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This resource is from the Transcripts section. This section contains a transcript of the public session with Ms L Owsley, Ms K Hung, Mr F Iannelli and Ms M Cast on 6 April 2004.

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• Transcript of public session: Ms L Owsley, Ms K Hung, Mr F Iannelli and Ms M Cast of the Staff Support Associations
  • Questions by the Panel

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Transcript of public session: Ms L Owsley, Ms K Hung, Mr F Iannelli and Ms M Cast of the Staff Support Associations

Tuesday, 6 April 2004
2.00 pm

Sir William Morris: Good afternoon, and indeed let me say a special welcome to each and every one of you. First of all, let me thank you very much indeed for accepting our invitation to attend the Inquiry. I do appreciate that for some of our witnesses who come to share their thoughts with us, the process might seem somewhat daunting, so I thought it would be helpful if I just set out very briefly how we propose to conduct the hearing this afternoon.

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, but as you can see, there are two other members of the panel: on my right is Sir Anthony Burden, who recently retired as Chief Constable of 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 and sits as a recorder and part-time chairperson of employment tribunals, and she was also counsel to the Lawrence Inquiry.

As you are all aware, we have been tasked by the Metropolitan Police Authority to conduct an independent inquiry into professional standards and employment matters within the Metropolitan Police Service. Our focus is the MPS as an organisation and not the individuals who make up the organisation. For the record, let me say again that the inquiry that we are conducting is inquisitorial and not in any way adversarial.

We are extremely keen to enquire into the issues raised by the terms of reference that have been given to us, in order that we can make appropriate recommendations for further good practice within the Metropolitan Police Service.

To help us in our task, we are keen to hear from all our witnesses not just what is wrong with the Met but also what is right with it; but most importantly, we are seeking to explore suggestions and practical proposals as to how we can make it better.

A transcript is being taken of all that is said in this room, and we do that because we want a proper record of the evidence given to us by all the witnesses to be recorded, and this will be posted on our website later today.

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

We are keen to listen to the unique working experience within the family of the MPS that each of you brings on behalf of your organisation this afternoon. We are particularly interested in hearing how proposals that you might wish to make, in terms of your evidence, can be incorporated into any recommendations to improve the working experience of every single person within the Metropolitan Police Service.

The way that we are proposing to take the questions is that I propose to get the discussion going by asking you to comment on one or two issues, and then my fellow colleagues will either ask questions on those issues or indeed raise issues of their own. I will go first to Miss Weekes, and then secondly to Sir Anthony.

If I believe that a particular point needs to be explained a little bit further, or if I feel I need to have a greater understanding, then I will ask other supplementary questions.

At the conclusion of our discussions, I will offer each and every one of you the opportunity to make a closing comment, but only if you wish to do so.

I recognise that for some of you, you have come off duty, some people have come off shifts, and the pattern of work does not always lend itself to facilitate this sort of discussion late into the afternoon. I want to stress that it is very, very informal, and from that point of view, I hope you will not feel any inhibitions at all; it is friendly, it is informal, and we want to give you the opportunity to say precisely what you wish to say, and to say it in your own words, in your own time, at your own speed.

Just for the record, I think it would be helpful if you could introduce yourselves to the Inquiry, so we can get that on the transcript, and perhaps the best way of doing that is to start at this end of the table and work our way to the far end, and then we can get on with one or two questions.

Ms Owsley: Good afternoon, my name is Liz Owsley, I am an inspector, uniformed inspector at Belgravia police station. I have been with the British – or a member of the British Association of Women in Policing for eight years, and on their committee for about six years, and I have almost 25 years' service.

Sir William Morris: Thanks, Liz.

Ms Hung: My name is Kitty Hung, I work for the directorate of information in the Metropolitan Police. I am working as a business and systems analyst. I am developing IT projects for the business. I joined the Met in January 2002, and I joined Metropolitan Police Chinese and South East Asian Staff Association about six months ago. That is about me.

Sir William Morris: Thank you very much indeed.

Mr Iannelli: I am Franco Iannelli, the current chair of the Police Anglo-Italian Staff Association. I have been in the MPS since 1984. I am currently a Detective Constable at Colindale police station on the community safety unit.

Sir William Morris: Thank you very much.

Ms Cast: I am Meryem Cast, I am the chairperson of the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot Police Association. We have been formed for just under a year. I have got 11 years' service, and I am a response officer, so I have just come off of nights, so please forgive me, I have only had four hours' sleep.

Sir William Morris: I know some of you have made heroic efforts to get here, and we are very grateful and appreciative of that.

Questions by the Panel

Sir William Morris: Okay, now we have got the introductions out of the way, what I want to do, together with my colleagues, seeking your help, is to have an open discussion about the various issues which we will raise.

As I have said earlier, I want it to be very informal; the only formality that I will seek your support for is that when you do speak, if you can speak just one at a time, because if two or more of you try to speak together, then we will not get an accurate recording of what it is that you want to say, so if you can do so in turn, that would be extremely helpful.

I want to say again, we will endeavour to ensure that there is sufficient time to get your views, and for you to make your contribution.

We have had a lot of evidence, both written and oral evidence, in respect of the Metropolitan Police Service, and among the themes which have emerged so far is culture, the culture within the Met. The culture manifests itself in various forms: first of all, we are told that there is a blame culture, where officers are afraid of making any mistakes at all because they genuinely believe that if they make a mistake, it will be held against them, and it might affect their careers, as their career develops.

We have also been told that there is what has been described as a sort of pervasive macho culture, which is dominated by white men, and, of course, the values which underpin the Metropolitan Police Service are legalistic values, and there is not much sensitivity in handling staff; the macho legalistic culture and values underpin operational policing, with very little sensitivity for the management of staff.

We take those because they have been offered to us, but what would be helpful is to throw the question out to hear from you whether the description that I have just talked about, the blame culture, the macho culture, the insensitivity culture, the legalistic values – whether those phraseologies are familiar to you, and whether the description is recognisable by you, and if so, how can we together seek to explore what is needed in order to bring about change, more enlightened change?

So that is the sort of start point that we want to explore together, this whole question of the culture within the Metropolitan Police Service.

Ms Owsley: Shall I start off then? I worked for two and a half years as an inspector in the directorate of professional standards, and from personal experience in dealing with discipline matters and being on the receiving end, it most certainly is a blame culture. I think there is a thought that if something goes wrong, there must be someone to blame, and when I was at DPS, one thing that I identified was there was a cut in the cycle where there was no learning from any mistakes made.

The procedure was so long, the discipline procedure, misconduct procedure was so long that by the time you could get to any point where you could get some constructive feedback or learning identified, it was lost, the moment was lost.

Sir William Morris: So the process took over from the outcome, by the sound of what you are saying.

Ms Owsley: Yes. I mean, at the moment, I am subject of a complaint, and it has been over a year, and I have not been interviewed.

Sir William Morris: Any other comments on the cultural experience within the Met?

Mr Iannelli: Certainly a blame culture, and I experience it as a detective, in that when an incident occurs, they want to put someone else's name as who had given advice, they can say, "Right, I have dispensed with my duties, someone else can take over straight away", and that happens very regularly.

The first thing they want to get is someone else's name to put on a crime report, or to say who is dealing with an incident, and that is more so in the past five or six years than it used to be beforehand.

And going on to the machismo, having joined in 1984, it was very much a male-dominated police service. That has changed dramatically, I think, but very much so the people that were in charge and were around at that time, who have now come up through the ranks, and come up higher up, are still sometimes behaving with that machismo. Whereas I think the guys on the ground level, who have seen the influx of more visible ethnic minorities, minority groups and females into the police service, because they are working alongside these people day in, day out, they have changed, very much so, but I do not think the people who have climbed up the ranks have. That is my own personal opinion.

Ms Cast: I actually agree with you, Franco. I joined in 1993, and where I worked, bullying was endemic within my police station. I spent two years as a victim of a senior manager, who eventually resigned.

It has changed in the sense that –

Sir William Morris: Did you report these acts of bullying at all? Did you report it to your –

Ms Cast: I did, it spanned a three year complaint, there was a major inquiry, and I was off sick for possibly a year of that through stress, as a result of what had occurred. Some of it was quite serious, because a lot of them – there was an indecent assault, there was actually a physical common assault on me whilst I was working.

Sir William Morris: By a colleague?

Ms Cast: By my inspector. And these things I could describe and it would be horrendous for people listening, where this is a professional workplace, and it should not occur; no, it should not occur, because as individuals, you go into a professional environment and you expect to be recognised as a professional individual, where you are there to do a task and to do it to the best of your ability, but you have got somebody who is a bully, who is in a position of power, who will exercise that power if and when he chooses.

They do not just isolate one individual, they do it to many, and they carry on because that person or those people fear them, and you do get blamed if you say anything, and people do – what is the word I am seeking for – they close up ranks. Because again, they fear for their position, you know, "How do I sit – I have been informed, should I have done something sooner? What could I have possibly done? Will he single me out as well for the same sort of treatment? Will I get the kind of support I am looking for?"

Thankfully, that has changed, because as an association chairperson I deal with very similar situations where individuals come to me and complain of similar scenarios, and I see the processes from lower up to higher up have changed, where people find that their line managers do support them that much more now, and there is that fear factor that if you have not supported them or done anything which looks upon as action to prevent this sort of behaviour, you yourself will be criticised, and you will be embellishing that.

So in that respect, it has changed, but there is – things like that still go on to this day; as current as, you know, very recently. We are looking at weeks ago. It still goes on through supervisors or colleagues within your group, that I have witnessed as an individual on borough.

Sir William Morris: What about this allegation that the values are legalistic? And by that, it has been suggested to us that when issues arise, rather than seek to explore solutions which are acceptable to the management but equally acceptable to the other parties involved, very little of that takes place; it is always – somebody is always reaching for the law, either to escalate matters upwards, or use it almost as a deterrent, but the law is all prevailing; is that an experience which anyone here has shared or understood?

Ms Owsley: I think there is a fear by some senior managers, and by that I mean superintendent/chief superintendent ranks, to actually get hold of a problem and deal with it themselves. I think they think it should either be dealt with by the immediate line manager or miss them out and it should be investigated by complaints.

I am not saying they are all like that, but there is a distinct lack of action in that rank structure.

Sir William Morris: Sorry, Miss Hung?

Ms Hung: Can I say something from the civilian side? From my 28 months' employment with the DOI, not only I have witnessed the blame culture, I have also witnessed the bury culture, the ignore culture, the disrespect culture.

I have very little history about the department, because when I joined the department, they already outsourced a lot of development work to outside companies under the public private finance initiatives.

Sir William Morris: PFIs, yes.

Ms Hung: In my office, there were more consultants than Met employees. The official reason they give to the staff is because consultants have more knowledge, they can transfer their skills to the Met staff, but it is not the case that I have observed.

I have the feeling that they actually use this as an excuse to – if the project goes wrong, they just blame the contractors. The contractors, they are coming and going; you cannot trace them, they just disappear without a trace.

I came from the private sector, it took me quite a while to adjust to the work ethic and practice and style in the public sector. I was very vocal in my first year, and I was blamed, "Are you going to whistle blow to Tony Blair or John Stevens?" So I am very quiet now. But the reason why I have become quiet is not because I am scared; it is because I gave up. Whatever I told my line management, whatever I said over the meetings, they just buried, they just ignored it, they disrespected. They do not even say yes or no, they just ignore you.

This problem is still going on, because we still have outsourced projects to suppliers, and we still use external contractors to do the design work. That is my observation, so nowadays – I mean, from the point of view of a taxpayer, they are actually spending my money, and the DOI has got hundreds of millions of pounds a year to burn in IT projects. How much they have delivered to the business? I would question the value for money.

Sir William Morris: Yes. On the issue around consultation, it has been suggested to us that the method of consultation is not geared to get an input, if I can sort of paraphrase how it was put to us; management has a problem, they determine the solution, and then they come along and say, "We have had this problem, we have thought about it, we have decided, and here is our decision", set against what would be the legitimate expectation of management coming along and saying, "We have got a problem, we have got some ideas, but before we implement it, we would like to hear what you think", those are two separate and different approaches.

Which one of those, if any, do you recognise?

Ms Owsley: I think in relation to policies that are brought out, we are consulted quite a bit, because I know as support staff association reps, we get sent out a lot of draft policies to look at, but on the other side of it, the personnel side of it, I am not sure – I am certainly not consulted or spoken to or given advice about any cases.

Sir William Morris: My colleagues, both Sir Anthony and Miss Weekes, have some points that they want to raise as part of the conversation; I have had a good run, so I will pass over to Miss Weekes now.

Miss Weekes: Yes, can I follow up a question from the chairman on management style? It is clear to most normal thinking people that if you have very good management ethics and style, your workplace is happier, and the service delivery is going to be improved, and it has a knock on effect to the lesson in the number of employment tribunals that might go to court.

I bear in mind the snippets of evidence that we have already got from you, that some managers are clearly appalling.

What would each of you recommend as to what should happen to a manager that in employment law terms commits very gross acts of discrimination, and in criminal terms, might even commit an assault – some of them will fall short of that, but it is still their behaviour. If they are genuinely not good at managing, or they will not manage, what do each of you say should happen?

Mr Iannelli: The disciplinary procedure should cover that anyway, for their conduct.

Miss Weekes: We have heard it is not used, this procedure for dealing with non-performance of a manager is not used.

Mr Iannelli: I agree with that, from personal experience, where I have made my experiences quite clear to the MPS, and they have been ignored, to the point where there was an incident three years ago and I still have not spoken to anyone from DPS about it, and this involves racism, and I am still waiting. The last appointment I was told would be made was – in November, I was told I would be contacted. I am still waiting.

Miss Weekes: That was three years ago?

Mr Iannelli: Yes; and that is what I consider as burying the head in the sand, like my colleague here just said, about people ignoring issues, because if you ignore it long enough, hopefully the person who it is against will either leave the service, because they will retire, or the person who made the complaint will just give up. My personal belief is they want you to give up, they just want you to forget about it.

You mentioned beforehand about trying to come to an agreement about complaints or grievances; our publication, The Job newspaper, recently made a big thing about the fact of how successful the Met is at defending employment tribunals at the moment and civil actions.

What they forgive to mention is cases like the Liversidge case, where an awful lot of tribunals had to be dropped because of the legal point. Did they deal with those, or did they just ignore them afterwards? Did they say, "Let us have a look at those tribunals? Why did they come about in the first place?" I think that is where the ignoring bit goes, because they can rely on the law – like you mentioned beforehand, "Let us rely on the law to get us out of this", rather than admit there is a problem, deal with the problem, and say sorry to the people who experience those difficulties.

Miss Weekes: What do you say should happen to managers that are bad?

Mr Iannelli: They should go through the discipline process, which should be speedier. If the balance of probabilities suggests they are bad, discipline them – it is not for me to decide how they should be disciplined. It would be bad for me to say what I would like to do to the person who did what he did to me. But set up a formal structure where they can be disciplined and taken out of their posts – if they have built up a certain amount of complaints that seem to be justified complaints against that person, should they be there?

The other problem I envisage is perhaps they are having great results on the ground in their policing, but they are seriously affecting the health of their staff; where do you say – well, management at the top would say, "Well, he is having great results, we do not care about our staff, it is the public that we are serving". So where do you bring up the balance?

Ms Owsley: There is no formal structure, or there may be a formal structure, but it is not used, for dealing with –

Miss Weekes: Bad managers?

Ms Owsley: – incompetent managers, and you get the impression that they are looking after themselves. There is no – I mean, they do not have to be demoted or sacked or anything, but there is no sort of learning cycle, you know, a constructive sit-down, "This is where you went wrong, this is how you could have dealt with it, carry on".

It is the old sort of adage, "Oh, he is useless, let's promote him and move him", and unfortunately, I think that still exists.

Miss Weekes: In your rather useful and important position at the British Association of Women in Policing, what are the gender issues that you have brought to management?

Ms Owsley: Well, in my role at the moment – because the association is a national association, so I think I have been quite a weak tool in the MPS toolbox, until the gender agenda came along.

When the national gender agenda was launched, about three months after that, I wrote to all the borough commanders, I think I sent out about 32 letters, and explained what the gender agenda was, "It is coming our way, there are going to be performance indicators eventually, and this is me, here I am; can I help?", and I did not hear from one OCU commander.

Miss Weekes: Not one?

Ms Owsley: Not one. But then it got launched in the Met and got taken up by the MPA, and suddenly it is flavour of the month. Hence the last sort of six months I have been really busy!

Miss Weekes: What do you see are the issues for management about gender? How are women treated in the Met?

Ms Owsley: I can only speak from personal experience and any issues that have been brought to my notice, which is not that many, because we are not a proper support association. I would always recommend – I would always advise someone to go to the Federation rep, because they actually deal with the discipline issues.

But the main issue I see is ignorance really, just a lack of understanding of what diversity is, that it is female, Asian, white male, you know, it is the whole remit. It is just a lack of understanding, a lack of – it is a lack of understanding of how different, from my point of view, men and women are.

Miss Weekes: Forgive me for pushing the issue a little bit, because it is important: some members of the public will say, "How can you be ignorant now, in 2004, about the fact that to your right happens to be a female officer?"

What is this ignorance?

Ms Owsley: I do not know, I am a woman. I find it very difficult that some people still cannot accept that – I mean, there are two issues when you address a room of people. Some senior officers still say "gentlemen", and ignore the fact that there are ladies there.

Also the physical differences; you know, there is still this lack of understanding about what we are trying to create, create a fair playing field. It is not we want a better thing for women, or we want you to accept more women, we want a fair playing field and fair opportunity.

Miss Weekes: How would it be fairer? What is it about the hours women work – what is the physical thing that has been brought up?

Ms Owsley: The majority of times it comes back to the carer – the care issue, having babies. Yes, women have babies.

Miss Weekes: Yes, they do.

Ms Owsley: You know, it is not a shock, but women do have babies, their bodies change; they then have a caring responsibility which is normally taken on by the women, but, you know, there are men that are carers as well, and it is just an understanding that some women will have different needs.

Some women will come back and do full shift work and are quite happy doing that after having children, but people are different, and it is just trying to get that message across.

Sometimes it is too difficult for some senior officers, personnel managers, to have a woman come with a different shift system that she actually wants to work in with her home life, and they are seen as a pain in the neck, because it is a problem, it is against the norm. And it is just getting everything to actually think that way, that people are different, and we are in the 21st century, and time has moved on.

Ms Cast: I think childcare issues are hugely underrated within the MPS. I think that is an area they seriously need to look at. I have got two children; one is six this month and one is four. I work a full shift system. On Monday quick changeover, which is the time that I finish at 6.00 in the morning and then have to be back up at 12.00 to get back into work for 2.00, to be working round until 10.00 pm, I have a nightmare with regulated childcare.

I have to employ an au pair because that is the cheapest option for me, otherwise all I would do is work to line their pockets. Because working in a government department, I am never going to be rich; I am never going to be rich enough to afford a full-time nanny, which commands, what, £700 or £800 easily.

Miss Weekes: Would you go part-time, and use the protection of the part-time regulations?

Ms Cast: I cannot do that. I live in London; my mortgage depends on my full salary. I cannot do that. Unless you are prepared to send me somewhere like Suffolk to go and live, and then finance me to come in and give me the hours to work around my travel, and then still give me time out to go to pick up my children at 3.30 in the afternoon, and take them home and give my nanny, what, five hours to care for them, and then rush back to take over from her: it is impossible.

My husband is a police officer, and we jump through hoops day in, day out to try and make those demands and meet those needs for my children. And my children are not a burden, my children are a pleasure to have around, and they go through a lot in order to adapt to our lifestyle, and credit to them, because they are well adjusted children. But equally, I feel that I do not do enough for them, because I am hardly ever there.

I have woken up today, you know, at 11.00 to make this meeting, when really, if I had done my normal hours of sleep and got up at 2.00, from 2.00 onwards, I can then take them swimming and spend time with them before I have to be in – and cook their tea, and be in for 9.00, but it transpires that I am going to be with you today and then go into work for 6.00, and then work through until 6.00 tomorrow morning.

I do not get to see my children that often, and I think it is unfair on my children. It is unfair that the job do this; and they do not recognise that there are working parents out there that need the job to look quite seriously at affordable childcare, or at least subsidised affordable childcare, in order for parents to work. Because the kind of hours and shifts that we do, to get somebody to actually be in the house as an adult with your children whilst you are working nights is an impossibility. It is against the law.

Sir William Morris: Does the Met give any support or assistance –

Ms Cast: No, because you are a burden. You are a problem if you come with those sorts of issues. I will quote you what an officer said to me one time when I did go to him, "Well, I have managed it, and I have got children, so why can't you?"

Sir William Morris: No contribution at all?

Ms Cast: I think they give a little bit of subsidy.

Mr Iannelli: I will say in defence, at the moment they are opening their first creche in the near future at the C3I centre at Hendon, and they hope to – they are looking at a voucher scheme in the near future as well, to help with nursery placements, as I understand it.

Sir William Morris: I want to bring Sir Anthony in.

Sir Anthony Burden: Thank you.

Can I have a look at grievance handling, please, when people have a conflict in the workplace? Firstly, if I can deal with local management, Ms Owsley, perhaps I can bring you in here, because can I say, you are the first middle manager we have actually had an opportunity to speak with.

And I am sorry to say, not individually, but some of your colleagues have come in for a great deal of criticism, in that middle management position, because the comment has been made that whenever there is a need to deal with conflicts in the workplace, and there is any issue of diversity, if people are different in any way, the eyes glaze over, and as one comment was made, they are like startled rabbits in the headlights and they seem incapable of dealing with issues without pushing everything upstairs to DPS or to the borough commander, and not willing to take on that responsibility.

I am sorry to be unfair, but could I ask your comments generally about those sorts of statements?

Ms Owsley: That is a fair comment. I will not talk from a personal perspective, because I know that I deal with those issues, but I do know that sergeants and inspectors do not deal with issues, because – well, lots of reasons, and I can only sort of conjecture at some of them. One is all the pressures that they are under; they get what they see is something that is not to do with police work, and to them, it is, you know, a pain to deal with.

Sir Anthony Burden: So managing their people they do not see as their burden?

Ms Owsley: Absolutely, unfortunately. The comment that Miss Weekes made about if you keep all your people happy, they will do the work and be happy; I mean, that is exactly how I run my team, so I do not do an awful lot of police work. You are dealing with people the whole time.

I think a lot of response supervisors still want to be police officers. They still want to be out and about doing police work, but they have not got the understanding that we have changed, and you have got to deal with those problems.

Sir Anthony Burden: Can I seek others' views? Ms Hung, you have come in from the private sector. Could I ask your views about whether managers in your experience manage in the Metropolitan Police Service?

Ms Hung: Right. There is a saying that if you are a civil servant, you have the job for life. They have this idea that if they are sitting in the office and earning public money, they have the safe job for life, so they do not have to work hard or be competitive.

In my previous job experience, if you are incompetent, if you are crap, you are out. But in the Met Police, in the civilian side, if you are incompetent, if you are ineffective, nothing happens. If you are bright or brilliant, nothing happens. So you do not have to work hard, because you do not get a bonus or share options or a financial incentive.

The promotion is based on the years you have been in the job. It is like a clock: "Okay, it is now the time to promote these people who have been in the job for 20 years, so okay, we promote you to a senior level", regardless of your capability and competence.

That is the observation that I have come up with in the last 28 months, which is wrong. That is why, in the civilian side, in my work environment, people are counting their time and the figure of their pension. "I have been in a job for 37 years, I have got another four years to go, my pension will be blah blah blah, that figure".

I have a very close friend, he has been in the job for 37 years, and he has got two or three years to go, and he actually told me in the face, "Kitty, I have lost my passion a long time ago, I am just biding my time and waiting for my retirement. The job is safe, I do not have to work hard. I serve my eight hours, so nobody can point the finger on me, but what I am doing, it does not really matter".

Sir Anthony Burden: Thank you. I see nodding of heads; are those shared experiences?

Mr Iannelli: From my experience, if you have got very much the – if you have got a career minded officer or someone who wants to get on, and you have got another 30 years service, you do not want to rock the boat, and that is a big problem, that people do not want to rock the boat, or they do not want to make their positions untenable in the future.

Sir Anthony Burden: And that is the same for managers?

Mr Iannelli: Yes. I will say it again, I can only speak for my experiences; where I did bring a grievance to the attention of a senior officer, who admitted to me some time afterwards, and I understand fully why he did it, that he did not want to rock the boat too much, and tried to play the party line; encouraged me not to mention the word "racist" in my complaint, just "overbearing", because it would make things even more stressful for me if I went down the racist side of things.

I went down that route. I found no one would really listen to what was being said, and everyone kept just burying their heads in the sand, no one would admit anything, no one would speak to any of the witnesses. I had witnesses who saw stuff who never got spoken to. I call that incompetent in the way that it was dealt with, and the person who I did speak to did actually challenge the senior officer's behaviour, and was told, "It is my borough, I can talk to people how I choose to talk to them".

Sir Anthony Burden: So we have been given an alternative model as a possibility, and that is to use the ACAS model of mediation, which would bring an independent element to workplace conflict, to try and get resolution earlier. Would that be something that you would favour?

Mr Iannelli: I have to say yes.

Ms Hung: It will not help, because the management – not all of them, both of them are actually incompetent and incapable. Because they do not have any threat of their job. "Tomorrow morning, I wake up, I go to work, no problem". Unless they steal, or they have some kind of gross misconduct, but if they are lazy or useless, nothing happens with them.

Miss Weekes: If you were to link human resources, personnel skills, management skills to the reason you promote any officer, sergeant, inspector and above, would that assist, if the promotion was directly linked to an officer's ability to manage?

Sir Anthony Burden: And police staff are included in that.

Miss Weekes: Well, I think Sir Anthony is right; police staff are included in that. Would that bring about some change, if the assessors were looking for management skills, personnel skills, "Now we have seen it, we will promote you. If we do not see it, we will not promote you".

Mr Iannelli: In the long term, definitely.

Ms Hung: From the civilian side, I think from time to time, they should hold some kind of driving test, to re-skill and to re-assess the competence and capability of staff. If the person has no skill to manage people on the management level, this person should get disciplined or demoted, or re-skilled in a positive way, retrained.

We do not have any – I was told many, many years ago they did have KPI, key performance indicators, and they got a lot of complaints that the KPI was not implemented fairly. A lot of people, they got away from it because they have a good friendship and relationship with the line manager or supervisor: they got promoted.

So they got rid of this KPI, and at the moment, they are using something called PDR, performance development review. This PDR is – if you are good, nothing happens. If you are bad, nothing happens. It does not affect your salary level.

It may be used when you apply for promotion, but if you stay in the same grade for many years, and you do not intend to get promoted, then the PDR has nothing to do with you.

Mr Iannelli: In the current way of promoting to sergeant or to inspector, if you pass your exam, if you are successful, you then go on to the OSPRE part 2, which is scenarios; so long as you are taught how to act, you can get through those scenarios. So long as you are taught how to answer the questions, you can get through them. It does not mean you are going to be a good manager in the long run. Then you have your part 3, where people sit round a table and decide, in my opinion, whether they like you or not, and whether they think you will be suitable for a manager. No one is assessing your management skills.

Miss Weekes: Do you think that the superintendent ranks and above, which includes the Commissioner – do you think he does not know what you have told us today? Because if he did, we think he would want to do something about it.

Ms Cast: I think the information he gets is terribly sanitised. I do not think he gets the full picture. There are people employed below him in order to facilitate communications between him and us, but then there are avenues that that communication needs to be filed; I do not think he gets the full picture, I think he gets a very sanitised version of it.

Miss Weekes: Because there must be people in the Met who have the power to change it who would be terribly embarrassed to hear what each and every one of you have said today.

Ms Cast: Equally, you sit there and you think, "If I make these sort of feelings or this sort of information known to the Commissioner, my boss, does he actually want to sit there and listen to you groaning and grumbling? Should I bother the boss with this? Surely there is somebody else who is equally capable who can listen and actually action these and sort this out, that he has commissioned or employed in some sort of capacity, that I can approach and do these".

It usually falls down to your line managers, and there is a whole procedure; but like Liz was saying, it is long and drawn out.

If you have something you want to discuss, there are certain ways to do it. If you do not do it in a particular way, people do not listen to you. If you do not do it in a particular way, they think you are rocking the boat, and then you question your position within the organisation, "Well, if I rock the boat too much, how will it affect me, sort of much, much further down in my career?" And it does come back, and it does bite you, believe me.

Miss Weekes: We have heard about a backlash, which is, "There is really too much of this race thing, there is too much diversity, and we are all rather fed up with it", and white officers are beginning to be angry, and are ignoring the diversity message; is that right?

Mr Iannelli: I have not seen it, but what I do get is a lot of guys saying, "I am going to start an Anglo-Saxon white association", and I say, "Great, go and do it, because you will get members; so long as you are doing it for the right reasons, start an association". That is the only bit I see.

Ms Cast: I am married to an Englishman, and my husband is a police officer in the Met, and he works for the TSG, which is the territorial support group, which are the big strong burly guys that go and rescue people all the time. He likes to think he is a hero a lot of the time, and to me he is.

But he gets fed up, having been married to me, and I am very much visibly ethnic, although I was brought up in the UK, and born here, and educated here; and he sees the kind of work that I deal with, and he sees the kinds of traumas and tribulations I have to address with colleagues who come to me, complaining of this, that and the other, and he is also – I have got a very understanding marriage, and he has seen the kind of things I have experienced within the job, and he has been there as my shoulder to lean on.

He does get fed up when other people sort of say I am playing the race card, because he can see there are genuine issues that need to be addressed, because he sees them through me, because he sees what I see, or he hears what I have to say, with certain things that I have to deal with.

But equally, he sees how white officers are treated as well, and he says there are certain elements where ethnic officers do play the race card; they will think, "Well, if I do not make them listen this way, I can make them listen this way", so you can see the unfairness there.

It is like my colleague says, Ms Hung, people just do not want to know, they would rather bury their heads in the sand, they would rather ignore it in the hope it will go away, and if those issues were dealt with properly, then you would not get officers sitting there saying, "Well, unless I play the race card, I will not be heard", and then you will not then irritate, annoy and upset white officers, and you will get the support from them, especially if they see the unfairness.

Because a lot of them are party to it, a lot of them will see it, especially within a relief scenario, where you work closely, you live in each others' pockets, you defend them when you go out to work, day in, day out; you are there, and you are instinctively there for their survival as they are for you, on the streets of London, because you will not know, when you knock on the door, what scenario you are going to be confronted with. So you are there to protect them as much as they are there to watch your back.

So what you do not want to do is upset that sort of happy medium, but saying that, despite everything I have experienced, good and bad, within the Met, and even if I despised the person I had to work with, and sometimes you do, and, you know, it does happen, I can honestly say – and I cannot say that, you know, everybody will think that way. But if I was confronted with a life and death situation, I would still protect my colleague, no matter what.

Sir William Morris: I am going to ask you a question about the Fairness at Work procedures, but I just want to bring in Sir Anthony first, before I do so.

Sir Anthony Burden: Thank you, because it is a follow-up actually from what Miss Weekes has just been referring to, and that is about the way the organisation tackles the issue of diversity in the future. Without going over old ground, we have been told quite frequently, and you may or may not agree with this, that the approach to diversity training in the past – a lot of money, a lot of resources have been thrown at it, but the outcome has not been proportionate to that effort.

You may or may not agree with that, but we are very keen to look at issues for the future, and the way the Metropolitan Police should actually tackle these issues. Can we just hear your views on that, please?

Ms Hung: It is a tick-box exercise.

Sir Anthony Burden: At the moment?

Sir William Morris: Can you explain that?

Ms Hung: I was sent to attend a course of diversity in July 2002 for three days, and it was organised by the external institution CMP, the civil servants' college. I do not know how much the Met has paid to these two tutors, but we did spend the money on external entities to run the training, and six months after the training, nothing happened.

We were taught to learn how to use a diversity excellence model. Until December, we were given some forms to do the interview, and talked to the people, and we collected opinions from different people, and we submitted them to senior management, but it just – tick box. I have the impression that they just want to get this out of the door.

Sir William Morris: The diversity policy and programme is perhaps the flagship policy on which the Commissioner has staked his personal support, and to an extent he has invested some of his reputation in this policy.

You are indicating that when it gets down to levels of changing behaviour, attitude and procedures, it is a tick box exercise. That is a pretty sort of severe indictment on a policy which is supposed to not necessarily bring about a revolution, but it is supposed to significantly change the culture of the institution. Has this been, you know, discussed in your respective organisations, and have you got any sort of view as to how this could in fact be raised, so that more senior levels of management can be made aware?

Because we have sat here for quite a few days, and we have had a procession of senior Met police officers with managerial responsibility, running directorates, running departments, and there are these two policies that they have been extremely keen to tell us about; one is diversity and the other is Fairness at Work.

Now the sort of response that you are offering is in absolute total contrast to everything that we have heard so far.

Mr Iannelli: I have only ever got experience of a working life within the police service, I have not done anything else. My wife works for a well-known high street bank. She receives no diversity training whatsoever. So at least we do receive some.

I do not know about the National Health Service, and other sort of public industries, as to what they get; I am sure we could do better, but I still think we do a hell of a lot more than any other organisation does, so I defend the Met on that front.

What we need to steer away from – I think a lot of people, when you say "diversity", will immediately think "people of colour", that is the first thing they think of, and they forget that you have got – you know, the broad spectrum of the populace of London in particular, being everything.

We in the staff association forum group, the Samurai group, had a huge discussion about what we thought the way forward was, and we wanted to get rid of this tag of "visible ethnic minority". We felt it was fairer to describe ourselves as minority groups, and that is far more encompassing.

I would like to hope that the Met takes that on board and thinks of minority groups, as opposed to, "Let us just concentrate on one particular group", which is the way it seems to be going, because people can be discriminated against in many, many ways, and over the telephone, if you introduce yourself with your name, people immediately know that you are not white British, if you have got a strange name.

It can be, you know, across a spectrum, and I believe the way forward is to sort of get away from this sort of blinkered view of diversity, and open everyone's eyes to the wider theme. I think that is where we need to go ahead, and that is what is missing at the moment from the Met's diversity policy.

Sir William Morris: I interrupted Sir Anthony there.

Sir Anthony Burden: If I may just ask one thing, chairman: the concept of Hendon as a training centre is an issue that we are, quite properly, concerned with, because it is the gateway to the culture of this organisation.

We have heard conflicting views, but I would ask your assistance, please, concerning the culture which pervades at Hendon at the present time, as to whether you as associations have heard anything which would suggest that the culture at Hendon that recruits would face would be anything other than proper.

Because we have heard that there are elements at Hendon which would promote a racist, sexist, even bullying culture.

Ms Cast: Well, I have made a submission to this Inquiry with regards to Hendon anyway, and that individual has to come and submit as an individual now, but I concur that that actually does happen; there is bullying, there is racism within Hendon, and I do not think it has been looked at properly at all.

I think you are only years away from what was the Secret Policeman expose at Hendon, to what similarly happened in the Midlands. It is a worrying scenario. People are picked on and bullied for the most trivial matters, which undermine that person as an individual, and that affects their ability to perform in what is a very pressurised environment.

Because the training programme that has been rolled out is done during a limited time period, so as much information needs to be packed in – and the information that you are receiving to be a police officer is huge and vast in its content.

Time to kind of relax and do other things away from that is not an option for you; whilst you are at Hendon, you really need to knuckle down, and get in, and get on with the study programme, and if you start to fail, those failures are brought forward, and they are not brought forward humanely, they are brought forward in a critical manner that undermines you as a human being.

There are issues about appearance and discipline that are not brought to you again with compassion, with a fair way of criticism that needs to be brought about, so that you can then address those issues; it is again done to undermine you as an individual.

The kind of stress that you are experiencing in that learning programme, with the additional stresses added, will break a person, and has done. You know, I have had individuals resign from Hendon, having been back-classed for things such as untidy hair. Untidy hair?

Sir William Morris: The experience that you have just shared, are those your own personal experiences?

Ms Cast: No, these are things that have been brought into the association from people that have resigned from the Met Police.

Sir William Morris: Because my follow-up question, had your answer been a yes, would have been: how long ago was that experience and culture prevailing?

Ms Cast: September last year, 2003.

Mr Iannelli: From personal observations again, the Hendon I went to was a very disciplined organisation. The Hendon now is not as disciplined as it was when I was there.

Sir William Morris: What does that mean?

Mr Iannelli: You had to march everywhere, you had to wear your helmets everywhere, you had to walk in ranks everywhere. Now people amble about, helmets off, and occasionally you see couples holding hands. The discipline does not seem to be there any more. I think that is endemic of society anyway, that people do not behave as well as they used to.

I go to my local pub for a drink now and I feel intimidated by younger people – I have to say, that is showing my age.

Sir William Morris: But this is not about behaviour, but what we are being told; we are being told that there is a culture there which is underlined by fear, bullying, intimidation and racism.

Mr Iannelli: Is that just from the management there, or are you talking about the other pupils there?

Sir William Morris: From those with responsibility, it is the culture of the place; we are not talking about robust and vigorous young people who let their hair down extravagantly from time to time, we are talking about something entirely different.

Ms Owsley: They are trying to set up a staff association area or room or something, I am not sure whether it is in being at the moment, just so that members of staff associations can go up there. We do go to sort of recruitment marketplaces where they can meet people from the associations, but other than that, I certainly have not had any contact from people up there.

Miss Weekes: Can I just ask a quick question? Has anybody, you in particular, gone to senior management and said, "This is what I have been told is going on at Hendon, please do something"? Because a very senior officer sat where you did and told us, "All I hear is perception. If people are prepared to give me the evidence, I will do something about it". You can read the transcript, you will know who it is on the transcript.

Ms Cast: I e-mailed Commander Hussain, and I never got a response, and I have that individual, and I have a file, I have her contact numbers and everything. I have photographs of the girl at Hendon looking neat and presentable, yet she was made to feel the scruffiest person there.

It took away from her study, because she has a rare disorder to do with her hair, and she has been away to have treatment and come back; nobody ever asked her whether there was anything seriously wrong with her with regards to her hair, and the stress that she was under kind of made the hair situation that much worse.

But having looked at the photographs of just where they had a classroom photo taken, she looks neat and presentable. The girl stood by her looked a bit windswept, but equally, they looked reasonably presented to me, and as a member of the public, away from the police service, for instance, if I was confronted by her on the street, I would not be unduly worried about her appearance.

But instead of having situations explained to her, her line managers, which were the staff, the sergeants in the staff rooms within Hendon, would pull her up on a regular basis about her appearance, her attitude; once she was told about her appearance, and she did say to me, "After a while, it got to the stage where I spent more time away from my studies of an evening and more time concentrating on trying to stick my hair down, gel my hair down, so that it looked to them reasonably presented when I woke up and were on parade in the morning, so I did not have the time to study, I spent more time on my appearance, just to pacify them".

A lot of the times the staff managers there would then turn around and say, "Well, we have a regulation to serve on you, and if you get a certain number of these, you are going to have to resign", and the regulation that they were being served was not fully explained to them.

Finally, she was told by her Federation, "If you attend your second interview, it is there that they can require you to resign". I know there is a huge process before it even gets to that, but, "At this second interview, you will be required to resign. If you are sacked, you may not join the police service again, but if you resign now, there is always a possibility in the future that you can rejoin, if you so wish. If you arrive in the morning to the inquiry dressed in civilian clothing, I will take that to mean that you want to resign. If you arrive in uniform, I can see that you are going to fight, and we will try and do something about this".

She arrived in plain clothes and resigned that morning, before she had a chance to even see what the panel had prepared and were going to put to her, and I have that file. I have it with me if you want to have a look at it.

But, you know, it is something that does concern me. When I was in Hendon, my biggest punishment was to be turned out at 6.00 in the morning with my boots bald, and I had to then parade earlier than everybody else, and look sharp, and that was my punishment, and I was quite happy with that, it made me a better person for it, I feel, rather than being told that I am going to be sacked.

Sir Anthony Burden: Just in relation to the evidence that you are producing there, the case scenario, if there is a file, could you speak to the Secretary of the Inquiry afterwards, please?

Ms Cast: Absolutely. I know she is willing –

Miss Weekes: We will respect confidentiality, obviously.

Sir William Morris: It is customary for us to have a break for the stenographers round about now, so I am suggesting that we adjourn for about five minutes or so. 

3.20 pm
(A short break) 
3.30 pm

Sir William Morris: Sorry we have been delayed a minute or two over what we had anticipated. We wanted to just explore with your good selves whether the new Fairness at Work procedures were bringing any real improvements in how things are done; is it working better or not?

What can you share with us on Fairness at Work as a major flagship policy within the Met? This is the policy that replaced the old grievance procedures, and you now have the opportunity to have an advisor; it is geared to resolve issues on a mutually acceptable basis, but pretty close to where the concerns were first expressed, rather than taking it through a huge formal bureaucracy, to develop confidence streams about how management respond to concerns of employees, both police officers and indeed staff.

But we would like to hear how it is working from your members' point of view.

Ms Owsley: I am actually a Fairness at Work advisor. I have only dealt with one case; one I have just had to turn down because of my workload at the moment, but other than that, I have had absolutely no contact or feedback about any other cases.

Sir William Morris: Did you volunteer to be an advisor?

Ms Owsley: Yes.

Sir Anthony Burden: Can I just ask, before the chairman explained it to you in graphic terms, were you all aware of the Fairness at Work procedures and basically how they operate?

Ms Hung: They are publicised on the intranet.

Sir Anthony Burden: So you have taken the trouble to look and see what it is about?

Mr Iannelli: Again, I have not had any members approach me with any problems they have had with it. But I did volunteer to be an advisor on it, and I never heard anything about it.

Ms Cast: And I have used it.

Miss Weekes: Can I just ask, do you volunteer yourselves because you think you are going to be good at resolving disputes, or is there some known criteria that you are aware of that tells you it would be a good idea for you to volunteer yourself?

Mr Iannelli: I personally volunteered myself because having been through the old grievance procedure and explored the grievance procedure, and read into it in great depth, and read other books about how grievances should be dealt with, I felt I was in a position where I could see whether it was being dealt with fairly or not, or whether it was being overlooked, and that is why I did it.

Miss Weekes: Fair enough.

You volunteered yourself, why, because you were aware of set recognised criteria for the qualities that somebody should have to resolve disputes, or did you just think you were good at it?

Ms Owsley: Well, I think I am quite good at resolving difficulties and dealing with problems.

Miss Weekes: You see why I have put the question in that way. I will agree, because I know nothing about either of you, that your estimations of yourself were right. But all you need are five volunteers who are volunteering for the wrong reasons you have no clue about resolving disputes for things to go wrong. So is there a criteria that the Met make it clear what is required?

Ms Owsley: There was a criteria, and you did have to apply. I do not know the figures certainly at my station of how many applied and whether anyone was turned down.

Miss Weekes: What has happened to that?

Ms Owsley: I was supposed to be interviewed, but because of my previous experience and my sort of job spec, I was just accepted, and had a day's training.

Miss Weekes: A day's training?

Ms Owsley: Yes.

Sir William Morris: You are representing one of some 14 staff support groups, associations, organisations; and it has not escaped us, having taken evidence from the Police Federation, that you are all members of the Federation, certainly the police officers are automatically; what you pay for is the additional benefits that you get.

Why do you think that a trade union which has been long established and very much aware of its overall role and function to represent police officers – well, to put it bluntly, why do you need to form support staff associations when a recognised trade union is there to deal with all the issues that one would reasonably expect come from your members?

Ms Cast: The question is, can they do it with the same sort of compassion that you perhaps would, because you understand the background that much better. Because a lot of people that feel wronged want to feel that you believe them, and there is that compassion, that you actually feel what they feel. If you cannot demonstrate that, then you can talk as much as you like, you are not going to win that person over. They are not going to feel that you are assisting them in any way.

You know, a lot of people that approach the Federation for things that have happened to them feel very wronged, and want some sort of resolution, even an apology would be enough for some people, but if they do not have the understanding from the start, or the wrong sort of advice, because that person does not understand where they are coming from, that could develop into something far worse, far more damaging for that individual.

And especially if they then feel, "Well, they are not interested, they do not care"; again, they are ignorant, they are burying their heads in the sand, they are just another representative. "His boss is my boss, so what?"

Sir William Morris: You see, one of the things that bothers my colleagues and myself is no organisation is perfect, and every organisation should, generally speaking, look at ways in which it can change to be more responsive and made aware.

We have talked earlier about the problems associated with the work/life balance, particularly when you have got caring responsibilities. Work/life balance and caring responsibilities are a critical part of what a trade union should bargain about; I mean, there is now not quite legislation, but very clear codes of practice about work/life balance, about having time off; the law says you can have time off if you ask your employer, and the employer must have a really, really good reason to refuse.

Ms Cast: The law says that about time management when it comes to working shift work and stuff like that, for children under the age of six. I work shifts, I do not get that dispensation though.

Sir William Morris: Just hear me, because the point I am getting to is that all these issues around work/life balance, including caring responsibilities, are issues that any trade union representing people at work should take up with their employers, to have discussions, to negotiate and reach agreement about.

Ms Cast: Rock the boat and be a trouble-maker and then have that stigma attached to you, that you do not actually want to –

Sir William Morris: Please just bear with me. Because what I am trying to demonstrate is that you as an individual and collectively in your organisation have a tremendous amount of expertise which should be used to make the Federation better in picking up these issues.

Ms Cast: In what time capacity?

Sir William Morris: If I can just say it again, you have got caring responsibilities – not you personally, I know you have, but we will set that aside.

Ms Cast: People like me, yes.

Sir William Morris: Yes, with caring responsibilities. It is a collective bargaining issue: it is an issue that the employer should be made aware of, so they can either help you with a creche or a voucher, or look at your shift pattern in some way, but there is a whole raft of ways that you could be helped, changing your shift with a colleague; a lot of things that could be done.

So it is a collective bargaining issue, but the Federation might not be aware as to how best to deal with these issues – so let me just finish. But the expertise of dealing with these issues, by way of how it could be approached, rests with you, because you are at the sharp end, you are at the receiving end; you are a victim, if you know what I mean, and the victims have the best experience, and should be involved in trying to find solutions.

Right, if you therefore deny the Federation the opportunity to understand better by having, if you like, a support group, the Federation will never change, will they? It is exactly the same as race and sexual orientation and whatever it is. I am making the case of saying that the Federation is an established trade union, it should represent its members, and the members should make demands on it, and by making demands on it, you will enlighten them, so they have a better understanding about what the workplace issues are.

But if you do not enlighten them, on the basis that you have not got confidence, you take all your good experience, your skills, your knowledge, the concept of solutions; if you take it away, they will never change, because they are never challenged and they will never know how to deal with the problem.

Ms Cast: Firstly, we do not take anything away from the Federation.

Sir William Morris: No, no. You take your knowledge, unless you offer your knowledge to them.

Ms Cast: I do not think we do that either.

As a Samurai group, we offer our knowledge as a group to them, and they are welcome to come, and they have been invited to come down to our Samurai group meetings on more than one occasion, and as yet – where we have a Samurai representative who is representing a particular staff association who is also a trained representative, Fed rep, apart from that, I have yet to see a Federation person attend any of the Samurai group meetings that I have ever attended.

But then again, in saying that, I have only been present at Samurai group meetings for the past 11 months, so I cannot say that fully, and rest on that. But, equally, issues that are going to be brought to the attention of the Federation – the Federation is only as good as the representatives, and there are good and bad representatives. There are good and bad people there who want to work, as my colleague Ms Hung has demonstrated before; or they are lazy, they have been voted in and they have done it for tick box reasons, or they are only interested in the juicy bits, you know, the juicy discipline issues, and they are not interested in your run-of-the-mill day-to-day issues that concern various members that are out there.

You know, there are people there that are passionate about certain things, and will expend a lot of energy dealing with particular topics, and there are people that are passionate about other things. They do not go out of their way like politicians to broadcast what their interests are, so you could go to a very bad Federation rep and highlight various issues and hear nothing about it, or you can go to a very good Federation rep and have action taken, and policies will change in the future as a result of that meeting.

But none of that is ever advertised, and you do not know whether you are talking to a good person, who is passionate about what they do, or a bad person who is really not that interested, "You know, this is just a paper exercise"; they will make noises in the right departments and hope that somebody who is not waiting for their 30-year tenure to be up will be listening, and feels just as passionately as that person does about it.

So I am not taking it away from the Federation.

All I am saying is that the Federation is only as good or as bad as its representatives. And there is a need for staff associations, because some of us do feel passionately about certain issues.

Sir William Morris: Yes.

Miss Weekes: Can I come back to an important comment made by, I think, Mr Iannelli; I think your words were, "We would quite like to see a shift away from visible ethnic minorities to the inclusive minority groups". I was interested in that for two reasons: do you think that the race agenda tends to swamp other agendas that are equally important for both officers and staff? I think we need to take that on board as a panel.

Mr Iannelli: I do in respect of the media, because the media would jump on something like that immediately. As an organisation, we are so keen to be seen in a good light by the public that we will attack – well, not attack, but we will address those issues that the media bring to the forefront of everyone's attention, whereas everything else will get pushed into the background and ignored.

Legislation is coming through; you have got the Disability Act coming up. And that all has to be addressed, not put into the background and be ignored.

Miss Weekes: Religious recognition seems to me to be of great importance in the Met.

Mr Iannelli: I know we have had experiences of Muslim officers at training school not being able to eat during the day, because they did not have the correct food provisions; that has been addressed. The Muslim staff association spoke to someone there; they sorted that out; that is great that we have been able to achieve that, but someone should have thought about that.

It should not have to have been brought to someone's attention that you have to have the right sort of food available for the right people.

Miss Weekes: Without detracting from the excellent and important work being done by the National and Met Black Police Association, how do you all see that it would help in the future that all personnel issues that might be connected to culture, gender, sexual orientation, could be slightly more evenly dealt with?

Ms Owsley: I think since the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry and the introduction into the police of the term "diversity", for five or six years, the majority of the Met thought that diversity meant black, and it has been a real education over the last – I would only say the last two or three years, that diversity means everything, everyone, you know, every part of the community.

And I think the last – I can probably say three years, there has been a real turn, and it is finally coming through. But I think there are still people who think diversity means black.

Mr Iannelli: I was at a training course in 1999, which was my CID course, and we had a diversity lesson that day. And there was a big overhead blurb on the projector screen to do with the Public Order Act, and it mentioned everything apart from the word "nationality", which I brought up. And I said, "You have forgotten nationality", and I said, "It is included in the legislation", and the instructor did not realise that was included in the legislation, so it is going back to then.

Like my colleague here just said, it was so geared in one direction you forgot about all the other aspects of what is going on in society. We really do need to open our eyes to that.

Miss Weekes: Did you want to add to that?

Ms Hung: I have a colleague who is white, no name mentioned, the Met has organised RCC, racial culture training as compulsory for each member of staff. He went there for two days, he came back and said, "Ah, I cannot get out of it, because it is a compulsory, but I was snoozing for two days. I do not care, it is none of my business, I am white, I am English". So what is wrong with this picture?

Because the Met, when they have organised a training course, they tick the boxes, "Been there, done that", they never follow up with the staff. They never ask the staff, "How much have you learned from the course? What have you learned from the course?" They never have any evaluation after the training. You go to the training, and full stop.

Mr Iannelli: It is very much – whenever you go to any training course, the first thing you will be given is a sheet of paper to write your name on to say that you have been trained. Whether you have fallen asleep for eight hours of that day or not: you have been trained.

Ms Cast: It is a cover yourself exercise. The Met has covered themselves, they have provided the training, and when it comes to any adverse behaviour by you, as far as they are concerned, "No, we trained you, you should be aware of this, our liability lies with you".

Miss Weekes: Do you think that the Met, who commissioned this Inquiry, and the officers and staff within it, know, first of all, about the Inquiry, and do they know that it is not just about diversity, and it is not just about black people?

Ms Owsley: I would say no. If you asked the majority of officers working on the street, "Have you heard of the Morris Inquiry?", I would probably put money on the majority would say no.

Ms Hung: I learned from the Evening Standard.

Miss Weekes: Well, I suppose we should thank the Evening Standard for some things.

Mr Iannelli: I tried to make it clear from my membership – to say to them, "Speak to all of your colleagues as well, who are not members of our association, to say this is your opportunity to say where the problems lie in the Met". Particularly, my main concern was bullying and that is what I wanted people to come forward with and I did get an approach from one person outside the organisation about bullying.

Sir William Morris: Just to be clear, the existence of our Inquiry does not appear on the internal intranet?

Mr Iannelli: It does.

Miss Weekes: Well, that is very helpful.

Sir William Morris: We are particularly interested hearing about female officers and staff, whether the general view is – well, frankly, are they getting a fair deal?

Ms Cast: I do not think they are.

Sir William Morris: In what respect are they not –

Ms Cast: I do not think they are. I do not think any specialist posts are open to women, by the sheer fact that a lot of women are – and I can only speak from personal experience – frightened to approach a particular specialist post, because they do not think they are going to get that, that they are going to make the grade, they are saddled with children. A lot of it requires long hours, protracted inquiries away from home perhaps. Straight away, there is going to be doubts in the panel – if they even get to the panel – that they will be able to fulfil those requirements, and that they will be as committed and dedicated as a male colleague perhaps would be.

The main sole carer in everyone's view usually would be the female partner, which is not the case, because there are some males who have sole custody of their children, that are the sole carers, and they are not viewed with that.

I applied to a specialist post recently, got accepted, and a week later, they told me, "I am sorry, we have made a mistake". They have yet to explain to me what their mistake is. And that is it, as far as I am concerned. I will not ever approach another specialist post in this job, and I am here for the duration. But I will fight tooth and nail to make sure other women do. Once bitten, twice shy; I am not going to put myself and my children through that, because it takes a lot out of people.

Sir William Morris: It has been suggested to us that given the lack of women in the upper tiers of the management structure of the Met, maybe, just maybe, a conversation or a discussion should take place internally to see how women could be – I do not want to use the words "fast tracked", but to have a streaming exercise or a model, using what they call omni-point entry, which means that at the moment, everyone, in terms of the officers, more or less, starts at, if you like, constable level, generally speaking, and then you route your way up.

But the suggestion is that the recruitment process could be so geared that women could come in at different points of the structure; we raised the issue, about why just women, why such a model could not be more – could not be more broadly used, and it was recognised and accepted that that could be so.

We would just like to hear your comments about that.

Ms Cast: I cannot see how that is going to help. How would that help be upsetting the mainframe of the organisation? A lot of people are going to feel that those individuals have got special treatment.

Sir William Morris: Well, that is one point of view, which obviously we will take note of. What we want to find out is to explore all the points of view, the advantages and the disadvantages, the benefits and disbenefits, people's hopes, aspirations.

Because if you have open competition, even at that point, what you will be judging is not how long you have been in the Met, because how long you have been in the Met should not be a qualification for promotion. It should be what you bring to the task and what you bring to the job, so it does not mean you automatically close down the open competition, but what you do is to judge on merits rather than length of service.

Ms Cast: That sounds like a good thing to me.

Ms Hung: I raised issues to my management on three or four occasions on e-mail, and I have e-mail evidence to prove, and I did not get any acknowledgment of the receipt of my e-mail, let alone to respond to me on my issues. I am not sure whether it is because I am lacking of communication skills, I am a woman, or I am Chinese; I do not know.

Sir William Morris: Have you asked – you should ask your manager which it is, because you deserve an answer.

Ms Hung: I am going to.

Sir William Morris: You might not like the answer, but you deserve an answer.

Mr Iannelli: The idea of recruiting from outside agencies to bring in middle management, I suppose, would work, but I cannot see it working at the levels of sergeant and inspector; so much of that work involves your actual knowledge of how to be a police officer and how to deal with things, but when it comes to the management of the business, as it were, then I could see it working at a higher level.

I understand we as a service are already looking at direct recruitment for specialist posts, ie financial investigators, or levels like that, through accountancy, which I think is a great thing. But if you are going to employ someone to be a uniformed inspector, to come in and have no previous knowledge of police work, and expect him to be able to manage his troops and tell them how to do the job, I do not think that would ever work.

Ms Cast: No, I cannot see that working.

Ms Owsley: I mean, personally, I would have to be convinced a bit more of bringing people in at a certain rank. It was talked about years and years ago, and I just – I could not see how it would work, because of the knowledge you require of police work.

Sir William Morris: Let us come at the problem a different way. I know there are 43 police services in the United Kingdom, but they are all, broadly speaking, working to the same objective. What would be wrong in seconding police officers from one service to the Met, or vice versa, from the Met to another service?

Ms Owsley: Absolutely nothing wrong with that at all.

Sir William Morris: I travel all over the world, and in recent trips that I have made, I have met up with Metropolitan Police officers and had conversations, "What on earth are you doing here?", so the Met sees itself or can see itself in terms of its practices and procedures – it can police almost anywhere, that is what we should be aiming for. So what would be wrong in having exchanges or indeed secondment to the Met or from the Met at senior level, so you refresh the command at various points by bringing in new people with new ideas.

Ms Owsley: I think there is – there has been secondments like that previously with – I know with different constabularies and British Transport Police, I think at sergeant and inspector rank, six month secondments or 18 month secondments, and I can find that very useful.

Mr Iannelli: My one concern would be where you had, say, someone perhaps like at a borough commander level coming in, having no experience of working with any particular types of community groups, you know, from an area of England that perhaps does not have such a diverse population as London does, and imposing his management style on people; I could see it being quite destructive, if they did not understand the cultural needs of his populace.

Sir William Morris: Before you go, can I thank you very much indeed? I recognise a note has just been passed that you have to go. Thank you again.

(Ms Kitty Hung left the discussion)

Sir William Morris: Yes, I take your point about familiarity with the territory, but we always believe that nobody can do our job, you know, we have inherent belief as human beings in that, but fundamentally, the principles of managerial responsibility are the same, and what you need is knowledge, and knowledge is a commodity. If you have not got knowledge, it is a commodity, you can go out and get it.

So we would need a lot of persuasion on the basis that you could not possibly command anywhere else apart from the command which you have been trained and brought up in, because of the profile of the particular command area.

Mr Iannelli: That is just a concern I would like to raise as a – I would be worried about that.

Ms Owsley: In support of that: we always said, "Civilians would never be able to work in the front office, civilians would never be able to work in a control room. Civilians could not be personnel managers, because that was always a chief inspector's job", and hey presto, it is the norm now. So there possibly is an argument.

Sir William Morris: That is right, and vice versa, because the whole concept of giving a holistic approach to policing is changing, and the boundaries or the dividing lines, so to speak, are getting somewhat blurred; and, you know, it depends what view you take, there might be advantages.

Ms Owsley: I mean, the only issue I would take with that is the amount of time the Met puts into training people, and that is a huge issue. We have seen that with community support officers; when PCs get made up to temporary sergeants, it is PC yesterday, temporary sergeant today, and we give people no training.

So I think that – I mean, that is a whole different area that needs to be looked at.

Sir William Morris: Right. I did say earlier on in my introduction that before I conclude, once we had exhausted the questions that we wanted to put to your good selves, we will give each of you the opportunity to make a closing statement or comment, remarks.

I think that we have arrived at that point, so I am going to start with your good self, and ask whether you want to make any closing remarks to us.

Ms Owsley: Just one, to end on a positive note: in relation to women officers, I would just like to acknowledge that the Commissioner, the Deputy and senior Met officers are doing an awful lot in respect of diversity, and I get the personal knowledge of that; you know, it is noted, and they are thanked. It is just cascading down quite slowly.

Mr Iannelli: There was a thing that cropped up earlier on about what the Commissioner hears and what he knows about what is going on.

I think it is something that has always been in the police service since the day I joined: you would have a meeting where all the constables would air their grievances or their grudges; the sergeants would go and tell the inspectors, the inspector would tell the chief inspector; and it worked its way up the tree until it reached the very top where everyone was happy and having a great day.

It is very much, if you are trying to build your own portfolio you do not want to rock the boat, you do not want to upset other people. So you say that everyone is happy, because if you look like you are running a happy ship, you are likely to get on further in your career than you are if you admit you have a problem.

As for the Commissioner's briefings, which I think are a great thing. I do not know if you have had the privilege to go along to one of them recently?

Sir William Morris: No, I have not.

Mr Iannelli: Where he – at the very end of it, he has a question and answer session where people stand up and ask questions. People bring forward their problems and say what are the experiences they have had; he will turn around and direct someone to deal with that immediately. This could be people who have had problems running for six or seven months, where no one has listened to them, and all of a sudden, he says, "Right, that will be dealt with by the end of the week". And my answer to that is: why is that not happening already? Why does it have to be brought to his attention directly before someone will do something about it?

I would also like to thank you for inviting me here today.

Sir William Morris: Not at all. Ms Cast?

Ms Cast: I have nothing to say.

Sir William Morris: Is that a first?

Ms Cast: Yes, actually!

Sir William Morris: I have some closing words which I say for the record, but before I attempt to do so, can I just, again for the record, echo your comment, Ms Owsley, about the commitment of the Commissioner and Deputy, and other senior command within the Metropolitan Police Service.

It has been a recurring theme to us about the commitment of the upper echelons of the service in terms of all the issues, not just on diversity or Fairness at Work, but right across the board. And it is a compliment that comes up at every level, and I mean every level that we have seen people at, including individuals. That is manifest. The way we expressed it not so long ago, it is like the proverbial sandwich, it is good at the top, with a bit of meat in the middle, but somewhere between the meat and the other slice, perhaps it tastes a little bit different.

I just want to assure you that nobody, but nobody, has heard anything different in terms of the upper ranks; issues around, but at least sensitivities are very, very apparent, and in an organisation of 46,000 people, inevitably, you will not get it right first time every time, but that is what we have to strive for.

That takes me to the closing words that I have to put on the record. But I want to thank you, all three of you, including your colleague who has actually left, for the candour and the openness with which you have responded to our questions. And to you, Ms Cast, thank you very much indeed, because coming off the night shift or going on to the night shift, whichever it is –

Ms Cast: Both!

Sir William Morris: – is not a very appealing experience! We know it has been a Herculean effort, and we appreciate that very much.

Formally let me say that, as with all our witnesses, it may be that once we have heard from others, we would want to ask you a few more questions, either in writing or ask you to come back and see us at one of these hearings. If we need to do so, then obviously, we will do that in a way which causes the least possible inconvenience to your good selves, and I emphasise that. But for the moment, all that I need to do on behalf of my colleague and myself is to thank you for coming along today.

Thank you for your response to our questions, and if you wish to offer us any further information or evidence, then feel free to write in. We would appreciate that.

But finally, let me again say thanks for your contribution to our Inquiry, not just this afternoon, but today; thanks again.

We stand adjourned, I think, until 10.30 tomorrow. 

4.10 pm
(Hearing adjourned until 10.30 am the following day)