Final Report of the Morris Inquiry: The Case for Change

THE CASE FOR CHANGE
9.115 Work / life balance is clearly an issue which the MPS has yet to embrace
fully. However, we have also seen some examples of excellent practice.
Child Protection Unit
The Child Protection Unit at Tintagel House now has 24 hour responsibility for the child
homicide cases of the west half of London. The Unit consists of 32 police officers and seven
support staff and has an approximate 50-50 split between male and female staff, though
there is a high dependence on female staff with sufficient expertise.
The Unit has been flexible enough in its arrangements to accommodate part-time working for
three police officers and one member of police staff and compressed hours for one other
officer. It should be noted that the arrangements have required significant goodwill on behalf
of both the staff and the management.
In addition, the Unit’s members work on a rota basis under which they are effectively on call
every six weeks. Sufficient advance notice is given of the rota and the feedback is that it works
well, as staff know when they will be on call and can arrange cover for any other responsibilities.
Internal Consultancy Group
The Internal Consultancy Group is a relatively small unit which provides consultancy advice to
the MPS and consists of 50 staff, of whom 35 are professional consultancy staff e.g. business
analysts, researchers, etc. As a result of a recent internal review in relation to retention, it
became clear that the staff wanted to be able to adopt flexible working patterns and now
there are a number of staff who work part-time and/or from home in agreement with their
line manager.
Since the introduction of the flexible working policies, ICG has not lost an employee in the
last five years. In addition, the overall performance of the ICG compares very favourably
with the public sector as a whole, with 73% of time being spent on chargeable (i.e. project
related) work.
9.116 We do not believe that these are isolated examples but it is clear that
managers’ approach to flexible working is inconsistent across the MPS and that
good practice is often not taken up elsewhere in the organisation.
9.117 As the MET-TUS pointed out, although difficulties with flexible working
impact primarily on women, they are of equal relevance to men. This view is shared
by others:
“And it is not just women, it is men as well; I have a male colleague who wanted to change his
hours of working, and felt that he was marginalised, he was not – that was the reason he was
not selected as a detective.” (Evidence of Ms GG.)
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