Correspondence

Priti Patel letter to Sir Mark Rowley (accessible version)

Published 5 September 2022

This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government

Sir Mark Rowley QPM

2 September 2022

Dear Mark,

I am writing to you as you begin undertaking the pivotal role of Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service and deliver your plan for your first 100 days to “renew policing by consent - more trust, less crime, high standards”.

It is absolutely vital that trust and confidence is restored and that visible, responsive policing which cuts crime is at the forefront. I expect the Metropolitan Police under your leadership to get the basics right and provide the first-class service expected of it. Leadership is central to delivering these changes and I support your ambition to ensure a strong top team that can deliver the extensive reform that is required. I also expect you, as Commissioner, to promote better leadership and higher standards at every level throughout the force.

HMICFRS will publish its PEEL findings from its recent inspection of the MPS very shortly and you will be attending the Policing Performance Oversight Group meeting on 19 September to discuss the first iteration of your plans to deliver, as quickly as possible, demonstrable and sustained improvement against the significant concerns raised by HMICFRS. I welcome the oversight, support and expertise provided from across policing to you in implementing and delivering force improvement. I know from our discussion on delivery and the first 100 days that you intend, with my support, to address the many difficult areas of failure and concern within the force and will work diligently to restore public trust and confidence.

You will be aware of the recent HMICFRS report on the police response to burglary, robbery, and acquisitive crimes. That report found that on too many occasions the Met, as a force, is failing to get the basics right when dealing with these crimes, which cause immense distress to the public. It is deeply disappointing and unacceptable that many police forces are falling short. You know my view that there is an essential requirement across policing to raise the bar on standards and to get the basics right. As the largest force in the country, it is right for the Met to set an example in how to deal with crimes of this kind and also to beat crime down.

Reducing crime is the central mission of policing and I am pleased to see that good progress is being made in some areas, with both gun crime and burglary continuing to fall across London. But there remain areas where further progress is needed. Whilst recorded crime remains below the pre-pandemic levels, it has been rising over the last year and I am very concerned that violent crime levels are now above pre-pandemic levels.

To focus our collective efforts on key national priorities, we have created the National Crime and Policing Measures. The MPS will play a key role in helping policing as a whole to deliver on these. We have also published our evidenced-based and targeted approach to driving down crime in the Beating Crime Plan. More needs to be done to prevent crimes from happening in the first place and to deliver swift and certain justice to those who choose to break the law. Policing is central to this. From the visible deterrent effect of ‘hotspot’ policing to the positive effect that swift and certain justice delivers, we know that if policing focuses on getting the basics right it will cut crime.

The recruitment of 20,000 additional officers remains a key priority for the government and the MPS has a significant role to play. I look to you to provide strategic leadership to ensure that your force has recruited the full 4,557 additional officers it has been allocated by the end of March 2023. Maintaining the MPS allocation of additional officers into the forthcoming years is central to restoring the trust and confidence in the MPS, so the best and brightest need to be encouraged to join up.

However, it is important to note that levels of police staff in the MPS have not grown in line with the funding the government has provided to recruit and support additional officers. This funding should be used to grow staff to support officers in functions such as learning and development. We have discussed the professional development of our officers, in particular our new officers. They are the next generation of police leaders, so the investment in them, in line with the productivity review being led by Sir Steve House, will show for the first time how this government’s investment in policing translates into real policing outcomes across our communities.

Several recent high-profile incidents have affected public trust and confidence across communities particularly in London–raising serious questions about the culture and standards in the MPS. These include Sarah Everard’s murder, strip searches of children, the vetting of police officers, basic respect and standards as exposed in the misconduct at Charing Cross police station in Operation Hotton, and the findings of the Inquest into the handling of the deaths of Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth, and Jack Taylor.

The HMICFRS inspection into the MPS’s counter-corruption capability, which I commissioned after the findings of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel, demonstrated serious flaws in the efforts of the MPS to ensure officers adhere to the standards rightly expected of them by the public.

I expect that Baroness Casey’s review and the Angiolini Inquiry will provide comprehensive findings in relation to these matters and these findings will shine another essential spotlight on where professional standards and practice has faltered. With this in mind Londoners need to be assured that improvements are being made immediately and will have an impact. I expect the MPS, under your leadership, clearly to demonstrate that it will learn from the appalling mistakes of the past and move the culture away from the organisational defensiveness that has hindered progress and damaged public trust.

While under the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 it is the responsibility of the Mayor of London to hold you to account for the force’s transformation, I have very much welcomed our constructive engagement and working relationship so far and will be closely monitoring all aspects of progress and change. It will no doubt be a challenging time for the force, but I have every confidence that under your leadership these challenges can be overcome. My officials and I stand ready to assist in any way that we can, and I look forward to working with you further.

Rt Hon Priti Patel MP