Statement from Metropolitan Police Federation General Secretary Matt Cane on the HMICFRS Report into the Metropolitan Police.
The Met Leadership has repeatedly said that restoring public trust and raising standards are their highest priorities. This report makes clear that while significant progress has been made, significant weaknesses remain across vetting, and professional standards.
The Leadership has rightly been prepared to speak publicly about holding officers to account. It is now equally important that senior leadership is held accountable for organisational failings that have persisted despite repeated inspections and repeated promises of reform.
HMICFRS has identified weaknesses in complaint handling, organisational learning, vetting quality assurance and the support provided to reporters of wrong doing. These are not failures created by Federation members. They are failures of processes, leadership, and oversight.
While those who break the law or commit serious breaches of the standards of professional behaviour have no place in policing, it is equally true that the organisation's leadership must accept responsibility when the systems designed to prevent those failures are themselves found lacking.
The Federation are supportive of the Mets Leadership ambitions to rebuild public confidence, but confidence cannot be rebuilt through rhetoric alone. It requires delivery. Londoners and police officers alike are entitled to ask why, after years of change programmes and significant public commitments, the Metropolitan Police continues to receive a judgment of "Requires Improvement”
The Federation are disappointed that only 2 of the 55 recommendation concerning disproportionality within the misconduct process have been implemented.
Our members have carried the weight of criticism directed at the Metropolitan Police for several years. They deserve to see the same level of accountability applied at the very top of the organisation as is expected from those on our members.
The Commissioner now has an opportunity to demonstrate that leadership accountability means more than demanding higher standards from officers. It means delivering the systems and culture that enable those standards to be achieved across the organisation.
