The Metropolitan Police Service has been released from “enhanced monitoring” by inspectors after they found sufficient “good progress” was being made towards correcting causes for concern about call handling, professional standards, how child exploitation is dealt with and matters related to the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel Report.
Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley (pictured) was told by letter that His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, Sir Andy Cooke, has decided to return the Met to the usual level of monitoring, having been removed from it in June, 2022, when an assessment found London’s police service requiring improvement in five key basic areas, including investigating crime, and “inadequate” at responding to the public.
In June, 2023, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime asked inspectors to look specifically at how the Met was responding to the sexual and criminal exploitation of children, resulting in a critical report the following October.
The following May, the Met and the inspectors agreed a “Milestone Plan” to track improvements under the continuing enhanced monitoring process – sometimes referred to as “special measures” – which also encompassed matters related to the Daniel Morgan report, published in June 2021, which had been commissioned by the government to look into the handling of the unsolved murder of Morgan in 1987.
The inspectorate’s letter to Rowley, copied to Sir Sadiq Khan, sets out the recommendations it had made in each of three “cause of concern” areas and the deadlines for enacting them, stating that these are all now closed.
The Milestone Plan was linked to the Met’s own New Met for London Plan, published in July 2023 under Rowley’s then-new leadership. The letter to Rowley concludes that there is “still a significant amount of work to do to transform the MPS” but that the Commissioner’s plans are reassuring on that point.
Mayor Khan, whose role includes being the capital’s police and crime commissioner, to whom Rowley is accountable, welcomed the inspectorate’s decision and its findings, attributing progress to “the hard work” of the Commissioner, senior colleagues and officer and staff as a whole.
For London Councils, executive member for community and safety Muhammed Butt said the announcement demonstrated “a clear step in the right direction towards addressing challenges raised in the Baroness Casey review into standard of behaviour and internal culture within the Met”.
Writing in the Standard, Met Deputy Commissioner, Dame Lynne Owens, said the inspectorate’s announcement “validates our substantial progress so far”, mentioning in particular a greater focus on “the crimes that matter most to our communities, targeting the criminal gangs that make the lives of some Londoners a misery” and also emphasising more efficient answering of 999 calls, “combatting violence against women and girls” and providing better training and equipment for officers.
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