Transcript of public session: Assistant Commissioner T Ghaffur, Specialist Crime Directorate, MPS

Wednesday, 7 April 2004
10.30 am

Sir William Morris: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Inquiry, Mr Ghaffur. Can I start by thanking you for accepting our invitation to attend the Inquiry to give evidence, and thank you also for letting us have your written submission, which we found extremely helpful.

I do appreciate that for some of our witnesses, the process can be somewhat daunting, so I thought it would be helpful if I set out very 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 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 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 know, we have been tasked 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 by nature or character adversarial.

We are very keen to enquire into the issues raised by our terms of reference so that we can make appropriate recommendations for further good practice within the Metropolitan Police Service.

To assist us in our report, you have given us pointers to areas of information which are of great interest. You have set out for us the background, purpose and content of your review; you have indicated your findings in relation to the effectiveness of service delivered by the Metropolitan Police Service; also your findings in relation to the appropriateness and inclusiveness of Metropolitan Police Service internal processes. You have addressed the issues of complaints, grievance handling and discipline, and also leadership approaches and style.

You have indicated your findings in respect of the Met's legal responsibility and its actions and recommendations, and finally, you have shared with us some of the conclusions from your thematic review.

We would like naturally to ask you questions on these matters, and indeed range perhaps somewhat wider, exploring those issues which are of mutual interest to us, but before we move on to have the conversation with you, by way of inviting you to respond to our questions, I wonder whether, for the benefit of the transcript, you would mind just introducing yourself to the Inquiry.

Mr Ghaffur: Good morning, chair; good morning, members of the panel. My name is Tarique Ghaffur, I am the Assistant Commissioner in the Metropolitan Police, currently responsible for specialist crime. Specialist crime covers a range of issues, ranging from investigation of homicides in London, serious gun crime, drug supply, economic crime, protection. I also oversee the intelligence and the forensic assets in London, as well as the crime academy.

Sir William Morris: Okay, thank you very much indeed for introducing yourself and the areas of your particular interest within the MPS.

Questions by Sir William Morris

Sir William Morris: Mr Ghaffur, you have produced a very interesting report, which has national implications. I note that you refer to the BBC television programme the Secret Policeman in the executive summary of your report, and this can in fact be found at reference TXG 1/2. This portrayed examples of overt racism at a police training establishment.

You say that brought your task into sharper focus, and obviously, it formed part of the background to your thematic review of race and diversity in the Metropolitan Police Service.

Can I ask, do you think the sort of events shown in the Secret Policeman could happen or repeat itself in the Metropolitan Police Service?

Mr Ghaffur: Well, the Secret Policeman programme, which, of course, did not relate directly to the Metropolitan Police, but it related to a training establishment up north, was the catalyst for my inquiry.

As to whether it could happen, I mean, my personal impression in relation to the Secret Policeman, quite clearly, I was absolutely disgusted with what I saw; very concerned, given the scale of the fact that, you know – I mean, I have been a police officer for 29 years, I worked in many different police forces. We have had high-profile incidents, racial type inquiries, not least the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, the Scarman Inquiry, various other aspects, so when you put it in the context of that, I was very concerned at the fact that something could happen, you know, despite the fact that we had gone through a huge amount of process and progress in many ways.

You asked me a direct question as to whether it could happen again: I cannot say that it will never happen again, I think it could, and I think there are –

Sir William Morris: My question was whether it could happen in the Metropolitan Police Service in particular.

Mr Ghaffur: Well, I cannot guarantee that it cannot happen in the Metropolitan Police, and in particular, within the training environment, because quite clearly, the people who actually come into the training environment come from various backgrounds, come from various parts of society, and sadly, in parts of society, particularly in London, you know, there are quite clear incidences of racism, et cetera, so I cannot say that it cannot happen, because clearly it can happen.

Sir William Morris: When you say "training background", do I assume correctly that you are making reference to the Hendon training centre?

Mr Ghaffur: Yes, I am.

Sir William Morris: Well, whether or not you believe it could or could not happen, the real issue is: what, if any, steps are being taken within the Metropolitan Police Service to ensure that it does not happen?

Mr Ghaffur: I think the fact that the Commissioner very quickly took action in relation to asking me to do my review – and the very first task that I undertook as part of the review, and I was very pleased to undertake the review, was to actually do a risk assessment, in terms of what are the risks in relation to us at Hendon, and frankly, you know, what I found was that we took some – a number of immediate steps to ensure, and those steps are very much documented in the review.

There is a clear action plan within the appendices, in terms of some of the immediate steps we actually took to ensure that it does not happen.

Then there was an issue about trying to unpick really what are some of the other things that can be done, and I have made a number of recommendations in relation to our training environment per se, in terms of addressing some of the issues.

So I think we took some immediate steps; part of that included some limited integrity testing, part of that included looking at what the risks were, and there is an action plan, and I can go through the action plan if you want, specifics in relation to what colleagues within the HR department did.

Then it was a question of also commenting on the wider aspect of environment within training itself, as to – as far as it relates to, particularly, minority officers, and I took into consideration comments that had been made by the BPA report, what has happened to minority officers as well, so I think collectively, as far as the Met is concerned, I think we took some immediate action, and we are continuing to take further action in terms of developing and ensuring that training is an environment where if there is any kind of racist behaviour, that is immediately dealt with.

Sir William Morris: We are talking about in excess of 30,000 police officers. Has an individual letter gone out to every single police officer from the Commissioner to make it absolutely clear to the individual that under no circumstances will the sort of behaviour which was manifesting itself in the Secret Policeman be tolerated in the Metropolitan Police Service? I hear what you say about the generality of approach; what I am sure my colleagues and I would wish to hear is the specifics of what action has been taken by the Metropolitan Police Service to ensure that this behaviour does not take place in the Met, and if it did, every single police officer would be aware of the consequences.

Mr Ghaffur: I think the review obviously was a commitment to show that we are going to take some immediate action. Beyond that, from where I am sitting, I am not aware that an individual letter went out, but the way the management team of the Met communicates is – I know that there was a fairly strongly-worded communication that went out through our intranet system.

I know that the Commissioner has used every opportunity to talk about not accepting any behaviour, whether it is based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and some of those he himself does through a significant amount of visible leadership which he displays in meeting officers and in conducting focus groups.

I also know that collectively, we all attend what are called "mission, vision, value" events, which are large scale events, where officers are there, and again, on a number of occasions, I have heard him in particular absolutely make it very clear, but, of course, the Commissioner is just the leader of the organisation.

I think the important thing is that it permeates down to every other leader making the same pronouncements, and I myself have made it absolutely clear to my 5,000-odd staff that we would not tolerate, you know, any behaviour that is based on race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, et cetera; so I think collectively, if you put all that together, there has been a very significant message from the top in relation to what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, but I cannot, chair, mention – I am not aware whether there was a personalised letter sent to 40,000-odd or 44,000-odd staff.

Sir William Morris: We have heard evidence that there is a culture within the Metropolitan Police Service where the victims always lose, and the perpetrators win. Do you recognise that culture at all?

Mr Ghaffur: Well, I think – I mean, in the sense – that is a fairly generalised statement, in terms of, you know, without – yes, there are case studies, quite clearly, I considered some of those case studies, where a person who, for example, had made a grievance – because of the length at which the process had undertaken, that the person who made the grievance almost became the victim.

I myself, because of the unique position I am in as one of the significant role models for ethnic minority communities, from time to time have examples from people where I think, "Hang on, this person has actually made a grievance or raised an issue, but the process itself is taking over", and I comment about that in my report, which is becoming almost disproportionate.

But to say that there is a pervasive culture right across the organisation, I am not sure, because equally, I have heard about cases where there are individuals who have really championed the cause for making sure that the person who is making a grievance or the person who has made a complaint or the person who has whistle blowed against somebody almost does not become a victim.

So yes, there are cases, you know, well documented cases – there are cases that have been brought to my attention, because of the unique position I am in, but I would not say that that is a culture that permeates right across the organisation, and I think I do comment about some of the issues in my review.

Sir William Morris: You describe the culture that I imparted to you, from the evidence that has been offered to us, as a generalised statement; would it be helpful if we were able to indicate some specific instances to justify that evidence?

Mr Ghaffur: I think, as I said, chair, I am myself aware; so, for example, I considered the BPA report in relation to what is happening to ethnic minorities, particularly at Hendon. There were some issues in there which I can very clearly relate to.

I do have a number of, you know, specific examples where people – so I am not saying that there are no specific examples of that happening.

What we have to look at is why that is happening, and for example in my report I found that, you know, sometimes, particularly on minor matters, instead of taking a pragmatic approach, there was an overemphasis on formalising the thing and then passing it up the chain, and I found examples where somebody made grievances – rather than become a human issue, in terms of trying to tackle some of those aspects, it almost became an administrative process, and I myself have come across, you know, areas where things have been referred in my workplace to me.

So, chair, I am very aware of the examples, and that manifests into the way people react, but if you want to pose me a couple of questions or examples, I might comment on them.

Sir William Morris: Okay. You have said that you, in your command, have communicated with your 5,000 staff, 5,000 people for whom you are more or less directly responsible. What form did your communication take to your 5,000 people for whom you are responsible; was it a personal letter, or was it the intranet again? What was the method of communication; can you help us?

Mr Ghaffur: I myself, given the unique nature, in terms of victims and perpetrators, coming from communities in London – I have a very open style in terms of, firstly, communicating with the public; I regularly go out to consultative groups, because it is important – the reason why we are here is to deliver services and make London safer, so I go out, I must speak to 200 to 300 or 400 members of the public a month around serious crime and organised crime issues.

Similarly, internally, you know, I am extremely visible, I go out myself at least once a week, sometimes twice, to go and visit my officers on the frontline, and actually talk to them on the first – on a face-to-face basis, and some of these things that are talked about are made very clear.

I have a personalised – the issue about communication is two ways, it is not just one way, just sort of talking down to people and giving them the message. I have a personalised website on the specialist crime intranet where they can ask me, my officers – "Ask ACSC", where officers can ask me, very clearly, questions or raise issues in relation to any matter, professional or personal.

I hold focus groups, like the Commissioner does; so I have used every opportunity – I have large scale intervention exercises. So I have used each one of those to actually ensure that the message in relation to what I stand for is well communicated, and I think my officers see that visibility as well, because I publicise where I am going, what I am actually doing.

So I think I have reached out to the majority of my staff, but there may be pockets where I have not.

Sir William Morris: Do I take it that your reference to you communicating with the 5,000 officers and staff who are under your direct command was an indirect communication and not a direct communication to the individuals?

Mr Ghaffur: Not sending individual letters, no. Yes, through using the mediums that are open to me, yes.

Sir William Morris: In the light of the Secret Policeman, and having regard to the magnitude of damage to the national police service, do you not think there is a case for a senior officer of the Metropolitan Police to write to every individual police officer to make it absolutely clear that the behaviour was not acceptable and would not be tolerated in the Met, and the consequences for that sort of behaviour would be spelt out?

Mr Ghaffur: I think if you mentioned that – was there a need to directly write to individuals in relation to – well, I did not do that. I mean, what I did was follow the Commissioner's example, in terms of making sure that I used every opportunity to bring – but whether there was a direct – whether, in hindsight, that would have been a possibility, perhaps yes.

Sir William Morris: I have your report in mind in relation to that question, on the recommendations, and I am asking you whether, in the light of your inquiry, the magnitude of the concerns, the implication for the police service nationally – against that background, and we will hear from others about the Met itself, whether the judgment for a direct communication to officers was justified or not.

Mr Ghaffur: I think in the overall aspect of – in relation to the magnitude, the scale of it, the risks to the reputation, et cetera, my answer would be yes.

Sir William Morris: As a result of your review, Mr Ghaffur, on race and diversity issues, what lessons do you think need to be learnt within the Metropolitan Police Service?

Mr Ghaffur: I think I very clearly commented – I mean, what I did was I took sort of a golden thread approach in my review, and what I did was looked at service delivery, then, as you quite clearly said, chair, I looked at recruitment, retention, career development, leadership; and then looked at how we are progressing in various reports.

I think the messages for me, in terms of the overall messages, are that, you know, the job in relation to tackling race and diversity per se is not finished. We started on a very significant journey, particularly in relation – my review was very race-specific, and I do accept that there are wider aspects in relation to diversity; but the job in relation to race was very significantly – I mean, the Lawrence Inquiry was the wake-up call, a serious wake-up call, in terms of the way we deliver services.

I very clearly also realised that the diverse nature of London itself is a major opportunity rather than a challenge. The Met have done very significant things, post-Lawrence, in the way it delivers its services, the way it actually sort of manages some of its internal processes, but there was a lot more to be done, and the headlines for me really were that in service delivery, I identified four areas: clarity around stop and search, an issue around, "Are we engaged sufficiently with young people?", the challenge of new communities in London, and very clearly, issues around quality of service. So there were some lessons that I put on the table in relation to that.

In relation to the recruitment aspect, there was a lot of good news, in the sense that if you look at the recruitment trend in relation to visible ethnic minorities, it is pretty upwards, particularly since 1999, but there were some issues around the way the recruitment process operates, so I made a number of comments in relation to that as to whether, you know, that recruitment process was appropriate.

In retention, you know, the statistics are very clear: in relation to the small number of people who leave the Met, a large proportion of visible ethnic minorities leave within the first two years, and then there is another chunk that leaves after five years.

Now as to a real understanding as to why that is happening, I comment on that. On career development, the absence of role models across the organisation is a big issue. The issues around specialist – the challenges around having representation within specialist departments was a real big issue.

On complaints, really, the issue about particularly the perceptions around how complaints are dealt with, the issues around the process itself, and more importantly, I think, to wrap up the leadership dimension, whether there was sufficient – we have done a huge amount of work in building leaders' capabilities and skills in the way we deliver services, but is there sufficient emotional leadership engagement on race and diversity issues internally; whether we need to do more.

And quite clearly, you know, the challenge of having role models really, so chair, if I – so those are some of the headlines which I found through my report.

But I must add, you know, in the context of all that, the Met – and I have worked in other police forces as well – frankly has moved a long way, but quite significantly, it is not enough, there is a lot more to be done.

Sir William Morris: I said earlier, and I say to all our witnesses, that we are not just interested in what is wrong with the Met, we are equally keen to hear about what is right, but most importantly, what we really are about is: what can we collectively do to make it better?

Looking at your report, can you identify for us, please, what you think represents the most important contribution that would assist this Inquiry?

Mr Ghaffur: I think in my report, I summarise basically in the conclusions, effectively, what I feel are really absolutely important in improving the organisation.

I think there is a real issue about valuing individuality and difference to a far extent. That is a real, real point, and that is about, to me, what diversity is really about. It is about valuing – you know, people who are displaying difference, individuality.

I have been amazed that when you go beyond the way we deliver services, what I am saying is: please be more people-centred, as opposed to procedural-centred, because you are dealing with people. Particularly where you have got a greater level of difference and individuality, the expectations and everything else are different, there is a real need to take sometimes a practical, pragmatic – you know, a leadership interventionist approach to treat people as perhaps we as leaders would like to be treated ourselves.

I talk about focusing on creating and developing strong leaders for whom diversity is actually a real central tenet, you know, that is a thread that – it is not all about just strategy and policy, and having nice documents and having procedures; it is actually about transferring belief and behaviours, and almost walking the talk.

Finally, what I am saying is that we need to be more dynamic in finding creative, innovative, staff-friendly, diversity-proof solutions to problems, and I think a lot of those solutions to problems actually lie with actually the staff who work in the sharp end, who can give the ideas.

Finally, I think there is – we just need to be a bit more brave on things such as positive action, where we prepare people and we make sure that we effectively are, you know, allowing people to be able to be represented right across the organisation.

The only other point I would make is that where people make mistakes, I mean, the issue about blame – where people make mistakes, then frankly, I think the learning that comes out of the mistake is more important, and that learning has to be transferred into the workplace, and what I am saying is we can have loads of reports, loads of recommendations, loads of boxes ticked, but actually, at the end of the day, you are dealing with people, so there has to be a more whole approach to people.

Sir William Morris: Sure. The Metropolitan Police Service has been described to us as – how was it put – "policy rich, implementation poor".

Firstly, do you share those views, but be that as it might, what steps are being taken to implement the recommendations in your report, given, as you say, the report is one thing, but we need to have more than nice documents, and the cynics would say, "Another lovely glossy document".

But the question is: what steps are being taken to implement the recommendations in your report?

Mr Ghaffur: I think the – yes, there is a danger of this document becoming, you know, another document on a shelf. I am very conscious of this, but I think the process that I have adopted is in the sense that I did the report in quite a fast time, in relation to delivering the results on it.

That report went into a consultation phase, and I got quite significant comments from it being a brilliant piece of work to it being awful really, but a number of those comments have been included, in terms of making it more rich, because the greater the involvement, the better.

The final draft has now been produced; unfortunately the draft got leaked, so there was a public dimension to it. Once the final draft – this is going to be very much – quite clearly will form part of your Inquiry, chair. There is a lot of debate around the report going on within the Metropolitan Police Authority. There is also further dialogue with the consultative groups and other stakeholders, and what I would hope is once it has been finalised entirely, that the recommendations would be fed into the Deputy Commissioner's diversity forum, which involves all the stakeholders, and that there would be a fairly strong, robust plan that would support that.

But in addition to that, some of the real nuggets in the report are the softer measures, the cultural, the issues that we could put right because, again, the recommendations can be ticked; I would hope that there would be greater debate around how we – within the management board, and I have already initiated, to start to say, "Well, how do we actually permeate the organisation in relation to that?"

The test of the pudding would be, really, if in 12 to 18 months, there is a health check done, a compliance check done, to see whether these have been complied with, because my experience is unless you really do that sort of check ...

So quite clearly I will do as much as I can, but I think there is a commitment within the management board, and there is a commitment within the MPA to actually progress matters, so let us see what happens.

Sir William Morris: Thank you very much. I will pass you on for further questions to Sir Anthony.

Questions by Sir Anthony Burden

Sir Anthony Burden: Good morning. I want to deal in more detail with Hendon, if I may. Our reason for being so concerned about Hendon, I am sure you would share this view, is because it is the cultural gateway into your organisation; that is why it is so important.

Your comments, I think, start at page 28 of your report, but contextually in relation to the size of the organisation, at the bottom of page 29, you very helpfully give the staffing levels at Hendon; TXG 1/29. (Pause). It is your paragraph 1.15 anyway; we may have to go from the manuscript, I think.

Maybe we can do this manually, it is probably better. But you make reference there to the fact that there are 180 police officers, and you give a gender and ethnicity breakdown. Five police staff employed in recruit training, which is a very large staffing level, no question about that.

On my page 30, but the next page of your report, you make the point, and quite properly you made us aware this morning that you were conscious of three major reviews already having been undertaken into training at Hendon, and therefore your review really was a snapshot in time, and you have outlined what you have done to assist your report in relation to Hendon.

Under paragraph 1.15.4, "Recruit training stage: diversity issues", you make some helpful comments about the competence of the majority of the trainers to deliver diversity training, and also to deal with difficult issues.

Could you just enlarge on that and assist us more in relation to that matter?

Mr Ghaffur: Yes, I think the context in which I was coming from – I mean, as you quite rightly say, training is your gateway. I mean, recruitment is your gateway; I think the way you deal with people on recruitment tells a lot about the image of your organisation, how it operates, but I – when I started to look at the training in relation to, quite clearly, diversity issues amongst trainers – because if it is a gateway, then the people who are delivering it have got to be your champions.

You know, they have to be your ambassadors, really, who walk the talk, and what I found was that given the fairly significant amount of recruitment that we had done – I mean, it was something like 3,400 officers. In context terms, we recruited more people than the establishment of some police forces.

Quite clearly, there is a lot of pressure on people to deliver volume, and I think that in that context they have done a magnificent job, but I think the important thing was that when a recruit person comes into training, they need quite a bit of support; they need support through their individual circumstances in which they are coming in – because they come from different backgrounds. They need mentoring, in terms of support to the way they are going through what is a fairly formalised environment.

They have to be – if you are going to meet individual needs, as opposed to collective needs, they have to be counselled at times, and coached at times, so there has to be a personal dimension to that.

Then also, more importantly, in diversity terms, people have to really understand what diversity means to them, and they have got to sort of live and breathe it, frankly.

What I found was that they were trying to – the trainer was trying to do all of that, and the impact of training that had been given to them, which is, you know, one week diversity training, is just not significant.

What I commented upon – I said, "Look, you know, they need some support mechanisms that actually can deliver support to them, rather than leaving them" – because if you add on top of that they almost were line managers as well, because our recruits go out as well, it is just not do-able.

So the issue I posed was, you know, if you are going to have personal tutorials, which I recommend, if you are going to have people who are going to look after needs and expectations of a very diverse – if you are going to deal with some serious discipline issues if they emerge, et cetera, then frankly, the support mechanism, and in particular the focus group I held, the personnel function, you know, which can provide that sort of support mechanism, had been brigaded with the recruit function, so in fact had been more centralised.

I was just saying: look, you know, all those areas, you cannot have one person doing it, because they will get beleaguered by it. That is the context in which I was making those – and I was wondering whether some of the difficulties that are quoted as individual case studies were because of that.

Sir Anthony Burden: Can I come back to that perhaps later? Because I think that is very important from our viewpoint, to try and exactly understand what it is you are recommending, and in report terms, trying to assist, perhaps, the case that you are making.

Could I move on then to the issue of the culture which exists at Hendon? We are talking diversity as well, not just race. Because we have heard some conflicting evidence; we heard earlier in the Inquiry that there were some genuine concerns about the culture at Hendon in relation to behaviour, particularly around sexism, racism and behaviour that could be perceived as bullying.

The commander in charge at Hendon said, "Well, if only evidence could be brought of individual cases", then he would look at them, but he felt that much of it was around speculation.

If I could just put up on the screen what I consider to be more substantial evidence – and I will put these up one at a time, so that you have an opportunity to read them. First is the insistence that Muslim officers drill and parade, which is unnatural and embarrassing for Muslim women to do.

Second is those who wished halal food at Hendon; if their name was not on a list, then quite simply, they could not have it, and Muslim officers felt that was very demeaning, and actually identified them out as being different.

The third is the challenge to an officer that he could not grow a beard whilst he was at Hendon; if I could say in support of this particular statement, we have had an individual submission from an officer who had to bring in a religious leader to convince the member of staff that what he was asking for was nothing more than his rights in relation to his religious beliefs. Then, in fact, he found that there was a policy in the Metropolitan Police which would have explained everything to the trainer, had he looked.

Fourth is in relation to Muslim male officers, and sensitivity as to the way they shower after physical exercise at Hendon, and then no tolerance when they decide to go back to the room and shower, and as a consequence are late for lessons; they then get penalised as a consequence.

And really the statement there that all people are seeking really is that they be treated as human beings, and some understanding; I think that was something you said in your values statement, to the chairman, as to what you felt to be most important.

Then another short series of examples, where concern was raised by a witness about the culture generally, in a very pressurised environment.

Then an example where it was felt that there were pressures, possibly quite rightly, on students to do well, but these pressures were brought to bear in a less than humane way, which could be interpreted as a bullying atmosphere.

Then when issues such as appearance came into play, how that was dealt with, in this particular case to the extent that the officer felt so pressurised that an issue of untidy hair – we have had an opportunity, you have not, I am sorry to say, to see the photographs of the officer concerned, and the untidiness certainly comes into question, as to the judgment around whether the hair was untidy, if you are willing to accept that from me.

You yourself have said you have experienced case studies being brought before you, and I just really want to ask whether you can relate to the sort of facts that you have seen on the screen, because these are all issues that are on the transcript of this Inquiry as having been brought before us.

Mr Ghaffur: Sure. I can relate – because of the unique position I am in, I mean, quite clearly, as a Muslim, some of the things you told me there, I can relate very personally to them as being inappropriate.

Secondly, I can relate examples of these sort of things which have been brought to my attention personally, which I have had to deal with.

In the context of my inquiry – I mean, if I took a forward look – I was really pleased. I mean, there is a perception about Hendon, you know, and there is a danger of the perception about Hendon being the same as perceptions about other district training centres.

The fundamental difference is that Hendon trains for the Met, and in many ways, you know, it is a continuing from recruitment into training, whereas in other parts of the country, they have to go to another island site.

So yes, I had read, you know, I was aware of examples. I personally myself have dealt with a number of examples. So I went to Hendon with a very open mind, in terms of conducting my review.

What I was encouraged – I was encouraged by the developments now taking place within Hendon, and in particular, the very flexible approach to training and development that is being encouraged particularly at Sunbury and various other places, so there is a lot of good practice going on, but even when I was there, I had to intervene – as I said to you, we had to take some immediate actions.

I had to intervene in three or four instances where I can relate to specifically issues that I think, to a certain extent, may in reality make Hendon an unfriendly environment, or in real terms, there may be evidence that there is difficulties.

So, for example, I do comment in my report about the danger of fast-tracking people, and then you put a minority officer there who is being fast-tracked, with a white officer who has not, and possible backlash of that. I comment about that in my report.

Sir Anthony Burden: Yes, you do.

Mr Ghaffur: An issue that I had to deal with, that was brought to my attention, was around halal food, that halal food was being served, but it was being served at the end of the chain, and almost there was separatism, in terms of people having to go for that food and sit separately, and I intervened, and put – you know, worked with the management to put that right.

There was an issue raised around showers, not in the context of the Muslim officer that you raise here, but in the context of a Sikh officer, and I think again, we took very quick remedial action in relation to that.

I comment about possibly the alien environment, because if you are going to recruit Londoners from very diverse communities, very different backgrounds, to put them in a different environment creates some challenges, so I talked about the island mentality, the drinking culture, and how people can fit in into that.

So I think, you know, there are examples – I talk about in my report for Hendon to revisit what is happening to our – in the minority report from the MBPA. So I think, you know, in the context of examples, they are there, and I can very clearly relate to them, and issues that need to be addressed.

But I think the encouraging side for me was effectively that certainly, I found that there were a number of things that colleagues in HR and training – and within the diversity directorate, as well as the DOIT team – that had in train that actually will start to change some aspect of – you know, some aspects of the environment that operates.

You know, I came across another example where a person – a minority officer had failed most of their exams, but had huge life skills, and then joined another police force, and passed and transferred into the Met.

So, you know, I think these examples are indicators of culture, and I think we have got to listen to them and take some note of them, but on a broader front, I must say that in the context of some of the – you know, I was pleasantly surprised in many ways, given the perception that existed about Hendon, and what I actually found, that there was a lot of good practice that people were conscious of and wanted to implement and move forward, and I know that is continuing.

The issue about militaristic – you know, that is an old cliche. I mean, I am nearly in my 30th year of my police service. The issue about, you know, hierarchical, militaristic, rank-based organisation, against a much more looser approach – I think you have to look at the context of the job we do, and frankly, I am still a believer that there has to be an element of discipline, there has to be an element of hierarchy, to provide – particularly deal with the command and control type of environment, that people like me in my job have to deal with, and manage the risks and deliver some of the operational aspects of it, and some of those are very highly risky.

So I think, you know, I do not – a bit of me just still says that having pride and being disciplined – and I am not saying go over the top with it, but having some sort of regulation actually is not a bad thing.

Sir Anthony Burden: Can I then take us into the future, because as the chairman said earlier, we are concerned with putting things right, and helping the organisation get things right, and making recommendations which are sensible, and which matter.

If I can refer you back to the end of 1.15.4, on your page 31, I think it is, where you talk about the pastoral care unit, and initiatives which are being put in place. You see, it might be that the staff at Hendon feel they are not being racist, not being sexist, not intending to bully, but that their style of training is actually in the interests of the Metropolitan Police, that they do need the help that you suggest they need because they are under such pressure cooker conditions there to get these recruits through the process, there is just too much to take regard of, and there is not even time to train them right in terms of diversity; there needs to be stronger policing of insensitivity around diversity.

Is that a fair comment?

Mr Ghaffur: Stronger policing and intolerance of people who breach that.

Sir Anthony Burden: And intolerance, yes.

Mr Ghaffur: And identifying that at an early stage; yes, I agree with that entirely, because if you do not take swift action, then that has a danger of, you know, a level of acceptance that should be not acceptable, and that is well preached by the top management, you know, and many leaders in the organisation.

I think the issue of our training, whether – I mean, I would like to see more support for trainers, I think that is – in the current context of the way we deliver training, but to me, from the point a person wants to join this organisation, particularly Londoners, and particularly very diverse Londoners, then the training dimension of it, and the continuous professional development dimension of it, becomes almost – you know, end-to-end, lifetime experience.

Just boxing that off there and boxing that bit of that there and boxing it – I just do not see that you can completely eradicate some of the problems that occur. You know, it has got to be the whole person approach, where people are bringing lifestyles – that is why I recommend that those should be captured early on, used in CCRU, you know, then taking them through a process of continuous learning, so whilst they are waiting they can learn, making a more flexible approach to training, which is what they are moving towards.

If that means staying at home, fine; and if that means a modular approach, that is fine, and then the continuous development of people, and weaved into that is positive action initiatives.

I think the crucial point is that mentally, we are still seeing positive action as positive discrimination, because we are looking for fairness for all. Well, you know, what we learn from delivering services to the community post-Lawrence is that you cannot have a one size fits all service for everybody. What you have to do is customise and value that individuality and difference, so I think – you know, yes, if you are going to leave it as it is, then provide more support, but I recommend a completely – a more community-centric recruitment approach, a more flexible type of training that is being delivered, and a more continuous professional development that links into career development, et cetera.

Those may be fine words, but I think they are deliverable, they really are deliverable, but I think it needs to be looked at as a whole, because otherwise you look at little pieces; I just do not understand how that can work, frankly.

Sir Anthony Burden: I mean, the long-term aim is one I would share with you: you are looking for each trainer to have the skills to deal with all issues, including diversity issues, in a sensitive and understanding way.

Mr Ghaffur: Sorry, not only skills, but they should easily be able to call upon support if they need to, and feel comfortable about doing it.

Sir Anthony Burden: Can we just talk about that? Because obviously, there is a short to medium-term issue here, that you cannot skill up people that rapidly, and obviously, you are suffering under immense resource difficulties to staff up at Hendon, which as we understand it, is almost working on shifts to get recruits through as required.

To allow young female Muslim recruits, and gay recruits, and all minority groups within the diverse workforce that you are trying to create, to go back to their communities and their friends at the weekend and say, "My experience at Hendon is one where diversity is valued", what can we assist you in doing, through recommendations, that would assist with a short-term fix as well as the longer-term aspirations, which I think you absolutely articulate within your report, and the way to get there is well-founded, I think, in your recommendations.

But I think you recognise we cannot wait for that, because there are holes that need to be plugged.

Mr Ghaffur: I think there are three – some of the clues are in the report. I mean, the first thing is that when people arrive there, for God's sake, let us have some personal tutorials, where you elicit expectations. We do that in other areas, where there is a statement of expectations into what are the needs, what are the expectations. You cannot do it on a group basis. So I suggest here there should be personal tutorials, in terms of ...

The second thing is appointment of some professional staff to just support things such as mentoring, counselling, so that there is a third party reference point, so that if there is any difficulties, they can be mediated out.

The third thing which I mention here is very much community involvement in Hendon training, so setting up of an IAG type, where community members of those sort of diverse colleagues can be actually reflected within the accountability framework of training.

So I think, you know, if you said to me, "What are the immediate solutions?", one is: see individuals very quickly and elicit – you know, build their confidence, that if there is an issue it will be dealt with; have some professional support; and frankly, some of it does need professional support, and we do that in other areas. I do it in child protection, where, you know, people are given professional occupational health support, et cetera, and that is compulsory.

Thirdly, get a community engagement in, that builds accountability in terms of delivery, and then robustly monitor what is actually happening, frankly.

Because I think in a humanistic approach – the culture I am trying to have in my set-up is that if you make a grievance, if you are unhappy within the workplace, we should be celebrating that, not sort of dismissing it as, you know – and then we should take immediate action in dealing with it.

Yes, there will be challenges you will never be able to meet – because some of the reasons why people may leave is because of their expectations – the job choice may not be what they thought it was going to be, so inevitably, we are going to get some casualties around it. That is why I recommend that there should be pre-employment induction, a proper one, so people understand what the realities of the job are really.

Sir Anthony Burden: Just finally from me, it was mentioned in relation to Hendon that staff associations could see a clear distinction in terms of the culture, the atmosphere and the behaviour at Hendon when a particular individual – I am not identifying the individual, but it is the type of individual who gave very clear leadership at middle management level at Hendon, as to what was and was not acceptable behaviour, and what culture would exist.

Would you agree that that sort of overt leadership, and the selection of people that can do that well, is important in a training environment?

Mr Ghaffur: Yes, because in an operational environment – I mean, I call that intrusive leadership, not necessarily down the chain, but when you have to manage issues, you sort of give that very clear message; yes, I certainly would concur entirely with you, because people are very clear as to where they stand and where they do not.

Sir Anthony Burden: Thank you very much, indeed.

Sir William Morris: We should be moving on to Miss Weekes now, but I think it is probably an appropriate time for us to take a very short break for the benefit of the stenographers, about five to seven minutes.

11.38 am
(A short break)
11.52 am

Sir William Morris: Okay, Mr Ghaffur, I will pass you straight over to Miss Weekes for some questions from her.

Questions by Miss Weekes

Miss Weekes: Thank you very much, Assistant Commissioner. We are rather grateful that you have come to give evidence; you are the most senior visible ethnic minority officer of Assistant Commissioner rank, and with 30 years in the force, it would be very helpful if I could go back to the general matters that you have raised in your report, which are not specifically to do with visible ethnic minorities, but to do with every officer and staff in the force.

The first of those issues are the management issues, the management issues of people, informal resolution of disputes at work.

I think you would agree with me that the hallmark of a country's judicial system is how it treats those who are accused of a wrong and the victims of a wrong, and Britain is pretty high up there, so equally, the way the Met Police treat people who have been accused of a wrong, and those who say they are a victim of a wrong, is absolutely crucial to your reputation.

Do you think the line management of disputes generally is good?

Mr Ghaffur: I think you are absolutely right in terms of the hallmark, in terms of, you know, victims, and people who are accused.

I mean, I would just add the issue about – which I have to take into consideration around proportionality, around the human rights dimension. So I think you are absolutely – so I agree with that statement entirely.

I think we have made efforts in dealing with particularly grievances and other things, and we have moved on from where we were, but I still think there is quite a long way to go, because from a personal perspective, and also, I am a leader of an organisation, which is 5,000 strong; to me, as I said earlier on, if somebody – say somebody gets – makes a grievance, as an example, in the workplace, I think the mindset should be that that is a positive thing.

The second thing is that there should be face-to-face communication to try and resolve that matter at the earliest opportunity, and the line manager, being the next person, is absolutely key.

The third thing is that the procedures that should exist behind it should be aimed at bringing early closures. So, for example, when I first came into the Met, the grievance procedure, I thought, was so administrative that it often did not bring any closure, it just went on and on, and there were dockets about that thick, in terms of what had been done.

I introduced my procedure, because as a Deputy Assistant Commissioner, if a grievance got to my level and had not been resolved earlier on, then basically, you know, I had a kind of a hearing to listen to the views of the various people, and I put a written submission. At times, if I had to apologise, or if a manager had not got things right, it was said; at least it brought closure.

I think sadly what I am seeing in my professional experience and my personal experience is that there is closure – the closure for some people, particularly from minority groups or gender, at the end of the day, is a tribunal, and that in business terms is usually – I mean, in reputation terms, in terms of losing a valuable human resource, is a huge problem.

On the other hand, you know, sometimes, for white officers, there is no closure, but at least I closed it. You know, I gave a judgment; if they liked it or not – and it was amazing that I did not get a significant amount of comeback on that, in the sense that yes, some managers did not like what I was saying about them, in terms of me saying, "Well, you got it wrong".

In the same way, as far as complaints is concerned, if there are serious criminal allegations, and if there is serious corruption, and there is serious discipline around integrity, et cetera, of course that has to be investigated, and it has to be investigated with rigour – because as a publicly accountable body, there is a need, and that is why I welcome even the independent oversight over it.

Where there are minor demeanors, the critical issue – the test I apply is if one of my officers has done something wrong, the first thing is: how many times did we get it right? Often, I find that actually, in the context – because everybody can make mistakes, everybody can misjudge, in terms of where they come from, so how many times did we get it right?

The second thing is: what is the learning from it? Is that person becoming defensive about it, are they learning from it?

If the person exactly knows what they have done wrong, the learning is there, frankly, we have got it right 99 per cent of the time, and I can give examples where I have actually personally intervened in this particular aspect; then frankly, why should we get into a judicial process, you know, that just runs on and on and on, and actually, ultimately, does nobody any good? It does not do the organisation good, it victimises the person, it permanently damages, sometimes, people.

So I think, you know, what I am saying here is that the more the decentralised the approach is, the more empowerment and people are supported to make decisions at the earliest opportunity, the better the support they have, they need support – and to be fair, I think the Fairness at Work procedures, for example, have started to do that.

Where there are problems, things can be mediated out, and a more practical and pragmatic approach – of course, that is what should happen, but I am not undermining in any way the serious cases, the crime, the corruption, and serious elements around integrity, because they are fundamental to the way we operate in this country.

Miss Weekes: Can I agree with you on the question of the importance of integrity, and separating out of the debate the very serious conduct issues, and can I concentrate on everyday workplace conflicts that, if not handled adequately and sensitively, could result in an employment tribunal case, or simply a status quo, which means the officer or staff are unhappy?

One of the things that is crucial to the resolution of a dispute is the character and quality of the person who is line managing; that is obvious, is it not?

Mr Ghaffur: Yes.

Miss Weekes: I did not understand, before sitting on this panel, that every officer who is promoted automatically has the role of line managing. When you become a sergeant, you automatically line manage. When you go up the rank, as an inspector, there are more people to line manage. So it is clear from that that there is no prerequisite of having to have the qualities of a good line manager; am I right?

Mr Ghaffur: I think the line manager is almost effectively – well, there are competency profiles, there are profiles written down around what the competencies should be.

Miss Weekes: Is it written specifically for your ability to deal with personnel issues and line management?

Mr Ghaffur: No, I think the competencies are fairly generic, in terms of the various dimensions that need to be – I think the challenge for me is that almost a line manager has to be technically and operationally competent, to deal with operational issues, should provide operational leadership, which is much more, as I said, you know, sharper, command and control, various other – is rank-based.

Miss Weekes: But operational issues have nothing to do with handling people at work.

Mr Ghaffur: Right, and that is where I think the challenge is. One minute you have a manager who may have been promoted, a sergeant, inspector, chief inspector, for strong operational competence, ability to – you know, has credibility in terms of operational achievements, he has a clear understanding of how to command and control firearms incidents and various other things.

Suddenly, if you put them into a supervisory or managerial chair, that is about more managing the organisation, it is more role-based, in terms of people, in terms of resources, in terms of managing, you know, the environment, et cetera.

I think – I comment in my report that I have seen supervisors and managers delivering services, I have seen them interacting with diverse communities, diverse people, we build capability around training and investment and various other aspects, and I have seen them operate really well.

I have certainly seen that person sitting internally within a supervisory chair, that they do not operate, and I think the biggest challenge is building that capability.

Miss Weekes: Can I deal with that in detail? That is the reason for my questions. I am going to go back to my question, because it may be important to us, and we really would like your help, because of your seniority.

Is there anywhere in the present system of promotion a built-in priority that a line manager must have the minimum recognised qualities and skills to line manage and to deal with personnel issues?

Mr Ghaffur: I am not aware, other than the competency framework, so –

Miss Weekes: Right, so the answer probably is that it is not really there in terms of a very specific separate priority, that your skills in terms of management and personnel issues must be of a particular recognised level before your promotion.

Mr Ghaffur: And you mean both, technical skills and people skills, really? Because you need technical skills to understand –

Miss Weekes: Of course, I have understood your comments about operational and technical skills; that is taken as read. That is what the police are very good at, and they have a profile for that, but this Inquiry has recognised, from the evidence we have gathered, that there is a consistent complaint from the majority of your white officers, from the minority of your officers and staff, there is a problem about line management.

So can I take it, because I want to move this on now to how we are going to improve it, that you agree with me that there is not really, within the system of promotion, a very specific priority that any officer who goes for promotion up the ranks must have the recognised minimum requirement for the skills of line management and personnel issues?

Mr Ghaffur: I have not seen the recent competencies for sergeants, inspectors, chief inspectors, et cetera, the national competencies; I am aware of the ACPO competencies. If they are missing, that is a fundamental gap, because to me, once you get into supervisory ranks and you get into leadership ranks, your spans of control increase, et cetera, as you quite rightly say.

The big issues for me, in terms of competence, are you have to be operationally competent, you have to be able to deal with people issues, and people issues come in the hard and soft approach. The hard is understanding what the discipline procedures are, understanding what the various other procedures, policies and practices are, and the soft aspect is about the morale, the motivation, the communication, dealing with, you know, disputes, et cetera –

Miss Weekes: Why is it soft? Why do you use the word "soft"?

Mr Ghaffur: I use "soft" in the sense that they are much more people-centred. I mean, they are very hard to approach, but they are very soft in the sense that you have to take individual needs and expectations into consideration. So it is in that context I use the word "soft". The management of resources is becoming very important, you know, how to manage money, et cetera, and inclusion of that is capability to manage – nowadays, the capability to manage technology, in particular.

So I think if that is not reflected, the people dimension, that is a fundamental gap.

Miss Weekes: Well, let me be fair: it may well be reflected, but not as a priority. I am sure somewhere in your training programmes, there must be some reference to line management, but as far as you are aware, it is not a priority for promotion.

Mr Ghaffur: But it should be.

Miss Weekes: All right. I would like to take you to a short passage which came up from questions asked of a senior ACAS officer, in relation to what he said would be the prerequisite for a good line manager.

Now you will not have read this, so I am going to, as it were, just read out the bits which are applicable. He was asked a question, it may well have been by myself, or one of the panel members, "What is required for a good line manager?", and he said this:

"The first one, if I could describe them, is intellectual; someone needs to have the capacity to quickly cut through the detail and understand what the issues are in a variety of very different industries."

Further down:

"The second area, I would say, would be about their personal skills, and it would seem to me that there are two which are crucial. One is this capacity to be objective and not to be a prisoner of the past, in terms of what your experience or what your history says. So there is an issue about objectively collecting the evidence, if you like, the facts, on which there should be no disagreement; you know, trying to get consensus on the facts.

"The second personal attribute, I think, is judgment, sound judgment, which I would say is rooted in common sense, but there is not a lot of people have got common sense. It is just the capacity to sit down and make a sensible judgment based on common sense.

"The third one is impartiality, that if the mediator cannot project themselves as being impartial, then they will have lost the confidence of either of the parties. So it is an interesting person that you are after now."

Right down further, please, to the next page:

"But I think that it is the key, you know, it is good forensic intellectual skills. You do not have to be a brain surgeon by any stretch of the imagination, but you have to be able to understand things. The capacity to be impartial; and good judgment."

I am pretty sure you are going to agree with absolutely every aspect I have read out.

Mr Ghaffur: I think that is a fair assessment in terms of, you know, skills one would require to almost be a champion in a workplace.

Miss Weekes: Now are you aware as to whether or not officers who line manage know that that kind of requirement is necessary to resolve everyday workplace disputes?

Mr Ghaffur: Well, I am not aware that, you know, all of them actually know, but what I do – I mean, I can rattle out, you know, people who I meet on a regular basis, or I speak to on a regular basis, across the organisation, who display a lot of those particular skills.

I also meet people who do not, and I think the key issue for me particularly, in the context of resolution of minor grievances, minor complaints, is that issue around cutting out the complexity of what is being presented to you, but presenting a – making a judgment on common sense is absolutely crucial.

The issue for me is: why do people not do that?

Miss Weekes: Can I take you to that issue? There is no doubt – and the seven or so staff representatives who have come to give us evidence have all, very fairly, every single one, said that there are good people in the Met, there are good line managers, there are good senior officers; but there are those who are appallingly bad.

I am now going to move on to what happens to bad line managers, because it is quite clear that a lot of people get it right.

The staff associations tell us that the bad ones are moved to another area, they are promoted, which effectively means they perpetuate bad line management; is that right?

Mr Ghaffur: Well, I mean, that is a very subjective statement to make, in terms of – because to me, you know, yes, I do – I mean, the context of what is good and bad depends on where you are sitting, what you are doing, what background you actually come from, et cetera.

To me, I think the reason – I mean, what I found in my study, in particular, there are three or four reasons that I have found people to be bad. One is, frankly, you know, this is one extreme in terms of people who are bad, who are racist, who are really – you know, have got value systems that have no place in this organisation. Now, I know taking very punitive action in relation to tackling those is fine.

I have come across people who are – because of the very high nature and profile, particularly, of ETs and various other aspects, and race issues and diversity issues, they are under fear. They do not – you know, they find it very difficult – so what they do is instead of taking that pragmatic, common sense view, they effectively take the procedural route and pass things on to other people to deal with.

I have come across people who are extremely good – narrowly focused, you know, who are extremely good at what they do operationally, but may not be so good at dealing with organisational issues, and I think the big issue there is not whether they are bad, but the big issue there is actually: have you built their capability, have you built the skills to actually deliver what we are expecting them to – and that goes back to the clarity –

Miss Weekes: Mr Ghaffur, do you have a problem with the description: "a bad line manager"?

Mr Ghaffur: I do not have a problem in describing somebody who is bad, I have a problem in just not understanding really what the reason for that badness is –

Miss Weekes: Well, you have given three examples.

Mr Ghaffur: There is a fourth one, and the fourth one is actually having people – role models, frankly, people who can put themselves in the shoes –

Miss Weekes: Let us come back to role models – I am sorry to interrupt, but I really would like to finish this rather important issue. Some people are good operational officers, and some people are bad line managers, and one of the reasons why you may be a bad line manager is because you do not deal with issues of performance with your staff very well, you persistently and unfairly refuse to promote a credible staff member; those are just two classic examples which have nothing to do with race.

Now that is a bad line manager, is it not?

Mr Ghaffur: Yes.

Miss Weekes: Right, can I just move on: what should happen to bad line managers? Should they be demoted? Should they have the role of line manager taken away from them? I have just given you two possible solutions. Are either of those a good idea, or is it simply not practical to do it that way?

Mr Ghaffur: No, I think, as a leader, you cannot fudge it. I mean, if there are managers who are bad, the first issue as a leader is for you to be able to give very clear feedback. So when you are conducting the appraisal, be objective, and I think the point about – is to give them very clear feedback.

Miss Weekes: Suppose they still remain incompetent or bad line managers after at least two or three feedbacks; what do you do then?

Mr Ghaffur: I think if there is feedback, you know, and – there is feedback, there is remedial – you know, because I think what I mentioned, the development of staff is a partnership between the organisation and the individual. If there is remedial action taken, in terms of improvement, et cetera, frankly, if all that is failing, then you have to have regulations in place – I mean, I know what would happen in industry, I know what would happen in the private sector, you would fast track – you know, you would sack people. You would be able to ask people to resign. You would be able to place people in roles, despite their rank, that they are competent at.

Because otherwise, it does not make any business sense, because if you continue to, as you put it, promote these people to reach a level of incompetence, then frankly, the damage they can do to you, the organisation, often themselves, is very significant, so the issue is about intervention, this issue is about leadership taking action, and whatever the regulations are, supporting that action to be taken.

I think sometimes what tends to happen is that when people are bad, rather than biting the bullet and taking the action, we start to look at other ways of dealing with them, and that is not productive.

Miss Weekes: Well, you did mention in that explanation the word "sacked". Can you help this Inquiry: does the Metropolitan Police, in your experience, consistently take a robust approach to sack officers who consistently show they cannot line manage?

Mr Ghaffur: Well, I am not aware of an example.

Miss Weekes: Right, well, if it is not sacked and you are not aware of an example at all –

Mr Ghaffur: Although I have dealt with it, myself, personally – as a leader, quite clearly, I have dealt with a number of instances where remedial action has been put in place, but I am aware of people being sacked for discipline, I am aware of people being sacked, you know –

Miss Weekes: Well, that is probably gross misconduct, or a conduct issue.

Mr Ghaffur: But I have not heard of an example of a person being sacked in relation to incompetence, in terms of performing the role of management.

Miss Weekes: You have an incompetence procedure which we have heard is very rare to be adopted; is that right?

Mr Ghaffur: That is true.

Miss Weekes: Well, why is that? If you have it, why not use it?

Mr Ghaffur: I think we should.

Miss Weekes: I am just interested in why it has not been used.

Mr Ghaffur: I think there may be – and I can speak from my sort of context: there may be an issue around frankly our appraisal system, where people may not be given – I have just done an exercise in my set-up where I have looked at the standard distribution in terms of ratings by officers on appraisals.

What I have found is that in a standard distribution, you should have about 10 or 15 per cent of your people who are underperforming, you should have 10 or 15 per cent who are overperforming, and the rest are in the middle. There is a tendency, when I look at it, to be skewed right on to the other side, in terms of 70 or 80 per cent of people. So I think there is an issue around appraisal; me and my senior colleagues in HR are looking at ways in which that can be made objective.

I think there is a cultural issue around effectively feedback, whether people are given very clear feedback by supervisors, line managers; and I think the third issue may well be whether we are robust enough in really getting to grips with some of the difficult issues and difficult people, so the combination of all three may lead to a point where, frankly, we are not making use of procedures that exist.

Miss Weekes: You will agree that if you do not take a robust approach to dealing with line managers who do not perform, or who are just plain bad, you leave an atmosphere and a culture of unhappiness and dissatisfaction, even if it is only a small percentage?

Mr Ghaffur: Yes, and I think you leave – not only a culture of dissatisfaction, you leave a perception of double standards, which is not helpful, and I think that actually, you know, then has a potential to cause quite serious harm.

Miss Weekes: Can I go back to the "why"? Forgive me, it may be that I did not hear your answer.

Why do you think senior officers of your rank or perhaps slightly below do not take a more consistent, robust view to invoke the dissatisfactory performance on line managers, or to simply remove them from the post of line managing? Why do you think that is?

Mr Ghaffur: I think if I was to sort of give one reason why that is, I think there is an issue about – to me, there may well be an issue about confidence and capability, to really get to grips with it.

Miss Weekes: Or is it because, as some of the staff associations and individuals tell us in their submissions, there is a feeling that when you start moving up the ranks, you do not do a lot to rock the boat; you protect your rank, and you protect your fellow senior officers from criticism. That is what we hear; is that right?

Mr Ghaffur: Well, I know where I stand with this, frankly, you know, in terms of trying to protect what is not protectable is not appropriate. There may be an aspect in terms of a group culture operating that may present that perception. My view is very clear, that from the work I have done, I come across a huge number of people who are performing a very efficient role, who do the sort of things that have been talked about in here.

We do sadly have a number of people – and to me, some of that is related to confidence, capability, and I think some of it is sometimes related to leadership not gripping the issue and dealing with it, frankly, and it needs to be dealt with.

But I think to generically say, "Well, hang on, there is a massive group culture operating here", which almost is counter-productive to what we are trying to achieve, I think we would very quickly – given the visibility of certainly the Commissioner, the top team, we would be able to pick that up very quickly, but I do appreciate that there are issues around confidence and capability, there are bad managers, there are issues that we need to reflect on.

Miss Weekes: Are you saying that there is no evidence, as far as you are concerned, of an element – I do not suggest that it is 100 per cent, but there is an element of senior officers protecting their rank and protecting other senior officers from criticism? Reluctance to want to bring about a procedure that might cause a senior officer to lose his job? There is no evidence of that?

Mr Ghaffur: No, there is evidence. What I am saying is there is no universal evidence that this is happening in a widespread – of course there is, and often, when I counsel officers, they do talk about group culture, they do talk about protectionism, and I have actually reflected that as one of the barriers in terms of career development.

Miss Weekes: How can you change that sort of approach? Because that is an aspect we have understood makes staff and junior ranks very unhappy.

Mr Ghaffur: The way you change it – the way I have dealt with it in my set-up, what I have done is I have actually introduced – I think it is about confidence, allowing people to speak up. If they are not happy – and what I have done in my set-up is after the 12 months as head of specialist crime, I brought external people in to look at me and my command team, and I asked those external people to conduct a 360-degree appraisal of how I am doing and how my command team is doing.

Miss Weekes: Did you do well?

Mr Ghaffur: Well, not really, not in all areas, there were areas of improvement, but it is about honesty, it is about creating a culture where people, if they are not happy – to say so, it is about honest feedback, and it is about gripping the issues, frankly, and giving the people the confidence to deal with what are difficult issues.

Miss Weekes: Is your approach of getting an external assessor, as it were, quite common?

Mr Ghaffur: No.

Miss Weekes: Would you like it to be common?

Mr Ghaffur: I think as part of the continuing development of where we come from, where we are, and the number of good things that are happening, I think ultimately, yes, that would be quite a thing to do.

Miss Weekes: If we were to consider – because my colleagues and I have not discussed it yet – a possible recommendation which was the minimum skills for line management and dealing with personnel issues must be shown before someone is promoted, how do you think the Met would take that?

Mr Ghaffur: No, I think the Met would take it very positively, because the whole ethos of what we are trying to do as the top team is to decentralise the way we deal with people, the way we manage our money, the way we give people empowerment within the framework to actually operate, so – and the way we are trying to become community-centric, in terms of delivery of our services.

So I think in the context of doing that, the challenge will be whether you can go one step ahead and have mechanisms in place to allow people to assess themselves against how they are actually doing, almost – rather than an assessment process, more of a development process, and then identifying what the gaps are, and then creating some mechanisms in terms of how that can actually be supported, so there would be quite a bit of investment.

If you try to do – you know, that being more of the same in a different way, I am not sure that that would really permeate down, but I think in the ethos of what we are seeking to do – but it will present challenges in having mechanisms, the tools to deliver that kind of approach. But I am sure our HR colleagues, in the way they are approaching it at the present time, are up for that.

Miss Weekes: Would you be happy with a change of emphasis on the reply, "I have been promoted to the rank of inspector because I am an excellent line manager and I am good at people skills, but I am also good at firearms"; it is a change of emphasis, because your first comment to me was that one of the criteria is operational skills. You simply did not mention personnel skills at all when you first began to talk about line management. So that is what comes over, that it is operational; it is operational but people come last.

Mr Ghaffur: I think we have been moving towards that context. When I joined the police many years ago, and I operated in police forces, people were promoted because they did a fantastic job in the current role, or they were promoted because of their operational – just operational competence, of achievements.

Now in some areas of work, that is very necessary. Frankly, in my area of work, where you have got homicide investigators and various other very specialist investigators, that is very necessary, because it is in rank where those particular technical competencies in detectives actually exist. So that is not a bad thing.

I think the danger is not to throw that away, because we still need people with operational skills, if there is a firearms incident, or there are public order incidents, or there is a critical incident, but I think the emphasis in shifting that into a more holistic approach to also take on the wider responsibilities for the roles, which hereto may have been centralised, is not a bad thing to do.

But there is a danger – culturally, you are shifting from rank to role, and rewarding role, and secondly, you have to have the tools to deliver that, you know, in terms of assessment, training, various other aspects, and providing that is put in place, that is absolutely a move in the right direction.

Miss Weekes: The resolution of disputes generally covers quite a wide area, and Fairness at Work, just very briefly, are you happy with how that is developing? Because it is still quite new, and there are issues there obviously to be developed.

Mr Ghaffur: Yes.

Miss Weekes: The trade unions for the Met say they would be rather keen to have independence thrown back into Fairness at Work, and have it back centrally dealt with by HR; do you agree?

Mr Ghaffur: No, I do not. I think the movement of the Fairness at Work procedure, with a greater emphasis on early resolution, with support by advisors, trained advisors, if needed, by intervention through mediation to achieve early resolution, is absolutely the right way.

My fear is that – and that sits very closely to line managers taking responsibility for managing their people, et cetera. My fear is that if you centralise, you know, and things get centralised and decentralised structurally, that you could almost create an island, which I have commented about in terms of my report, on complaints and various other aspects, that is counter-productive, in the sense that that becomes an island in itself, and it almost goes back into another administrative quagmire.

Miss Weekes: One of the reasons why the trade unions put that forward is because there is now developing a practice, I do not know how widespread it is, that the Fairness at Work advisors are being taken from the same area of command in which, for example, a line manager is the subject of complaint. Did you know that was happening?

Mr Ghaffur: No, I did not know that, but I think the Fairness at Work advisor, I am informed, is chosen really for their skills, is chosen and trained to deliver, just as I would do with family liaison officers in murder investigations, et cetera.

Miss Weekes: Forgive me, it is not the skills; I am dealing with the independence of that Fairness at Work advisor. It would not be the best practice, would it, to have the Fairness at Work advisor come from the same command where he might know the line manager?

Mr Ghaffur: I think if – this is again identifying the expectations. I think it would be desirable for the organisation. I mean, independence comes from many other sources, you know, the network organisations provide independence, because a number of problems are sent to them, but I think organisationally, the independence in relation to Fairness at Work advisors, so there can be clear feedback, if needed, to be given to a supervisor, in the way they are dealing with it, I would agree with – I would concur with, and I think that would give more confidence to people.

Miss Weekes: One of the other general complaints, and I appreciate it is a general complaint, I will move to a specific example in a moment, a specific example that in fact involved yourself, is when officers are moved, they are moved into a cushier position, or nothing appears to happen, or if they resign or are dismissed, they come back to the force after an appeal.

Can I just flag up the statistics which we obtained? Between 2001 and 2003, 68 officers were dismissed and/or resigned, or were required to resign. 30 of them were reinstated on appeal.

Now let me say straight away I am not going to go into the detail of individual cases; these are general statistics, and within those statistics there must be credible, good examples of why an appeal was allowed.

But may I refer very briefly to a case that you were involved in, not remotely to be personal or to attack you, I would not possibly do that, but simply to get you to help us with how the Met deals with this particular procedure.

There was a case that involved two females who raised sexual harassment against the same officer. One of the females was being supervised by that officer, so there was a line management situation there.

Complaint was made by both females of the officer; he was suspended, pending disciplinary charges. Two years later, not necessarily very unusual for that time, it was around 1999, disciplinary proceedings were held, the officer was dismissed. He appealed, he was reinstated.

Now you dealt with the appeal. We have received a written appraisal from one of the females concerned that you dealt most politely and sensitively with explaining to them why the decision was made, and the nature of the appeal, so there was no personal criticism against you as such.

One of the matters raised by the women was whether you knew, when you considered reinstatement, that that officer had previously been suspended for assaulting a female. Did you know that at the time?

Mr Ghaffur: Okay, I think you are talking about an individual case here.

Miss Weekes: Yes, I am not going to mention names or details.

Mr Ghaffur: I very clearly know that case, in the sense that, as you rightly mention, in terms of my accountability, I personally saw the officers concerned and explained why –

Miss Weekes: And they clearly appreciated that.

Mr Ghaffur: – I made my decisions. I think, quite clearly – I mean, I made the decision based on a criteria which I use, and the criteria I use, without going into the details of the case, was three things which I use when I look at the appeal.

I look at – I apply a test of reasonableness, because reasonableness extends both to victims as well as to people who are ...

I applied a test of fairness, you know, is what has happened and being presented fair in the circumstances?

Thirdly, you know, I looked at proportionality, in terms of: is it proportional?

But as the current procedures, in terms of review, stand, they are from a very narrow perspective of the proceedings and the circumstances of the case, and very narrow in terms of the information that is provided to you. There is no historical information presented as part of that review, and I think –

Miss Weekes: So you did not know that there had been a previous suspension for assaulting a female?

Mr Ghaffur: The procedure as it stood was from a very narrow perspective. I have to look at – and that is embedded in the regulations, you know, whether there had been any previous history, previous suspensions, previous disciplines, or whether – you know, what was the organisation's issue around similar cases.

We recently now have some very clear guidance in terms of how we should approach that, which is very helpful.

Miss Weekes: How recently has there been a change?

Mr Ghaffur: The guidance has just come out, I would say a month ago.

Miss Weekes: One month ago? So that is extremely recent.

Mr Ghaffur: It is recent, yes.

Miss Weekes: So can I take it that the need for this new guidance was because this procedure was clearly unsatisfactory in ensuring that there was a consistent, credible approach to the discipline, suspension and resignation of officers, and their right to appeal?

Mr Ghaffur: No, the guidance was very specifically for the conduct of reviews that are conducted by Assistant Commissioners.

Miss Weekes: But it does go to the root of the credibility, of which officers remain and which officers leave the force.

Mr Ghaffur: It goes on the credibility of what actually – we are examining the propriety of the original decisions made by the tribunals, nothing else. As I said, I have very clear criteria that apply in terms of – now quite clearly, we do not in that procedure get any previous information, and we still do not, any previous history, unless it has been presented within the considerations of the tribunal, and often they are not, but in these new procedures now, the presenting officer is present in the review, and the defending officer, and their representatives, and we have very clear guidance in terms of what we can do and cannot do.

However, as I said, in this particular case, I went beyond procedure in actually seeing the officers and explaining to them.

Miss Weekes: Is there anything wrong with that? That is rather good people management, is it not?

Mr Ghaffur: Yes, exactly.

Miss Weekes: That officer is back in the force; yes?

Mr Ghaffur: I presume so. Yes, he was reinstated.

Miss Weekes: Well, he was reinstated. What support was given to the two women, who remain very unhappy about this outcome?

Mr Ghaffur: Well, I personally had seen them, and during my meeting with them, I had offered any further support that is required. I am not aware what happened thereafter.

Miss Weekes: You have not followed it up yourself?

Mr Ghaffur: I personally have not, no.

Miss Weekes: Can I turn, please, to just three other shorter but rather crucial issues? Some people in the Met, probably some people outside of the Met, may take the view that the race agenda has swamped all other agendas in relation to how people are treated fairly; do you think that is probably right?

Mr Ghaffur: Yes.

Miss Weekes: As a result, there is a bit of a backlash. You have actually referred to that. If I can conveniently bring it up on the screen, I think it is at your page TXG 1/57. This is your final report which you have very kindly submitted to us, so in fairness, it is clear that you have identified it.

Here we are. If you look at the screen, you say here:

"There are many diverse people within the organisation that feel that the high-profile nature of race and diversity issues has a perverse or retarding effect rather than a positive or progressive impact.

"This arises from the fact that usually when race and diversity issues are raised, it is from a negative perspective when the organisation 'knee jerks' or overreacts. This puts ethnic minorities and other minorities constantly under the spotlight or under scrutiny that others do not have to endure."

Can I just raise another element of the backlash which we, the panel, are concerned to ensure that we take on board? It is the way white officers feel about the high priority given to the race agenda.

Do you think there is now a feeling of, "Well, I have heard so much about race, I am being told I have to go to diversity training, it appears that line managers are soft on ethnic minority officers, they are not being pulled up for things, I am not happy about it"; is there that kind of feeling in the Met now?

Mr Ghaffur: Yes, I think – I mean, I come to it from two perspectives. I come to it from the perspective that I am part of an organisation, and my view in relation to that perspective is that the wider diversity agenda, and that includes, you know, gender issues, sexual orientation, disability, age, makes absolutely brilliant sense –

Miss Weekes: Forgive me, my question was not relating to what your view of the diversity agenda was, it was very specific: apart from what you have identified in your document, very sensibly, I suggest, that there is a backlash for ethnic minorities, is there also a backlash for the way that white officers now feel about this high-profile agenda? Is there or is there not?

Mr Ghaffur: Yes, I believe there is.

Miss Weekes: Well, it seems to me that that would be disastrous, if the well-meaning race agenda, developed understandably since the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, is now having a negative effect instead of a positive effect of joining black and white officers together to work together; do you agree?

Mr Ghaffur: Well, again, I comment of the dangers of separatism in my report.

Miss Weekes: So how can we remedy that? Because I think you can take it that my two colleagues will agree with me, that would be disastrous, if a well-meaning policy is going to cause bad feeling, negative – whether or not it was intended. How can we deal with such a difficult problem?

Mr Ghaffur: I think there are a number of solutions to this. I mean, the first thing is, you know, the reality – and we have to face up to the reality. The reality is that in terms of delivering diverse – sorry, delivering policing services to diverse communities in London. We are never going to get off the race agenda, because yes, we started with the black community issues – I myself, in serious crime, am tackling issues around South Asian issues, where I have to really interact with the communities, et cetera.

So I think the reality is, internally or externally, we are not going to get away from the race issues.

I think the big issue for me there is one – is the issue of communicating that, and saying, "Race is not going to go away" – if there are people who think that it will go away, it will not go away.

Secondly, there will remain high-profile cases, there will remain issues of confidence that we need to work towards, and I think to me, race being seen as a problem is counter-productive. We have to start to talk about race being seen as an opportunity in very diverse London, and that is why I make some far-reaching recommendations in relation to recruitment and various other aspects.

I think the second thing is that equally, there is a gender agenda, there is a disability agenda, and ultimately, you know, that to a senior manager like me makes real business sense, that if I was to have that level of representation – and I have been pushing some real positive action round those initiatives. I think we should not move away from the fact that there is that agenda, and that we need to create what is really an inclusive workforce.

Miss Weekes: There is another suggestion, and sometimes what you call something does not really matter, it is what you do with it. One of the staff associations who spoke to us yesterday said, "I am rather tired with the words 'visible ethnic minorities', what about 'minority groups'?"

May I suggest something that might be considered: "Fair treatment for all". Because clearly fair treatment for all would involve everybody: do you think there is now time for reconsideration of what we call things, and what we include in that title?

Mr Ghaffur: Yes, I think there is. I mean, to be honest, the way that London's profile is going, the notion of visible ethnic minorities will not be the case in five to six years, for a start.

I mention in my report that the term "visible ethnic minorities" being labelled on recruits who are coming in, thinking they are joining one organisation, is counter-productive.

I do have a difficulty with – do not get me wrong, I think having separate labels for purposes of understanding, monitoring, taking positive action, is fine. I think what we should be endeavouring to become is an inclusive organisation, with leaders believing and feeling that if they have a very diverse team around them, that is a really good thing, that we should have, you know, people with the right skills in the right place, and that includes life skills.

So I think that aspiration is absolutely necessary. Having said that, I think there is a danger of again throwing something that works in some ways.

I am very concerned about separatism. I have been in the United States, I have seen some of the issues around one organisation operating in very separate elements.

I think what we should work towards is inclusivity in the mainstream organisation, and everything that we should talk about, but the diversity agenda in that context for me is about valuing individuality, difference and fairness for all, and I agree with what you say in relation to that, and that is fairness for all, all of the people, because I think that is what will make us a rich organisation in achieving our aims.

Miss Weekes: That conveniently takes me to: what happens when a senior commander, a borough commander or above, realises that a line manager is not line managing a visible ethnic minority person because he is frightened, he is not confident, he is worried about what might or might not happen?

What are borough commanders told that they should do about that situation?

Mr Ghaffur: Well, I think – I mean, the first issue is, can they resolve that –

Miss Weekes: No, what are borough commanders told that they should do when there is evidence that line managers will not line manage black and ethnic minority officers, or if they raise an issue of race discrimination, they say, "I will not touch it, I will send it up to the commander". What are they told they should do about that?

Mr Ghaffur: Deal with it.

Miss Weekes: Is that universally known, that borough commanders should insist that line managers deal with it?

Mr Ghaffur: Yes.

Miss Weekes: Well, why are we then receiving evidence, quite consistently, that there is fear, there is reluctance to line manage ethnic minority officers and staff, and/or race/gender issues?

Mr Ghaffur: Yes, the message has not got through. I found the same thing. But I think the commitment from the top is very clear, and I have been party to lots of discussions with the senior team where that message is very, very clear, in terms of dealing with it.

There are other issues, in terms of building capabilities, et cetera, but frankly, I think quite clearly the message is not getting through.

Miss Weekes: We have heard that before, Deputy Assistant Commissioner: things do not get down to the level of middle management and those who make the all important everyday decisions. Every single individual and staff association gives huge credit to the Commissioner and many senior officers of your rank, but they say it just does not filter down. What can we do about that?

Mr Ghaffur: I think we are – you know, I am very, very clear, and I can only speak about the narrow perspective, you know; I am very clear about the Commissioner's commitment to what we are seeking to do in terms of diversity. I regard myself as an agent of the Commissioner to deliver that, and the responsibility lies with me, and accountability lies with me, and there are checks and balances in relation to what I agree with the Commissioner, in terms of delivery.

I should do the same, you know, so I do the same with my deputy assistant commissioners, my commanders, and then effectively, you know, that should cascade down.

The important thing, though, is that people like me – really, the Commissioner cannot do it on his own – should then go and check that it is actually happening, and where it is not happening, we should take the steps that need to be taken to deliver the clarity of the message, and I think –

Miss Weekes: Who checks that it happens?

Mr Ghaffur: The Commissioner – what happens is that every two weeks, we have a large scale intervention, in the Met, in terms of our mission, vision, values sessions; there are hundreds of people there, and part of the encouragement by the Commissioner is people to come up front and raise their grievances, and that is a very good checking mechanism, in terms of whether it is happening or not.

From time to time, we do try and formalise inspections and do certain things in terms of compliance. The important point is when there is no compliance – firstly, it is the clarity of the message; secondly, if there is no compliance, then it is not up to the Commissioner to do it all, it is up to me and the various other leaders to actually deliver.

Miss Weekes: I have one last point, because it would be helpful, I think, to wrap things up, and it deals with your assessment again within your report on an aspect of the gender issue. It is at TXG 1/43; it is going to come up on the screen for you, but if you do have it, you might want to turn to it.

It is your overall im

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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 T Ghaffur on 7 April 2004. Sections available here: Transcript of public session: Assistant Commissioner T Ghaffur, Specialist Crime Directorate, MPS Questions by Sir William Morris Questions by Miss Weekes Alternative versions This transcript is also available with original line and page numbering. Content Transcript of public session: Assistant Commissioner T Ghaffur, Specialist Crime Directorate, MPS Wednesday, 7 April 2004 10.30 am Sir William Morris: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Inquiry, Mr Ghaffur. Can I start by thanking you for accepting our invitation to attend the Inquiry to give evidence, and thank you also for letting us have your written submission, which we found extremely helpful. I do appreciate that for some of our witnesses, the process can be somewhat daunting, so I thought it would be helpful if I set out very 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 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 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 know, we have been tasked 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 by nature or character adversarial. We are very keen to enquire into the issues raised by our terms of reference so that we can make appropriate recommendations for further good practice within the Metropolitan Police Service. To assist us in our report, you have given us pointers to areas of information which are of great interest. You have set out for us the background, purpose and content of your review; you have indicated your findings in relation to the effectiveness of service delivered by the Metropolitan Police Service; also your findings in relation to the appropriateness and inclusiveness of Metropolitan Police Service internal processes. You have addressed the issues of complaints, grievance handling and discipline, and also leadership approaches and style. You have indicated your findings in respect of the Met's legal responsibility and its actions and recommendations, and finally, you have shared with us some of the conclusions from your thematic review. We would like naturally to ask you questions on these matters, and indeed range perhaps somewhat wider, exploring those issues which are of mutual interest to us, but before we move on to have the conversation with you, by way of inviting you to respond to our questions, I wonder whether, for the benefit of the transcript, you would mind just introducing yourself to the Inquiry. Mr Ghaffur: Good morning, chair; good morning, members of the panel. My name is Tarique Ghaffur, I am the Assistant Commissioner in the Metropolitan Police, currently responsible for specialist crime. Specialist crime covers a range of issues, ranging from investigation of homicides in London, serious gun crime, drug supply, economic crime, protection. I also oversee the intelligence and the forensic assets in London, as well as the crime academy. Sir William Morris: Okay, thank you very much indeed for introducing yourself and the areas of your particular interest within the MPS. Questions by Sir William Morris Sir William Morris: Mr Ghaffur, you have produced a very interesting report, which has national implications. I note that you refer to the BBC television programme the Secret Policeman in the executive summary of your report, and this can in fact be found at reference TXG 1/2. This portrayed examples of overt racism at a police training establishment. You say that brought your task into sharper focus, and obviously, it formed part of the background to your thematic review of race and diversity in the Metropolitan Police Service. Can I ask, do you think the sort of events shown in the Secret Policeman could happen or repeat itself in the Metropolitan Police Service? Mr Ghaffur: Well, the Secret Policeman programme, which, of course, did not relate directly to the Metropolitan Police, but it related to a training establishment up north, was the catalyst for my inquiry. As to whether it could happen, I mean, my personal impression in relation to the Secret Policeman, quite clearly, I was absolutely disgusted with what I saw; very concerned, given the scale of the fact that, you know – I mean, I have been a police officer for 29 years, I worked in many different police forces. We have had high-profile incidents, racial type inquiries, not least the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, the Scarman Inquiry, various other aspects, so when you put it in the context of that, I was very concerned at the fact that something could happen, you know, despite the fact that we had gone through a huge amount of process and progress in many ways. You asked me a direct question as to whether it could happen again: I cannot say that it will never happen again, I think it could, and I think there are – Sir William Morris: My question was whether it could happen in the Metropolitan Police Service in particular. Mr Ghaffur: Well, I cannot guarantee that it cannot happen in the Metropolitan Police, and in particular, within the training environment, because quite clearly, the people who actually come into the training environment come from various backgrounds, come from various parts of society, and sadly, in parts of society, particularly in London, you know, there are quite clear incidences of racism, et cetera, so I cannot say that it cannot happen, because clearly it can happen. Sir William Morris: When you say "training background", do I assume correctly that you are making reference to the Hendon training centre? Mr Ghaffur: Yes, I am. Sir William Morris: Well, whether or not you believe it could or could not happen, the real issue is: what, if any, steps are being taken within the Metropolitan Police Service to ensure that it does not happen? Mr Ghaffur: I think the fact that the Commissioner very quickly took action in relation to asking me to do my review – and the very first task that I undertook as part of the review, and I was very pleased to undertake the review, was to actually do a risk assessment, in terms of what are the risks in relation to us at Hendon, and frankly, you know, what I found was that we took some – a number of immediate steps to ensure, and those steps are very much documented in the review. There is a clear action plan within the appendices, in terms of some of the immediate steps we actually took to ensure that it does not happen. Then there was an issue about trying to unpick really what are some of the other things that can be done, and I have made a number of recommendations in relation to our training environment per se, in terms of addressing some of the issues. So I think we took some immediate steps; part of that included some limited integrity testing, part of that included looking at what the risks were, and there is an action plan, and I can go through the action plan if you want, specifics in relation to what colleagues within the HR department did. Then it was a question of also commenting on the wider aspect of environment within training itself, as to – as far as it relates to, particularly, minority officers, and I took into consideration comments that had been made by the BPA report, what has happened to minority officers as well, so I think collectively, as far as the Met is concerned, I think we took some immediate action, and we are continuing to take further action in terms of developing and ensuring that training is an environment where if there is any kind of racist behaviour, that is immediately dealt with. Sir William Morris: We are talking about in excess of 30,000 police officers. Has an individual letter gone out to every single police officer from the Commissioner to make it absolutely clear to the individual that under no circumstances will the sort of behaviour which was manifesting itself in the Secret Policeman be tolerated in the Metropolitan Police Service? I hear what you say about the generality of approach; what I am sure my colleagues and I would wish to hear is the specifics of what action has been taken by the Metropolitan Police Service to ensure that this behaviour does not take place in the Met, and if it did, every single police officer would be aware of the consequences. Mr Ghaffur: I think the review obviously was a commitment to show that we are going to take some immediate action. Beyond that, from where I am sitting, I am not aware that an individual letter went out, but the way the management team of the Met communicates is – I know that there was a fairly strongly-worded communication that went out through our intranet system. I know that the Commissioner has used every opportunity to talk about not accepting any behaviour, whether it is based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and some of those he himself does through a significant amount of visible leadership which he displays in meeting officers and in conducting focus groups. I also know that collectively, we all attend what are called "mission, vision, value" events, which are large scale events, where officers are there, and again, on a number of occasions, I have heard him in particular absolutely make it very clear, but, of course, the Commissioner is just the leader of the organisation. I think the important thing is that it permeates down to every other leader making the same pronouncements, and I myself have made it absolutely clear to my 5,000-odd staff that we would not tolerate, you know, any behaviour that is based on race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, et cetera; so I think collectively, if you put all that together, there has been a very significant message from the top in relation to what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, but I cannot, chair, mention – I am not aware whether there was a personalised letter sent to 40,000-odd or 44,000-odd staff. Sir William Morris: We have heard evidence that there is a culture within the Metropolitan Police Service where the victims always lose, and the perpetrators win. Do you recognise that culture at all? Mr Ghaffur: Well, I think – I mean, in the sense – that is a fairly generalised statement, in terms of, you know, without – yes, there are case studies, quite clearly, I considered some of those case studies, where a person who, for example, had made a grievance – because of the length at which the process had undertaken, that the person who made the grievance almost became the victim. I myself, because of the unique position I am in as one of the significant role models for ethnic minority communities, from time to time have examples from people where I think, "Hang on, this person has actually made a grievance or raised an issue, but the process itself is taking over", and I comment about that in my report, which is becoming almost disproportionate. But to say that there is a pervasive culture right across the organisation, I am not sure, because equally, I have heard about cases where there are individuals who have really championed the cause for making sure that the person who is making a grievance or the person who has made a complaint or the person who has whistle blowed against somebody almost does not become a victim. So yes, there are cases, you know, well documented cases – there are cases that have been brought to my attention, because of the unique position I am in, but I would not say that that is a culture that permeates right across the organisation, and I think I do comment about some of the issues in my review. Sir William Morris: You describe the culture that I imparted to you, from the evidence that has been offered to us, as a generalised statement; would it be helpful if we were able to indicate some specific instances to justify that evidence? Mr Ghaffur: I think, as I said, chair, I am myself aware; so, for example, I considered the BPA report in relation to what is happening to ethnic minorities, particularly at Hendon. There were some issues in there which I can very clearly relate to. I do have a number of, you know, specific examples where people – so I am not saying that there are no specific examples of that happening. What we have to look at is why that is happening, and for example in my report I found that, you know, sometimes, particularly on minor matters, instead of taking a pragmatic approach, there was an overemphasis on formalising the thing and then passing it up the chain, and I found examples where somebody made grievances – rather than become a human issue, in terms of trying to tackle some of those aspects, it almost became an administrative process, and I myself have come across, you know, areas where things have been referred in my workplace to me. So, chair, I am very aware of the examples, and that manifests into the way people react, but if you want to pose me a couple of questions or examples, I might comment on them. Sir William Morris: Okay. You have said that you, in your command, have communicated with your 5,000 staff, 5,000 people for whom you are more or less directly responsible. What form did your communication take to your 5,000 people for whom you are responsible; was it a personal letter, or was it the intranet again? What was the method of communication; can you help us? Mr Ghaffur: I myself, given the unique nature, in terms of victims and perpetrators, coming from communities in London – I have a very open style in terms of, firstly, communicating with the public; I regularly go out to consultative groups, because it is important – the reason why we are here is to deliver services and make London safer, so I go out, I must speak to 200 to 300 or 400 members of the public a month around serious crime and organised crime issues. Similarly, internally, you know, I am extremely visible, I go out myself at least once a week, sometimes twice, to go and visit my officers on the frontline, and actually talk to them on the first – on a face-to-face basis, and some of these things that are talked about are made very clear. I have a personalised – the issue about communication is two ways, it is not just one way, just sort of talking down to people and giving them the message. I have a personalised website on the specialist crime intranet where they can ask me, my officers – "Ask ACSC", where officers can ask me, very clearly, questions or raise issues in relation to any matter, professional or personal. I hold focus groups, like the Commissioner does; so I have used every opportunity – I have large scale intervention exercises. So I have used each one of those to actually ensure that the message in relation to what I stand for is well communicated, and I think my officers see that visibility as well, because I publicise where I am going, what I am actually doing. So I think I have reached out to the majority of my staff, but there may be pockets where I have not. Sir William Morris: Do I take it that your reference to you communicating with the 5,000 officers and staff who are under your direct command was an indirect communication and not a direct communication to the individuals? Mr Ghaffur: Not sending individual letters, no. Yes, through using the mediums that are open to me, yes. Sir William Morris: In the light of the Secret Policeman, and having regard to the magnitude of damage to the national police service, do you not think there is a case for a senior officer of the Metropolitan Police to write to every individual police officer to make it absolutely clear that the behaviour was not acceptable and would not be tolerated in the Met, and the consequences for that sort of behaviour would be spelt out? Mr Ghaffur: I think if you mentioned that – was there a need to directly write to individuals in relation to – well, I did not do that. I mean, what I did was follow the Commissioner's example, in terms of making sure that I used every opportunity to bring – but whether there was a direct – whether, in hindsight, that would have been a possibility, perhaps yes. Sir William Morris: I have your report in mind in relation to that question, on the recommendations, and I am asking you whether, in the light of your inquiry, the magnitude of the concerns, the implication for the police service nationally – against that background, and we will hear from others about the Met itself, whether the judgment for a direct communication to officers was justified or not. Mr Ghaffur: I think in the overall aspect of – in relation to the magnitude, the scale of it, the risks to the reputation, et cetera, my answer would be yes. Sir William Morris: As a result of your review, Mr Ghaffur, on race and diversity issues, what lessons do you think need to be learnt within the Metropolitan Police Service? Mr Ghaffur: I think I very clearly commented – I mean, what I did was I took sort of a golden thread approach in my review, and what I did was looked at service delivery, then, as you quite clearly said, chair, I looked at recruitment, retention, career development, leadership; and then looked at how we are progressing in various reports. I think the messages for me, in terms of the overall messages, are that, you know, the job in relation to tackling race and diversity per se is not finished. We started on a very significant journey, particularly in relation – my review was very race-specific, and I do accept that there are wider aspects in relation to diversity; but the job in relation to race was very significantly – I mean, the Lawrence Inquiry was the wake-up call, a serious wake-up call, in terms of the way we deliver services. I very clearly also realised that the diverse nature of London itself is a major opportunity rather than a challenge. The Met have done very significant things, post-Lawrence, in the way it delivers its services, the way it actually sort of manages some of its internal processes, but there was a lot more to be done, and the headlines for me really were that in service delivery, I identified four areas: clarity around stop and search, an issue around, "Are we engaged sufficiently with young people?", the challenge of new communities in London, and very clearly, issues around quality of service. So there were some lessons that I put on the table in relation to that. In relation to the recruitment aspect, there was a lot of good news, in the sense that if you look at the recruitment trend in relation to visible ethnic minorities, it is pretty upwards, particularly since 1999, but there were some issues around the way the recruitment process operates, so I made a number of comments in relation to that as to whether, you know, that recruitment process was appropriate. In retention, you know, the statistics are very clear: in relation to the small number of people who leave the Met, a large proportion of visible ethnic minorities leave within the first two years, and then there is another chunk that leaves after five years. Now as to a real understanding as to why that is happening, I comment on that. On career development, the absence of role models across the organisation is a big issue. The issues around specialist – the challenges around having representation within specialist departments was a real big issue. On complaints, really, the issue about particularly the perceptions around how complaints are dealt with, the issues around the process itself, and more importantly, I think, to wrap up the leadership dimension, whether there was sufficient – we have done a huge amount of work in building leaders' capabilities and skills in the way we deliver services, but is there sufficient emotional leadership engagement on race and diversity issues internally; whether we need to do more. And quite clearly, you know, the challenge of having role models really, so chair, if I – so those are some of the headlines which I found through my report. But I must add, you know, in the context of all that, the Met – and I have worked in other police forces as well – frankly has moved a long way, but quite significantly, it is not enough, there is a lot more to be done. Sir William Morris: I said earlier, and I say to all our witnesses, that we are not just interested in what is wrong with the Met, we are equally keen to hear about what is right, but most importantly, what we really are about is: what can we collectively do to make it better? Looking at your report, can you identify for us, please, what you think represents the most important contribution that would assist this Inquiry? Mr Ghaffur: I think in my report, I summarise basically in the conclusions, effectively, what I feel are really absolutely important in improving the organisation. I think there is a real issue about valuing individuality and difference to a far extent. That is a real, real point, and that is about, to me, what diversity is really about. It is about valuing – you know, people who are displaying difference, individuality. I have been amazed that when you go beyond the way we deliver services, what I am saying is: please be more people-centred, as opposed to procedural-centred, because you are dealing with people. Particularly where you have got a greater level of difference and individuality, the expectations and everything else are different, there is a real need to take sometimes a practical, pragmatic – you know, a leadership interventionist approach to treat people as perhaps we as leaders would like to be treated ourselves. I talk about focusing on creating and developing strong leaders for whom diversity is actually a real central tenet, you know, that is a thread that – it is not all about just strategy and policy, and having nice documents and having procedures; it is actually about transferring belief and behaviours, and almost walking the talk. Finally, what I am saying is that we need to be more dynamic in finding creative, innovative, staff-friendly, diversity-proof solutions to problems, and I think a lot of those solutions to problems actually lie with actually the staff who work in the sharp end, who can give the ideas. Finally, I think there is – we just need to be a bit more brave on things such as positive action, where we prepare people and we make sure that we effectively are, you know, allowing people to be able to be represented right across the organisation. The only other point I would make is that where people make mistakes, I mean, the issue about blame – where people make mistakes, then frankly, I think the learning that comes out of the mistake is more important, and that learning has to be transferred into the workplace, and what I am saying is we can have loads of reports, loads of recommendations, loads of boxes ticked, but actually, at the end of the day, you are dealing with people, so there has to be a more whole approach to people. Sir William Morris: Sure. The Metropolitan Police Service has been described to us as – how was it put – "policy rich, implementation poor". Firstly, do you share those views, but be that as it might, what steps are being taken to implement the recommendations in your report, given, as you say, the report is one thing, but we need to have more than nice documents, and the cynics would say, "Another lovely glossy document". But the question is: what steps are being taken to implement the recommendations in your report? Mr Ghaffur: I think the – yes, there is a danger of this document becoming, you know, another document on a shelf. I am very conscious of this, but I think the process that I have adopted is in the sense that I did the report in quite a fast time, in relation to delivering the results on it. That report went into a consultation phase, and I got quite significant comments from it being a brilliant piece of work to it being awful really, but a number of those comments have been included, in terms of making it more rich, because the greater the involvement, the better. The final draft has now been produced; unfortunately the draft got leaked, so there was a public dimension to it. Once the final draft – this is going to be very much – quite clearly will form part of your Inquiry, chair. There is a lot of debate around the report going on within the Metropolitan Police Authority. There is also further dialogue with the consultative groups and other stakeholders, and what I would hope is once it has been finalised entirely, that the recommendations would be fed into the Deputy Commissioner's diversity forum, which involves all the stakeholders, and that there would be a fairly strong, robust plan that would support that. But in addition to that, some of the real nuggets in the report are the softer measures, the cultural, the issues that we could put right because, again, the recommendations can be ticked; I would hope that there would be greater debate around how we – within the management board, and I have already initiated, to start to say, "Well, how do we actually permeate the organisation in relation to that?" The test of the pudding would be, really, if in 12 to 18 months, there is a health check done, a compliance check done, to see whether these have been complied with, because my experience is unless you really do that sort of check ... So quite clearly I will do as much as I can, but I think there is a commitment within the management board, and there is a commitment within the MPA to actually progress matters, so let us see what happens. Sir William Morris: Thank you very much. I will pass you on for further questions to Sir Anthony. Questions by Sir Anthony Burden Sir Anthony Burden: Good morning. I want to deal in more detail with Hendon, if I may. Our reason for being so concerned about Hendon, I am sure you would share this view, is because it is the cultural gateway into your organisation; that is why it is so important. Your comments, I think, start at page 28 of your report, but contextually in relation to the size of the organisation, at the bottom of page 29, you very helpfully give the staffing levels at Hendon; TXG 1/29. (Pause). It is your paragraph 1.15 anyway; we may have to go from the manuscript, I think. Maybe we can do this manually, it is probably better. But you make reference there to the fact that there are 180 police officers, and you give a gender and ethnicity breakdown. Five police staff employed in recruit training, which is a very large staffing level, no question about that. On my page 30, but the next page of your report, you make the point, and quite properly you made us aware this morning that you were conscious of three major reviews already having been undertaken into training at Hendon, and therefore your review really was a snapshot in time, and you have outlined what you have done to assist your report in relation to Hendon. Under paragraph 1.15.4, "Recruit training stage: diversity issues", you make some helpful comments about the competence of the majority of the trainers to deliver diversity training, and also to deal with difficult issues. Could you just enlarge on that and assist us more in relation to that matter? Mr Ghaffur: Yes, I think the context in which I was coming from – I mean, as you quite rightly say, training is your gateway. I mean, recruitment is your gateway; I think the way you deal with people on recruitment tells a lot about the image of your organisation, how it operates, but I – when I started to look at the training in relation to, quite clearly, diversity issues amongst trainers – because if it is a gateway, then the people who are delivering it have got to be your champions. You know, they have to be your ambassadors, really, who walk the talk, and what I found was that given the fairly significant amount of recruitment that we had done – I mean, it was something like 3,400 officers. In context terms, we recruited more people than the establishment of some police forces. Quite clearly, there is a lot of pressure on people to deliver volume, and I think that in that context they have done a magnificent job, but I think the important thing was that when a recruit person comes into training, they need quite a bit of support; they need support through their individual circumstances in which they are coming in – because they come from different backgrounds. They need mentoring, in terms of support to the way they are going through what is a fairly formalised environment. They have to be – if you are going to meet individual needs, as opposed to collective needs, they have to be counselled at times, and coached at times, so there has to be a personal dimension to that. Then also, more importantly, in diversity terms, people have to really understand what diversity means to them, and they have got to sort of live and breathe it, frankly. What I found was that they were trying to – the trainer was trying to do all of that, and the impact of training that had been given to them, which is, you know, one week diversity training, is just not significant. What I commented upon – I said, "Look, you know, they need some support mechanisms that actually can deliver support to them, rather than leaving them" – because if you add on top of that they almost were line managers as well, because our recruits go out as well, it is just not do-able. So the issue I posed was, you know, if you are going to have personal tutorials, which I recommend, if you are going to have people who are going to look after needs and expectations of a very diverse – if you are going to deal with some serious discipline issues if they emerge, et cetera, then frankly, the support mechanism, and in particular the focus group I held, the personnel function, you know, which can provide that sort of support mechanism, had been brigaded with the recruit function, so in fact had been more centralised. I was just saying: look, you know, all those areas, you cannot have one person doing it, because they will get beleaguered by it. That is the context in which I was making those – and I was wondering whether some of the difficulties that are quoted as individual case studies were because of that. Sir Anthony Burden: Can I come back to that perhaps later? Because I think that is very important from our viewpoint, to try and exactly understand what it is you are recommending, and in report terms, trying to assist, perhaps, the case that you are making. Could I move on then to the issue of the culture which exists at Hendon? We are talking diversity as well, not just race. Because we have heard some conflicting evidence; we heard earlier in the Inquiry that there were some genuine concerns about the culture at Hendon in relation to behaviour, particularly around sexism, racism and behaviour that could be perceived as bullying. The commander in charge at Hendon said, "Well, if only evidence could be brought of individual cases", then he would look at them, but he felt that much of it was around speculation. If I could just put up on the screen what I consider to be more substantial evidence – and I will put these up one at a time, so that you have an opportunity to read them. First is the insistence that Muslim officers drill and parade, which is unnatural and embarrassing for Muslim women to do. Second is those who wished halal food at Hendon; if their name was not on a list, then quite simply, they could not have it, and Muslim officers felt that was very demeaning, and actually identified them out as being different. The third is the challenge to an officer that he could not grow a beard whilst he was at Hendon; if I could say in support of this particular statement, we have had an individual submission from an officer who had to bring in a religious leader to convince the member of staff that what he was asking for was nothing more than his rights in relation to his religious beliefs. Then, in fact, he found that there was a policy in the Metropolitan Police which would have explained everything to the trainer, had he looked. Fourth is in relation to Muslim male officers, and sensitivity as to the way they shower after physical exercise at Hendon, and then no tolerance when they decide to go back to the room and shower, and as a consequence are late for lessons; they then get penalised as a consequence. And really the statement there that all people are seeking really is that they be treated as human beings, and some understanding; I think that was something you said in your values statement, to the chairman, as to what you felt to be most important. Then another short series of examples, where concern was raised by a witness about the culture generally, in a very pressurised environment. Then an example where it was felt that there were pressures, possibly quite rightly, on students to do well, but these pressures were brought to bear in a less than humane way, which could be interpreted as a bullying atmosphere. Then when issues such as appearance came into play, how that was dealt with, in this particular case to the extent that the officer felt so pressurised that an issue of untidy hair – we have had an opportunity, you have not, I am sorry to say, to see the photographs of the officer concerned, and the untidiness certainly comes into question, as to the judgment around whether the hair was untidy, if you are willing to accept that from me. You yourself have said you have experienced case studies being brought before you, and I just really want to ask whether you can relate to the sort of facts that you have seen on the screen, because these are all issues that are on the transcript of this Inquiry as having been brought before us. Mr Ghaffur: Sure. I can relate – because of the unique position I am in, I mean, quite clearly, as a Muslim, some of the things you told me there, I can relate very personally to them as being inappropriate. Secondly, I can relate examples of these sort of things which have been brought to my attention personally, which I have had to deal with. In the context of my inquiry – I mean, if I took a forward look – I was really pleased. I mean, there is a perception about Hendon, you know, and there is a danger of the perception about Hendon being the same as perceptions about other district training centres. The fundamental difference is that Hendon trains for the Met, and in many ways, you know, it is a continuing from recruitment into training, whereas in other parts of the country, they have to go to another island site. So yes, I had read, you know, I was aware of examples. I personally myself have dealt with a number of examples. So I went to Hendon with a very open mind, in terms of conducting my review. What I was encouraged – I was encouraged by the developments now taking place within Hendon, and in particular, the very flexible approach to training and development that is being encouraged particularly at Sunbury and various other places, so there is a lot of good practice going on, but even when I was there, I had to intervene – as I said to you, we had to take some immediate actions. I had to intervene in three or four instances where I can relate to specifically issues that I think, to a certain extent, may in reality make Hendon an unfriendly environment, or in real terms, there may be evidence that there is difficulties. So, for example, I do comment in my report about the danger of fast-tracking people, and then you put a minority officer there who is being fast-tracked, with a white officer who has not, and possible backlash of that. I comment about that in my report. Sir Anthony Burden: Yes, you do. Mr Ghaffur: An issue that I had to deal with, that was brought to my attention, was around halal food, that halal food was being served, but it was being served at the end of the chain, and almost there was separatism, in terms of people having to go for that food and sit separately, and I intervened, and put – you know, worked with the management to put that right. There was an issue raised around showers, not in the context of the Muslim officer that you raise here, but in the context of a Sikh officer, and I think again, we took very quick remedial action in relation to that. I comment about possibly the alien environment, because if you are going to recruit Londoners from very diverse communities, very different backgrounds, to put them in a different environment creates some challenges, so I talked about the island mentality, the drinking culture, and how people can fit in into that. So I think, you know, there are examples – I talk about in my report for Hendon to revisit what is happening to our – in the minority report from the MBPA. So I think, you know, in the context of examples, they are there, and I can very clearly relate to them, and issues that need to be addressed. But I think the encouraging side for me was effectively that certainly, I found that there were a number of things that colleagues in HR and training – and within the diversity directorate, as well as the DOIT team – that had in train that actually will start to change some aspect of – you know, some aspects of the environment that operates. You know, I came across another example where a person – a minority officer had failed most of their exams, but had huge life skills, and then joined another police force, and passed and transferred into the Met. So, you know, I think these examples are indicators of culture, and I think we have got to listen to them and take some note of them, but on a broader front, I must say that in the context of some of the – you know, I was pleasantly surprised in many ways, given the perception that existed about Hendon, and what I actually found, that there was a lot of good practice that people were conscious of and wanted to implement and move forward, and I know that is continuing. The issue about militaristic – you know, that is an old cliche. I mean, I am nearly in my 30th year of my police service. The issue about, you know, hierarchical, militaristic, rank-based organisation, against a much more looser approach – I think you have to look at the context of the job we do, and frankly, I am still a believer that there has to be an element of discipline, there has to be an element of hierarchy, to provide – particularly deal with the command and control type of environment, that people like me in my job have to deal with, and manage the risks and deliver some of the operational aspects of it, and some of those are very highly risky. So I think, you know, I do not – a bit of me just still says that having pride and being disciplined – and I am not saying go over the top with it, but having some sort of regulation actually is not a bad thing. Sir Anthony Burden: Can I then take us into the future, because as the chairman said earlier, we are concerned with putting things right, and helping the organisation get things right, and making recommendations which are sensible, and which matter. If I can refer you back to the end of 1.15.4, on your page 31, I think it is, where you talk about the pastoral care unit, and initiatives which are being put in place. You see, it might be that the staff at Hendon feel they are not being racist, not being sexist, not intending to bully, but that their style of training is actually in the interests of the Metropolitan Police, that they do need the help that you suggest they need because they are under such pressure cooker conditions there to get these recruits through the process, there is just too much to take regard of, and there is not even time to train them right in terms of diversity; there needs to be stronger policing of insensitivity around diversity. Is that a fair comment? Mr Ghaffur: Stronger policing and intolerance of people who breach that. Sir Anthony Burden: And intolerance, yes. Mr Ghaffur: And identifying that at an early stage; yes, I agree with that entirely, because if you do not take swift action, then that has a danger of, you know, a level of acceptance that should be not acceptable, and that is well preached by the top management, you know, and many leaders in the organisation. I think the issue of our training, whether – I mean, I would like to see more support for trainers, I think that is – in the current context of the way we deliver training, but to me, from the point a person wants to join this organisation, particularly Londoners, and particularly very diverse Londoners, then the training dimension of it, and the continuous professional development dimension of it, becomes almost – you know, end-to-end, lifetime experience. Just boxing that off there and boxing that bit of that there and boxing it – I just do not see that you can completely eradicate some of the problems that occur. You know, it has got to be the whole person approach, where people are bringing lifestyles – that is why I recommend that those should be captured early on, used in CCRU, you know, then taking them through a process of continuous learning, so whilst they are waiting they can learn, making a more flexible approach to training, which is what they are moving towards. If that means staying at home, fine; and if that means a modular approach, that is fine, and then the continuous development of people, and weaved into that is positive action initiatives. I think the crucial point is that mentally, we are still seeing positive action as positive discrimination, because we are looking for fairness for all. Well, you know, what we learn from delivering services to the community post-Lawrence is that you cannot have a one size fits all service for everybody. What you have to do is customise and value that individuality and difference, so I think – you know, yes, if you are going to leave it as it is, then provide more support, but I recommend a completely – a more community-centric recruitment approach, a more flexible type of training that is being delivered, and a more continuous professional development that links into career development, et cetera. Those may be fine words, but I think they are deliverable, they really are deliverable, but I think it needs to be looked at as a whole, because otherwise you look at little pieces; I just do not understand how that can work, frankly. Sir Anthony Burden: I mean, the long-term aim is one I would share with you: you are looking for each trainer to have the skills to deal with all issues, including diversity issues, in a sensitive and understanding way. Mr Ghaffur: Sorry, not only skills, but they should easily be able to call upon support if they need to, and feel comfortable about doing it. Sir Anthony Burden: Can we just talk about that? Because obviously, there is a short to medium-term issue here, that you cannot skill up people that rapidly, and obviously, you are suffering under immense resource difficulties to staff up at Hendon, which as we understand it, is almost working on shifts to get recruits through as required. To allow young female Muslim recruits, and gay recruits, and all minority groups within the diverse workforce that you are trying to create, to go back to their communities and their friends at the weekend and say, "My experience at Hendon is one where diversity is valued", what can we assist you in doing, through recommendations, that would assist with a short-term fix as well as the longer-term aspirations, which I think you absolutely articulate within your report, and the way to get there is well-founded, I think, in your recommendations. But I think you recognise we cannot wait for that, because there are holes that need to be plugged. Mr Ghaffur: I think there are three – some of the clues are in the report. I mean, the first thing is that when people arrive there, for God's sake, let us have some personal tutorials, where you elicit expectations. We do that in other areas, where there is a statement of expectations into what are the needs, what are the expectations. You cannot do it on a group basis. So I suggest here there should be personal tutorials, in terms of ... The second thing is appointment of some professional staff to just support things such as mentoring, counselling, so that there is a third party reference point, so that if there is any difficulties, they can be mediated out. The third thing which I mention here is very much community involvement in Hendon training, so setting up of an IAG type, where community members of those sort of diverse colleagues can be actually reflected within the accountability framework of training. So I think, you know, if you said to me, "What are the immediate solutions?", one is: see individuals very quickly and elicit – you know, build their confidence, that if there is an issue it will be dealt with; have some professional support; and frankly, some of it does need professional support, and we do that in other areas. I do it in child protection, where, you know, people are given professional occupational health support, et cetera, and that is compulsory. Thirdly, get a community engagement in, that builds accountability in terms of delivery, and then robustly monitor what is actually happening, frankly. Because I think in a humanistic approach – the culture I am trying to have in my set-up is that if you make a grievance, if you are unhappy within the workplace, we should be celebrating that, not sort of dismissing it as, you know – and then we should take immediate action in dealing with it. Yes, there will be challenges you will never be able to meet – because some of the reasons why people may leave is because of their expectations – the job choice may not be what they thought it was going to be, so inevitably, we are going to get some casualties around it. That is why I recommend that there should be pre-employment induction, a proper one, so people understand what the realities of the job are really. Sir Anthony Burden: Just finally from me, it was mentioned in relation to Hendon that staff associations could see a clear distinction in terms of the culture, the atmosphere and the behaviour at Hendon when a particular individual – I am not identifying the individual, but it is the type of individual who gave very clear leadership at middle management level at Hendon, as to what was and was not acceptable behaviour, and what culture would exist. Would you agree that that sort of overt leadership, and the selection of people that can do that well, is important in a training environment? Mr Ghaffur: Yes, because in an operational environment – I mean, I call that intrusive leadership, not necessarily down the chain, but when you have to manage issues, you sort of give that very clear message; yes, I certainly would concur entirely with you, because people are very clear as to where they stand and where they do not. Sir Anthony Burden: Thank you very much, indeed. Sir William Morris: We should be moving on to Miss Weekes now, but I think it is probably an appropriate time for us to take a very short break for the benefit of the stenographers, about five to seven minutes. 11.38 am (A short break) 11.52 am Sir William Morris: Okay, Mr Ghaffur, I will pass you straight over to Miss Weekes for some questions from her. Questions by Miss Weekes Miss Weekes: Thank you very much, Assistant Commissioner. We are rather grateful that you have come to give evidence; you are the most senior visible ethnic minority officer of Assistant Commissioner rank, and with 30 years in the force, it would be very helpful if I could go back to the general matters that you have raised in your report, which are not specifically to do with visible ethnic minorities, but to do with every officer and staff in the force. The first of those issues are the management issues, the management issues of people, informal resolution of disputes at work. I think you would agree with me that the hallmark of a country's judicial system is how it treats those who are accused of a wrong and the victims of a wrong, and Britain is pretty high up there, so equally, the way the Met Police treat people who have been accused of a wrong, and those who say they are a victim of a wrong, is absolutely crucial to your reputation. Do you think the line management of disputes generally is good? Mr Ghaffur: I think you are absolutely right in terms of the hallmark, in terms of, you know, victims, and people who are accused. I mean, I would just add the issue about – which I have to take into consideration around proportionality, around the human rights dimension. So I think you are absolutely – so I agree with that statement entirely. I think we have made efforts in dealing with particularly grievances and other things, and we have moved on from where we were, but I still think there is quite a long way to go, because from a personal perspective, and also, I am a leader of an organisation, which is 5,000 strong; to me, as I said earlier on, if somebody – say somebody gets – makes a grievance, as an example, in the workplace, I think the mindset should be that that is a positive thing. The second thing is that there should be face-to-face communication to try and resolve that matter at the earliest opportunity, and the line manager, being the next person, is absolutely key. The third thing is that the procedures that should exist behind it should be aimed at bringing early closures. So, for example, when I first came into the Met, the grievance procedure, I thought, was so administrative that it often did not bring any closure, it just went on and on, and there were dockets about that thick, in terms of what had been done. I introduced my procedure, because as a Deputy Assistant Commissioner, if a grievance got to my level and had not been resolved earlier on, then basically, you know, I had a kind of a hearing to listen to the views of the various people, and I put a written submission. At times, if I had to apologise, or if a manager had not got things right, it was said; at least it brought closure. I think sadly what I am seeing in my professional experience and my personal experience is that there is closure – the closure for some people, particularly from minority groups or gender, at the end of the day, is a tribunal, and that in business terms is usually – I mean, in reputation terms, in terms of losing a valuable human resource, is a huge problem. On the other hand, you know, sometimes, for white officers, there is no closure, but at least I closed it. You know, I gave a judgment; if they liked it or not – and it was amazing that I did not get a significant amount of comeback on that, in the sense that yes, some managers did not like what I was saying about them, in terms of me saying, "Well, you got it wrong". In the same way, as far as complaints is concerned, if there are serious criminal allegations, and if there is serious corruption, and there is serious discipline around integrity, et cetera, of course that has to be investigated, and it has to be investigated with rigour – because as a publicly accountable body, there is a need, and that is why I welcome even the independent oversight over it. Where there are minor demeanors, the critical issue – the test I apply is if one of my officers has done something wrong, the first thing is: how many times did we get it right? Often, I find that actually, in the context – because everybody can make mistakes, everybody can misjudge, in terms of where they come from, so how many times did we get it right? The second thing is: what is the learning from it? Is that person becoming defensive about it, are they learning from it? If the person exactly knows what they have done wrong, the learning is there, frankly, we have got it right 99 per cent of the time, and I can give examples where I have actually personally intervened in this particular aspect; then frankly, why should we get into a judicial process, you know, that just runs on and on and on, and actually, ultimately, does nobody any good? It does not do the organisation good, it victimises the person, it permanently damages, sometimes, people. So I think, you know, what I am saying here is that the more the decentralised the approach is, the more empowerment and people are supported to make decisions at the earliest opportunity, the better the support they have, they need support – and to be fair, I think the Fairness at Work procedures, for example, have started to do that. Where there are problems, things can be mediated out, and a more practical and pragmatic approach – of course, that is what should happen, but I am not undermining in any way the serious cases, the crime, the corruption, and serious elements around integrity, because they are fundamental to the way we operate in this country. Miss Weekes: Can I agree with you on the question of the importance of integrity, and separating out of the debate the very serious conduct issues, and can I concentrate on everyday workplace conflicts that, if not handled adequately and sensitively, could result in an employment tribunal case, or simply a status quo, which means the officer or staff are unhappy? One of the things that is crucial to the resolution of a dispute is the character and quality of the person who is line managing; that is obvious, is it not? Mr Ghaffur: Yes. Miss Weekes: I did not understand, before sitting on this panel, that every officer who is promoted automatically has the role of line managing. When you become a sergeant, you automatically line manage. When you go up the rank, as an inspector, there are more people to line manage. So it is clear from that that there is no prerequisite of having to have the qualities of a good line manager; am I right? Mr Ghaffur: I think the line manager is almost effectively – well, there are competency profiles, there are profiles written down around what the competencies should be. Miss Weekes: Is it written specifically for your ability to deal with personnel issues and line management? Mr Ghaffur: No, I think the competencies are fairly generic, in terms of the various dimensions that need to be – I think the challenge for me is that almost a line manager has to be technically and operationally competent, to deal with operational issues, should provide operational leadership, which is much more, as I said, you know, sharper, command and control, various other – is rank-based. Miss Weekes: But operational issues have nothing to do with handling people at work. Mr Ghaffur: Right, and that is where I think the challenge is. One minute you have a manager who may have been promoted, a sergeant, inspector, chief inspector, for strong operational competence, ability to – you know, has credibility in terms of operational achievements, he has a clear understanding of how to command and control firearms incidents and various other things. Suddenly, if you put them into a supervisory or managerial chair, that is about more managing the organisation, it is more role-based, in terms of people, in terms of resources, in terms of managing, you know, the environment, et cetera. I think – I comment in my report that I have seen supervisors and managers delivering services, I have seen them interacting with diverse communities, diverse people, we build capability around training and investment and various other aspects, and I have seen them operate really well. I have certainly seen that person sitting internally within a supervisory chair, that they do not operate, and I think the biggest challenge is building that capability. Miss Weekes: Can I deal with that in detail? That is the reason for my questions. I am going to go back to my question, because it may be important to us, and we really would like your help, because of your seniority. Is there anywhere in the present system of promotion a built-in priority that a line manager must have the minimum recognised qualities and skills to line manage and to deal with personnel issues? Mr Ghaffur: I am not aware, other than the competency framework, so – Miss Weekes: Right, so the answer probably is that it is not really there in terms of a very specific separate priority, that your skills in terms of management and personnel issues must be of a particular recognised level before your promotion. Mr Ghaffur: And you mean both, technical skills and people skills, really? Because you need technical skills to understand – Miss Weekes: Of course, I have understood your comments about operational and technical skills; that is taken as read. That is what the police are very good at, and they have a profile for that, but this Inquiry has recognised, from the evidence we have gathered, that there is a consistent complaint from the majority of your white officers, from the minority of your officers and staff, there is a problem about line management. So can I take it, because I want to move this on now to how we are going to improve it, that you agree with me that there is not really, within the system of promotion, a very specific priority that any officer who goes for promotion up the ranks must have the recognised minimum requirement for the skills of line management and personnel issues? Mr Ghaffur: I have not seen the recent competencies for sergeants, inspectors, chief inspectors, et cetera, the national competencies; I am aware of the ACPO competencies. If they are missing, that is a fundamental gap, because to me, once you get into supervisory ranks and you get into leadership ranks, your spans of control increase, et cetera, as you quite rightly say. The big issues for me, in terms of competence, are you have to be operationally competent, you have to be able to deal with people issues, and people issues come in the hard and soft approach. The hard is understanding what the discipline procedures are, understanding what the various other procedures, policies and practices are, and the soft aspect is about the morale, the motivation, the communication, dealing with, you know, disputes, et cetera – Miss Weekes: Why is it soft? Why do you use the word "soft"? Mr Ghaffur: I use "soft" in the sense that they are much more people-centred. I mean, they are very hard to approach, but they are very soft in the sense that you have to take individual needs and expectations into consideration. So it is in that context I use the word "soft". The management of resources is becoming very important, you know, how to manage money, et cetera, and inclusion of that is capability to manage – nowadays, the capability to manage technology, in particular. So I think if that is not reflected, the people dimension, that is a fundamental gap. Miss Weekes: Well, let me be fair: it may well be reflected, but not as a priority. I am sure somewhere in your training programmes, there must be some reference to line management, but as far as you are aware, it is not a priority for promotion. Mr Ghaffur: But it should be. Miss Weekes: All right. I would like to take you to a short passage which came up from questions asked of a senior ACAS officer, in relation to what he said would be the prerequisite for a good line manager. Now you will not have read this, so I am going to, as it were, just read out the bits which are applicable. He was asked a question, it may well have been by myself, or one of the panel members, "What is required for a good line manager?", and he said this: "The first one, if I could describe them, is intellectual; someone needs to have the capacity to quickly cut through the detail and understand what the issues are in a variety of very different industries." Further down: "The second area, I would say, would be about their personal skills, and it would seem to me that there are two which are crucial. One is this capacity to be objective and not to be a prisoner of the past, in terms of what your experience or what your history says. So there is an issue about objectively collecting the evidence, if you like, the facts, on which there should be no disagreement; you know, trying to get consensus on the facts. "The second personal attribute, I think, is judgment, sound judgment, which I would say is rooted in common sense, but there is not a lot of people have got common sense. It is just the capacity to sit down and make a sensible judgment based on common sense. "The third one is impartiality, that if the mediator cannot project themselves as being impartial, then they will have lost the confidence of either of the parties. So it is an interesting person that you are after now." Right down further, please, to the next page: "But I think that it is the key, you know, it is good forensic intellectual skills. You do not have to be a brain surgeon by any stretch of the imagination, but you have to be able to understand things. The capacity to be impartial; and good judgment." I am pretty sure you are going to agree with absolutely every aspect I have read out. Mr Ghaffur: I think that is a fair assessment in terms of, you know, skills one would require to almost be a champion in a workplace. Miss Weekes: Now are you aware as to whether or not officers who line manage know that that kind of requirement is necessary to resolve everyday workplace disputes? Mr Ghaffur: Well, I am not aware that, you know, all of them actually know, but what I do – I mean, I can rattle out, you know, people who I meet on a regular basis, or I speak to on a regular basis, across the organisation, who display a lot of those particular skills. I also meet people who do not, and I think the key issue for me particularly, in the context of resolution of minor grievances, minor complaints, is that issue around cutting out the complexity of what is being presented to you, but presenting a – making a judgment on common sense is absolutely crucial. The issue for me is: why do people not do that? Miss Weekes: Can I take you to that issue? There is no doubt – and the seven or so staff representatives who have come to give us evidence have all, very fairly, every single one, said that there are good people in the Met, there are good line managers, there are good senior officers; but there are those who are appallingly bad. I am now going to move on to what happens to bad line managers, because it is quite clear that a lot of people get it right. The staff associations tell us that the bad ones are moved to another area, they are promoted, which effectively means they perpetuate bad line management; is that right? Mr Ghaffur: Well, I mean, that is a very subjective statement to make, in terms of – because to me, you know, yes, I do – I mean, the context of what is good and bad depends on where you are sitting, what you are doing, what background you actually come from, et cetera. To me, I think the reason – I mean, what I found in my study, in particular, there are three or four reasons that I have found people to be bad. One is, frankly, you know, this is one extreme in terms of people who are bad, who are racist, who are really – you know, have got value systems that have no place in this organisation. Now, I know taking very punitive action in relation to tackling those is fine. I have come across people who are – because of the very high nature and profile, particularly, of ETs and various other aspects, and race issues and diversity issues, they are under fear. They do not – you know, they find it very difficult – so what they do is instead of taking that pragmatic, common sense view, they effectively take the procedural route and pass things on to other people to deal with. I have come across people who are extremely good – narrowly focused, you know, who are extremely good at what they do operationally, but may not be so good at dealing with organisational issues, and I think the big issue there is not whether they are bad, but the big issue there is actually: have you built their capability, have you built the skills to actually deliver what we are expecting them to – and that goes back to the clarity – Miss Weekes: Mr Ghaffur, do you have a problem with the description: "a bad line manager"? Mr Ghaffur: I do not have a problem in describing somebody who is bad, I have a problem in just not understanding really what the reason for that badness is – Miss Weekes: Well, you have given three examples. Mr Ghaffur: There is a fourth one, and the fourth one is actually having people – role models, frankly, people who can put themselves in the shoes – Miss Weekes: Let us come back to role models – I am sorry to interrupt, but I really would like to finish this rather important issue. Some people are good operational officers, and some people are bad line managers, and one of the reasons why you may be a bad line manager is because you do not deal with issues of performance with your staff very well, you persistently and unfairly refuse to promote a credible staff member; those are just two classic examples which have nothing to do with race. Now that is a bad line manager, is it not? Mr Ghaffur: Yes. Miss Weekes: Right, can I just move on: what should happen to bad line managers? Should they be demoted? Should they have the role of line manager taken away from them? I have just given you two possible solutions. Are either of those a good idea, or is it simply not practical to do it that way? Mr Ghaffur: No, I think, as a leader, you cannot fudge it. I mean, if there are managers who are bad, the first issue as a leader is for you to be able to give very clear feedback. So when you are conducting the appraisal, be objective, and I think the point about – is to give them very clear feedback. Miss Weekes: Suppose they still remain incompetent or bad line managers after at least two or three feedbacks; what do you do then? Mr Ghaffur: I think if there is feedback, you know, and – there is feedback, there is remedial – you know, because I think what I mentioned, the development of staff is a partnership between the organisation and the individual. If there is remedial action taken, in terms of improvement, et cetera, frankly, if all that is failing, then you have to have regulations in place – I mean, I know what would happen in industry, I know what would happen in the private sector, you would fast track – you know, you would sack people. You would be able to ask people to resign. You would be able to place people in roles, despite their rank, that they are competent at. Because otherwise, it does not make any business sense, because if you continue to, as you put it, promote these people to reach a level of incompetence, then frankly, the damage they can do to you, the organisation, often themselves, is very significant, so the issue is about intervention, this issue is about leadership taking action, and whatever the regulations are, supporting that action to be taken. I think sometimes what tends to happen is that when people are bad, rather than biting the bullet and taking the action, we start to look at other ways of dealing with them, and that is not productive. Miss Weekes: Well, you did mention in that explanation the word "sacked". Can you help this Inquiry: does the Metropolitan Police, in your experience, consistently take a robust approach to sack officers who consistently show they cannot line manage? Mr Ghaffur: Well, I am not aware of an example. Miss Weekes: Right, well, if it is not sacked and you are not aware of an example at all – Mr Ghaffur: Although I have dealt with it, myself, personally – as a leader, quite clearly, I have dealt with a number of instances where remedial action has been put in place, but I am aware of people being sacked for discipline, I am aware of people being sacked, you know – Miss Weekes: Well, that is probably gross misconduct, or a conduct issue. Mr Ghaffur: But I have not heard of an example of a person being sacked in relation to incompetence, in terms of performing the role of management. Miss Weekes: You have an incompetence procedure which we have heard is very rare to be adopted; is that right? Mr Ghaffur: That is true. Miss Weekes: Well, why is that? If you have it, why not use it? Mr Ghaffur: I think we should. Miss Weekes: I am just interested in why it has not been used. Mr Ghaffur: I think there may be – and I can speak from my sort of context: there may be an issue around frankly our appraisal system, where people may not be given – I have just done an exercise in my set-up where I have looked at the standard distribution in terms of ratings by officers on appraisals. What I have found is that in a standard distribution, you should have about 10 or 15 per cent of your people who are underperforming, you should have 10 or 15 per cent who are overperforming, and the rest are in the middle. There is a tendency, when I look at it, to be skewed right on to the other side, in terms of 70 or 80 per cent of people. So I think there is an issue around appraisal; me and my senior colleagues in HR are looking at ways in which that can be made objective. I think there is a cultural issue around effectively feedback, whether people are given very clear feedback by supervisors, line managers; and I think the third issue may well be whether we are robust enough in really getting to grips with some of the difficult issues and difficult people, so the combination of all three may lead to a point where, frankly, we are not making use of procedures that exist. Miss Weekes: You will agree that if you do not take a robust approach to dealing with line managers who do not perform, or who are just plain bad, you leave an atmosphere and a culture of unhappiness and dissatisfaction, even if it is only a small percentage? Mr Ghaffur: Yes, and I think you leave – not only a culture of dissatisfaction, you leave a perception of double standards, which is not helpful, and I think that actually, you know, then has a potential to cause quite serious harm. Miss Weekes: Can I go back to the "why"? Forgive me, it may be that I did not hear your answer. Why do you think senior officers of your rank or perhaps slightly below do not take a more consistent, robust view to invoke the dissatisfactory performance on line managers, or to simply remove them from the post of line managing? Why do you think that is? Mr Ghaffur: I think if I was to sort of give one reason why that is, I think there is an issue about – to me, there may well be an issue about confidence and capability, to really get to grips with it. Miss Weekes: Or is it because, as some of the staff associations and individuals tell us in their submissions, there is a feeling that when you start moving up the ranks, you do not do a lot to rock the boat; you protect your rank, and you protect your fellow senior officers from criticism. That is what we hear; is that right? Mr Ghaffur: Well, I know where I stand with this, frankly, you know, in terms of trying to protect what is not protectable is not appropriate. There may be an aspect in terms of a group culture operating that may present that perception. My view is very clear, that from the work I have done, I come across a huge number of people who are performing a very efficient role, who do the sort of things that have been talked about in here. We do sadly have a number of people – and to me, some of that is related to confidence, capability, and I think some of it is sometimes related to leadership not gripping the issue and dealing with it, frankly, and it needs to be dealt with. But I think to generically say, "Well, hang on, there is a massive group culture operating here", which almost is counter-productive to what we are trying to achieve, I think we would very quickly – given the visibility of certainly the Commissioner, the top team, we would be able to pick that up very quickly, but I do appreciate that there are issues around confidence and capability, there are bad managers, there are issues that we need to reflect on. Miss Weekes: Are you saying that there is no evidence, as far as you are concerned, of an element – I do not suggest that it is 100 per cent, but there is an element of senior officers protecting their rank and protecting other senior officers from criticism? Reluctance to want to bring about a procedure that might cause a senior officer to lose his job? There is no evidence of that? Mr Ghaffur: No, there is evidence. What I am saying is there is no universal evidence that this is happening in a widespread – of course there is, and often, when I counsel officers, they do talk about group culture, they do talk about protectionism, and I have actually reflected that as one of the barriers in terms of career development. Miss Weekes: How can you change that sort of approach? Because that is an aspect we have understood makes staff and junior ranks very unhappy. Mr Ghaffur: The way you change it – the way I have dealt with it in my set-up, what I have done is I have actually introduced – I think it is about confidence, allowing people to speak up. If they are not happy – and what I have done in my set-up is after the 12 months as head of specialist crime, I brought external people in to look at me and my command team, and I asked those external people to conduct a 360-degree appraisal of how I am doing and how my command team is doing. Miss Weekes: Did you do well? Mr Ghaffur: Well, not really, not in all areas, there were areas of improvement, but it is about honesty, it is about creating a culture where people, if they are not happy – to say so, it is about honest feedback, and it is about gripping the issues, frankly, and giving the people the confidence to deal with what are difficult issues. Miss Weekes: Is your approach of getting an external assessor, as it were, quite common? Mr Ghaffur: No. Miss Weekes: Would you like it to be common? Mr Ghaffur: I think as part of the continuing development of where we come from, where we are, and the number of good things that are happening, I think ultimately, yes, that would be quite a thing to do. Miss Weekes: If we were to consider – because my colleagues and I have not discussed it yet – a possible recommendation which was the minimum skills for line management and dealing with personnel issues must be shown before someone is promoted, how do you think the Met would take that? Mr Ghaffur: No, I think the Met would take it very positively, because the whole ethos of what we are trying to do as the top team is to decentralise the way we deal with people, the way we manage our money, the way we give people empowerment within the framework to actually operate, so – and the way we are trying to become community-centric, in terms of delivery of our services. So I think in the context of doing that, the challenge will be whether you can go one step ahead and have mechanisms in place to allow people to assess themselves against how they are actually doing, almost – rather than an assessment process, more of a development process, and then identifying what the gaps are, and then creating some mechanisms in terms of how that can actually be supported, so there would be quite a bit of investment. If you try to do – you know, that being more of the same in a different way, I am not sure that that would really permeate down, but I think in the ethos of what we are seeking to do – but it will present challenges in having mechanisms, the tools to deliver that kind of approach. But I am sure our HR colleagues, in the way they are approaching it at the present time, are up for that. Miss Weekes: Would you be happy with a change of emphasis on the reply, "I have been promoted to the rank of inspector because I am an excellent line manager and I am good at people skills, but I am also good at firearms"; it is a change of emphasis, because your first comment to me was that one of the criteria is operational skills. You simply did not mention personnel skills at all when you first began to talk about line management. So that is what comes over, that it is operational; it is operational but people come last. Mr Ghaffur: I think we have been moving towards that context. When I joined the police many years ago, and I operated in police forces, people were promoted because they did a fantastic job in the current role, or they were promoted because of their operational – just operational competence, of achievements. Now in some areas of work, that is very necessary. Frankly, in my area of work, where you have got homicide investigators and various other very specialist investigators, that is very necessary, because it is in rank where those particular technical competencies in detectives actually exist. So that is not a bad thing. I think the danger is not to throw that away, because we still need people with operational skills, if there is a firearms incident, or there are public order incidents, or there is a critical incident, but I think the emphasis in shifting that into a more holistic approach to also take on the wider responsibilities for the roles, which hereto may have been centralised, is not a bad thing to do. But there is a danger – culturally, you are shifting from rank to role, and rewarding role, and secondly, you have to have the tools to deliver that, you know, in terms of assessment, training, various other aspects, and providing that is put in place, that is absolutely a move in the right direction. Miss Weekes: The resolution of disputes generally covers quite a wide area, and Fairness at Work, just very briefly, are you happy with how that is developing? Because it is still quite new, and there are issues there obviously to be developed. Mr Ghaffur: Yes. Miss Weekes: The trade unions for the Met say they would be rather keen to have independence thrown back into Fairness at Work, and have it back centrally dealt with by HR; do you agree? Mr Ghaffur: No, I do not. I think the movement of the Fairness at Work procedure, with a greater emphasis on early resolution, with support by advisors, trained advisors, if needed, by intervention through mediation to achieve early resolution, is absolutely the right way. My fear is that – and that sits very closely to line managers taking responsibility for managing their people, et cetera. My fear is that if you centralise, you know, and things get centralised and decentralised structurally, that you could almost create an island, which I have commented about in terms of my report, on complaints and various other aspects, that is counter-productive, in the sense that that becomes an island in itself, and it almost goes back into another administrative quagmire. Miss Weekes: One of the reasons why the trade unions put that forward is because there is now developing a practice, I do not know how widespread it is, that the Fairness at Work advisors are being taken from the same area of command in which, for example, a line manager is the subject of complaint. Did you know that was happening? Mr Ghaffur: No, I did not know that, but I think the Fairness at Work advisor, I am informed, is chosen really for their skills, is chosen and trained to deliver, just as I would do with family liaison officers in murder investigations, et cetera. Miss Weekes: Forgive me, it is not the skills; I am dealing with the independence of that Fairness at Work advisor. It would not be the best practice, would it, to have the Fairness at Work advisor come from the same command where he might know the line manager? Mr Ghaffur: I think if – this is again identifying the expectations. I think it would be desirable for the organisation. I mean, independence comes from many other sources, you know, the network organisations provide independence, because a number of problems are sent to them, but I think organisationally, the independence in relation to Fairness at Work advisors, so there can be clear feedback, if needed, to be given to a supervisor, in the way they are dealing with it, I would agree with – I would concur with, and I think that would give more confidence to people. Miss Weekes: One of the other general complaints, and I appreciate it is a general complaint, I will move to a specific example in a moment, a specific example that in fact involved yourself, is when officers are moved, they are moved into a cushier position, or nothing appears to happen, or if they resign or are dismissed, they come back to the force after an appeal. Can I just flag up the statistics which we obtained? Between 2001 and 2003, 68 officers were dismissed and/or resigned, or were required to resign. 30 of them were reinstated on appeal. Now let me say straight away I am not going to go into the detail of individual cases; these are general statistics, and within those statistics there must be credible, good examples of why an appeal was allowed. But may I refer very briefly to a case that you were involved in, not remotely to be personal or to attack you, I would not possibly do that, but simply to get you to help us with how the Met deals with this particular procedure. There was a case that involved two females who raised sexual harassment against the same officer. One of the females was being supervised by that officer, so there was a line management situation there. Complaint was made by both females of the officer; he was suspended, pending disciplinary charges. Two years later, not necessarily very unusual for that time, it was around 1999, disciplinary proceedings were held, the officer was dismissed. He appealed, he was reinstated. Now you dealt with the appeal. We have received a written appraisal from one of the females concerned that you dealt most politely and sensitively with explaining to them why the decision was made, and the nature of the appeal, so there was no personal criticism against you as such. One of the matters raised by the women was whether you knew, when you considered reinstatement, that that officer had previously been suspended for assaulting a female. Did you know that at the time? Mr Ghaffur: Okay, I think you are talking about an individual case here. Miss Weekes: Yes, I am not going to mention names or details. Mr Ghaffur: I very clearly know that case, in the sense that, as you rightly mention, in terms of my accountability, I personally saw the officers concerned and explained why – Miss Weekes: And they clearly appreciated that. Mr Ghaffur: – I made my decisions. I think, quite clearly – I mean, I made the decision based on a criteria which I use, and the criteria I use, without going into the details of the case, was three things which I use when I look at the appeal. I look at – I apply a test of reasonableness, because reasonableness extends both to victims as well as to people who are ... I applied a test of fairness, you know, is what has happened and being presented fair in the circumstances? Thirdly, you know, I looked at proportionality, in terms of: is it proportional? But as the current procedures, in terms of review, stand, they are from a very narrow perspective of the proceedings and the circumstances of the case, and very narrow in terms of the information that is provided to you. There is no historical information presented as part of that review, and I think – Miss Weekes: So you did not know that there had been a previous suspension for assaulting a female? Mr Ghaffur: The procedure as it stood was from a very narrow perspective. I have to look at – and that is embedded in the regulations, you know, whether there had been any previous history, previous suspensions, previous disciplines, or whether – you know, what was the organisation's issue around similar cases. We recently now have some very clear guidance in terms of how we should approach that, which is very helpful. Miss Weekes: How recently has there been a change? Mr Ghaffur: The guidance has just come out, I would say a month ago. Miss Weekes: One month ago? So that is extremely recent. Mr Ghaffur: It is recent, yes. Miss Weekes: So can I take it that the need for this new guidance was because this procedure was clearly unsatisfactory in ensuring that there was a consistent, credible approach to the discipline, suspension and resignation of officers, and their right to appeal? Mr Ghaffur: No, the guidance was very specifically for the conduct of reviews that are conducted by Assistant Commissioners. Miss Weekes: But it does go to the root of the credibility, of which officers remain and which officers leave the force. Mr Ghaffur: It goes on the credibility of what actually – we are examining the propriety of the original decisions made by the tribunals, nothing else. As I said, I have very clear criteria that apply in terms of – now quite clearly, we do not in that procedure get any previous information, and we still do not, any previous history, unless it has been presented within the considerations of the tribunal, and often they are not, but in these new procedures now, the presenting officer is present in the review, and the defending officer, and their representatives, and we have very clear guidance in terms of what we can do and cannot do. However, as I said, in this particular case, I went beyond procedure in actually seeing the officers and explaining to them. Miss Weekes: Is there anything wrong with that? That is rather good people management, is it not? Mr Ghaffur: Yes, exactly. Miss Weekes: That officer is back in the force; yes? Mr Ghaffur: I presume so. Yes, he was reinstated. Miss Weekes: Well, he was reinstated. What support was given to the two women, who remain very unhappy about this outcome? Mr Ghaffur: Well, I personally had seen them, and during my meeting with them, I had offered any further support that is required. I am not aware what happened thereafter. Miss Weekes: You have not followed it up yourself? Mr Ghaffur: I personally have not, no. Miss Weekes: Can I turn, please, to just three other shorter but rather crucial issues? Some people in the Met, probably some people outside of the Met, may take the view that the race agenda has swamped all other agendas in relation to how people are treated fairly; do you think that is probably right? Mr Ghaffur: Yes. Miss Weekes: As a result, there is a bit of a backlash. You have actually referred to that. If I can conveniently bring it up on the screen, I think it is at your page TXG 1/57. This is your final report which you have very kindly submitted to us, so in fairness, it is clear that you have identified it. Here we are. If you look at the screen, you say here: "There are many diverse people within the organisation that feel that the high-profile nature of race and diversity issues has a perverse or retarding effect rather than a positive or progressive impact. "This arises from the fact that usually when race and diversity issues are raised, it is from a negative perspective when the organisation 'knee jerks' or overreacts. This puts ethnic minorities and other minorities constantly under the spotlight or under scrutiny that others do not have to endure." Can I just raise another element of the backlash which we, the panel, are concerned to ensure that we take on board? It is the way white officers feel about the high priority given to the race agenda. Do you think there is now a feeling of, "Well, I have heard so much about race, I am being told I have to go to diversity training, it appears that line managers are soft on ethnic minority officers, they are not being pulled up for things, I am not happy about it"; is there that kind of feeling in the Met now? Mr Ghaffur: Yes, I think – I mean, I come to it from two perspectives. I come to it from the perspective that I am part of an organisation, and my view in relation to that perspective is that the wider diversity agenda, and that includes, you know, gender issues, sexual orientation, disability, age, makes absolutely brilliant sense – Miss Weekes: Forgive me, my question was not relating to what your view of the diversity agenda was, it was very specific: apart from what you have identified in your document, very sensibly, I suggest, that there is a backlash for ethnic minorities, is there also a backlash for the way that white officers now feel about this high-profile agenda? Is there or is there not? Mr Ghaffur: Yes, I believe there is. Miss Weekes: Well, it seems to me that that would be disastrous, if the well-meaning race agenda, developed understandably since the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, is now having a negative effect instead of a positive effect of joining black and white officers together to work together; do you agree? Mr Ghaffur: Well, again, I comment of the dangers of separatism in my report. Miss Weekes: So how can we remedy that? Because I think you can take it that my two colleagues will agree with me, that would be disastrous, if a well-meaning policy is going to cause bad feeling, negative – whether or not it was intended. How can we deal with such a difficult problem? Mr Ghaffur: I think there are a number of solutions to this. I mean, the first thing is, you know, the reality – and we have to face up to the reality. The reality is that in terms of delivering diverse – sorry, delivering policing services to diverse communities in London. We are never going to get off the race agenda, because yes, we started with the black community issues – I myself, in serious crime, am tackling issues around South Asian issues, where I have to really interact with the communities, et cetera. So I think the reality is, internally or externally, we are not going to get away from the race issues. I think the big issue for me there is one – is the issue of communicating that, and saying, "Race is not going to go away" – if there are people who think that it will go away, it will not go away. Secondly, there will remain high-profile cases, there will remain issues of confidence that we need to work towards, and I think to me, race being seen as a problem is counter-productive. We have to start to talk about race being seen as an opportunity in very diverse London, and that is why I make some far-reaching recommendations in relation to recruitment and various other aspects. I think the second thing is that equally, there is a gender agenda, there is a disability agenda, and ultimately, you know, that to a senior manager like me makes real business sense, that if I was to have that level of representation – and I have been pushing some real positive action round those initiatives. I think we should not move away from the fact that there is that agenda, and that we need to create what is really an inclusive workforce. Miss Weekes: There is another suggestion, and sometimes what you call something does not really matter, it is what you do with it. One of the staff associations who spoke to us yesterday said, "I am rather tired with the words 'visible ethnic minorities', what about 'minority groups'?" May I suggest something that might be considered: "Fair treatment for all". Because clearly fair treatment for all would involve everybody: do you think there is now time for reconsideration of what we call things, and what we include in that title? Mr Ghaffur: Yes, I think there is. I mean, to be honest, the way that London's profile is going, the notion of visible ethnic minorities will not be the case in five to six years, for a start. I mention in my report that the term "visible ethnic minorities" being labelled on recruits who are coming in, thinking they are joining one organisation, is counter-productive. I do have a difficulty with – do not get me wrong, I think having separate labels for purposes of understanding, monitoring, taking positive action, is fine. I think what we should be endeavouring to become is an inclusive organisation, with leaders believing and feeling that if they have a very diverse team around them, that is a really good thing, that we should have, you know, people with the right skills in the right place, and that includes life skills. So I think that aspiration is absolutely necessary. Having said that, I think there is a danger of again throwing something that works in some ways. I am very concerned about separatism. I have been in the United States, I have seen some of the issues around one organisation operating in very separate elements. I think what we should work towards is inclusivity in the mainstream organisation, and everything that we should talk about, but the diversity agenda in that context for me is about valuing individuality, difference and fairness for all, and I agree with what you say in relation to that, and that is fairness for all, all of the people, because I think that is what will make us a rich organisation in achieving our aims. Miss Weekes: That conveniently takes me to: what happens when a senior commander, a borough commander or above, realises that a line manager is not line managing a visible ethnic minority person because he is frightened, he is not confident, he is worried about what might or might not happen? What are borough commanders told that they should do about that situation? Mr Ghaffur: Well, I think – I mean, the first issue is, can they resolve that – Miss Weekes: No, what are borough commanders told that they should do when there is evidence that line managers will not line manage black and ethnic minority officers, or if they raise an issue of race discrimination, they say, "I will not touch it, I will send it up to the commander". What are they told they should do about that? Mr Ghaffur: Deal with it. Miss Weekes: Is that universally known, that borough commanders should insist that line managers deal with it? Mr Ghaffur: Yes. Miss Weekes: Well, why are we then receiving evidence, quite consistently, that there is fear, there is reluctance to line manage ethnic minority officers and staff, and/or race/gender issues? Mr Ghaffur: Yes, the message has not got through. I found the same thing. But I think the commitment from the top is very clear, and I have been party to lots of discussions with the senior team where that message is very, very clear, in terms of dealing with it. There are other issues, in terms of building capabilities, et cetera, but frankly, I think quite clearly the message is not getting through. Miss Weekes: We have heard that before, Deputy Assistant Commissioner: things do not get down to the level of middle management and those who make the all important everyday decisions. Every single individual and staff association gives huge credit to the Commissioner and many senior officers of your rank, but they say it just does not filter down. What can we do about that? Mr Ghaffur: I think we are – you know, I am very, very clear, and I can only speak about the narrow perspective, you know; I am very clear about the Commissioner's commitment to what we are seeking to do in terms of diversity. I regard myself as an agent of the Commissioner to deliver that, and the responsibility lies with me, and accountability lies with me, and there are checks and balances in relation to what I agree with the Commissioner, in terms of delivery. I should do the same, you know, so I do the same with my deputy assistant commissioners, my commanders, and then effectively, you know, that should cascade down. The important thing, though, is that people like me – really, the Commissioner cannot do it on his own – should then go and check that it is actually happening, and where it is not happening, we should take the steps that need to be taken to deliver the clarity of the message, and I think – Miss Weekes: Who checks that it happens? Mr Ghaffur: The Commissioner – what happens is that every two weeks, we have a large scale intervention, in the Met, in terms of our mission, vision, values sessions; there are hundreds of people there, and part of the encouragement by the Commissioner is people to come up front and raise their grievances, and that is a very good checking mechanism, in terms of whether it is happening or not. From time to time, we do try and formalise inspections and do certain things in terms of compliance. The important point is when there is no compliance – firstly, it is the clarity of the message; secondly, if there is no compliance, then it is not up to the Commissioner to do it all, it is up to me and the various other leaders to actually deliver. Miss Weekes: I have one last point, because it would be helpful, I think, to wrap things up, and it deals with your assessment again within your report on an aspect of the gender issue. It is at TXG 1/43; it is going to come up on the screen for you, but if you do have it, you might want to turn to it. It is your overall im