Andrew Dismore

You can watch the debate here:

Questions on Borough Mergers to MOPAC from Andrew Dismore on Vimeo.

Andrew Dismore AM:  I have some questions about the evaluation.  First of all, the Camden and Islington one, which it is obvious I am primarily interested in.  The Camden Safer Neighbourhood Board has been told on a number of occasions it will be part of the review but it has yet to hear how or when it is going to be involved.  As December is only two weeks away, how and when is it going to be involved in that process?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime):  It should have heard because there is an absolute commitment ‑‑

Andrew Dismore AM:  It has not, because I had an email only a couple of days ago.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime):  I am not suggesting that is not the case.  It should have heard.  There have been discussions around ensuring that – not just in Camden and Islington but in the Pathfinder in the east as well – the Safer Neighbourhood Boards are part of this and it will happen soon.

Andrew Dismore AM:  You cannot tell me when?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime):  I thought it had happened.

Andrew Dismore AM:  Well, it has not.

Martin Hewitt QPM (Assistant Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service):  I will chase it up and give you an answer.

Andrew Dismore AM:  The next question is about the criteria.  At September’s Mayor’s Question Time (MQT) I raised this with the Mayor and he promised to let me have the objective criteria against which it is going to be assessed.  We had a letter from the Mayor at the next MQT to Jennette Arnold [OBE AM, Chair of the Assembly] on behalf of the whole of the Assembly on 13 October.  Reading it, the criteria are very subjective.  They are not objective criteria at all.  Are there any objective criteria against which it is going to be measured? 

For example, specific criteria, “Emergency response performance being at an acceptable level”.  How do we define an “acceptable level”?  Is it as good as it was before the merger, is it not as good as it was before the merger, or is it better than it was before the merger?  Are there numbers to which we could attach an objective evaluation of that particular one?  “Borough priorities, the ability to deliver the locally-agreed borough priorities.”  That is, again, rather a general subjective view.  Safeguarding, again, “Detection rates at an acceptable level”.  What is an “acceptable level”?  Are there numbers attached to this or is it, in fact, a subjective assessment that is designed to make sure they succeed as far as the evaluation is concerned?  That is probably a question for Martin. 

 

Martin Hewitt QPM (Assistant Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service):  All of those things are measurable.  I have not seen that letter.

Andrew Dismore AM:  I am surprised.

Martin Hewitt QPM (Assistant Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service):  We are looking at where the boroughs were, in performance terms, prior to them becoming a BCU.  We need to accept that during that transition period it is going to be slightly destabilised.  We then get to a point where we can see objectively, on the figures that we would measure in terms of crime performance, call response performance and a range of other less quantitative but equally important qualitative elements, particularly how partners feel we are performing in terms of the safeguarding arena and some of the metrics around the neighbourhood officers and abstractions, etc, that we get pushed on – where we can measure all of those things and compare them to where we were prior to the amalgamation.

Andrew Dismore AM:  Can I assume from what you have said, Martin, the assessment will be on the basis that nothing is going to be worse than it was before the merger in terms of emergency response times, detection rates and so on?

Martin Hewitt QPM (Assistant Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service):  That would certainly be our objective, yes.

Andrew Dismore AM:  That is your objective.  Therefore, if it is worse, it is not considered a success.

Martin Hewitt QPM (Assistant Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service):  We need to look and understand why that is if that was the case.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime):  There is nothing subjective about response times.  We look at the response times for the Pathfinders themselves and then the MPS average as well as the target the MPS set down for itself.  Those are the very objective figures we will be looking at in terms of the evaluation.  We have the figures in terms of the Pathfinders now and the MPS average for October.

Andrew Dismore AM:  I have the figures here from an MQT answer.  It shows that certainly the I- and S-calls for the Central North BCU are a lot worse than they were before.  These go up to September.  If there has been a magical transformation for October and November that will be great.

Martin Hewitt QPM (Assistant Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service):  There has been a significant transformation in October and November.

Andrew Dismore AM:  I am pleased to hear it, but certainly they were significantly worse.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime):  The I-calls for Central North are better.  In September 2016 they were at 86% and in October 2017 they are at 87%.

Andrew Dismore AM:  September 2017 is 82% and in October 2016 it was 89%.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime):  It has fluctuated.

Andrew Dismore AM:  There we are.  It does not sound better to me.  The other point I was going to ask is that the letter from the Mayor quite rightly says this is in the context of the finances of the MPS.  We understand the pressures you are under.  I have just had this question answered by the Mayor:

            “How much do you expect to save in a year as a result of the Camden and Islington borough merger?  How much are you expecting to save a year if the rollout takes place across London”

The answer was, “No figure can be put on the savings”.  If this is about saving money, before this exercise was embarked on surely there must have been a projection about how much you expected to save from the process so we can then judge objectively whether the gain is worth a gamble or not.  If the amount of saving is not very much, and the disruption it has caused is huge and performance is not quite what it should be, then maybe the gain is not worth the gamble in the first place.  It is pretty clear most of these mergers are not popular.  Certainly, Barnet and Harrow are not very keen on the merger with Brent, which it seems from my discussions with senior officers is happening anyway.  Putting that together, surely there must have been some financial assessment and cost-benefit analysis of this.  To be told that no figure can be put on the savings sounds really serious to me.

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime):  We have just had a discussion with Keith around when will decisions be taken.  I expect to see a business case in December that will set out the figures for the savings.  In terms of what that looks like – because the Pathfinders have had to change, and due to the learnings from the Pathfinders the model has changed – it is still being worked on in terms of, if you were to implement the type of model the Pathfinders are now working under, what the savings are.  I expect to see that in the business case.  We should have that figure by December.  There are savings to be had because you are not doing the same thing 32 times in 32 different areas.  Yes, it is about savings, as I have always said, but it is also about service improvement around vulnerability, adult and children safeguarding.  We must not lose sight of that.

Andrew Dismore AM:  Exactly, that is the whole point of my questions.  It is how we can objectively assess whether that has, in fact, been achieved.  You are going to be doing all these various assessments in December.

Are we going to have – Keith [Prince AM], Unmesh [Desai AM] and I in particular – publication of the evaluation with the hard numbers in it in terms of savings, projected savings, attendance times and all the other things I have talked about?  Will that be published so that we on the Assembly can objectively assess whether we consider it to be a success even assuming you do?

Sophie Linden (Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime):  Not only will it be published but, as I have offered today and previously, myself and the MPS – either Martin or [Deputy Assistant Commissioner] Mark Simmons – will come and brief you on it.  You will have the publication and there will be a discussion around it.  I am very happy to do that.  It is not just about response times.  It is about safeguarding.  There are various ways you can look at that around sexual assault, detection rates, child cruelty and also in terms of timeliness of the meetings that take place around child protection.  There is also Ofsted, which goes in and inspects children’s services.  There are positive signs coming out of Ofsted.  We will also be talking to HMIC about moving further forward on the Pathfinders and what their view is as well.

Andrew Dismore AM:  Thanks for that.  The concern all along has been that this is going to be some sort of subjective fix.  If we are going to have a proper objective analysis then we all want to see the numbers to prove it works.

Caroline Pidgeon MBE AM:  Yes, exactly.

Martin Hewitt QPM (Assistant Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service):  Can I make a couple of comments on that?  The numbers will be there but equally you could describe it as subjective.  In all the five boroughs that are currently part of the two Pathfinder sites the view of the directors of children services and those others we are working directly with are important. 

A couple of other points around the saving.  The other way of looking through the lens of the savings drive for this is that by April next year we will have 30,000 police officers from the number we were at.  Professionally we will not be able to deliver the service.  That is why we embarked on the service 32 times over to do all the things we have spent the last couple of hours talking about.  From a professional perspective, this allows us to deliver that service more effectively by having that critical mass.  We often now skate over the neighbourhood offer that is part of that because it is very popular.  This allows us to deliver that.  It allows us to make savings in terms of bringing together criminal investigation department (CID) officers.  It has a potentially massive impact around safeguarding.  However, of course, what we have all focused on is where it went down in the response times. 

The last thing I would say about that is we must not just look at the BCUs in isolation compared to what they were previously.  It has to be seen in the broader context of London.  The kind of pressures the BCUs have seen, at the same time of doing all the change, under their business as usual, is what other boroughs have seen as well.  If you particularly go to the boroughs in east London, they have all been under enormous pressure in terms of response and delivery.  We must look at them in the context of the MPS.  As we have said before, there has been a significant increase in requests for assistance, crime challenges, terrorism challenges and all of those things.  We cannot pull out two boroughs and say, “What do they look like compared to what the other looks like?”  We do have to contextualise it.

Andrew Dismore AM:  We are not saying we want this thing to fail or not to happen.

Martin Hewitt QPM (Assistant Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service):  No, I am not saying you are.

Andrew Dismore AM:  What we are saying is we want to be satisfied objectively that it works.  We understand the pressure you are under.  Of course we do.  We have talked about it often enough in this Committee.

The other thing I would like to be assured is included in the evaluation is what the community, through the Safer Neighbourhood Boards and the other councils, is saying is included in the published evaluation.