By Gabriel Princewill-
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has outlined proposals for more than £14 million of new funding to “raise standards, improve performance, and rebuild the trust and confidence” of all of London’s communities in the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS).
His plans includes the creation of a new Leadership Academy to provide enhanced training for MPS leaders and line managers, “strengthening their capability to ensure the high standards expected by policing and the public are achieved”, said Sadiq Khan.
The funding comprising key aspects of Mr Khan’s 2023/24 budget proposals is designed to support the MPS Commissioner’s ‘Turnaround Plan’, which sets out how the force will achieve its mission to rebuild trust, reduce crime and improve standards over the next two years
Nearly £12 million of the proposed new investment of £14.2 million from City Hall announced on Thursday will support the Commissioner’s drive for higher standards in the MPS, including the creation of the new Leadership Academy, Mr Khan said.
The Met was in an unprecedented state of crisis earlier this week after it emerged that former serving police officer, David Carrick pleaded guilty to 49 offences while he was an officer, many involving sexual offences including rap. against 12 women across two decades.
More shocking was the fact numerous complaints against the officer over the past 9 years had been treated with kids gloves, exposing a an alarming oversight by the force in rooting out the beast in its midst.
Met Commissioner, Mark Rowley further shocked brits when he revealed that serving police officers will be brought before the courts two or three times a week for horrifying offences that include sexual offences and domestic violence.
The Eye Of Media.Com have for the past few months been on Mr. Khan’s back to take strident action in confronting the perpetual gross misconduct in the police force, and go beyond past efforts he has made to reform the force.
Systemic levels of racism, mysogyny, and all manner of criminal behaviour has blighted the image of not just the Met police, but the British police force as a whole in the last few years.
Those rotten cops in the force continue to undermine the dignified and committed police officers committed to genuinely serving the public and upholding the law.
The Mayor has not said how the money will be practically mobilised to achieve the much needed transformation in the ailing force which has been beset my scandal and corruption due to the the presence of unsavoury police officers who ought never to have passed vetting in the first instance.
The Mets Turnaround Plan through an academy is aimed at modernising training and fostering a strong cohort of leaders in every policing department across the capital.
The Leadership Academy also aims to empower MPS leaders to identify officers whose performance fall below the requisite standard expected of honourable police officers, empowering them with the training to tackle issues around discipline and performance more effectively.
Its broader plans to metamorphosize the force includes improving the working environment for all officers and staff, and the undertaking of proactive action against officers with “repeated or patterns of unacceptable behaviour” in support of recommendations from the interim Baroness Casey review.
The mayor said the investment will also include increasing the number HR staff within the MPS to tackle performance and standards issues at source, “accelerating the work the Commissioner is leading on to make the MPS a workplace where everyone is supported and proud to be a part of”.
Training And Resilience
An additional £2.5 million from City Hall would be used to improve the training and resilience of the MPS’s Command and Control Centre, which handles more than six million emergency calls and online queries from the public each year.
The mayor said his funding proposals are part of a package of measures designed to support the MPS to exit ‘special measures’ as quickly as possible and to “accelerate the root and branch reforms and systemic change to the Met’s performance and culture”.
Mr Khan, said: “I’m determined to continue doing everything in my power to make policing in London better and to support the work that has started to deliver the urgent reforms and step change in culture and performance Londoners deserve.
“This means empowering the Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, to reduce crime further, raise standards, and restore trust between the police and the communities the Met serves.
“To do this we need strong leaders in the Met who not only acknowledge the scale of the problems, but have the training and confidence to take the action needed to raise standards. That’s why I’m announcing plans to fund a new Leadership Academy for all Met leaders in every team across our capital.
“This will play a key part in ensuring the Met can successfully turn the recommendations from Baroness Casey’s interim review into real and lasting action. I see police reform as a critical part of my mayoralty. And I will not be satisfied until Londoners have the police service they deserve – one that is representative, trusted and delivers the highest possible service to every community in our city.
“The extra funding I have proposed today will also ensure that Londoners who contact the Met for help receive the quality of care and attention they deserve.”
The Mayor was summoned before the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee last November to answer further questions about the departure of former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick, after a review of events by Sir Tom Winsor suggested that the Mayor acted outside of the established statutory procedure, contrary to the wider legislative scheme and not in accordance with due process.
Four Tories were joined by Lib Dem Hina Bokhari voted to immediately summons Khan, rather than issue him with an invitation to attend to meeting.
Khan reacted strongly against the findings of the review by Winsor, who was Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary until March of this year, complaining to the then Home Secretary Priti Patel that its draft findings were “clearly biased”.
Caroline Russell, the Green Party member of the committee, who joined Labour AMs in voting against issuing the summons, said she was “very keen to hear from the Mayor about his views on the Winsor report,” but felt it was “unnecessary to go straight to summons”, without first issuing an invitation.
Committee deputy chair, Labour’s Unmesh Desai, said he believed the summonsing power “should be used wisely, carefully and properly”, and that not making an invitation first “would give the wrong impression that the Mayor doesn’t want to come”. He proposed instead inviting the Khan and only considering summonsing him if he did not accept within an agreed time period.
Russell’s position and the balance of committee votes suggest it is unlikely that the Mayor would have turned the invitation down, even if inclined to.
That inquiry which sought to criticise the Mayor’s perceived aggressive approach in confronting Ms Dick failed to appreciate the full scale of the aggregate transgressions of the force, and the collective failure of the establishment to sufficiently innovate and seek to eradicate the problem.
Windsor’s s report was not groundless, in that he said due process was not followed by the Mayor of London and the Mayor’s action led to Dame Cressida Dick stepping aside as Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. He said The Commissioner is not an employee of the Mayor, but she was in effect constructively dismissed by him.
Those acting on behalf of the Mayor told the Commissioner that the Mayor intended publicly to announce his loss of trust and confidence in her, and that he intended to commence the statutory removal process, on the afternoon of 10 February 2022.
There was much sympathy for Ms Dick, but public anger following the murder of Sarah Everard by a then serving police forcer, couple with knowledge of several other misdemeanours in the force made the case for immediate accountability necessary. The buck had to stop at the top.
More has come to light about the situation in the Met today, with the multiple offences committed by David Charrick accentuating the desperate need for change in the Met.
As stated by Mark Rowley, it won’t happen overnight, but strps in the right direction must be taken.