Investigations into the actions surrounding a missing persons enquiry - Metropolitan Police Service, December 2019
In December 2019, a man was reported missing from a mental health facility and a few hours later was located under a train at Finsbury Park Station.
Our investigation focused on the actions of Metropolitan Police Servaice (MPS) staff and officers following the initial report of the man being missing.
We obtained witness statements and examined the records of actions taken by police officers and police staff, alongside the relevant policies and procedures.
During our investigation, there was no indication any police officer had behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings or had committed a criminal offence.
Our investigation concluded in December 2020. We waited for external proceedings to conclude before publishing our findings.
We carefully considered whether there were any organisational learning opportunities arising from the investigation. We make learning recommendations to improve policing and public confidence in the police complaints system and prevent a recurrence of similar incidents.
In this case we identified the following areas for improvement.
IOPC reference
Recommendations
The IOPC recommends that the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) consider allocating a Force Control Supervisor each shift to monitor messages sent between the MPS incident recording system (known as CAD) and the call handling system (CHS).
The investigation identified that it took ten hours for a message sent from CAD to CHS to be actioned. It was of note that the CAD message had been closed, so the response time was not being monitored in the operations control room. The reason for the delay appears to be a combination of the volume of messages received that day that required actioning and the message having a low priority ranking, leading other messages that were deemed medium/high to be prioritised.
It was further noted that all supervisors are expected to monitor the message queues in addition to their other duties and no one person has responsibility for monitoring the messages.
Given the findings the IOPC would request that MPS consider allocating a Force Control Supervisor/ or create a SPOC on each shift to monitor all messages sent between CAD and CHS regardless of their priority. This would allow a timely review of the decisions and actions required.
The IOPC has been informed that a new system is scheduled to be in place next year that combines the functions of CAD and CHS, as these are currently two separate systems. However, if the above recommendation is adopted, this will assist in mitigating the risk of messages being missed, regardless of the priority grading they are given and the amount of messages that are in the queue, while the new system is implemented.
Accepted:
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has reviewed and accepts the IOPC’s recommendation.
CHS is the MPS call handling system and is only used in the First Contact environment in its full form. CAD is the MPS command and control system that sits in all dispatch environments across the MPS. CHS has several portals that ensure it integrates with other MPS systems. However, the functionality of this is limited and has the ability, via a portal, to speak to CAD. However, although CAD has the ability to stipulate the urgency and the grading of the pass between the two, it only has a singular direction of travel, from CAD to CHS. It all sits within the same CHS workflow queue which is managed by the supervisor. The CHS supervisor queue has a priority grading, which can be applied by the person sending the demand to the list. The highest priority call will always sit at the top of the list. However, Met Command and Control (MetCC) has three First Contact Centres that share the one CHS supervisor queue that at times of peak demand can have up to 100 - 150 messages requiring action.
MetCC accepts the recommendation and has reviewed CHS processes and governance, setting the following actions which are wider than this recommendation, as MetCC has identified other opportunities to improve the effectiveness of CHS. There is a Duty Officer (Inspector/Band C) in each of Met CC’s three First Contact (FC) centres who ultimately have responsibility for the messages generated by their Centres that are in the CHS supervisor queue. They will be reminded of their responsibilities through Operation weekly updates, daily management meetings and it will be included as a topic on the next round of Professional Development Days (PDD). These reminders will include clear direction to ensure the supervisor queue is being effectively managed and any risks escalated. To ensure that there is one point of oversight, the MetCC Service Delivery Manager (SDM) will conduct periodic checks throughout the day to ensure that there are no risks that need to be escalated to Met Grip (Chief Inspector), to capture relevant data for the SDM handover report that is produced for the SLT and key MetCC staff and to ensure the FC duty officers/supervisors are actively managing CHS demand. However, FC duty officers will remain accountable and no responsibility will be delegated away from them to the SDM. SDM oversight will be reviewed in three months to ascertain whether implementation of all the other actions eliminates the need for their involvement.
It is recognised that each centre has slight differences in their operating model for their supervisors (Sergeant, Band Ds) in FC. These are being reviewed to ensure uniformity of the roles with clear direction given on which supervisor will supervise the CHS supervisor queue.
MetCC has identified unnecessary demands being created within CHS. The MetCC Operations (Ops) Team is reviewing the CHS pass-back policy that, together with appropriate monitoring of compliance, will reduce demand and enable more effective supervision of calls. This work will include the Ops Team working with the MetCC Training Academy to identify if further training is required and that best practice is shared on prioritising messages. An area requiring improvement is the supervisor access to the various subscriber check databases of mobile phone service providers. These are used primarily as a result of abandoned calls to police and feature as a priority incident on the supervisor queue.
The Ops Team will audit these databases to ensure FC supervisors have the correct access and promptly reaccredit when it drops. Further work will be carried out with service providers to streamline this process. This will ensure all supervisors have the correct access to promptly deal with the urgent subscriber checks on their queues. The Ops Team have been tasked to work with our IT contractor, Unisys, to see if there are any short term fixes to CHS that would assist in the effectiveness of the supervision. Centre Chief Inspectors have been tasked to use data packs on supervisor performance within CHS to address imbalance on CHS workload across the teams/centres. The CHS queues are an existing agenda item discussed at the daily management meeting but will be subject to greater scrutiny and a key part of the handovers completed by both the SDM and FC Duty Officers.
The new Command and Control System is in the process of configuration but will significantly improve allocation of supervisory demand and provide ‘one system’ for all these processes.
The MetCC Service Delivery Superintendent will oversee and progress these actions (excluding technology changes) with an anticipated completion date of 7th March 2021.
Decision maker would like a summary of the response published, as she feels the above is too long. The summary copied below has been approved by Rashpal Bishop.
“MPS has reviewed and accepts the IOPC’s recommendation. Having reviewed their processes, MPS have set actions that are wider than the recommendation as they have identified other opportunities to improve the effectiveness of CHS.
There is a Duty Officer (Inspector/Band C) in each of Met CC’s three First Contact (FC) centres who ultimately have responsibility for the messages generated by their Centres that are in the CHS supervisor queue. They will be reminded of their responsibilities through Operation weekly updates, daily management meetings and it will be included as a topic on the next round of Professional Development Days (PDD). These reminders will include clear direction to ensure the supervisor queue is being effectively managed and any risks escalated.
To ensure that there is one point of oversight, the MetCC Service Delivery Manager (SDM) will conduct periodic checks throughout the day to ensure that there are no risks that need to be escalated, to ensure that key data is captured for the handover provided to the Senior Leadership Team and key MetCC staff, and to ensure that duty officers/supervisors are actively managing CHS demand. The CHS queues are an existing agenda item discussed at the daily management meeting but will be subject to greater scrutiny and a key part of the handovers completed by both the SDM and FC Duty Officers.
FC duty officers/supervisors will remain accountable for managing this demand. MPS recognise that each of the three FC centres has slight differences in their operating model for their supervisors and these are being reviewed to ensure uniformity of the roles, with clear direction given on which supervisor will supervise the CHS supervisor queue.
MPS is also reviewing unnecessary demands created within CHS, including the passing back of demands to CHS, along with monitoring of compliance with this, with the aim of reducing demand and enabling more effective supervision of calls. The Operations team are working with the MPS training academy to identify any further training that is required and that best practice is shared on prioritising messages.
The new Command and Control System is in the process of configuration but will significantly improve allocation of supervisory demand and provide ‘one system’ for all these processes. In the meantime, the Ops team have been tasked to work with the IT contractor to see if there are any short term fixes to CHS that will assist in the effectiveness of the supervision.
The MetCC Service Delivery Superintendent will oversee and progress these actions (excluding technology changes) with an anticipated completion date of 7th March 2021.