Agenda and minutes

In accordance with the Council’s Constitution, Members are asked to declare any interest they may have in any matter which is to be considered at this meeting.

There were no declarations of interest.

The minutes of the meeting held on 8 March 2023 were confirmed as correct.

The Metropolitan Police Borough Commander (BC) delivered a presentation on the Metropolitan Police Service Turnaround Plan 2023-25 and the Baroness Casey Review Final Report. This detailed:

• The contents of and context behind the Baroness Casey Review, which had been commissioned by the Metropolitan Police to review its culture, standards and practice, following the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Police Officer, who had used his warrant card and his powers to abduct a female on the streets of London in 2021;
• How the review had been compiled, through considering Police data, outcomes and organisational processes, and Police Officers speaking with Baroness Casey to reflect the services provided by the Police, and its culture;
• The acceptance of the Metropolitan Police as to the outcomes of the review and its resolute stance to work towards improving these outcomes;
• Other influencing factors as to the outcomes of the review, such as austerity, demand on policing and incorrect choices around resources;
• Next steps, such as around addressing cultural issues within the Police, driving out discriminatory behaviour, identifying those officers who should not be a part of the Police and encouraging officers to come forward to report negative behaviour;
• The importance of listening to, and better connecting with local communities, to better understand their needs and with more work needing to be undertaken to address this;
• The further work that needed to be undertaken to protect women and children, with more work around making public spaces safer needing to be delivered;
• There were many good Police Officers in the service and work would need to be undertaken to both support and motivate them, as the community needed good policing; these officers would be instrumental in helping the Police to address poor behaviour;
• The Baroness Casey Review was an opportunity to bring about real changes within the Metropolitan Police, with the Police fully behind this;
• Some of the positive work that was already being undertaken to address issues, such as around violence against women and girls and increased vetting of Police Officers through the Police National Database;
• The Metropolitan Police Turnaround Plan 2023-25, which centred around nine key areas that the Commissioner wished to address and which also linked in with the areas of concern identified by Baroness Casey;
• How the Police planned to use the findings of the Baroness Casey review to have wider discussions around the Metropolitan Police Turnaround Plan, to provide a better policing service, safeguard victims, reconnect with communities and devise tailored borough-based approaches;
• Some of the positive work already being undertaken through the Turnaround Plan, such as the recruitment of Borough Neighbourhood Superintendents to support neighbourhood policing, and of 600 Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) across London; and
• The importance of partnership working in addressing issues and to deliver a better service.

A Councillor emphasised the importance of the Police recognising and facing the issues that had been raised through the report, such as issues of the BAME community being profiled and stopped; these issues had to be acknowledged initially,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 39.

The Director of Strategy (DS) presented an update on the development of the Corporate Plan 2023-27. This detailed:

• The context behind the former Corporate Plan and changes since this, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis;
• The principles behind the envisioned Corporate Plan in addressing challenges in how the organisation worked, such as the importance of breaking down siloed Council working;
• Leadership development;
• The approach and priorities, to best support residents across the Borough.

In response to Members highlighting the need for better relationships between officers and Councillors, the DS stated that this was essential in resolving issues. The DS also highlighted the need for officers to look at issues from a Council-wide perspective and not dismissing anything if it did not fall under their departmental remit; officers needed to understand their role in serving the community and culture change needed to encourage better cross-departmental working, as well as working with Councillors. Staff also needed to feel more empowered to be able to make decision and address issues.

In response to further questions from Members, the DS stated that:

• It was felt that previous performance frameworks had gathered too much information against objectives, which had made it hard to effectively monitor these. A new Performance Framework was currently being developed, that would gather the right intelligence, information and data and that would be able to monitor performance against the objectives.
• Service plans would contain data around how individual services were being delivered and how effectively, and there needed to be transparency for backbench Members, as well as Cabinet Members, in terms of this analysis. A framework would be developed whereby this data would be reported to Cabinet and Assembly; however, outside of these reporting mechanisms, the DS would be happy to report particular trends or patterns as requested. Whilst there would always be restrictions around individual cases, this did not prevent meaningful conversations around service delivery, and he would work to ensure a system that was as functional as possible.
• Officers needed to be empowered to take responsibility, be accountable for their services and work with each other. Strategic Directors needed to oversee the drivers for their services’ performance and have the time to think more strategically around what how their services needed to be shaped to tackle future work and issues.
• Whilst officers worked very hard to deliver positive outcomes for residents, society and its issues were always evolving and this necessitated organisational change to better align with objectives.
• Services needed to consider a number of aspects as part of service delivery, one of which was around equalities, diversity, fairness and inclusion. Data was used around this to consider who the Council was serving, how these communities’ needs could best be met and the impact of the service delivery on these groups. As such, equalities data was essential in service outcomes.

The Work Programme was agreed.