Morris Report: Met chief plays down race fears
Sir Ian Blair, the incoming commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, today insisted the highly critical Morris Report was “not about race” and that the force would change by “evolution”.
However, he admitted it needed a “root and branch” revamp of the way it handled major disciplinary cases and that middle-ranking officers were not properly trained to handle race complaints.
Sir Bill Morris, the former general secretary of the T&G today warned of a possible “backlash” within the Metropolitan Police against efforts to ensure the force is not racist.
The Metropolitan Police was infamously branded “institutionally racist” by the MacPherson Report into the death of black teenager Stephen Lawrence. Since then the force has made efforts to transform its culture and recruit more ethnic minority officers.
But, today’s report into the policies, procedures and practises of dealing with officers against whom there have been complaints or allegations warns of a backlash against the drive developing within the organisation and said there was “no common understanding of diversity” and that the issue was “at worst, a source of fear and anxiety”.
However, Sir Ian, speaking in a news conference this afternoon, insisted the report was not about race but police discipline. He admitted the police needed to change the way they handled major disciplinary cases such as that of Iranian-born superintendent Ali Dizaei, who was recently cleared of allegations of dishonestly and corruption.
“The real issue is the big cases – how we handle them,” he said. The process for dealing with such cases was “a nineteenth century system being picked over by lawyers” and was “fundamentally broken in relation to big cases”, he added.
But, Sir Ian said he disagreed with the suggestion that the handling of the Dizaei case was “unfounded” or “unfair”. He refused to comment on the report’s call for an independent review of the Directorate of Professional Standards, saying he had not had enough time to consider it.
Disciplinary cases should be heard in modern employment tribunals and there should be two clear offences of misconduct and gross misconduct. Sir Ian denied he was trying to make it easier to fire officers, saying he wanted only to make the system “clearer and more transparent”.
That the current system allowed officers to be suspended for seven years was “nonsense”, as was the rule that disciplinary proceedings against them could not start until any case they were involved with had been dealt with in court, he said.
However, he admitted the Police Federation would probably take “some time” to decide whether the proposed reforms were in the interests of frontline police officers.
“The Met had been through a torrid time when it comes to race in the last few years and I don’t think we have given our officers enough training in that area.”
He agreed that there was a lack of confidence in the Metropolitan Police’s senior officers over diversity, although it was more a problem with middle-ranking officers. But he insisted the force was improving by “evolution”, and that diversity was only one of the many issues facing the police, including gender, sexual orientation and part-time working.
The Morris Inquiry was set up after the Metropolitan Police became involved in a number of high profile court cases involving ethnic minority officers. Superintendent Ali Dizaei was cleared of allegations of dishonest and corruption, and later claimed that senior officers were involved in spreading the “cancer of racism” in the force. Sikh officer Sergeant Gurpal Virdi won his job back and substantial damages after he had been falsely accused of sending hate mail.
In the course of the inquiry the team heard that many ethnic minority officers believed they were disproportionably subjected to formal disciplinary proceedings, but also that some white officers were complaining about a culture of “political correctness”.
The Morris Report concludes that despite the efforts to reform the Met: “There is no common understanding of diversity within the organisation and that it is not embedded in the culture of the MPS. We fear that it remains, at worse, a source of fear and anxiety and, at best, a process of ticking boxes.”
It goes on to warn: “Some of the efforts the MPS has made to promote the message of diversity across the organisation have been counterproductive and that the organisation may now be seeing the beginnings of a backlash.” Such an occurrence is described as “catastrophic”, with the report stating: “The policy is right; it is the approach and application which we believe needs to be reviewed and this is essentially what we are recommending.”
The report concludes that there was “clear disproportionality” in the way ethnic minority officers are treated in the management of their conduct – something it calls for to be addressed immediately as a matter of priority.
It is so concerned that the issue will be directed to the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Commission for Racial Equality.
Key recommendations include extending employment law to police officers, though they should still remain officers of the Crown. Crucially, this provision would mean that police officers have the right to appeal to Employment Tribunals for claims of unfair dismissal.
In fact, it recommends widespread change of the current complaints procedure, replacing it with a procedure based on the recent ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.
The current Code of Conduct for police officers should also be reviewed, and should form part of the terms and conditions of police officers’ employment it concluded.
Though there are calls for wide ranging change, there are also suggestions for how the current system can be improved while new legislation is considered.
Firstly, it calls for the Metropolitan Commissioner to personally oversee a “fundamental review” of how the Directorate of Professional Standards operates, after concerns were raised about delays, the use of suspensions, the treatment of individuals and the conduct of investigations at present.
Secondly, it calls for changes to the way investigations are conducted, including input from outside the directorate, the directorate being held to account for the progress of cases, greater consistency in investigations and the enhancement of welfare support to officers involved.
On the specific case of Superintendent Dizaei, the inquiry recommends that a “full independent case review” is conducted, arguing that “nothing less will do justice to those involved.” It backs up his suggestion that race was a factor, saying that this issue “must” be part of a case review.
