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Met Commissioner outlines Top 5 policing challenges for London

20 Jul 10

Speaking at the BSIA’s Annual Luncheon and Security Personnel Awards, Sir Paul Stephenson outlined the Top 5 key challenges for policing in London over the next few years. Brian Sims reports.

By Brian Sims

In his excellent keynote address at the London Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, Metropolitan Police Service Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson QPM talked about the major challenges that will present themselves to public safety and security in the Capital across the next five years, and how the police will deal with them.

“The alliance formed between policing and the security industry is becoming increasingly important,” explained Stephenson. “We’re world leaders in policing, and world leaders when it comes to private security provision, and I would suggest the collaboration between us now takes on a whole new degree of importance as we rapidly approach the 2012 Olympic Games.”

Like his predecessor Sir John Stevens seven years previously, Stephenson warned that further terrorist attempts at disrupting business and public life in London are “inevitable” and that, if not harnessed in time, the “consequences could be catastrophic”.

Stephenson continued: “At present, the absence of an attack does not equate to the absence of a threat”. The clear inference from this is that Londoners – and indeed citizens in all of the UK mainland’s major conurbations – need to be on their guard 100% of the time.

“I don’t want to induce a sense of panic,” added the Commissioner, “but we’re not out of the woods yet.” He would go on to develop the counter-terror theme a few minutes later.

The Top 5 challenges ahead

“Now, I want to talk about some key challenges for policing and the security industry over the next five years or so, then I’m going to highlight one particular area where partnership working between the police and the security industry has been, and continues to be, particularly successful. That involves a mention of our joint work on combating and reducing Cash-in-Transit (CIT) robberies.”

Although not intended as an all-inclusive or indeed exclusive list, Stephenson’s Top 5 key challenges for policing in the Capital centre on the aforementioned counter-terror agenda, the need to realise a safe and secure Olympic Games in 2012, the threat from serious and organised crime (as well as serious youth violence) and the fiscal and operational challenges realised by the proposed Conservative-Liberal Democrat cuts in public spending.

“Following on from my earlier comments on the counter-terrorism situation,” said Stephenson, “we need to maintain our focus on the PURSUE element of the CONTEST strategy. I’m passionate about our capabilities here. Just look at the Operation Overt trial and the success we’ve had in this case.”

Thanks to Operation Overt, you’ll no doubt have read or watched the news that three men who plotted to blow up commercial aircraft mid-flight somewhere between the UK and America and Canada by using liquid explosives have now each been jailed for life, with minimum sentences of up to 40 years.

Sentencing Abdullah Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain at Woolwich Crown Court, Justice Henriques said the plot would probably have succeeded had it not been for the intervention of the police and the Security Service.

Indeed, Justice Henriques described the plot as “the most grave and wicked conspiracy ever proven within this jurisdiction”, adding that it had “reached an advanced stage in its development”.

For its part, the Metropolitan Police Service’s Operation Overt was one of the biggest investigations in the history of the force. “If we hadn’t succeeded here,” explained Stephenson, “world trade would have been seriously affected” (and at a time, lest we forget, when the economic situation is already grim).

The Met Commissioner also mentioned, albeit briefly, the PREPARE and PROTECT elements of CONTEST (and the “huge involvement” of the private security within them) in addition to the success stories created by counter-terror training (most notably Project Griffin). “The sharing of information between the police and the private sector there has been tremendous.”

Scale of the 2012 Olympic Games

Considering the 2012 Olympic Games, Stephenson outlined the fact that the sheer scale of the event must never be underestimated as “the Olympics is massive both in size and time span.”

It will certainly present a challenge for the police service to deliver a successfully secure and safe event, that’s for sure.

“The major threat comes from terrorism, of course, but we cannot rule out the threat from serious and organised criminality nor public protest. The key here is to plan for a sporting event with a security overlay rather than a security event at which some sport will be played out.”

Stephenson is concerned that the proposed reduction in police funding generally will impact on the service’s ability to deliver both ‘business as usual’ security as well as protection for the Olympics, although he insisted the Met will do its utmost to ensure the safety of the public.

The scale of ambition for parallel events to 2012 is a concern for Stephenson and his colleagues, as both the police service and the private security industry will be at full stretch. “Our working out of the capacities involved is going to be absolutely crucial,” he stressed, before moving on to the thorny subject of serious and organised crime.

“In today’s world,” explained Stephenson, “there are new threats, new crimes and new ways of committing crime. Cybercrime is high on the radar, so too identify theft, trafficking and Internet fraud.”

Stephenson added: “We’ve mapped the threat now. There are 6,000 organised crime groups in the UK. 38,000 individuals are actively engaged in serious and organised crime, and that crime costs up to £40 billion every year.” In fact, it accounts for 25% of our £157 billion national debt.

“Serious and organised crime presents a real and huge threat to business continuity,” remarked Stephenson. “It leads to surcharges on innocent members of the public every time they buy something from the shops. That’s a great incentive for the police and the private security industry to join forces in preventing it from spreading.”

Stephenson was also keen – and correct – to point out that statistics such as those cited are economic measures that “don’t capture the harm, misery and depravity” induced by the criminals’ actions.

Addressing issues within the family unit

Until Stephenson’s speech, I’d never heard any ‘Top Cop’ recognise one truism I’ve been writing and talking about for years… That truism being the breakdown of the family unit in this country, and the consequent neglect of ‘parents’ (if you can call them that) who fail to breed any kind of discipline and respect for authority into their children.

Referring to the need for addressing serious youth violence, Stephenson said: “What are we doing about the parenting situation, not to mention school exclusions? If we tackle these areas then we’ll have a chance of creating confident communities – communities that can engage with business.” Hear, hear, Sir Paul, and extremely well said.

“In London,” added Stephenson, “kids are killing kids, and that presents a huge challenge to our future as a city. At the Metropolitan Police Service we ‘do’ suppression by way of Stop and Search and the like, but what’s being done in terms of social policy?”

The police service does not lead on social engineering, of course, and nor should it. That’s the Government’s remit in tandem with the parents. Stephenson was quite obviously laying down his own challenge for the politicians in Westminster. This is one occasion where I have no problem whatsoever with the police talking politics.

Budgeting for the recession

Moving on to the fiscal challenges facing the police service, the Met currently commands a £3.6 billion annual budget to maintain law and order for the 55,000 people resident within its jurisdictional area. There’s a constant need, then – and perhaps more so now than ever before – to minimise the ‘unit cost of delivery’ and live within budget.

Indeed, the recent statement by Chancellor George Osborne will likely mean that 25% of the policing budget will be cut over the next four years. That’s a hefty chunk. “We can reduce management on-costs, but the police will become a shrinking organisation if you are talking about personnel numbers,” said Stephenson. “That’s a challenge and an opportunity.”

Elaborating on that point, Stephenson opined: “I remain firmly committed to frontline policing. To boost security provisions we can again look at new partnership working between ourselves and the private security industry.”

For Stephenson, an excellent example of this joined-up thinking is shown by the results delivered within the Cash-in-Transit environment.

“There has been a 37% reduction in incidents involving Cash-in-Transit crews this year when compared to last.” In real terms, that statistic represents 60 fewer incidents. “Operation Vanguard represents a partnership approach, one that was supported by the BSIA and which has involved actively ‘designing out’ Cash-in-Transit crimes through innovation.”

It’s worth remembering that 77% of Cash-in-Transit offenders are linked to other priority offences, with one-in-three connected to a recognised gang.

“Financial and partnership support from the BSIA and other leading firms,” explained the Met Commissioner, “is vital to keep the momentum going and reduce and prevent Cash-in-Transit crimes.”

Cementing the partnership message

Stephenson began his polemic by highlighting the increasing importance of the alliance between policing and the security industry, and wanted to cement the message with his concluding remark.

“The things that make this country safe and communities prosperous are our ‘shared agendas’, so let’s work together on combating the criminals.”