City of London PEEL 2018
Legitimacy
How legitimately does the force treat the public and its workforce?
To what extent does the force treat all of the people it serves with fairness and respect?
Areas for improvement
- The force should ensure that effective external scrutiny takes place in relation to the its use of force.
- The force should ensure that effective external scrutiny takes place in relation to its stop and search powers.
- The force should extend its unconscious bias training to all its workforce.
The force needs to improve the way it treats the public.
Its leaders understand and value the benefits of community engagement. It has a positive culture on ethics and fair decision making, both internally and in dealing with the public. The force tailors its communications to the needs of its communities – using its bilingual officers to translate messages into Urdu for its large Bangladeshi community.
However, a major problem for the force is lack of external scrutiny. The local independent advisory group and the community scrutiny group have not been functioning for some time. It has proved hard to get these groups up and running again due to the small residential population in the area. The force has invited members of similar groups in neighbouring areas to join a new advisory group in the City of London, but this is not yet in place.
The force’s supervision of stop and search has improved during 2018. It has also improved its monitoring of stop and search data. However, it could do more to analyse its use of these powers. Its policy on body-worn video cameras does not state that officers should start recording at the beginning of a stop and search. Also, not all of its workforce has received training in unconscious bias.
Detailed findings for question 1
How well does the force ensure that its workforce behaves ethically and lawfully?
Areas for improvement
- The force should ensure its anti-corruption strategic threat assessment and control strategy are comprehensive, up-to-date and include current data.
- The force should ensure that its counter-corruption unit:
- has enough capability and capacity to counter corruption effectively and proactively;
- can fully monitor all of its computer systems, including mobile data, to proactively identify data breaches, protect the force’s data and identify computer misuse; and
- builds effective relationships with individuals and organisations that support and work with vulnerable people.
The force needs to improve its ethical and lawful workforce behaviour. Its leaders and workforce understand the Code of Ethics and its principles of integrity, fairness and professionalism. However, the force needs to improve its anti-corruption assessment and control strategy, which are currently of a low standard. It has not yet completed its anti-corruption strategic assessment for 2019. It does not use organisational information such as email accounts and logs from crime reports to identify those who are at risk of corruption.
It also needs to improve the capacity and capability of its counter-corruption units. The anti-corruption unit does not have enough staff to seek out corruption. Also, the force cannot yet fully monitor all its IT systems because the software has limited capability and is not compatible with all the force’s IT systems.
The force has not yet addressed an earlier national recommendation to form links with agencies that support victims to look for information about police officers abusing their position for a sexual purpose.
Detailed findings for question 2
To what extent does the force treat its workforce with fairness and respect?
This question was not subject to detailed inspection in 2018/19, and our judgment from the 2017 legitimacy inspection has been carried over.