Civil Liberties Panel

The MPA Civil Liberties Panel was introduced in the MPA's mission statement for London’s police, Met Forward, as a means of securing public confidence in policing tactics in the capital and ensuring the Met maintains public trust.

Met Forward

‘Our duty, as London’s police authority, is to ensure the Met restores and maintains public trust. In order to support this, we will establish a Civil Liberties Panel of Authority members that will begin its work with a formal civil liberties scrutiny of the Met’s public order policing of violent disorder. Once the initial scrutiny is complete, the panel will continue both to monitor the situation and hear specific concerns from the public and human rights organisations.’

It is proposed that the panel will convene to consider issues on a priority basis as agreed by the MPA. It will be a standing panel, and will meet as the need arises.

Due to the public concern over events surrounding the policing of G20, the first priority for the panel is a review of the HMIC report on the policing of G20. This will reflect the issues raised by members at the full authority meeting on 30 April 2009. As other priorities emerge, additional terms of reference will be agreed.

Panel hearings will be held in open session except if there are extraordinary and compelling reasons to meet in private.

The panel met for the first time on 9 July 2009. At this meeting Victoria Borwick was elected chair, membership of the panel was confirmed and terms of reference were discussed and agreed. The terms of reference were ratified at the full Authority meeting on 23 July 2009.

Your views on the policing of protests/demonstrations

The policing of the London G20 summit in April 2009 led to extensive media and public scrutiny. It is important that the public have their say in shaping how protests/demonstrations are policed in the future. Thank you to all who completed the questionnaire. The final review by the Metropolitan Police Authority’s Civil Liberties Panel of public order policing will be published on the MPA website once completed.

Public meeting: 5 November 2009

Civil Liberties Panel open meeting

As part of our review of the events surrounding the G20 demonstrations we held an open meeting on 5 November 2009, in London’s Living Room, City Hall, The Queen's Walk, London, SE1 2AA.

We were keen to engage with as many individuals and groups as possible who would like to comment on the events which took place on 1 and 2 April 2009. We particularly welcomed firsthand accounts from those who were actually there.

In order to cover the range of topics we grouped the morning into three broad areas for discussion as detailed in the agenda below. Our aim was to gather as much information as possible from the maximum number of people, and to achieve this in the time available we needed to limit submissions to a maximum of 3 minutes each. Topics were also be grouped together to avoid repetition.

Comments, submissions received and points raised in discussion will be used to inform the report of the Civil Liberties Panel to the Metropolitan Police in the New Year. The report will be widely circulated within the Metropolitan Police Service, the Mayor's office, HMIC and other bodies concerned with civil liberties.

The session was recorded and available as a webcast.

Agenda - 5 November

08:45 Doors opened at City Hall

09:00-09:25 Break

09:30–09:35 Welcome from the Chair

9:35-10:15 Planning for the Event
This section covered pre-event planning between organisers, the police, the public, the local businesses, and the media

10:15-11:15 Policing on the day (various marches/demonstrations)
This section covered the various events and demonstrations that took place, and how they were policed

11:15-11:30 Break

11:30-12:15 Communications (before, during and after G20)
This section covered communications: prior to the event, during and afterwards from the public, police, organisers, media and local businesses perspective.

12:15-12:25 Summation
Covering the key points made during the discussions

12:30 Close

Members of the panel

• Victoria Borwick (Chair)
• Valerie Brasse
• Dee Doocey
• Kirsten Hearn
• Jenny Jones
• Clive Lawton
• Joanne McCartney
• Richard Tracey

Terms of reference

To develop an ongoing understanding of civil liberties and human rights and the consequences this has for policing in relation to all the areas considered by this panel.

• the panel may investigate any topics which in their view are relevant to civil liberties
• within each area of review, develop a clear understanding of the full range of policies and tactics, including training, supervision and communication; the situations within which various tactics are deployed and how decisions about proportionality are made. The panel will consider the wider impact of these on civil liberties and human rights.
• scrutinise the MPS’s work to retain public trust and confidence in balancing civil liberties with the need to maintain public safety and public order through proportionate policing. This should include scrutinising how the MPS communicates with the public, key stakeholders and the MPA.
• the panel will consider how lessons learned from previous investigations impact on current MPS practice, training regimes and organisational culture.
• understand the potential equalities and diversity issues arising out of all areas of service delivery being addressed by this panel.
• engage with the MPS, the public, relevant groups and civil liberty and human rights organisations to ensure that members gain a comprehensive understanding of the issues involved.
• the monitoring of the implementation of any recommendations by this panel and any other relevant reviews (e.g. the HMIC review of G20 and public order) on behalf of the Authority may be undertaken by the panel or another MPA committee as appropriate.
• provide regular reports to full Authority and other committees where relevant, updating them on the progress being made against the panel’s work programme and make recommendations to the Authority and the MPS.

There are potentially significant equality and diversity issues arising out of any scrutiny in this area. The equality objectives outlined above aim to ensure that they are addressed as the work of the panel develops.

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