal with working with people who fear that we are a bit different. And we recognise that, but on the other hand, we need to undo that fear and say, "What is there to fear? We are the same as you. We just need to communicate". This is the problem. The lack of understanding – I do not mean to sound like mindless whining, but even to the point of, say, food. If you do not eat certain types of food and you are dealing with a riot, or you have been asked to do aid, and in that box is food that you cannot eat, and you have gone along and you have had your feeding and there is food there that you cannot eat at the feeding, except for maybe a banana, then you are going 12 hours without eating. Now this has not filtered down to – not just police, but you are taking it outside the police to catering. So you have not just got the issue of police officers taking it on board, you have got the civil side to deal with, or the police staff to deal with, so we do not just keep knocking police officers, we need to be looking at the whole holistic problem, and again, senior ranks understand this, but it is not going down. So everything that Mo has said, we all agree on. Sir Anthony Burden: Of course, those are big issues. It may seem a small issue, but if you are being fed on a 12-hour shift, it is a big, big issue, not only that you have food, but recognising that the organisation has seen the sensitivities around the food that is provided. Those are important messages, are they not, to the workforce? Ms Poole: It even goes down to the fact that if you are vegetarian – you could be Jewish and vegetarian, or you could be Muslim and vegetarian, you could be gay and vegetarian, but if it is your belief that you do not want to eat meat, you should be facilitated for that, I think. You are still doing your job, you are not affecting policing skills, you are still out there with everybody else, but it is just recognising decency, that is what the person does not want, and you should facilitate it. Sir Anthony Burden: Can I just ask you this – and you may not be able to answer this, but it might give us some indication as to where the problem lies. If the Metropolitan Police were meeting with the Muslim community or the Jewish community in a formal setting and there was a buffet lunch, they would go to great extremes, I guess, to make sure that dietary provision was right. Ms Poole: Well, it is taking quite a while to get it right. Sir Anthony Burden: I think Mr Mahroof's face says it all. Mr Mahroof: Some farcical situations have happened. Ms Poole: There have been some very Carry On menus. We understand it takes a while to bring that change about, and with Mo's help and our help and with the Sikh Association's help, there have been changes. And there is a learning curve, they are learning, they are opening their doors and learning, but it is not filtering down, it is not – yes, here, at New Scotland Yard, they understand it now, but it is not going sideways. Sir Anthony Burden: In terms of the gay community? Mr Boyle: Well, I am not too sure we have any particular sort of dietary differences. Sir Anthony Burden: But in terms of the perception of the Metropolitan Police and the way they are policed. Mr Boyle: Yes, I think that the perception is that things are getting, obviously, better. The problem, of course, that we have is that we are invisible, and that we have many officers who, for all sorts of reasons, and members of the police staff, choose not to align themselves with the GPA, sadly, sometimes, until something goes seriously wrong at work, and then we will step in and help them. We do acknowledge the work that Sir John has done and certain other officers, Commander Allen in particular, and Cressida Dick before, Mr Grieve and so forth, in areas of hate crime, and the training of community safety units, and we are and have been quite often involved in major incidents and critical incidents, and I think that message is then fed back to officers, and they then see that they are obviously – they have a contribution, and they are feeling a bit more worthwhile, and then, of course, something crass will happen in the workplace which undoes all the months and months of hard work on everybody's part. And I dare say that is probably just human nature going a little bit berserk from time to time; or it is, as I am beginning to sense now, I am afraid, a more palpable, discernible sort of shrugging of shoulders and moving away from anything that smacks of diversity. Whether we have packaged it all wrongly or not, I do not know, but if you pick up the job magazine, which used to just be picked up because there was nothing else to read around the police station, you do hear people – and a lot of people do not actually know who I am. I do not quite go around incognito, but they do not quite know what I do in the GPA, and they are sometimes quite unguarded in their thoughts, and I find it – instead of reeling on them and invoking all sorts of disciplinary things, it all depends what they are saying; it is a bit of a yardstick and a barometer to me as to what is going on. There is this growing sort of swell now – it was always there, but it seems to be more growing now, that everything is sort of sacrificed at the altar of what is seen to be diversity. Of course, there is ignorance there and so forth, but I think in a way because we are doing so much to promote the ethos that underpins diversity, there are a lot of people out there who are really not interested in either changing their attitudes. Mo says – I think it is so sad that he goes out and drives in a panda car at night or whatever, nobody is really interested in asking him where he goes to pray or whatever. I would love to go out with somebody who is a little bit different so I could ask them all sorts of questions as to where they come from and what they do, because I am going to deal with the wider community, I need to have some knowledge. Which brings me on to the handbook, the famous or infamous handbooks which were printed a couple of years ago; the number of officers who were seen to chuck them in the bottom drawers, with the phrases, "We do not need to be told how to treat a Jewish person or a Muslim person" or whatever, and then when you start asking them questions such as, "If you were to go to a mosque to deal with an incident, who do you speak to? How do you address various people? What is the correct way in which you address yourself and so forth?" And even closer to home: what is the difference between a bishop and a Monsignor? They just did not know. You think, well, what has happened here? Hendon has perhaps given them the best available education to deal with road traffic and stray dogs and so forth, but not when it really comes to – and I thought it was a very, very bold and imaginative way to try to get this across, but unfortunately, even with CRR training as it then was, it did not quite carry the day, I think, for large chunks of officers. I think that is still the problem. A lot of people feel that they have done well because they have ticked the correct boxes for diversity which appear on every single promotion form. Sir Anthony Burden: Can I just have a follow-up on this issue of fear? I mean, is there any suggestion that they would not be willing to ask a Muslim officer, a Muslim member of police staff, about their religion, because they are likely to get the rebuff, "Well, you ought to know that, and the fact that you do not know that actually shows how institutionally racist this organisation is", blah blah blah? You note my drift. Is that an inherent fear, or is it stronger and more worrying than that, that there is now this – you used the term rebuttal, of not wanting to know. Mr Mahroof: I can tell you, police officers are very brave people. When they want to, they can ask you all the questions they want about Islam. "Why are your people terrorists? What does it say about you? What do you do?" So when it suits them, they can ask you all those questions that they would not turn round and say, "Look, why do black people do this?", because black is something they cannot mention apparently. But they can turn round and say, "Why do you Muslims XYZ?" And believe me, they say this; we get complaints day in and day out from Muslim staff, where people have been insensitive with them. So they do ask, but it is the wrong kind of questions they ask. They ask when there is something in the headlines, they come down and they ask you, but they still feel that they can ask you questions – that they cannot ask about race, but they can go round and have a go at your religion. You see, there are a few words I want to get rid of from the vocabularies of middle management, and that is "What if?" You see, it is "what if" that we want to get rid of from their dictionaries, because that is what brings down their fear factor. You ask for a prayer room, they say, "What if everybody else wants one? Then what am I going to do?" You ask them for halal food, "We cannot do that, what if everybody else wants one?" You see, it is the "what if"s we need to get rid of. "You cannot wear a hijab, what if people want to wear this and people want to wear that, then what am I going to do?" It is the "what if" we need to get rid of there, from their vocabularies, from their dictionaries, and this is where we need risk takers and we need people to take those risks. I mentioned the prayer room; the Commissioner was very, very brave on this, I went to see him, and he just did not even see it as an issue, he turned and said, "Right, have you done your homework?" I said, "Yes, I have done my homework"; right, done. When I asked him about the hijab for Muslim women, he knew there was 12 years of homework behind this; done. But it was difficult for the people at the front level to accept, the middle management, the lower ranks. In 2003, we still have people – last year, we had a Muslim officer walk out there in uniform, in a hijab, and it was virtually pulled off by her inspector, "Who says you can wear this? Where does it say I have to let you wear this?" It is those "what if"s and "where"s and "who"s, those kind of words need to come out of the vocabularies of middle management. Sir Anthony Burden: Can I just – I mean, the Metropolitan Police has got policies coming out of its ears, it seems that people will not move unless they can refer to a policy that gives them a direction. There are, I understand – because we have had an individual submission from an officer who was attending Hendon, who was challenged about his dress, but he very quickly realised that there was a policy supporting a liberal approach based on religious belief to appearance and dress, so if only the individual had bothered to look at his own policies in the Metropolitan Police, he would see that this is all catered for in terms of attitude. But you are saying this is still happening, even in relation to wearing a hijab, Muslim members of staff are being challenged about that? Mr Mahroof: Every month we get enquiries from middle management and personnel officers and everybody about prayer issues, about beards, about hijabs, about dress, about saris, about jewellery, about this, about that. "Can I let a Hindu officer wear a dot on her forehead?" Well, why not? "Where does it say I have to let her do that? It is not in keeping with the uniform". "Can I let a Muslim officer grow a beard? Well, he must take annual leave for two weeks." Why should he take annual leave for two weeks if he wants to grow a beard? You know, "Where does it say I have to let them do this? Where does it say I have to let them do that?" One personnel manager rings you up and says, "Look, I have got a member of staff who takes a few minutes out of the day to do their prayers. Can I make that member of staff make up those few minutes at the end of the day?" We have a very senior member of staff responsible for catering in the Metropolitan Police who tells you he cannot do halal food because he has to go to Botswana to get it, and I told him to pay a visit to Brick Lane. Sir Anthony Burden: It is closer than Botswana. Mr Mahroof: You see, it is those "what if"s, and "I cannot do this, I cannot do that", it is that "can't" word. You see, there is this thing called vegetarian; if you cannot do halal food, give them vegetarian. If you cannot do kosher food, give them vegetarian. And that is something we need to deal with, it is that "can't". Ms Poole: There is obviously a small problem or a big problem – it sounds like I am knocking the police service, but we have had the training for religion and faith, and different backgrounds, which was over two days and concentrated mainly on one issue, and then there has been a big gap. I think, as we all know, in the next ten years, Central London or the metropolitan area is going to change, and we have to change with it, and it takes a while for this great big lumbering huge machine to move on, and if they are going to make that change and make that difference, then we really need to look at the problem, and the problem is knowledge. If there is not enough knowledge going into the ranks, then what do we do about it? The answer is maybe we should be speaking to religious people, and not just religious people, the disabled people as well, and find out: how can we make a better training package? Not what might be perceived, but actually speak to officers there, and speak to the community to find out what they think we should be putting into it. I do not want it to be one of these never-ending consultation processes that never go anywhere; we need to have a very clipped and precise forward-thinking plan. And then when we have developed it, look at it, really, is this going to work, and discuss maybe with other – with all the religions and all the people in the Samurai, and external, whether this is going to work, what changes are required to tighten it up, and then deliver it. And that is going to cost, because it means taking officers out and training them, and not leaving it another two, three or four years, and forgetting about it, to keep at it. So maybe, within each borough, there should be a training faith officer or a training Samurai type officer who can then go and make sure it is maintained. If you have a condition, God forbid, like diabetes or anything like that, you have to keep it checked or you have to visit a doctor, and it is the same with keeping this change correct on the straight line, we have to keep looking at it. And it is not enough to keep issuing policies, because policies are terribly dull, and people do not really want to read them, so people need to – far better by actually doing than reading something that is boring, and that is what we have got to do. So that is our problem, is to actually really deal with the issue, rather than keep writing policies. Sir William Morris: Thank you. Miss Weekes: Can I just come back to perhaps what we are about, our duty to help, our duty to assist in the change. I think all three of you have extremely well elucidated the problem. Not filtering down I think is something that has been repeated by every single one of you, not filtering down to middle management and the lower ranks. It is quite clear that you all give credit and respect to Sir John Stevens and those around him, every single one of you have. What would each of you say we should take on board when we write our report about how to get the message to middle management? It is clearly depressing; the tiny catalogue that you gave of the issues raised in your religion, can they wear this, can they eat that, on a regular basis. Maybe those managers genuinely do not know; some of them do not care, but maybe they genuinely do not know, so we are asking you: how will each of you want to bring about the change of making sure middle management, that deal with all of you daily, know what to do, and do it sensibly? Mr Mahroof: If I may go first, I brought up this issue earlier on about people not managing. We accept there is going to be ignorance, and that is what we are here for, to help reduce some of that ignorance, to give some of that advice and that guidance. It is not what they do not know, it is what they do once they know they do not know, and if they do not know and they do not know, they need to go to the places where they do know, and they need to be able to turn round and say – be brave enough and say, "Look, I am sorry, I do not have the answer to this, but I need to be human about this". If you have a woman who says, "I have just broken up with my boyfriend and I am really distressed", "Off you go for a week, have some compassionate leave". If you have a man whose grandmother has died in Pakistan or in the Punjab, for him, it is a very, very significant issue. He needs to go out there and deal with the land issues, he needs to deal with the tribal issues, he needs to deal with the cultural issues, the family issues, he needs to deal with a whole raft of religious issues and everything else. And if he puts in for a bid for a week off or something like that, it is, "Oh, why, who says, sorry, I cannot, you need to drive the area car, I have got no one to cover the front office, I have got no one to do the CAD room". So it is recognition of the significance of something. What is significant to me may not be significant to my colleagues sitting around me. As long as these people understand the significance of something to me, and how it might infringe on my ultimate welfare – if my friend sitting next to me is not allowed five minutes to read the bible in the morning, it may or may not have an impact on him or his welfare or her welfare. But if I am not allowed to say my compulsory prayer, I neglect the very essence of our faith, I take myself towards such major sin that I could be leaving the boundaries of Islam, and I will be called a (inaudible), I will be called an unbeliever, I would have to face the punishment in the hereafter. So the significance of me being denied Friday prayer or this, it is so significant, it impinges on my welfare, my psychological welfare, the welfare of my family, the welfare of my community, my standing within the community and everything else. Whereas the significance may not be recognised, it is all we want them to do, to recognise the significance of what you are asking for, and if they do not know, they need to know where they can go. Miss Weekes: Can I very quickly interrupt, because we may be having a break now: when you get managers who clearly demonstrate they do not know or they do not care – let us just deal with the ones that do not know. They ring you up, in a week you have had three calls from managers who say, "Look, what about this?" The food issue, the dress issue, jewellery. What do you do? Do you then make a decision to take them aside for a little time, put all three of them together in a group and say, "Over the last month, these are the requests that I have had within this borough, I really would quite like to have just a gentle one-to-one talk". Have you tried that, and has it worked? Mr Mahroof: We have tried nearly everything over the last few years. I can tell you now, I have been off for the last couple of weeks, trying to use up my annual leave before I lose it. And in those two weeks there was not a single day when I was not constantly on the phone for significant amounts of time trying to answer questions from people, from management, from individuals, from welfare people, from other people, from recruits at Hendon, about issues which these people should really know about anyway. All they have to do is just look for the information – they know where to find it, we have got IT, we have got everything else, and a lot of the time we ask them just to be human about this, just be a person. Often all they have to do is ask that individual. I will give you one example as an anecdote, just to sum this up. One person complained about a member of staff at Hendon, bullying and everything else, last week, using the F word and threatening behaviour, the kind of behaviour that an ordinary member of the public would get arrested for. Instead of taking that person aside and saying, "Tell me what happened, how do I deal with it, what do you want to do with it?", nobody contacted that person, they contacted people around him. So by contacting people around him, they even further victimised that individual, because the fear factor then crept into that individual, "Why are these people asking questions here, there and everywhere else, but no one is actually asking me?" They phoned me up at home and asked, "We have this issue, how do I deal with it?". And I said, "Well, deal with it and talk to the person, you are expected to deal with it. All that training you have had as an inspector and all that training you had as a sergeant and all that training you had throughout your career, well, put it to use. Talk to that individual". All we are saying is people need to be human. Sir William Morris: Thank you very much. As Miss Weekes indicated earlier, I think it is a convenient time for us to have a five minutes or so break so that our stenographers can have a little rest. We will reconvene in about five minutes or so. 11.55 am (A short break) 12.05 pm Sir William Morris: Could I just sort of kick off the second half, so to speak, by just raising an issue about consultation? Because we have been told by some groups that have given evidence to us that the consultation, when it takes place, is not fully engaged in the spirit of consultation; nobody comes along and says, "We have got this problem, could we hear your ideas as to how we can resolve it or put it right?" Generally speaking, the consultation is on the basis, "We have got a problem, we have decided, and this is the solution". Is that a fair representation? Do you recognise that sort of, if you like, consultation culture? Mr Boyle: I think very much so. We are inundated with e-mails usually, and then hard copies, of consultation documents, and we are only given so many hours of duty time with which to deal with staff association matters, which is a cause of some concern and distress to us all, which we may discuss at a later point. The end result is that the document gets either the most cursory of glances or not even – and I know that there are some people, for example, in DPS who have given up on me replying to them now, because they send us considerable wads of documents on the sort of sanctions, volumes, conduct and so forth, and the revised system of what our views are, and then it is just finding the time to sit down with other people who are able to give some serious input to this, within your own association or collectively as a group. Because I am not aware that we have ever really had the opportunity to sit down as a group and respond, say, to Mr Ghaffur's thematic inspection on race, which hit us like a whirlwind, and we had only virtually two days to respond to an immensely important document. So we have a high level of frustration when it comes to consultation. Sir William Morris: Okay. Can I raise one issue just to again get the conversation going? The relatively new Fairness at Work policy, how is that working at, if you like, the level of the boroughs and the stations? You know, where people do genuinely have grievances, but that has now been encompassed procedurally by what is called Fairness at Work. Could you share your thoughts with us about that, Mr Mahroof? Mr Mahroof: Sorry, if I may just go back a little bit about consultation, the word that springs to mind is "overload", and "validation" is another word that springs to mind. You see, sometimes we need to be honest about ourselves too. There are people out there who said, "We do not get consulted", and when they get consulted, they say, "Now we get consulted too much". We need to know what we are there for and what we need to be consulted on, and sometimes we need to say, "Sorry, this is an issue which we feel is not really one for us, and there is enough people out there championing this cause anyway, and we know it is going to be done justice." We need now just simply to turn round and say, "Okay, these are the things we want to be consulted on, these are the things we do not need to be consulted on. There is plenty of other people who will fight our corner for us". You know, I do not really want to know about anything and everything that goes on in this organisation all of the time. And if we know issues that affect us and affect our communities, affect our people, affect the welfare of our individuals in the organisation, then yes, we want to be involved in that. If there is some disparity somewhere, we will deal with it; if there is some inequality or discrimination, then that is what we need to be consulted on. But there are some people now who have misunderstood the whole concept of consultation. They have heard these buzz words, like "staff association", and now they feel that unless they ask us, you know, it is not going to get validated or they are going to get criticised for not asking. I think, to be fair to them, we have given them that impression as well, collectively. "Don't you dare write anything without asking us", that is the sort of like impression that I get, that we have given them, and I think it is unfair. People need to be able to go out there and do things without necessarily asking us if it is not an issue that concerns us. And the point that you have just brought up – which I have just forgotten, I have lost my thread. Miss Weekes: Fairness at Work. Mr Mahroof: Fairness at Work; you see, when you have all this overload of policy and procedure and everything else, there is a thing called priority, and when you have just been told you have to go to this beat and you have to go to that beat and you have this many burglaries to report and you have that much to do, this is very, very low priority for most people. Most people will never even read the Fairness at Work book or policy or whatever. It is going to be there, it is going to be flagged up on an intranet somewhere, and say, "This is where you can find it". Even notices, for example: many people do not even get a chance to read the notices, which everybody should read, because it affects them, it affects what is happening. New policies come out, new guidelines come out, but most people do not even get a chance to read that. I will give you a practical reason why: when computerisation first came in a few years ago, this thing called OTIS; those at the very top level, they had one OTIS terminal for every single individual: the OCU commander had one, the deputy had one, the HR personnel had one, the manager had one, this had one, there was one in every office, the borough liaison officer had one. And every member of the senior staff had one in his office or her office. 500 people shared one computer in the sector office. All the PCs were told to come and share one. So how are they going to read these tonnes and tonnes of documents? They come in at 2.00 on a late turn and there is a whole line of people waiting to go on one computer. I am glad to say it has changed now, there are now two computers. Sir William Morris: 100 per cent improvement! Mr Mahroof: So you see, when you have things like that, it really does not bode well. So priorities like Fairness at Work, you know, for most people, you ask them and they say, "What does that mean? I have got to treat black people with kindness, or I have got to treat Muslims with kindness, I have got to do this, I have got to be sensitive to gay people". That is what people would equate to, reading it, unless it is forced upon them on a training day or something. And then they will sit there, just, you know, disinterested. I think we need to explore this whole issue of training days perhaps if we get time later on. Miss Weekes: Well, I think we can do it now, because it touches on the very important topic raised by the chair, Fairness at Work. What is your solution, because you really do have the inside knowledge, of how people can understand relevant changes, relevant issues that matter about the relationship of dealing with people, because it is not about whether you are gay, Muslim, Jewish or black, it is about how you treat people. So how can middle management have access to the up-to-date policies – let us not take policies, the up-to-date useful, effective, sensitive methods of dealing with people, because outside the Met, it is going on all around England, in other public authorities, so what are your solutions? Mr Mahroof: Well, the whole point of being a middle manager is to manage people, and the whole point of promotion has to be centred around people, but it does not seem to be. It seems to be centred around legislation, it seems to be centred around knowledge, if there is a knowledge of that, and being able to tick this OSPRE box and that OSPRE box. If you are going to be a manager, you need to know how to manage people. I am afraid we do not do enough of that. We pay lip service to people politics. You see, if you are going to become a sergeant, suddenly you have 30, 40, 50 people underneath you that you suddenly become responsible for, but so little time is given to how to manage all the different issues that people are going to come up with. When you become an inspector, suddenly you even double or triple those numbers, you have almost 100 people sometimes that you suddenly become responsible for. So it is not just about knowing PACE or the police and criminal procedures or this procedure, it has to be about people politics. Miss Weekes: Well, how did you do it? You are in a position now where you manage people, are you not, because of your rank? How did you learn? Mr Mahroof: A lot of this comes from outside of the police experience. I learnt a lot of my people skills from society, I learnt them from home, I learnt them from people, I learnt them from parents, I learnt them from friends, I learnt them from colleagues, I learnt them from everywhere. But I am able to bring some of those experiences and use them, because I can take risks. We are a semi-independent organisation, some say we are independent, some say we are semi-independent, it matters not. We can do things because we have a certain kind of freedom, because of what we represent and who we are, but I am afraid people do not believe that they can do that. If you are an inspector, you have to do things in a certain way, you have to tick that box otherwise you can get criticised, you can do this; I do not feel that they actually have enough of the freedom to take some of the risks that they should be able to take as managers. When it comes to religious or cultural or other issues, they need to be able to take some of those risks. Say I have given that person a week's compassionate leave to go and deal with his granny back home because it is a very significant issue that will infringe upon that individual's welfare in the long run – but people do not feel they can do that. They feel they need to go and talk to the commander and ask, "Look, I have a mate, da da da, can I give him a week off? Do you think I can? Are there any risks there, do you think, guv?" Why do they need to do that? Miss Weekes: What should happen to bad managers that are repeatedly shown to be bad managers? Can I be radical and suggest something? It may not be remotely practical or right, but should they be sacked? Should they be demoted? Should the role of management be taken away from them? I have given three options. Mr Boyle: Putting the right people in the right place at the right time, doing the right job – that may not be in the particular order that PR people dreamt it up – but that can be, I am afraid, from my experience, rather laughable. There is this word which is bandied around, the omni-competent cop, and that is the omni-competent manager who can be dealing with horses one year, then the next year dealing with something to do with traffic, then the next year possibly CID or whatever, and of course there are management issues and people issues which are the same throughout all those different areas of responsibility. But I have very little regard for the way in which our managers are taught, and are made aware of issues which they should be made aware of, in terms of managing people. Miss Weekes: For example? Mr Boyle: Well, speaking from the GPA point of view, I know that if you are promoted to a sergeant, then from sergeant to inspector, the training given to you on your courses is lamentable. I do not think there is any training, possibly now on the inspectors' course, on LGBT issues. There may be something on the sergeants' course. And I know that there was a problem some time ago, it may be historical, and I have to be careful, in case it has been changed, in which the GPA was not even consulted as to how to roll out a sort of training programme. It was assumed by some well intentioned people in the training world, who may have had a cousin or a next door neighbour or a friend at school who was gay or lesbian, "Well, those are issues, we can put them onto the day's programme". Everybody ticks the box and goes away and feels that they have managed that situation, even though from our point of view, we would look at them and say, "Well, they are very stereotypical, they are not really gaining any benefit from it at all". I would like to know when the last time was that a superintendent was demoted to chief inspector. Miss Weekes: You do not remember? Mr Boyle: I do not think it has ever happened. Well, it may have happened, but I certainly do not remember reading about it, and we all know of situations where there are managers of whatever rank, whether you are looking at chief inspector, superintendent rank or whatever, who are just grossly incompetent. Miss Weekes: And that is a word you are confident in using? Mr Boyle: Absolutely. Not in every area, because they are very good at handling horses and very good at handling traffic, but not very good at handling other incidents, because they are just – you know, they have been bored doing this for two years, so they have applied for another job, and in they go, and a certain amount of havoc can then flow from that. 360-degree reporting, which I remember thinking years ago was an excellent idea – I am not quite so sure how that affects the PC, but you can do it laterally, I suppose. There is some talk about it that has been mentioned in this Inquiry, but that is one very forward step, I think, to actually ensuring that the people who are doing the jobs are accountable to everybody whom they are supposed to be doing the jobs for, and you can then say, "Well, actually they are not very good at that department or very good at that", or whatever it may be. I just do not see that at this point in time, the way the structure – bureaucratic, almost intimidatory structure of the police service – if you go to an inspector and say, "I do not agree with the way you have handled that, it could have been done this way or that way", you can bet your bottom dollar that you are not going to get any particular free rides on that one. Miss Weekes: So you would want further discussion about what are the sanctions when you have grossly bad managers? Mr Boyle: Absolutely, because what does happen – and it is the old sort of canteen joke, that they get promoted elsewhere. And you do see that; it is not always just that it is a bit of a joke – Miss Weekes: The bad management is then perpetuated through the next department. Mr Boyle: Yes, it is pervasive. Ms Poole: I think you have to look at the whole – again, dreaded word, holistic problem, because while you have the consideration of Fairness at Work, if you have got a bad middle manager, just say that he is an inspector, and a chief inspector or superintendent recognises that that person is not as good as he or she should be, they still have their hands tied in being able to remove them or put them somewhere else. Because if you have got police officers who are nervous to come forward to give evidence against that person, because of fear of reprisals from maybe that inspector's colleagues, then you have a blockage there, and the superintendent has a blockage in being able to move them on, because they are in that position for two years, and where do they put them? I also think that the police service takes in a variety of different people, which I recognise as a good thing. You could be a mature entrant like myself, who was a beauty therapist, or you could be a degree student or whatever. You come from a variety of different backgrounds to join the police service. But it does not necessarily mean that anywhere along the promotional ladder do you get any management training. You are trained to be a police officer, because that is what you are, you are trained to deal with a situation out on the street that is serious, but that does not necessarily mean that they train you to deal with managing people. Maybe you get bad managers because there is just not the right training for those people, and that needs to be looked at. Miss Weekes: Okay. Mr Mahroof: I am very much in favour of making sure that people do not get to the position where they have to be demoted in the first place. You see, I would like to see some sort of an independent process during the promotion process itself: if you are going to be a sergeant on a borough for 15 years, and you have learnt everything there is about the local culture and the local community and everything else, as soon as you get your pips on your shoulder, you are told to move. You move into a borough where you may have no idea about that culture, that community, the whole borough itself, the nature of the politics and the people. That cannot be right. If you have got people who want to go out there and become people managers, you want to become – from a PC, you want to become a sergeant, but you spend 15 years or 20 years learning about the local issues, the local bodies, the local people, you have learnt about that local – what is the dominant faith, what is the dominant community, and the people that are coming to you; you need to be able to continue with that. But before they take the next step, there needs to be some sort of an independent process, and I would like to see it coming from outside of the police service altogether, whether it is the MPA or whether it is other bodies, whether it is the Home Office or the local council or the local councillors, it needs to come from there. You see, you have got police promoting police into the middle management; I do not think that is right. You need to have middle managers who are going to police the local area, and influence the policing of the local area on a borough, and there needs to be some sort of a local influence, whether it is from the local IAG or whatever, and people need to be able to become career officers on the borough they want to become career officers in. I may join Chelsea borough for a few years, and as soon as I take promotion, I am forced off that ground somewhere else, where I have built up the credibility and everything else with the local community, the local people, I have dealt with all the issues. We are not helping to fight crime, which is our ultimate aim. All these little families within the police circle, we must not forget our ultimate aim: why are we here? We are here to make London a safer place for the people of London. And how do we do that? By getting the right people in the right places at the right time. And if you have someone who is in the right place at the right time, and suddenly just because he has taken his stripes he is moved, that cannot be right. Sir William Morris: Sure. Sir Anthony? Sir Anthony Burden: You have already given one example of an issue at Hendon. Can I ask the three of you, please – because we have been given conflicting views about the culture which exists at Hendon. We are very concerned that the culture is right, because it is the gateway to this organisation, and therefore, it is the future, it is the lifeblood of the Metropolitan Police. Can I ask you, please, have there been any issues brought to your notice, in your respective positions, which would cause you any concerns over the culture which exists at Hendon in relation to the training of recruits? Mr Boyle: Could I start off by saying that some time ago, there was a chief inspector, a lady chief inspector, who was in charge of recruitment at Hendon, and while she was there, I think we all enjoyed the healthiest and most positive working relationships with staff and recruits. The number of complaints that we were all receiving was practically negligible, and obviously, this was a little bit too good to be true, so on a little bit of examination of what was going on here, we found that, as with everything else, it is by dint of personality and how you communicate your ideas and so forth. She would address all the recruits on their first or second day there in the most all embracing way, which was that, you know, there were people there from every conceivable background in life, and that they were going to come through this very difficult process and so forth, and that all their prejudices were to be out on the Hendon Way, and that if anybody fell out of this system of decency and respect for everybody else and so forth, then they would be dealt with. When she left – and she did also bring in some rather imaginative ideas too about workplaces and marketplaces and getting people to know who we all were and so forth – when she left, it was very noticeable, how things went downhill. We had more complaints coming into the Gay Police Association, because officers were being told, for example, "When you stand up in class and give this pen portrait of yourself", which some people find very, very difficult – one example was, "Excuse me, love", and this is from one of the instructors, "You have not said, married, single, what is going on?" And she said, "I am single". She was most unhappy about that, because when she then phoned the GPA, she said, "Well, that is my first lie in the police, because I am not single, I happen to have a same sex partner, but I was not able or prepared or willing to divulge that in those circumstances", and so forth. That was one example, but there were other things which happened, and we thought, "Well, this is clearly not right". We then found that the only GPA rep that we had – and it was lamentable that in a place as important as Hendon, there was only one person who was seen as the almost sort of quasi GPA rep, she was still an instructor, was given every indication that she should distance herself, avoid making contact with anybody who came to her to ask for advice; when she decided she would take a few officers down to Hampstead to socialise, to make them feel a bit more relaxed, she was told, "You cannot do things like that, there will be all sorts of allegations being made and so forth", and she felt totally and completely isolated. When I went to Hendon to raise this with the senior management there, I was received, as nearly always happens, with great respect, and, "This is terrible, we were not aware of this", and nothing was done about it. She has now left Hendon, because she feels completely abandoned, and was almost heading towards illness, in respect of – you know, she was trying to make things easier for everybody, GPA people in particular there, and was not getting anywhere. Mr Mahroof: Well, Kevin, I sincerely hope it is not the same chief inspector I have been talking to, because that is very – I do not know if it is the same chief inspector, I hope not. Mr Boyle: Well, she has gone now. Mr Mahroof: You see, I am very well aware of the fact that this is a very public meeting, and there are things that I can go into which will shock and horrify people right the way across the world that go on at Hendon, so I am not going to go into individual anecdotes. All I am g