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 It is being hosted on the MPA website for archival purposes only and may contain out-of-date information.

This resource is from the Transcripts section. This section contains a transcript of the private session with NN, on 26 April 2004.

Sections available here:

• Transcript of private session: Mr NN
  • Questions by Sir Anthony Burden
  • Questions by Miss Weekes

This transcript is also available with original line and page numbering.

Transcript of private session: Mr NN

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

Monday, 26 April 2004
11.15 am

Sir William Morris: Mr N, good morning and welcome. Please make yourself as comfortable as you can possibly be, you have had some water. We will commence when you are ready.

Mr N: I am fine.

Sir William Morris: Thank you very much. Mr N, can I first of all thank you for accepting our invitation to attend the Inquiry and to give us some evidence this morning, and thank you also for letting us have your written submission which we found extremely helpful.

I do appreciate that for some of our witnesses, any process of this nature may seem, or can seem, somewhat daunting, so I thought it would be helpful if I set out very briefly how we propose to conduct the hearing this morning.

But first, let me introduce myself and the other members of the panel. My name is 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. On my left is Miss Anesta Weekes QC; Anesta is an eminent barrister and sits as a recorder and part-time chairperson of employment tribunals. She was also counsel to the Lawrence Inquiry.

Mr N, 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. We have deliberately chosen the MPS as the focus of our investigations, and not the individuals who make up the MPS itself.

Nevertheless, we need to hear from individuals in order to understand how the practices, the procedures, the conventions of the MPS operate, and all the internal governance structures.

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 those individuals, like yourself, who have had problems with the way the MPS operates. We also understand that some of our witnesses will feel perhaps a little reluctant to answer questions if they feel that the MPS is somehow listening in.

I hope, therefore, that you will find the arrangements that we have made helpful, and that you will feel sufficiently confident this morning to speak to us freely.

Although we are meeting in private today, as I have said, we are a public inquiry, and that means it may be necessary for us to seek further clarification from others about what you have written or indeed about what you tell us this morning.

However, if we do decide to seek further clarification, we will do it in a manner which does not in any way identify your good self.

Also let me assure you that we will try to seek the clarification, if we decide it is necessary, in a way which causes you the least possible inconvenience, and we would not do so without seeking your permission first.

The inquiry we are conducting is inquisitorial, we are seeking to procure evidence, we are seeking to have a better understanding; we are not adversarial in nature or in character. 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, rather than concentrating on making a lot of criticisms to either the organisation or the individuals.

We have no wish to go back over the details of what has happened to you, because we have read your written submission very carefully, and we are very 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, in order to assist our work.

At the end of these introductory remarks, one of my colleagues will lead on our questions to you, and then, if the remainder of the panel feel it is necessary, we may put one or two supplementary questions to you.

When we have finished our questions, we will offer you the opportunity to make a brief closing comment, but I think it is fair that I should draw to your attention that a transcript 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 any other personal details, in order to ensure that it contains no information which identifies you or indeed any other individuals.

But before I ask Sir Anthony Burden to lead on our questions to you, for the benefit of the transcript notes, I wonder if I can ask you formally to introduce yourself to the Inquiry.

Mr N: I am [Redacted] N N, I am currently working in [Redacted] in the MPS.

Sir William Morris: Thank you very much indeed, Mr N. I will invite Sir Anthony Burden to lead on the questions to you.

Mr N: Could I just ask one point of clarification, sir? For the transcript -- I am very happy to be here with the transcript, but my little concern is that, because [Redacted], it sometimes could be quite easy to identify what is said -- I know there will be redacted versions, I just ask that that is looked at fairly carefully.

Sir William Morris: You can rest assured that every possible precaution will be taken to ensure that there is no possibility of you being identified within the procedures and structures that we work in. Thank you very much.

Questions by Sir Anthony Burden

Sir Anthony Burden: Mr N, good morning. May I reiterate what the chairman said earlier, and thank you very much indeed for what is a very focused submission, really helping us forward in terms of our terms of reference. [redacted] 6 MR N: That is correct, yes.

Sir Anthony Burden: And, of course, your submission goes on to highlight some of those. [Redacted]

Could I ask, in terms of mentoring and other positive action schemes, how you feel those schemes are operating in the Metropolitan Police Service today?

Mr N: I think we have made a start within the MPS, and I would not say it is, you know, a great start. My fear for the mentoring scheme is that [Redacted].

The problem we have with the MPS is that there is not the wheel -- it is like the oil in the engine: you have the good ideas, but you need the sort of power and influence and commitment by everybody in the chain to actually make it work.

[Redacted] and I am sad to say that at a recent course I was at, where there was four, say, borough commanders, I said, "Are you aware of the active career development scheme?", and four new borough commanders -- and they were fairly new -- were not even aware of the scheme.

So if you have not got the borough commanders as a key element in the chain, then the progress is not going to be there.

In addition, the way the scheme is set up, similar to the high potential, you have an ACPO advisor at the top, you have a mentor appointed and there seems to be a gap again.

Again, a lot of the ACPO advisors are not doing their role, I think, and the mentors [Redacted] were not actually doing mentoring in the proper fashion. [Redacted] this was like the proof of the pudding to a certain extent that, we have got a scheme, we have mentors, some of the mentors do it for the right reason, they actually want improved diversity across the board, but you get quite a few that do it for the tick box syndrome, because they have got to show evidence on their performance, so that they can do it.

Just to finish the point, sorry -- if I am too verbose just shut me down, but to finish the point, I have had a trend recently -- I have taken on -- I have got [Redacted] mentees at this moment in time, and they have all come to me because they are not satisfied with what they have been getting so far, and, to me, that is a worrying situation, because I can only do so much. You know, I have put the gates down, because trying to do mentoring properly, you are meant to put some time and effort into it. It is worrying that people have come to me, after having bad experiences of mentors that they have had.

So we have got the scheme. I would like to see it progressed, done properly, with the resources, with the power and influence of the senior management becoming more involved, and then if you go into actually, well, what actually happens, the next stage is: we need gates to be opened up, we need people to be developed.

If I can just take you back a little bit, why the scheme started up, that particular scheme, a [Redacted] officer came back from the extended interviews of the high potential scheme, and he was very concerned that there were no black and Asian faces at the gate post, at Bramshill, and so he asked a certain amount of people to get together, to try and say how we could actually get a scheme together that would actually try and get people to borough commander position in a short space of time.

That was sort of the concept of his idea, but, you know, I have found that, although he maybe had good intentions, when it comes to actually calling him to account, I found him lacking in actually delivering what I perceived to be genuineness, and now that person is a [Redacted] on another force.

Sir Anthony Burden: Nationally, people would not be appointed as mentors unless they had been trained to do that very, very important role. Is there training for mentors in the MPS?

Mr N: Yes, I think the MPS scheme, under DOIT, they do actually have a couple of days' mentoring training to be given. I was trained under the National Mentoring Consortium and that is how I got involved, first of all, but again, it is -- you know, I do not want to be sounding too negative, but it is like a constant battle to keep good things on the agenda.

[Redacted], what happened there, it was a business initiative where companies -- and they invited the Met for the first time to actually become mentors, to try and embrace diversity for graduates who may consider a career in the police service or who may not consider a career. [Redacted] another battle to try and persuade the Met to keep people doing the scheme for the future years, because I think they saw it partly as a failure, because there were no direct entrants, or they never saw that people were going to enter directly, whereas [Redacted] coming from the angle of trying to encourage people to be interested and join.

Sir Anthony Burden: Can I move on? Because you very helpfully explained that you yourself have been subject to a complaint investigation, and you have been involved in the employment tribunal process, so you have got first-hand knowledge of both.

The first thing you say about complaints is that you feel that there is disproportionality, in that you feel that more minority ethnic officers face discipline processes and discipline hearings than their white colleagues.

Is that evidenced?

Mr N: I thought you might ask that. I do not think there has been any intrusive intelligence gathering within the MPS. [Redacted] I do not think there has been any empirical research, but what I would say is my feeling, perception and observations is that there is definitely a high proportion.

And these are just the ones that are coming into the service at the end of the scale. What I am also pointing out in there is there are a lot of issues -- when you start off, there are possible disciplinary actions happening at the lower end of the scale which do not actually get the statistics.

Sir Anthony Burden: You mentioned the triple jeopardy that you feel officers are subject to, and police staff are subject to. You also go on, and you refer to it again later, under "management responsibility", by saying that -- basically I think what you are saying is managers are reluctant to manage, and quite often, supervisors, in relation to complaints, resort inappropriately to discipline when they should have gone down a route of support and development.

You are obviously talking there about the lower level complaint issues, not corruption and those sorts of matters.

Mr N: Yes.

Sir Anthony Burden: But we have heard that previously during this hearing, and I would like your comment about this, please, that whenever race becomes an issue, or difference of any sort, not just race, whenever there is difference to be handled, many supervisors feel inadequate in dealing with that, and they make it formal straight away, push it upstairs to DPS; probably, possibly, because that is one way of making sure that they themselves are not then subject to a claim that they have been racist in dealing with those officers or staff.

Is that something that you have experienced?

Mr N: Yes, most definitely. I mean, on my particular case, I think there was lack of front-end action by the [Redacted] at the time to try and resolve the issue, which, in the scale of things -- I am not decrying that a member of the public has a right to complain, but, in the scale of things, it was a minor complaint to go as far as a board, to possibly get discipline and demoted. There should have been a lot of effort perhaps done at the front end.

And I have noticed this -- [Redacted] about this fear factor and everything, on the one hand, I understand the perception, it is a genuine perception, but on the other hand, I worry of the abrogation of managers doing their jobs to actually try and resolve issues, in ways that perhaps, you know, are a bit more creative; sitting down with people, talking to people, which is not creative, but to try and look at possible solutions that they -- and I think there is this fear factor, post MacPherson, we have gone down a route where people are worried of, I think, normal management practices, to a certain extent.

So on the one hand, I understand that fear factor, but on the other hand, I get slightly worried that people are using it as a bit of an excuse mentality.

Sir Anthony Burden: If that is an issue, and you have said, you know, in one sense, you feel it is; in others, it may be being put forward as an excuse. But if it is a factor with some managers, what do you think ought to be done within the Metropolitan Police Service to try and address that issue?

Mr N: I know we will probably come on to this about training, and everybody has mentioned training, but on this particular issue, there needs to be some managerial training sorted out for managers at all levels, especially, you know, the early ones, frontline supervisors, where they are seeing some of these things happening, they can prevent these things happening, before they even become an issue.

So there needs to be some more input on training. The training structures exist to a certain extent, there are sergeants' courses, inspectors' courses, so perhaps the content of the courses need to be looked at, and actually revisited, so that it is actually more to do with the job that they do.

Because, as you know, all managers, 80 per cent of your job is often dealing with people issues, so the training needs to definitely be refocused.

Going back to that previous point, sorry, about empirical research, I did attach a study about local authorities who have done some empirical research.

Sir Anthony Burden: Yes. I suppose that is reassuring in one respect, but very worrying in another.

Mr N: It is not surprising, to tell you the truth. You know, we are part of a society, and there are these issues in society that we have to try and deal with and manage.

Sir Anthony Burden: For managers to manage effectively and have confidence to do so, a lot depends, of course, on the culture within which they are working, and you go to great lengths to explain the organisational culture pressures that you see existing within the Met.

A lot of people have said to us, however, that they feel there is a very strong blame culture within the Metropolitan Police Service that does not allow you to make mistakes, and that people would perhaps be more sympathetic to trying out different management techniques and taking a few risks if this blame culture was not there. Is that an issue?

Mr N: That is an issue. The managers, all throughout the chain, are under immense pressure. The jobs out there are not easy. Borough commanders are under immense pressure to deliver on two key performance areas really: if we talk about boroughs, that is on burglary and robbery. That has been fed to borough commanders for the last two or three years, so much so that they are threatened with moving on if they do not get the burglaries and robberies down.

Of course, that is immense pressure, and that focuses where they put the attention. My theory is, and it has been for some time, that if they focus the attention on diversity issues as well, and ingrain that within everything they do, that will actually help get your burglaries and robberies down in the long term, maybe not so much in the short term.

Going back to the management question about training, I think hopefully the Inquiry will find that -- that is a possible recommendation, but we need to look at the picture in a more broader depth. We need to sort of look at, right, what do officers do? They join the police to serve the community. The majority of the officers want to serve at the front end, and do not want to become leaders, managers and supervisors, but there will be a small percentage that will want to do that and will want to be developed, but the majority are not of that ability.

So if they are not of that ability, and there are all these sergeants -- and in a way, people are being forced to take up the cudgels of becoming a sergeant, because there is such a demand on the MPS as a whole. Have we got the right people going for promotion?

So I would say we need to have a look at that issue as a specific, you know, perhaps on the longer term, because we need to break that side up, otherwise we tweak a few training courses, get a bit more managerial -- conflict management, resolution, mediation, that may not change things in the long term.

Sir Anthony Burden: You mentioned there a moment ago that it is not only about hard targets, it is about diversity, but surely it is about people generally, is it not? I mean, performance through people must always be -- if you can capture their hearts and minds, it must result in enhanced performance.

Mr N: Most definitely, and, as I said, a lot of the issues they deal with on borough are 80 per cent people issues, so if you have got a highly motivated workforce who are enjoying going to work, then the performance naturally follows on. I think what has been happening, diversity has been put in silos, and it is, like, cut from the main thread, I think you have mentioned the golden thread throughout everything, and that is what has actually been happening.

A recent example of that, I am looking at the new senior command course modules, having just done one recently on leadership; there is hardly anything on diversity. The reason is because they have got a separate two-day module on diversity, so, you know, in a way, that is an example of how it has become a bit of a separate issue --

Sir Anthony Burden: So it has been put in a little box, as opposed to threaded through everything?

Mr N: Yes.

Sir Anthony Burden: Can I just finish off on leadership? You make a comment, I think, about the sort of culture which exists in relation to complaint investigations. You say that almost a prosecution approach sets in, where they are looking for a result, rather than trying to find the truth.

Is that what you personally experienced?

Mr N: I personally experienced that, and I believe that that is sort of, in a way, a general approach taken. I would like to think not, and we try and find out the truth of the matter, rather than just go for, you know, a prosecution sort of approach, but I think quite early on, they make decisions that force the train of the investigation down that track, and it is not good, it is not healthy.

I think what is also worrying as well is what gets produced to other people and decision-makers is already warped, right from the beginning, so even going down to the new IPCC, they will only get one version of the account -- or the way the investigating officer has moulded it. To me, it is not healthy.

Sir Anthony Burden: I mean, your own investigation took two years, I think.

Mr N: Yes.

Sir Anthony Burden: Are you aware of [Redacted] the Taylor Report, and the impact that will have?

Mr N: Yes.

Sir Anthony Burden: In fact, that will require reviews to be undertaken periodically during an investigation to see whether the evidence is actually stacking up, whether the inquiry should continue; from what you said, would you support the Taylor Report approach?

Mr N: Most definitely, because throughout my case, I went and tried to explain to senior managers that the proportionality in this case is unbelievable, and it took, you know, two and a half years of me actually facing a board [Redacted]-- and I am thankful, because there are different [Redacted] of different approaches. I was thankful, because I believe I had one that was fair minded. He said that the main reason for this case going not anywhere further is proportionality.

How disproportionate was it to bring this case so far, when, at the most, he would have possibly given words of advice, if he considered that was appropriate?

So most definitely, I am in favour of the Taylor Report, and that a review should be done quite early on, and even possibilities of looking at resolution within those reviews, to see if we can stop this mechanistic approach of how we have got ourselves into, over these years.

Sir Anthony Burden: You also include under that theme the whole length of the time that it took for the inquiry, and obviously, we have heard many similar experiences, worse experiences.

Would you favour a process that actually managed time, in terms of investigations, but more importantly, the discipline phase of the process, where there was somebody, maybe legally qualified, who could bring to task the various agencies, where they saw delay being experienced, and actually seeking justification for that delay, and moving the process on, if in fact it could be moved on.

Mr N: I would be in favour of that suggestion. The only caveat I would put on that would be to give the individual opportunities to have the time to get the case together.

A quick anecdote, I had to go up in the loft to get my box of stuff to refresh myself on my own case, and it was literally boxes of stuff. And I had to put that down mainly in my own time. So in a way, you have got, like, a David and Goliath approach. You have got the organisation with lots of resources, legal services, calling case conferences, getting tapped into lots of different barristers and all sorts of things; and then you have got the individual.

So that individual needs to be protected, and make sure that person has the time or resources to help that person put the case against -- you could say the Federation already provides that facility, they do to a certain extent.

Sir Anthony Burden: But most certainly you feel the individual should be kept aware of all the reasons for delay?

Mr N: Most definitely, updated. One of the main issues of a lot of the grievances is communications within the whole process, the timescales. The communication has been very poor, and I do not know if you are aware, but when the MPS merged with -- when the MPA took over, one of the first pilot reviews, just before the MPA took over, was on complaints issues, they ran that as a pilot. I do not know if you have had that as a copy, but I know one of the themes coming out of that initial pilot on best value was poor communications causing a lot of the problems.

Sir Anthony Burden: You refer to legal barriers, and the fact that -- you use the term "MPS solicitors become involved to engage in battle with the Federation and other solicitors, causing long delays and unnecessary trauma".

Do you think that is something of a culture which has been established in relation to the legal department?

Mr N: Most definitely. I have read Mr Hamilton's submission and Esme Crowther's submission, and I have got to say that my perception -- and it is not just a perception, I think it is an observation about other cases as well: it is seen from the MPS as quite a battle.

They look to win, they look to try and -- they are trying to stop a lot of these ETs happening, but from a wrong point of view, not from a learning point of view. They have actually been forced down the issue of Liversidge -- I know you have covered that, but they have been forced to become more user friendly by officers like myself changing the system, and challenging what is going on, asking those difficult letters, those questions, and I have got to say that, even up to now, they are still approaching things in a more of a legal sort of manner.

I think they have learnt a few lessons, to be fair, and they are coming together now a little bit more, but -- I mean, we have seen ACAS, I think, becoming more involved, and I applaud that initiative, but I think we need to still be mindful that that culture still exists, and Mr Hamilton does look to contest things, when perhaps he did not need to contest things, as my case is a good example.

Sir Anthony Burden: Yes. I think to paraphrase what you are saying, as opposed to sitting there and talking, trying to resolve, which would, in essence, reduce the number of employment tribunals, the approach which has been taken is to dig in, play long, make things difficult for people and hopefully grind them down.

Mr N: That has been the approach on some cases. I know there was a chief inspector who had a long case regarding the promotion centre, and that seemed to me to be the approach that was taken there. So it is not just my case.

I think, you know, it is all about risk management, and I think the organisation try and look at risk management in a way that protects the organisation, which is understandable, to a certain extent, but it is not understandable when you have got people here who are loyal police officers, who want to serve, and they want to resolve.

A lot of people do not want to go to ETs, they want it resolved earlier on, rather than, you know, years down the line.

Sir Anthony Burden: You speak very fully about the need to debrief and learn lessons from these processes. As far as you are aware, that is not happening at the moment?

Mr N: I think it might be happening, I do not think there is enough transparency about that. If you go back to my case, you know, I believe there is a racist officer still serving, I believe that another officer did not do the investigation properly, and got feedback, because it was reviewed a couple of times, he has been in a significant position [Redacted].

So I am not totally sure of where the learning goes, and how it is actually approached, and what actually happens. Again, I had to force that issue; I forced that issue. It was not the MPS forcing that issue. I had to say at the end of my case that this is what I wanted to see happen, some learning coming out of it.

In the old days, when you lost a case at court, there was a big review, and you would try and learn from that. I am not totally convinced what goes on.

However, I am a bit more optimistic for the future, because all of this crisis that we are in and I use that word with a bit of caution, but we are in a crisis, and I think that the learning needs to be more transparent, and we need to know.

Esme Crowther mentions the literature that comes out, and there is a bit of managerial learning, which is good, but I would like to know what has happened about the people, and how they have been retrained.

Sir Anthony Burden: As you say, to do that, there needs to be a full set of management information statistics that break these issues down, so that managers can actually use that to learn the necessary lessons.

Mr N: And fed back into that, perhaps, in training that we spoke about earlier on.

Sir Anthony Burden: Can I move on to employment tribunals? If you have been reading the transcripts, and it certainly seems as though you have, you will have seen a lot of emphasis placed on moving to an ACAS style model, which you have already said, and you say in your submission, you support.

But there has been some play made of the need for an external factor in that. There needs to be people from outside the Metropolitan Police Service involved in that conflict resolution model.

Would that be something that you would wish to see?

Mr N: Yes, most definitely. The few reasons for that -- one would be -- I think ACAS is independent anyway, so it would be perhaps an agency or ACAS itself, but one of the main reasons as well is on borough -- in practice, what happens is the poor HEO personnel has to deal with a lot of these issues, not in isolation, you know, with good SMT around them, they share and work together, but a lot of these issues can actually grind -- you know, the focus is through the personnel manager.

I think that person needs some help and support. Also, when you look at the profile, I think that might be a useful question to ask at some stage, of personnel managers, where they come from. Most people are saying they are CIPD trained, and that is possibly true; however, quite a few are police officers, or ex-police officers, and I question sometimes that mix.

Because I am certainly aware of an HEO personnel who -- I would question his diversity ethics. So I would say, for the reason of helping the poor beleaguered HEO personnel, the expertise that is required -- there is an expertise involved in mediating, and a skill involved, which we may not have enough of within the MPS as a whole, and thirdly, to make sure it is proactive, so that we can actually prevent these things escalating. So I would be fully behind that.

Sir Anthony Burden: And finally from me, you talk about internal racism, and you comment on the Secret Policeman programme; of course, your submission came in before Mr Ghaffur's report was written, and you refer to it in there.

Can I ask you, in relation to that report -- you have obviously had a chance to read it now: do you think that review report identifies the key issues facing the Metropolitan Police?

Mr N: I think -- I did not advise some of them. The one that highlights -- comes out mainly is the high wastage rate, [Redacted]; we are now [Redacted] years on nearly, and it is the same issue, high wastage rate.

So I do not think it goes perhaps into enough detail about some of that, but it does list a number of barriers that exist. I am still concerned that perhaps dealing with internal racism across the board, sexism, racism -- I do not know if it highlights those issues enough. It is a start, but we have been there before in [Redacted]; I just hope this time the implementation phase, the change phase, it is going to be more meaningful than what has happened already.

My concern is that it is reactive; you know, we need to be proactive in -- you know, [Redacted] really, and it has taken a long time, you know, we have had MacPherson. There has been a lot of focus on external initiatives, and I have to applaud the MPS on that. We have done a lot of good work, community safety units, victim support, family liaison, lots of different initiatives that have happened.

But I think you will find that some of the good initiatives as well have happened because of BPA staff pushing, keeping pushing certain initiatives, and that is where a lot of the credit is due.

I have to say [Redacted] the BPA [Redacted] I think that a lot of the work that they have done in that short space of time has been phenomenal. If you see that small organisation starting up from, you know, meeting quietly, with your heads down, because you are worried about if anybody is going to -- to influencing the Home Office and Home Secretary now, I think that bodes well.

I wish the Federation had done that sort of change culture, because they are the primary role, they are the people that should actually be taking primacy, as well as the MPS organisation, not the staff associations, these groups that have mushroomed up. They are all doing good jobs, but the primary responsibility lies with the management.

If I just give you one little example to echo that, when [Redacted]-- he was one of the earlier chairs of the BPA. There were major disturbances across the country, and at that, the Home Office told all 14 constabularies that were concerned to get together quickly and to set up an action plan.

So [Redacted] had to give an opening address about this new association called the BPA, and he gave it. The chap that was leading at the time was called [Redacted], he responded by saying, "I am very disappointed at you having to start your association", and there was a deadly pause, and I thought, "Oh my God, we are going to get criticised for this". And then he said, "But I accept it is a management failing". And I thought that was quite telling at that time; some years ago, that was.

What worries me about the MPS and the service as a whole, and this is my main thing, where I am coming from: why has not diversity been on the agenda, why have we not done enough on it, why are we in the situation of three different inquiries going on at this stage?

We need to -- forget about the past, okay, I am not going to cry over spilt milk, but let us this time move on properly.

Sir Anthony Burden: Thank you very much.

Sir William Morris: Thank you, Mr N. I know Miss Weekes has a question for you.

Questions by Miss Weekes

Miss Weekes: Thank you very much. [Redacted] I would like to ask you about gender issues.

I know you have not dealt with this specifically in your submission, that is not a criticism, but it is clear, from listening very closely to your answers to the questions just put, that you would undoubtedly have come across the issue.

I think you would agree that the overrepresentation of Asian and black women on police staff gives them what many people think is a triple disadvantage: they are women, they are black and they are police staff, and they are at the lower ranks of the organisation. Do you agree with that?

Mr N: Did you say "overrepresentation"?

Miss Weekes: Overrepresented in the police staff ranks; that is the statistics. They are very plain, we have been given them.

Mr N: Yes, I agree.

Miss Weekes: And there is a lack of senior Asian and black women; that is obvious to you, because are there chief superintendents who are women, who are Asian or black?

Mr N: The only lady that I know of [Redacted] is a superintendent, but will become a commander very soon. There is only one, I think.

Miss Weekes: I think that is right. I just wanted to get a feel from you: in your time as a black male in the police force, can you help us as to why women, black women in particular, are underrepresented?

I mean, if you do not know, please say so. This is not a trick question. I am really appealing to your excellent submission and the fact that you have obviously come across so many issues within the Met; I would like to tap into your knowledge.

Mr N: I think part of the reasons are obviously entry into the service is still very difficult, and also, when you are in the service, although the MPS is trying to become -- I think the phrase is "employer of choice" -- there are still quite a number of barriers that exist to part-time working, flexible hours, compressed hours. There are still a number of issues there.

I think it is important to understand -- obviously you will understand the culture of the service. The people that were around when Scarman was around, that were around when [Redacted] was around, and now are the same people in the service, so if you follow the logical argument -- we have moved on, but in the past, there were quite a number of issues, maybe greater.

A lot of the people are still here, with 30 years' service, 25 years' service, and so a lot of their baggage -- although they are trying to change -- is perhaps still there invisibly, that manifests itself out sometimes in perhaps not being proactive in becoming an employer of choice, or trying to be as flexible as possible.

I too have been in the position where, you know, I have had to negotiate with an officer who wants to become part-time, and, you know, I have to say that the argument -- the debate that I had with the officer --

Miss Weekes: Is this a female officer?

Mr N: A female officer -- was around being fair to everybody concerned. I wanted the officer to be allowed to do part-time, but I also wanted to see some sort of assistance on the late turn. It seemed that there was no assistance at all throughout the whole period.

Now I realise -- I reflected on that, and that was perhaps myself being a bit old-fashioned and not with the modern times, so if that is me, then obviously I learnt from that, but I think we all need to move on, and that is part of the reason why it is so difficult.

I think also, there is not enough pushing, there is not enough positive action to get ladies to higher ranks. We have the active career development programme, and there are some ladies on that scheme, they are few and far between, but again, a wise MPS would be saying, "Right, we have got a few gems here, let us make sure (i) we do not lose these people, (ii) let us make sure we have some real career profiling, real career development for these people", for all of our people, but in particular to keep the gems there, so that we do have role models, and boroughs do have, you know, people to look up to.

I am concerned at this moment in time at the profile of the MPS, it is very poor at this moment in time.

Miss Weekes: In many people's walks of life, their success is due to an individual who gives them a step-up, or an individual who promotes them, allows them to do a high-profile public presentation. Does that happen for women?

Mr N: No, I would say it does not happen. I think in the MPS, the culture is not -- going back to what you said about having a step-up, I think the MPS culture is to sink or swim.

So if you are good enough, and you can get through the pressure cooker of surviving through all the different hurdles that you have to face, then you will survive and then you will go further up. There are not these step-ups, and in fact, again, going back to some of the reasons, the networks are very limited or non-existent as compared to, say, your majority colleagues.

So again, that is another contributing factor why the management need to get hold of this issue and actually address it properly, rather than just, you know, have a scheme that starts up and it is there, it is done, I can quote in various reports, but actually, it is not achieving too much.

So I think the real nub of the problem is that you have not got HR focus and HR proactivity to cause these changes to happen, and it is just like a melee.

If I just do a little comparison, I was one of the lucky ones that got through the [Redacted] a few years ago, and it was a tough battle to get on the [Redacted], let alone survive throughout, and, you know, be scrutinised from lots of different areas.

I think if you were in a county force, and I look at my class sometimes on the wall, and you look and see the class, and their career profiles have had a step-up, they have been well looked after by the chief constables, or their staff officers who have been planning -- have been looking after them, making sure that some of these moves go ahead.

So for instance, a woman officer would want to transfer into, say, become a DI; in the Met syndrome, although we have got a new scheme that has started, the Met syndrome would be that person has to prove themselves, and have to actually struggle through a bureaucratic, long paper sieve (?) that is actually the new scheme, whereas a county colleague -- and I am generalising, but I think this is a fair generalisation, they would actually have that step-up, would have that profile schedule worked out and mapped out.

Miss Weekes: Can I just -- my final question is this -- give you an example of what I mean by a step-up, so that it is clear, as this is a public inquiry? We have heard very recently evidence that on a particular borough, no woman was appointed above the rank of sergeant for three solid years. Every application by females to the rank above was blocked at the commander level. They were there on merit, because on each occasion, they were recommended by the line manager, so they needed a step-up on merit, but they did not get it.

Now what should happen to officers that unlawfully block women with no good reason?

Mr N: Well, if that is proven, then they should -- in the learning culture, relearn, education; in the discipline process, they should be disciplined, demoted.

There should be -- again, this is what I was saying about management responsibility. Someone should have picked that up earlier on, and managers should have intervened and actually caused change to happen there.

Miss Weekes: Thank you very much.

Sir William Morris: Mr N, thank you very much indeed for your help. We have finished the questions that we wanted to ask of you, but you will recall that in my opening statement, I said that before we conclude the proceedings, we will give you an opportunity, if you wish, to make a closing statement; if you do, I invite you to do so now.

Mr N: Okay. My view of what has been going on is that the MPS -- we are in a crisis, at this moment in time. I think Mr Burden would appreciate this, that if you have a negative HMI report, if you turn the scenario from diversity to, say, robbery or burglary, hell would break loose, and there would be massive impetus of resources and action plans, until the situation was resolved.

I think we have had this crisis for some years now, and we need to make sure that this time the crisis is actually acted upon. We have had -- I think you had Ronnie Flanagan, but you have also had documentary evidence of all the different HMICs, and what concerns me there, it actually states in there that they are very disappointed at the lack of progress. Now again, that should really be picked up upon and actually pushed.

I think on the more radical side of things, you have heard submissions about affirmative action, I think the BPA have put something else further in on that. I would actually be looking to do something radical with the MPS. I think we need to shake it up. If you look at change theories, there are ways of changing organisations, I think there is an Asian force that has tried to change, our vote is only 7,000; they have managed to change the culture into a learning organisation.

I think we need to look at the whole promotion system, we need to look at, you know, how people are blocked to get to the promotion boards, processes, but also, we need to look: are we promoting the right people? I think we do need other managers coming in now.

There are sophisticated boroughs, 700, 600, we need to get other people in now who can actually train.

I think also the Inquiry perhaps -- trying to get you some trips here -- look wider and look abroad, perhaps. There are some other models. I was quite impressed when I went to Canada how equal opportunities friendly the Canadian police service seemed to me. For instance, I was told that if you were an inspector and you had the right qualities and credentials, and proven track record, you could apply for two ranks above.

So perhaps we should look at that. Also, I was quite impressed with the training school, and how they are doing experiential training there, rather than just raising awareness and things. But the issue of investment in training, if we look at Germany, we can see that the time for officers to train is far, far greater than what is actually given in the MPS.

As far as making the service for proportional, perhaps we should look at, say, the GLA. I think Lee Jasper has had some success over there.

I think we have had this high potential scheme with us for many years, they have just tried to revamp it; again, we need to have a look at how that is working or not working, and again, maybe the MPS should have its own scheme for its own people who have got merits and ability to progress.

I think finally, what I would like to say -- I do not know if any of you watched the BAFTA Awards, but on the BAFTA Awards, there were two awards given. One was to Roger Graef for his sterling work, but one of the main bits of work was on the Thames Valley rape victim, and that changed a momentous change in how the police service nationally has changed dealing with victims of rape.

The other award was given to the reporter for the Secret Policeman, and I sat there looking at this, and I thought, "This is the public, this is people telling us that something needs to change here". I hope, and I am quite happy to help in the future, that this will be the watershed for the MPS. I have been struggling on through myself, in my own efforts, but I am just one small fish in a big pool. I just hope that the Inquiry will hopefully cause momentous change in diversity. Thank you.

Sir William Morris: Thank you very much. Just before we conclude, can I say thank you for your written submission, thank you also for coming along this morning, to respond to our questions, and on behalf of my colleagues and myself, thank you for the contribution that you are making to our work. Thank you very much.

On this website:

• Evidence: NN
  Evidence provided by and documents referred to by NN, in his appearance at the Inquiry.