Transcript of private session: Mr EE

The name of this witness has been changed, and his submission redacted, to avoid the identification of the individuals and any third parties.

Monday, 19 April 2004
2.45 pm

Sir William Morris: Mr E, welcome. Please make yourself comfortable, have some water or tea. We are very informal, around this part of it anyway; how do you like to be addressed, Mr E or E?

Mr E: E is fine.

Sir William Morris: E, let me thank you very much indeed for accepting our invitation to attend the Inquiry this afternoon, and to give evidence, and thank you also for letting us have your written submission, which we have found immensely helpful.

I do appreciate that for some of our witnesses, a process of this nature can be somewhat daunting, so I thought it would be helpful if I set out, very briefly, how we propose to conduct the hearing this afternoon. But first, let me introduce myself and the other members of the panel. I am Sir Bill Morris, recently retired General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, but as you can see, there are two other members of the panel. On my right is Sir Anthony Burden, who recently retired as Chief Constable of South Wales Constabulary, after a very long and distinguished career in the police service; and on my left is Miss Anesta Weekes QC. Anesta is a very eminent barrister, who sits as a recorder and part-time chairperson of employment tribunals. She was also counsel to the Lawrence Inquiry.

As you know, we have been asked by the Metropolitan Police Authority to conduct an independent inquiry into professional standards and employment matters in the Metropolitan Police Service. Quite deliberately, we have taken as our focus the MPS itself as an organisation, and not the individuals who make up the MPS. Nevertheless, we need to hear from individuals in order to understand how they are affected by the policies, practices and procedures that govern the way the MPS operates.

Although we are a public inquiry, we have decided to conduct this hearing and some others, where we hear from individuals, in private. The reason for this is that we are very keen to hear from individuals like yourself who have had problems with the way that the MPS operates, but we also understand that some of our witnesses may feel reluctant to answer questions if they feel that the MPS is acting as the sort of fly on the proverbial wall, and listening in.

I hope, therefore, that you will find the arrangements that we have made helpful, and feel comfortable that you can speak freely to us this afternoon.

Although we are meeting in private today, as I have just said, we are a public inquiry, and that means that it may be necessary for us to seek further clarification from others about what you have said to us in writing and what you say to us today. If we do decide to do so, this would be done without any identification of yourself, and let me also assure you that if we do decide to do so, we will do it in a way which affords you the least possible inconvenience, and we would not do so without seeking your permission.

The inquiry we are conducting is inquisitorial and not adversarial in character, we want to enquire, we want to get facts and information, not have an adversarial exchange.

We are keen to enquire into the issues raised by our terms of reference, so that we can make appropriate recommendations for further good practice within the Metropolitan Police Service. We have no wish to go back over the details of what has happened, because we have read your written submission carefully, and we are clear about the events.

What we now want to do is to ask you some questions which will enable us to draw on your experience to inform our work. At the end of these introductory remarks, one of my colleagues, on this occasion Miss Weekes, will lead our questioning to you, and then other members of the panel, myself and Sir Anthony, may want to ask one or two supplementary questions. When we have finished with our questions, I will offer you the opportunity to make a brief closing comment.

Just for the record, let me draw your attention to the fact that a transcript of what you say is being taken, so that we have a proper record of the evidence given by all our witnesses. We are hoping to publish this transcript, together with your written submission, on our website in the next few days, but we will only do that after we have taken out references to your name and other personal details, in order to be sure that it contains no information which identifies you or other individuals.

Before I ask Miss Weekes to begin the questions, for the benefit of the transcript, could I ask you, please, to formally introduce yourself to the Inquiry?

Mr E: I am EE, I am a Grade [Redacted] working for the Metropolitan Police across the road at New Scotland Yard.

Sir William Morris: Thank you very much indeed, E.

Miss Weekes?

Questions by Miss Weekes

Miss Weekes: Thank you very much, E. I note from the concise, but extremely important, submission you have submitted that it was copied to DS [Redacted], so he does know what you have said, and you do not have any objection to that, do you?

Mr E: No.

Miss Weekes: And you would not have any objection to some of the matters that are explored by me being explored later on with DS [Redacted]?

Mr E: No, certainly. In fact, I wrote it first to DS [Redacted], and then I altered it slightly to send it over to here, so it was that way around rather than this way round; same difference really.

Miss Weekes: But you do not have any objection to –

Mr E: No, not in the least.

Miss Weekes: What does a Grade [Redacted] do across the road?

Mr E: I am a supervisor in the [Redacted], I have 16 staff working shifts, dealing with [Redacted]. We assess it, do whatever we need to do with it, and send it off again. In civil service terms, it is sort of [Redacted] level.

Miss Weekes: Thank you.

Can I go straight to the first of the issues your submission raises, and it is the question of disciplinary processes, internal staff disciplinary and complaints takes far too long.

Mr E: I think so, yes.

Miss Weekes: Well, you have given an average here, and I think it to be an average, that two years is not too unusual?

Mr E: Well, I do not have experience of many cases, but this particular one, it took ages and ages and ages, so much so that one of the people involved, his dad wrote in and said, "Can you speed this up a bit, because my son is getting fed up waiting?" Everybody was getting fed up waiting, we just want these things done and dusted, and all the time, of course, you are paying the people who may well be dismissed in the end.

Miss Weekes: Absolutely. You do not really have to mention any names at all, but can I just get a gist from you of the nature of the complaint?

Mr E: Yes, it is all very complicated and tangled, but to boil it right down to basics: I was at a unit, one member of staff there was running his own club, doing all his copying, letters, computer work in the firm's time with the firm's paper, and I know for certain he did 969 copies while I was on leave, when he was there on his own. He also took a gun home from the safe, ostensibly to mend it or repair it or something.

I reported him for those offences. While it was waiting, the gun went missing from the safe, so I reported that as well, and they found out who had taken the gun, and I think that was done just to foul up the first case, because he would not have been able to produce the evidence, or the exhibits.

Miss Weekes: So the gun has gone at the moment?

Mr E: I believe the gun is back in the Met's possession, but it was – he could have told me he wanted to move it and put it in a safe place, but it just went, and I knew who did it, so he was disciplined as well. He was off for about eight months, the other chap was off for about 18 months, suspended, and then he had a period of sickness.

Miss Weekes: Has that case been completed yet?

Mr E: Yes, it has.

Miss Weekes: Well, let us just use that as a backdrop. I want to go through with you your views and recommendations for speeding up these sorts of cases. What do you think is the principal reason behind delay, or principal reasons?

Mr E: Possibly going into things in too much depth. Everything was done as if it was a murder inquiry, you know, statements were put in plastic bags, exhibits were made, you had to sign labels and computer analysis called in, and all sorts of things like that, when the nub of it was really that all this copying had been done, yes or no; and the gun was in the safe, yes or no.

It could all be boiled down to fairly simplistic incidences. It was not like a Stephen Lawrence murder, it was something relatively trivial. As Sir John Stevens says, if you could just sack people, like a supermarket manager does, when he finds somebody who has got their hand in the till, it would be so much quicker. There could be means of appeal and things like that, but it just takes so long. As I suggested there, files sit on desks, and things are left until tomorrow, and it just gets so laborious, everybody suffers.

Miss Weekes: And even if you did have to take one or five statements, it would be a bit of a worry if it took two years or 18 months to do that, would it not?

Mr E: Oh yes. As I say, the people doing it, some of them were ex-police, and I do not know if they think they got their sort of teeth into it, and they treated it just like a murder inquiry, I think, or a police inquiry, and it was – overboard is perhaps the phrase that best describes it, in detail and intricacy.

Miss Weekes: Can I deal with that aspect, and I will come back to the timing then; what you raise is really if it is, "Was the gun there, how much paper, how much photocopying?" You want a procedure which is straightforward, quick and to the point.

Mr E: Yes, I think everybody does.

Miss Weekes: Do you know about the Taylor Review?

Mr E: No.

Miss Weekes: It was an investigation which was outside of the Met, which looked into a number of very serious allegations which included corruption, and that review made some extremely important recommendations about how you handle such cases; one of the recommendations was that there should be a reviewing officer who could look at what the allegation is, look at what the complaint is, and decide proportionality, as to how you deal with it.

Mr E: Yes.

Miss Weekes: And have a look at what the outcome is going to be.

Mr E: That would be worth doing.

Miss Weekes: That, we understand, is going to be put into place, and is going to be adopted fully by the Met.

Mr E: That could improve things, yes.

Miss Weekes: It would certainly be able to deal with your particular complaint. Can I come back to timing? Because we are interested in it, and it is important.

One of the things that appears not to happen, and tell me whether in your experience it does, is that somebody keeps an eye on the investigators, somebody is there to ask, "Now, how are you getting on? The complaint was made in [Redacted], I see it is now [Redacted], can you tell me how far you have got and how much longer you think you are going to be, and why you need further time?" Do you think something like that should happen?

Mr E: There might be, but you have got that at present, because I mean, I answer to somebody, they answer to somebody, they answer to somebody, right up the tree, but if there was somebody outside looking at it, that might be an advantage, so long as it was not possible to just fob them off, "Further enquiries, further enquiries, further enquiries", that sort of approach.

Miss Weekes: Well, let us explore that, because it is quite an important suggestion which may or may not work. Why would it be an advantage, or why would it be a disadvantage, to have somebody on the outside who could come along and say, "Well, I can see what is going on with complaints here, we have three on the desk which are three years old, what is going on?" Why would that be a possibility?

Mr E: I think it would be worth exploring. As I said down the bottom here, if you get a bit of lay input into it –

Miss Weekes: Yes, you do say that.

Mr E: – you know, you do sort of gee things along a bit, and if somebody is going to – if it is going to come out in the Commissioner's annual report that there is still 20 internal inquiries that are still two years old outstanding, that might help to speed things along a bit.

Miss Weekes: So you quite like the idea of an independent person who could be asking those questions –

Mr E: Yes, somebody who could ask the awkward questions without fear of being pushed to one side or penalised for doing that, which is always the risk if you are doing it internally.

Miss Weekes: If you use another policeman within the department of professional standards, to start asking the questions about why something is not moving quickly enough, do you think that would be effective?

Mr E: If he was not too wary of asking the awkward questions, yes.

Miss Weekes: How many police officers do you know who would not be too wary about asking a couple of commanders or chief inspectors as to what is going on?

Mr E: Well, I do not know that really, it all depends on who they went through training school with, and things like that. Sometimes they would help out each other for smoothing things out, "Oh yeah, I will give you another couple of weeks for that", and it might be counter-productive.

Miss Weekes: So you are talking about an independent person?

Mr E: Yes, whether it is practical or feasible, I do not know, but I think it is worth a –

Miss Weekes: But in principle, that is what you are –

Mr E: In principle. There needs to be some means of pushing these along a bit more rapidly, I think.

Miss Weekes: Would you also consider it helpful to have some form of set procedure that allows the parties to come to say, "Now, we have been investigating this for six months, this is where we have got to. We have had the independent review that it is proportionate, these are the witnesses, but I may need a few more weeks", and then both parties can have their say about where that goes. Would you favour –

Mr E: I think if people met earlier, that might help, because if they were asked, "Did you do it?", at an earlier stage, you might get an answer.

If it lasts two years after that, you have the possibility of it finishing after three months, which is better than lasting two years by not asking what they think at that earlier stage.

Miss Weekes: We have heard from another witness to this Inquiry that there are often problems about disclosure, about the person complained about having access to information that may assist them, that may help them to exonerate themselves. Did you find that when you dealt with staff discipline?

Mr E: No, I do not think so. No, it just seemed to be nothing happening. I mean, I spoke to department of professional standards, I spoke to my own personnel manager, I spoke to various other people, they said, "Oh yeah, it is all being done, it is all in hand, we are going to make a statement next week," and then that week would come, you would make your statement, it would go on the file, another six weeks later something else comes back, and so it goes on and on, and lasts, you know, this whole length of time.

Miss Weekes: So even though there is someone who is accountable – because there is someone to ask, it does not necessarily move it on?

Mr E: It does not seem to speed it up, no.

Miss Weekes: What about the independence and fairness of those who do prepare the investigation?

Mr E: Oh, I think they were quite good. I mean, the work done, it was all very thorough, but it was all done very slowly. I do not say they were biased or anything like that, they said, "Well, could I prove this bit about the copying, and I said, "Well" – each day before I went home, I took a note of the counter number on the copier, I did it on Friday, and when I came back Monday, it was this different. Okay, fair enough, write it all down, produce your original notes, that kind of thing.

I cannot sort of fault the work was done, but it was so much of it, and it was so lengthy getting it all done. Maybe they had lots of other cases on the go, I do not know, but it is a very laborious process.

Miss Weekes: The process, you say, in civil staff discipline relies far too much on local staff, and you say it needs a central discipline department with experience.

Mr E: Yes.

Miss Weekes: Why does it rely on staff? Is that just –

Mr E: I think this is part of – years ago, there was a discipline branch within the civil staff side of the Met, that was when I joined, and that branch might phone up about something and you would answer the question, and that was the last you heard of it.

Then the sort of flavour of the month in the Met was localising everything, localising recruiting, localising training, localising budgets, and discipline went out with that, but people out on division and in departments, they have got very little experience of this type of work, so they do not quite know the rules, they are not quite sure of this, and they do not know, for example, that you need to book a room and you need to get the witnesses sworn and that kind of thing. They do not know how to do it, they have possibly never done it before.

It came to me to do it, because I was the one who knew all the witnesses, who knew what was going on, that kind of thing. So I was there, trying to do my own job, trying to book a room at Regency Street for the board to be held at, trying to make sure the note-taker was there, the name plates were on the desk, and everything like that. It would have been such a help if there had been some central branch where we could have just said, "Right, that is the case file, that case has to be heard on Tuesday week, warn the witnesses, order the teas, copy the paperwork", that type of thing. It was just, "Here you are, E, this is the file, get on with it".

Miss Weekes: So there is no central admin for discipline and complaints?

Mr E: Not that I know. There certainly was not then. There might be for, say, updating the records or something like that, but it was certainly a lot lacking then, when this case was going through.

Miss Weekes: And you think that would obviously assist if there was?

Mr E: I think yes, I think the people doing would know how to set the room up, they would have a permanent room available, they would have the gear for the door signs, they would have the contact with the catering department, they would have the addresses for the witnesses, everything like that, and that would be their full-time work, they would not be bogged down in doing their day jobs.

Miss Weekes: I will quote this, because your statement is important:

"Amazing as it may seem, I have also found that some personnel managers do not know the personnel rules, and will not be told them."

Mr E: Yes.

Miss Weekes: How widespread do you think that is?

Mr E: Possibly wider than the Met realises. The background to this is there was a case against me, alleging my own inefficiency, some years ago, and they started inefficiency proceedings against me, and I was called into see the boss and said, "You are not doing well enough, pull your socks up", that kind of thing, and I should have been given seven days' notice of that, and given the chance to bring a union rep along. I did not get anything. "Can I mention this?" They said, "Oh, we are not doing it that way, we are doing this, get on with your work", and then I got another warning, and none of it was done properly, and I got the rule book out and said, "There it is."

Miss Weekes: Did they follow the rule book when you showed it to them?

Mr E: They did afterwards, yes, but –

Miss Weekes: You had to show it to them?

Mr E: Yes, again, possibly with a Central discipline branch, they would know the ropes. I mean, I did not drag it to an ET, because it was all done over again properly, but it was very shabbily done really. And you have to get the rule book out and plonk it in front of people's faces to show them that you do know what you are talking about, it is pretty desperate.

Miss Weekes: How long ago was this?

Mr E: [Redacted] years.

Miss Weekes: The actual disciplinary hearings themselves, would you say that they are constructive, are they fair?

Mr E: Yes, I think so, overall, yes. The failure on this one was that I did not – he actually warned the bloke about the photocopying, I did not say to him, "You will not do any more photocopying", I just said, "Try not to do any more of that, cut that down, you have got to get on with other work". I was trying to be gentle about it and that, of course, was the weakness in the case, I think. What could they do? They could not say, "You had been formally warned" or anything like that. It immediately leaked from me reporting it to my boss to the chap being suspended, and then the opportunity to take it informally, was lost.

Miss Weekes: The welfare of staff who are complained against, is there any room for improvement there?

Mr E: I think the improvement will come with improving the system. I did not mind doing this to start with, I am glad I did what I did, and they did say – the department did say they would back me, et cetera, et cetera, but where it fell down, if it can be included in the welfare sort of area, is on the final day and the back-up to the discipline side itself, which was not a sort of welfare matter I was kind of upset about, or felt I got sidelined. It might be for others, I do not know, but I was praised for what I did, now I thought everything was going along nicely, and I would be – they would be grateful for everything that was done.

Miss Weekes: How long have you been at Scotland Yard? I only ask to find out whether you are familiar with the Fairness at Work procedure which is reasonably new.

Mr E: Oh yes, I have seen that, read that all through.

Miss Weekes: You have read it; do you think it works practically?

Mr E: It probably works better than the grievance procedure which it replaced, because that was far more sort of formalised and by the rule book; Fairness at Work seems to be a more easy-going, kind of smooth-it-out informally sort of procedure, which is probably better, rather than a confrontational approach.

Miss Weekes: How do you think that has been received by staff?

Mr E: Generally quite well, I think, although I do not think I have actually had any dealings with anybody who has gone through it, or tried it, but I think, generally, it even sounds better, Fairness at Work, rather than grievances.

Miss Weekes: When someone has been disciplined or has spent some time under suspension, they often require training when they come back, they may require other kinds of support. Generally speaking, is that handled well by the Met: the period that they are on suspension and then the coming back to work and being prepared to come back on to full duty where they are placed; that sort of thing?

Mr E: I do not really know. These particular people, they did not sort of miss anything and they did not need to re-learn anything when they came back. But you are talking of fairly, you know, junior staff to me. They were not senior people or anything like that. With police officers, you would have to know more about the way the rules – and things the legislation has changed in the interim. This is office staff, who really came back and picked up the job again in five minutes.

Miss Weekes: Perhaps there are less changes that occur to the admin side for staff than there would be for a police officer out on the beat.

Mr E: Yes.

Miss Weekes: Just dealing with press, you have not mentioned it, I just ask in case you are able to assist us, press coverage of cases; are you able to assist us on that at all, in terms of any –

Mr E: Ask me and I might know the answer. If I have an opinion ...

Miss Weekes: Have you come across a situation where you can say that the Met have produced a press release or press coverage far too early or in a way that would be unfair to the person complained against?

Mr E: No, I do not think so. I think they are fairly careful about timing and that kind of thing.

Miss Weekes: That is your view?

Mr E: Yes, they are fairly astute on that kind of thing.

Miss Weekes: Can I ask just about diversity generally? Again, simply because you have some contact with staff? Issues of gender and issues of race, as far as you are aware, are they dealt with in the correct manner, without overreacting, by those who have to look into allegations of gender discrimination or race discrimination? Because we hear that the Met is rather sensitive about things like that.

Mr E: I think they are scrupulously careful about it. My own experience is, if somebody complains, then it is looked into and it is chewed over, and all that kind of thing. Again, there might be shortcomings in how long people are suspended and things like that, but that is not necessarily because it is a race matter, but because it is an investigation, a bit like this one. Perhaps it gets to the formal stages too early, something like that, I do not know really. I have not had direct involvement in a case like that, but based on sort of hearsay and what friends have gone through and things like that.

Miss Weekes: Yes. This final topic: the Independent Police Complaints Commission, is now in place; do you see that that would bring some improvement, for example, their ability to oversee internal complaints and discipline?

Mr E: Yes, I think that is a good idea.

Miss Weekes: And are you aware in fact, that there are steps being taken to have lay members on each disciplinary board?

Mr E: No, I did not know that, but I think it is a good move.

Miss Weekes: That would clearly go well to dealing with the points that you have raised there. I want to ask you, finally, about the unions: MET-TUS is somebody that we have heard from. Are they, would you say, effective enough in dealing with the general complaints that staff would have? I am not just talking about individual complaints, but the position of the general conditions of work for staff.

Mr E: I think so, yes. They are not the strongest of unions, like the NUM or something like that, but I think they do a good job.

Miss Weekes: Have you had dealings with them yourself?

Mr E: Yes. Sometimes the people lack experience or something like that, but they do genuinely seem to try to help things along and sort things out, and then, of course, you have – they sort of represent the middle person between yourself and the official side of the Met, and they can sometimes suggest a compromise or something like that, yes.

Miss Weekes: The culture in the Met, I am just interested in your view about it, again, dealing with disciplinary: is there enough flexibility within the Met to move away from statutory requirements to simply looking at something and thinking, "What is the common sense approach that would be best here?" Have you found that to be the case and the experience where officers will – leave out the hierarchy and the general way of doing things.

Mr E: Yes, sometimes things get sorted out by a phone call or a meeting or something like – informally, but then, the weakness in that is that somebody can usually point to a rule or something like that which is saying, "No, this should be done formally," and then you are on the sort of formal path which can clog things up.

Miss Weekes: So you think at the moment there might always remain that fear that, if you do not deal with it by the correct procedural way, you might come in for criticism anyway?

Mr E: Yes, you can be criticised, although your judgement or actions might have been perfectly reasonable in the circumstances, because you did not go through a regimented procedure, you can trip yourself up.

Miss Weekes: Thank you very much.

Sir William Morris: E, I will pass you straight over to Sir Anthony for one or two questions.

Questions by Sir Anthony Burden

Sir Anthony Burden: Just one issue, E, if I may, and that relates to your comment in the second part of your penultimate paragraph there:

"Even when people know the rules, they are reluctant to hard decisions."

That has been your experience?

Mr E: Yes, well, I spoke to people during this business, and said, "When this is all over and done with, I do not want those two back here," but they came back and I appealed against that, and they said, "Well, we have not got anywhere else for them," which, in an organisation as big as the Met is, to me, palpable nonsense.

Sir Anthony Burden: If I can say, you certainly seem to be a manager who is not afraid to manage, and that is something –

Mr E: Yes, well, until then.

Sir Anthony Burden: Until then – and that is something that has been made comment of before this panel. But you found yourself being moved?

Mr E: Yes.

Sir Anthony Burden: They came back, because there was no working relationship –

Mr E: No, it was hopeless. There was a few meetings with the union, but it was a complete non-starter really. My manager came down and we had a chat, "Is everything going to be all right? Are you going to start talking to" – "Oh yes, fine, no problems", you know, and as soon as they went out the door, silence again.

Sir Anthony Burden: But you were the one who was basically –

Mr E: It is obviously easier to move one person, who is not going to rock the boat, than two, who have rocked the boat, and have got off a discipline proceedings.

Sir Anthony Burden: Hardly a good advert within the organisation to other managers who might feel that they should manage?

Mr E: Well, if it is known about, these things just get forgotten about, do they not? You moan, and they say, "Oh well, too bad", it goes away and nobody knows about it. A few know about it, obviously –

Sir Anthony Burden: Not very satisfactory.

Mr E: They will say, "There are other circumstances," or something like that, but it is just unsatisfactory, is it not? Not long after that, they did put out a notice about transfers in discipline cases, and it should be the person who is at fault who should be moved, but I do not know if it would still happen like that.

Sir Anthony Burden: Was that as a direct consequence of your case, do you think?

Mr E: Well, I do not know, it could have been. It could have been coincidence. But I did moan to, I think – about number two or three person in the personnel department about it, and it happened after that; it might be coincidence, it might not be. But again, whether it would happen, I do not know. If the personnel managers were not prepared to bite the bullet then, they may not be now.

Sir Anthony Burden: Thank you very much indeed.

Sir William Morris: Thank you. All right, E, that concludes the range of questions that my colleagues and myself wanted to put to you, but you will recall during my introduction, I said that you would be provided with an opportunity to make an closing statement or comment if you so wished. If you do wish to do so, then I invite you to do that now.

Mr E: I think all I want to add is, I am pleased that this type of thing is being looked at. I think it has been going wrong for a long time, and if this can improve things, it is for the benefit of everybody, the wrongdoers and the people who are trying to manage the staff.

Sir William Morris: Yes, indeed. Can I therefore then thank you for letting us have your written submission, and thank you also for responding to the questions this afternoon, the oral questions, and, in general terms, thank you for your contribution to the work of our Inquiry.

Mr E: Thank you very much.

3.15 pm

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	Archive note Important note: This is an archive of the website that was formerly at www.morrisinquiry.gov.uk. It is being hosted on the MPA website for archival purposes only and may contain out-of-date information. Page summary This resource is from the Transcripts section. This section contains a transcript of the private session with EE, on 19 April 2004. Sections available here: Transcript of private session: Mr EE Questions by Miss Weekes Questions by Sir Anthony Burden Alternative versions This transcript is also available with original line and page numbering. Content Transcript of private session: Mr EE The name of this witness has been changed, and his submission redacted, to avoid the identification of the individuals and any third parties. Monday, 19 April 2004 2.45 pm Sir William Morris: Mr E, welcome. Please make yourself comfortable, have some water or tea. We are very informal, around this part of it anyway; how do you like to be addressed, Mr E or E? Mr E: E is fine. Sir William Morris: E, let me thank you very much indeed for accepting our invitation to attend the Inquiry this afternoon, and to give evidence, and thank you also for letting us have your written submission, which we have found immensely helpful. I do appreciate that for some of our witnesses, a process of this nature can be somewhat daunting, so I thought it would be helpful if I set out, very briefly, how we propose to conduct the hearing this afternoon. But first, let me introduce myself and the other members of the panel. I am Sir Bill Morris, recently retired General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, but as you can see, there are two other members of the panel. On my right is Sir Anthony Burden, who recently retired as Chief Constable of South Wales Constabulary, after a very long and distinguished career in the police service; and on my left is Miss Anesta Weekes QC. Anesta is a very eminent barrister, who sits as a recorder and part-time chairperson of employment tribunals. She was also counsel to the Lawrence Inquiry. As you know, we have been asked by the Metropolitan Police Authority to conduct an independent inquiry into professional standards and employment matters in the Metropolitan Police Service. Quite deliberately, we have taken as our focus the MPS itself as an organisation, and not the individuals who make up the MPS. Nevertheless, we need to hear from individuals in order to understand how they are affected by the policies, practices and procedures that govern the way the MPS operates. Although we are a public inquiry, we have decided to conduct this hearing and some others, where we hear from individuals, in private. The reason for this is that we are very keen to hear from individuals like yourself who have had problems with the way that the MPS operates, but we also understand that some of our witnesses may feel reluctant to answer questions if they feel that the MPS is acting as the sort of fly on the proverbial wall, and listening in. I hope, therefore, that you will find the arrangements that we have made helpful, and feel comfortable that you can speak freely to us this afternoon. Although we are meeting in private today, as I have just said, we are a public inquiry, and that means that it may be necessary for us to seek further clarification from others about what you have said to us in writing and what you say to us today. If we do decide to do so, this would be done without any identification of yourself, and let me also assure you that if we do decide to do so, we will do it in a way which affords you the least possible inconvenience, and we would not do so without seeking your permission. The inquiry we are conducting is inquisitorial and not adversarial in character, we want to enquire, we want to get facts and information, not have an adversarial exchange. We are keen to enquire into the issues raised by our terms of reference, so that we can make appropriate recommendations for further good practice within the Metropolitan Police Service. We have no wish to go back over the details of what has happened, because we have read your written submission carefully, and we are clear about the events. What we now want to do is to ask you some questions which will enable us to draw on your experience to inform our work. At the end of these introductory remarks, one of my colleagues, on this occasion Miss Weekes, will lead our questioning to you, and then other members of the panel, myself and Sir Anthony, may want to ask one or two supplementary questions. When we have finished with our questions, I will offer you the opportunity to make a brief closing comment. Just for the record, let me draw your attention to the fact that a transcript of what you say is being taken, so that we have a proper record of the evidence given by all our witnesses. We are hoping to publish this transcript, together with your written submission, on our website in the next few days, but we will only do that after we have taken out references to your name and other personal details, in order to be sure that it contains no information which identifies you or other individuals. Before I ask Miss Weekes to begin the questions, for the benefit of the transcript, could I ask you, please, to formally introduce yourself to the Inquiry? Mr E: I am EE, I am a Grade [Redacted] working for the Metropolitan Police across the road at New Scotland Yard. Sir William Morris: Thank you very much indeed, E. Miss Weekes? Questions by Miss Weekes Miss Weekes: Thank you very much, E. I note from the concise, but extremely important, submission you have submitted that it was copied to DS [Redacted], so he does know what you have said, and you do not have any objection to that, do you? Mr E: No. Miss Weekes: And you would not have any objection to some of the matters that are explored by me being explored later on with DS [Redacted]? Mr E: No, certainly. In fact, I wrote it first to DS [Redacted], and then I altered it slightly to send it over to here, so it was that way around rather than this way round; same difference really. Miss Weekes: But you do not have any objection to – Mr E: No, not in the least. Miss Weekes: What does a Grade [Redacted] do across the road? Mr E: I am a supervisor in the [Redacted], I have 16 staff working shifts, dealing with [Redacted]. We assess it, do whatever we need to do with it, and send it off again. In civil service terms, it is sort of [Redacted] level. Miss Weekes: Thank you. Can I go straight to the first of the issues your submission raises, and it is the question of disciplinary processes, internal staff disciplinary and complaints takes far too long. Mr E: I think so, yes. Miss Weekes: Well, you have given an average here, and I think it to be an average, that two years is not too unusual? Mr E: Well, I do not have experience of many cases, but this particular one, it took ages and ages and ages, so much so that one of the people involved, his dad wrote in and said, "Can you speed this up a bit, because my son is getting fed up waiting?" Everybody was getting fed up waiting, we just want these things done and dusted, and all the time, of course, you are paying the people who may well be dismissed in the end. Miss Weekes: Absolutely. You do not really have to mention any names at all, but can I just get a gist from you of the nature of the complaint? Mr E: Yes, it is all very complicated and tangled, but to boil it right down to basics: I was at a unit, one member of staff there was running his own club, doing all his copying, letters, computer work in the firm's time with the firm's paper, and I know for certain he did 969 copies while I was on leave, when he was there on his own. He also took a gun home from the safe, ostensibly to mend it or repair it or something. I reported him for those offences. While it was waiting, the gun went missing from the safe, so I reported that as well, and they found out who had taken the gun, and I think that was done just to foul up the first case, because he would not have been able to produce the evidence, or the exhibits. Miss Weekes: So the gun has gone at the moment? Mr E: I believe the gun is back in the Met's possession, but it was – he could have told me he wanted to move it and put it in a safe place, but it just went, and I knew who did it, so he was disciplined as well. He was off for about eight months, the other chap was off for about 18 months, suspended, and then he had a period of sickness. Miss Weekes: Has that case been completed yet? Mr E: Yes, it has. Miss Weekes: Well, let us just use that as a backdrop. I want to go through with you your views and recommendations for speeding up these sorts of cases. What do you think is the principal reason behind delay, or principal reasons? Mr E: Possibly going into things in too much depth. Everything was done as if it was a murder inquiry, you know, statements were put in plastic bags, exhibits were made, you had to sign labels and computer analysis called in, and all sorts of things like that, when the nub of it was really that all this copying had been done, yes or no; and the gun was in the safe, yes or no. It could all be boiled down to fairly simplistic incidences. It was not like a Stephen Lawrence murder, it was something relatively trivial. As Sir John Stevens says, if you could just sack people, like a supermarket manager does, when he finds somebody who has got their hand in the till, it would be so much quicker. There could be means of appeal and things like that, but it just takes so long. As I suggested there, files sit on desks, and things are left until tomorrow, and it just gets so laborious, everybody suffers. Miss Weekes: And even if you did have to take one or five statements, it would be a bit of a worry if it took two years or 18 months to do that, would it not? Mr E: Oh yes. As I say, the people doing it, some of them were ex-police, and I do not know if they think they got their sort of teeth into it, and they treated it just like a murder inquiry, I think, or a police inquiry, and it was – overboard is perhaps the phrase that best describes it, in detail and intricacy. Miss Weekes: Can I deal with that aspect, and I will come back to the timing then; what you raise is really if it is, "Was the gun there, how much paper, how much photocopying?" You want a procedure which is straightforward, quick and to the point. Mr E: Yes, I think everybody does. Miss Weekes: Do you know about the Taylor Review? Mr E: No. Miss Weekes: It was an investigation which was outside of the Met, which looked into a number of very serious allegations which included corruption, and that review made some extremely important recommendations about how you handle such cases; one of the recommendations was that there should be a reviewing officer who could look at what the allegation is, look at what the complaint is, and decide proportionality, as to how you deal with it. Mr E: Yes. Miss Weekes: And have a look at what the outcome is going to be. Mr E: That would be worth doing. Miss Weekes: That, we understand, is going to be put into place, and is going to be adopted fully by the Met. Mr E: That could improve things, yes. Miss Weekes: It would certainly be able to deal with your particular complaint. Can I come back to timing? Because we are interested in it, and it is important. One of the things that appears not to happen, and tell me whether in your experience it does, is that somebody keeps an eye on the investigators, somebody is there to ask, "Now, how are you getting on? The complaint was made in [Redacted], I see it is now [Redacted], can you tell me how far you have got and how much longer you think you are going to be, and why you need further time?" Do you think something like that should happen? Mr E: There might be, but you have got that at present, because I mean, I answer to somebody, they answer to somebody, they answer to somebody, right up the tree, but if there was somebody outside looking at it, that might be an advantage, so long as it was not possible to just fob them off, "Further enquiries, further enquiries, further enquiries", that sort of approach. Miss Weekes: Well, let us explore that, because it is quite an important suggestion which may or may not work. Why would it be an advantage, or why would it be a disadvantage, to have somebody on the outside who could come along and say, "Well, I can see what is going on with complaints here, we have three on the desk which are three years old, what is going on?" Why would that be a possibility? Mr E: I think it would be worth exploring. As I said down the bottom here, if you get a bit of lay input into it – Miss Weekes: Yes, you do say that. Mr E: – you know, you do sort of gee things along a bit, and if somebody is going to – if it is going to come out in the Commissioner's annual report that there is still 20 internal inquiries that are still two years old outstanding, that might help to speed things along a bit. Miss Weekes: So you quite like the idea of an independent person who could be asking those questions – Mr E: Yes, somebody who could ask the awkward questions without fear of being pushed to one side or penalised for doing that, which is always the risk if you are doing it internally. Miss Weekes: If you use another policeman within the department of professional standards, to start asking the questions about why something is not moving quickly enough, do you think that would be effective? Mr E: If he was not too wary of asking the awkward questions, yes. Miss Weekes: How many police officers do you know who would not be too wary about asking a couple of commanders or chief inspectors as to what is going on? Mr E: Well, I do not know that really, it all depends on who they went through training school with, and things like that. Sometimes they would help out each other for smoothing things out, "Oh yeah, I will give you another couple of weeks for that", and it might be counter-productive. Miss Weekes: So you are talking about an independent person? Mr E: Yes, whether it is practical or feasible, I do not know, but I think it is worth a – Miss Weekes: But in principle, that is what you are – Mr E: In principle. There needs to be some means of pushing these along a bit more rapidly, I think. Miss Weekes: Would you also consider it helpful to have some form of set procedure that allows the parties to come to say, "Now, we have been investigating this for six months, this is where we have got to. We have had the independent review that it is proportionate, these are the witnesses, but I may need a few more weeks", and then both parties can have their say about where that goes. Would you favour – Mr E: I think if people met earlier, that might help, because if they were asked, "Did you do it?", at an earlier stage, you might get an answer. If it lasts two years after that, you have the possibility of it finishing after three months, which is better than lasting two years by not asking what they think at that earlier stage. Miss Weekes: We have heard from another witness to this Inquiry that there are often problems about disclosure, about the person complained about having access to information that may assist them, that may help them to exonerate themselves. Did you find that when you dealt with staff discipline? Mr E: No, I do not think so. No, it just seemed to be nothing happening. I mean, I spoke to department of professional standards, I spoke to my own personnel manager, I spoke to various other people, they said, "Oh yeah, it is all being done, it is all in hand, we are going to make a statement next week," and then that week would come, you would make your statement, it would go on the file, another six weeks later something else comes back, and so it goes on and on, and lasts, you know, this whole length of time. Miss Weekes: So even though there is someone who is accountable – because there is someone to ask, it does not necessarily move it on? Mr E: It does not seem to speed it up, no. Miss Weekes: What about the independence and fairness of those who do prepare the investigation? Mr E: Oh, I think they were quite good. I mean, the work done, it was all very thorough, but it was all done very slowly. I do not say they were biased or anything like that, they said, "Well, could I prove this bit about the copying, and I said, "Well" – each day before I went home, I took a note of the counter number on the copier, I did it on Friday, and when I came back Monday, it was this different. Okay, fair enough, write it all down, produce your original notes, that kind of thing. I cannot sort of fault the work was done, but it was so much of it, and it was so lengthy getting it all done. Maybe they had lots of other cases on the go, I do not know, but it is a very laborious process. Miss Weekes: The process, you say, in civil staff discipline relies far too much on local staff, and you say it needs a central discipline department with experience. Mr E: Yes. Miss Weekes: Why does it rely on staff? Is that just – Mr E: I think this is part of – years ago, there was a discipline branch within the civil staff side of the Met, that was when I joined, and that branch might phone up about something and you would answer the question, and that was the last you heard of it. Then the sort of flavour of the month in the Met was localising everything, localising recruiting, localising training, localising budgets, and discipline went out with that, but people out on division and in departments, they have got very little experience of this type of work, so they do not quite know the rules, they are not quite sure of this, and they do not know, for example, that you need to book a room and you need to get the witnesses sworn and that kind of thing. They do not know how to do it, they have possibly never done it before. It came to me to do it, because I was the one who knew all the witnesses, who knew what was going on, that kind of thing. So I was there, trying to do my own job, trying to book a room at Regency Street for the board to be held at, trying to make sure the note-taker was there, the name plates were on the desk, and everything like that. It would have been such a help if there had been some central branch where we could have just said, "Right, that is the case file, that case has to be heard on Tuesday week, warn the witnesses, order the teas, copy the paperwork", that type of thing. It was just, "Here you are, E, this is the file, get on with it". Miss Weekes: So there is no central admin for discipline and complaints? Mr E: Not that I know. There certainly was not then. There might be for, say, updating the records or something like that, but it was certainly a lot lacking then, when this case was going through. Miss Weekes: And you think that would obviously assist if there was? Mr E: I think yes, I think the people doing would know how to set the room up, they would have a permanent room available, they would have the gear for the door signs, they would have the contact with the catering department, they would have the addresses for the witnesses, everything like that, and that would be their full-time work, they would not be bogged down in doing their day jobs. Miss Weekes: I will quote this, because your statement is important: "Amazing as it may seem, I have also found that some personnel managers do not know the personnel rules, and will not be told them." Mr E: Yes. Miss Weekes: How widespread do you think that is? Mr E: Possibly wider than the Met realises. The background to this is there was a case against me, alleging my own inefficiency, some years ago, and they started inefficiency proceedings against me, and I was called into see the boss and said, "You are not doing well enough, pull your socks up", that kind of thing, and I should have been given seven days' notice of that, and given the chance to bring a union rep along. I did not get anything. "Can I mention this?" They said, "Oh, we are not doing it that way, we are doing this, get on with your work", and then I got another warning, and none of it was done properly, and I got the rule book out and said, "There it is." Miss Weekes: Did they follow the rule book when you showed it to them? Mr E: They did afterwards, yes, but – Miss Weekes: You had to show it to them? Mr E: Yes, again, possibly with a Central discipline branch, they would know the ropes. I mean, I did not drag it to an ET, because it was all done over again properly, but it was very shabbily done really. And you have to get the rule book out and plonk it in front of people's faces to show them that you do know what you are talking about, it is pretty desperate. Miss Weekes: How long ago was this? Mr E: [Redacted] years. Miss Weekes: The actual disciplinary hearings themselves, would you say that they are constructive, are they fair? Mr E: Yes, I think so, overall, yes. The failure on this one was that I did not – he actually warned the bloke about the photocopying, I did not say to him, "You will not do any more photocopying", I just said, "Try not to do any more of that, cut that down, you have got to get on with other work". I was trying to be gentle about it and that, of course, was the weakness in the case, I think. What could they do? They could not say, "You had been formally warned" or anything like that. It immediately leaked from me reporting it to my boss to the chap being suspended, and then the opportunity to take it informally, was lost. Miss Weekes: The welfare of staff who are complained against, is there any room for improvement there? Mr E: I think the improvement will come with improving the system. I did not mind doing this to start with, I am glad I did what I did, and they did say – the department did say they would back me, et cetera, et cetera, but where it fell down, if it can be included in the welfare sort of area, is on the final day and the back-up to the discipline side itself, which was not a sort of welfare matter I was kind of upset about, or felt I got sidelined. It might be for others, I do not know, but I was praised for what I did, now I thought everything was going along nicely, and I would be – they would be grateful for everything that was done. Miss Weekes: How long have you been at Scotland Yard? I only ask to find out whether you are familiar with the Fairness at Work procedure which is reasonably new. Mr E: Oh yes, I have seen that, read that all through. Miss Weekes: You have read it; do you think it works practically? Mr E: It probably works better than the grievance procedure which it replaced, because that was far more sort of formalised and by the rule book; Fairness at Work seems to be a more easy-going, kind of smooth-it-out informally sort of procedure, which is probably better, rather than a confrontational approach. Miss Weekes: How do you think that has been received by staff? Mr E: Generally quite well, I think, although I do not think I have actually had any dealings with anybody who has gone through it, or tried it, but I think, generally, it even sounds better, Fairness at Work, rather than grievances. Miss Weekes: When someone has been disciplined or has spent some time under suspension, they often require training when they come back, they may require other kinds of support. Generally speaking, is that handled well by the Met: the period that they are on suspension and then the coming back to work and being prepared to come back on to full duty where they are placed; that sort of thing? Mr E: I do not really know. These particular people, they did not sort of miss anything and they did not need to re-learn anything when they came back. But you are talking of fairly, you know, junior staff to me. They were not senior people or anything like that. With police officers, you would have to know more about the way the rules – and things the legislation has changed in the interim. This is office staff, who really came back and picked up the job again in five minutes. Miss Weekes: Perhaps there are less changes that occur to the admin side for staff than there would be for a police officer out on the beat. Mr E: Yes. Miss Weekes: Just dealing with press, you have not mentioned it, I just ask in case you are able to assist us, press coverage of cases; are you able to assist us on that at all, in terms of any – Mr E: Ask me and I might know the answer. If I have an opinion ... Miss Weekes: Have you come across a situation where you can say that the Met have produced a press release or press coverage far too early or in a way that would be unfair to the person complained against? Mr E: No, I do not think so. I think they are fairly careful about timing and that kind of thing. Miss Weekes: That is your view? Mr E: Yes, they are fairly astute on that kind of thing. Miss Weekes: Can I ask just about diversity generally? Again, simply because you have some contact with staff? Issues of gender and issues of race, as far as you are aware, are they dealt with in the correct manner, without overreacting, by those who have to look into allegations of gender discrimination or race discrimination? Because we hear that the Met is rather sensitive about things like that. Mr E: I think they are scrupulously careful about it. My own experience is, if somebody complains, then it is looked into and it is chewed over, and all that kind of thing. Again, there might be shortcomings in how long people are suspended and things like that, but that is not necessarily because it is a race matter, but because it is an investigation, a bit like this one. Perhaps it gets to the formal stages too early, something like that, I do not know really. I have not had direct involvement in a case like that, but based on sort of hearsay and what friends have gone through and things like that. Miss Weekes: Yes. This final topic: the Independent Police Complaints Commission, is now in place; do you see that that would bring some improvement, for example, their ability to oversee internal complaints and discipline? Mr E: Yes, I think that is a good idea. Miss Weekes: And are you aware in fact, that there are steps being taken to have lay members on each disciplinary board? Mr E: No, I did not know that, but I think it is a good move. Miss Weekes: That would clearly go well to dealing with the points that you have raised there. I want to ask you, finally, about the unions: MET-TUS is somebody that we have heard from. Are they, would you say, effective enough in dealing with the general complaints that staff would have? I am not just talking about individual complaints, but the position of the general conditions of work for staff. Mr E: I think so, yes. They are not the strongest of unions, like the NUM or something like that, but I think they do a good job. Miss Weekes: Have you had dealings with them yourself? Mr E: Yes. Sometimes the people lack experience or something like that, but they do genuinely seem to try to help things along and sort things out, and then, of course, you have – they sort of represent the middle person between yourself and the official side of the Met, and they can sometimes suggest a compromise or something like that, yes. Miss Weekes: The culture in the Met, I am just interested in your view about it, again, dealing with disciplinary: is there enough flexibility within the Met to move away from statutory requirements to simply looking at something and thinking, "What is the common sense approach that would be best here?" Have you found that to be the case and the experience where officers will – leave out the hierarchy and the general way of doing things. Mr E: Yes, sometimes things get sorted out by a phone call or a meeting or something like – informally, but then, the weakness in that is that somebody can usually point to a rule or something like that which is saying, "No, this should be done formally," and then you are on the sort of formal path which can clog things up. Miss Weekes: So you think at the moment there might always remain that fear that, if you do not deal with it by the correct procedural way, you might come in for criticism anyway? Mr E: Yes, you can be criticised, although your judgement or actions might have been perfectly reasonable in the circumstances, because you did not go through a regimented procedure, you can trip yourself up. Miss Weekes: Thank you very much. Sir William Morris: E, I will pass you straight over to Sir Anthony for one or two questions. Questions by Sir Anthony Burden Sir Anthony Burden: Just one issue, E, if I may, and that relates to your comment in the second part of your penultimate paragraph there: "Even when people know the rules, they are reluctant to hard decisions." That has been your experience? Mr E: Yes, well, I spoke to people during this business, and said, "When this is all over and done with, I do not want those two back here," but they came back and I appealed against that, and they said, "Well, we have not got anywhere else for them," which, in an organisation as big as the Met is, to me, palpable nonsense. Sir Anthony Burden: If I can say, you certainly seem to be a manager who is not afraid to manage, and that is something – Mr E: Yes, well, until then. Sir Anthony Burden: Until then – and that is something that has been made comment of before this panel. But you found yourself being moved? Mr E: Yes. Sir Anthony Burden: They came back, because there was no working relationship – Mr E: No, it was hopeless. There was a few meetings with the union, but it was a complete non-starter really. My manager came down and we had a chat, "Is everything going to be all right? Are you going to start talking to" – "Oh yes, fine, no problems", you know, and as soon as they went out the door, silence again. Sir Anthony Burden: But you were the one who was basically – Mr E: It is obviously easier to move one person, who is not going to rock the boat, than two, who have rocked the boat, and have got off a discipline proceedings. Sir Anthony Burden: Hardly a good advert within the organisation to other managers who might feel that they should manage? Mr E: Well, if it is known about, these things just get forgotten about, do they not? You moan, and they say, "Oh well, too bad", it goes away and nobody knows about it. A few know about it, obviously – Sir Anthony Burden: Not very satisfactory. Mr E: They will say, "There are other circumstances," or something like that, but it is just unsatisfactory, is it not? Not long after that, they did put out a notice about transfers in discipline cases, and it should be the person who is at fault who should be moved, but I do not know if it would still happen like that. Sir Anthony Burden: Was that as a direct consequence of your case, do you think? Mr E: Well, I do not know, it could have been. It could have been coincidence. But I did moan to, I think – about number two or three person in the personnel department about it, and it happened after that; it might be coincidence, it might not be. But again, whether it would happen, I do not know. If the personnel managers were not prepared to bite the bullet then, they may not be now. Sir Anthony Burden: Thank you very much indeed. Sir William Morris: Thank you. All right, E, that concludes the range of questions that my colleagues and myself wanted to put to you, but you will recall during my introduction, I said that you would be provided with an opportunity to make an closing statement or comment if you so wished. If you do wish to do so, then I invite you to do that now. Mr E: I think all I want to add is, I am pleased that this type of thing is being looked at. I think it has been going wrong for a long time, and if this can improve things, it is for the benefit of everybody, the wrongdoers and the people who are trying to manage the staff. Sir William Morris: Yes, indeed. Can I therefore then thank you for letting us have your written submission, and thank you also for responding to the questions this afternoon, the oral questions, and, in general terms, thank you for your contribution to the work of our Inquiry. Mr E: Thank you very much. 3.15 pm Internal links On this website: Evidence: EE Evidence provided by and documents referred to by EE, in his appearance at the Inquiry.
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Transcripts > EE (19 Apr 04)
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