Final Report of the Morris Inquiry: The Case for Change

BUILDING CAPACITY
9.63 Having said that, we have been told of significantly improved rates of
appraisal since the 2002/2003 inspection and we are also aware of proper focus
being placed on these issues in some OCUs. For example, we regard the approach
taken by the Child Protection Command as commendable.
9.64 We also see effective use of PDRs as a good way for the MPS to focus staff
development on management issues, to enable it to develop its officers and staff so
that they become more confident in dealing with people management issues. We
are concerned at the perception that people management issues are not valued as
much as operational competence when officers’ performance is reviewed. Valuing
all skills, whether operational or managerial, will be part of the new culture that we
believe the MPS needs to embrace.
We recommend that the Human Resources directorate takes steps to ensure
that the Performance Development Review process is fully implemented
across the MPS as a meaningful management tool. This should be centrally
monitored and the Human Resources directorate should carry out periodic
reviews across the organisation to monitor quality and consistency.
Training opportunities
9.65 Effective appraisal should identify how an employee needs to develop to fulfil
his or her potential and the organisation’s expectations and ambitions. Meeting the
training needs of individuals is a way of ensuring that staff acquire the right skills
and experience, and that the organisation gets the best out of its officers and staff.
9.66 The MPS devotes considerable resources to training. We understand that its
Training Plan for 2003/2004 was costed at over £86 million, with over £2 million of
that figure budgeted for central management and leadership training. According to
the Deputy Commissioner, with regard to training days provided to police officers,
“Our current level is about 14 days per officer, which is quite a lot of training, and a lot of it is
driven by health and safety legislation, around officer safety and so on.”
9.67 We explored training in our survey of all officers and staff. Again, we were
assisted by the fact that the Work Foundation had benchmark scores for some of
our questions, based on the responses to surveys of other public and private
organisations.
9.68 Our survey indicated that 47% of respondents agree that the MPS is
committed to developing its staff. This gives a mean score of 0.15 which falls short
of the benchmark (0.43) by a significant margin. Only 46% agree that they receive
the training they need to do their jobs and again the mean score of 0.07 falls well
short of the benchmark of 0.65.
215