2021-2022 MOPAC Annual Report

• Trust and confidence in policing was a dominant issue over this period, with incidents including the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving MPS officer, criminal activities by officers guarding the scene of murders of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman and the findings of the IOPC into the appalling misconduct of some officers at Charing Cross Police Station (Operation Hotton) impacting Londoners’ faith in the MPS, with confidence and trust in the MPS reaching record lows in Q4 2021/22. The Mayor has continued to hold the MPS robustly to account on behalf of Londoners so that the deep-rooted cultural issues exposed by these incidents are addressed urgently and effectively. The Commissioner of the MPS resigned in February 2022, and a new Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, was appointed in July 2022. MOPAC’s oversight and scrutiny of the MPS in delivering the next Police and Crime Plan will be at the heart of driving the necessary change for Londoners.
• The evidence given to the inquests of Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor – murdered by Stephen Port in 2014 and 2015- was deeply upsetting, and the quality of the investigation carried out by the MPS at the time of the murders raised a number of concerns. The impact this has had on the victims’ families and friends – on top of the devastating trauma of the murder of their loved ones – is profoundly distressing and has damaged the confidence of the LGBTQ+ community in the police. Following the inquests, the Mayor asked Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services [HMICFRS] to conduct an independent inspection into the standards of investigations carried out by the MPS and ensure there is a clear plan of action, so that the failings identified in the Port case can never be repeated. 
• Delivery continued in 2021/22 on the Mayor’s Action Plan for Transparency, Accountability and Trust in Policing. Highlights included:
• • The Action Plan Disproportionality Board held its inaugural meeting in October 2021, chaired by Sophie Linden, Deputy Mayor for Policing & Crime and Debbie Weekes-Bernard, Deputy Mayor for Communities & Social Justice.  The Board includes statutory and civil society partners, including the MPS, CPS, College of Policing and HMICFRS. Community involvement includes a young person from the Violence Reduction Unit’s Young Person’s Action Group and one of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Advisers. Additional community members will be added to the membership through an External Reference Group – for which planning and recruitment began in 2021/22. The Board has considered and inputted on issues including Stop and Search, the Casey Review and the MPS response to the NPCC/College of Policing Race Action Plan.
  • Outreach events led by the MPS across the Capital to increase applicants into policing from across London’s diverse communities. MOPAC is supporting this with investment in a new Community Outreach Fund.
  • MOPAC has made £1.2m available over 3 years for a specific Career Development Service proposal for the progression and promotion of Black officers and the selection of Career Development Officers at Chief Inspector level.
  • In the financial year 2021 to 2022, 39.7 per cent of new trainee officers to the MPS were female, while 23.6 per cent were from under-represented ethnicity groups.
• Thanks to the difficult decisions the Mayor has taken throughout his time in office to increase council tax and move money raised from business rates into policing – together with additional funding from the Government – the MPS reached a headcount of 33,567 police officers (FTE) – the highest number on record. 
• City Hall funding continued to support dedicated teams stepping up the fight against violence on the streets of London. The MPS Violent Crime Taskforce and Violence Suppression Units continued to work around the clock to take dangerous individuals and weapons off the streets of London.
• Local policing was strengthened with an additional 650 officers - 500 forming 19 dedicated Town Centre Teams across London and a further 150 joining London’s Dedicated Ward Officers, working in communities to drive down crime and problem-solve local issues.
• The Mayor announced a package of £50m through the London Crime Prevention Fund, supporting grassroots crime prevention projects across the city and promoting positive opportunities for Londoners in every borough in the capital over the next three years. Through the Fund, more than £39m will be distributed between all 32 London boroughs, with a further £9.8m awarded to projects already funded by MOPAC. This new funding package will provide dedicated funding for local authorities now and allow them to work together to tackle complex problems across borough boundaries and support local communities to tackle violence and reduce offending where they are.
• In 2021, London’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) -  set up by the Mayor in 2019 to work in partnership with people and organisations in order to understand the complex causes of violence and prevent it from happening - invested £35m in early intervention and prevention programmes that provided support and positive opportunities for more than 80,000 young Londoners.
• The VRU secured £10m from the Home Office and Youth Endowment Fund to implement Cognitive Behavioural Therapy support for 2,500 of the most at-risk young people in London. Delivery of the Your Choice programme is being delivered by skilled practitioners in all 32 London boroughs.
• The VRU continued to champion youth work in London. It has recruited 10 frontline practitioners to embed their experience and knowledge in its work; invested £1.1m in the Rise Up programme which provides up to 200 youth workers with training to develop their skills to better support young people; increased investment in the DIVERT programme so that trained intervention coaches who help divert 18-25s from violence are now based in all 12 of the MPS’ Basic Command Units, and expanded the ENGAGE programme so that double the number of youth workers are available to support 10-17s.
• The VRU’s flagship community-led programme, MyEnds, has seen some progress in its first year. The VRU invested £6m in eight areas across London (Brent, Croydon, Hackney, Haringey, Lambeth, Newham, Southwark and Tower Hamlets), giving communities the support and resources to tackle violence and deliver critical interventions to support young people, families and communities. In its first year, the programme delivered more than 120 local interventions, benefitting 3,100 young people and community members.
• Evidence demonstrates that parent/carer support is crucial in supporting children and young people at risk of extra-familial harm, and mitigating risk factors for involvement with violence. The VRU has invested £1m in the development of parent/carer, peer support networks across all 32 boroughs with the aim of training and upskilling parents to help them nurture and protect children and young people.
• The VRU and City Hall have jointly invested £7.2m to kickstart a Mayoral commitment to provide a professional mentor for every young person in need of support by 2024. This pledge includes a mentor for young people in Pupil Referral Units.
• The VRU has delivered a schools programme which works to tackle exclusions and promote healthy relationships. The Stepping Stones programme, which works to support children in the transition from primary to secondary school, has provided ongoing support for 4,000 young people. Through its work with Tender, VRU funding has provided healthy relationships and domestic violence training for 5,700 children and 175 teachers, while the Nurture programme, which works to tackle school exclusions, is running in 34 schools across 13 boroughs in London.
• The £1.3m Stronger Futures programme is supporting 3,000 young people with positive opportunities after school – which evidence suggests is a high-risk period of becoming involved or being a victim of violence.
• The VRU supports and coordinates violence reduction work in all 32 London Boroughs. The Unit has invested £5m to help deliver programmes to reduce violence and to help Boroughs develop local action plans to reduce violence and to support young people at risk of exploitation.
• MOPAC convened a Reducing Teenage Homicide Partnership, bringing together the MPS and other partners to co-ordinate efforts to reduce and prevent serious violence. In 2021/22 the Partnership’s work included conducting deep dives into six areas of the MPS’s strategy to reduce violence – helping partners to familiarise, and take action to align themselves, with the strategy; sharing a variety of data sets to enable joined-up, evidence-based activity and investment by partners; and investigating improvements to multi-agency offender management work.
• MOPAC commissioned a new problem profile into youth and group violence to ensure that the current Partnership response evolves to meet the needs of young people into the future. The problem profile will be finalised in 2022/23.
• MOPAC continued to promote innovation in reducing reoffending and keeping Londoners safe. In 2021/22 the Mayor announced £350,000 of funding to boost innovative programmes to tag knife crime and domestic abuse offenders with a GPS tracking device on release from prison in a drive to cut reoffending, improve rehabilitation and reduce the risk victims face when an offender is released. Evidence shows that GPS tracking devices can play an important role in ensuring offenders comply with the conditions of their release, helping police and probation services to reduce the risk to the public, as well as ensuring that those who reoffend can be swiftly returned to prison. Of the first 600 tags fitted, more than half of the offenders successfully completed their probation and 160 offenders fitted with GPS tracking devices were found to have breached the conditions of their release and were returned to prison.
• City Hall continued to invest in clinically embedded youth work services supporting young victims of violence and domestic abuse in twelve Accident and Emergency and Major Trauma sites across London. This MOPAC and VRU investment totalled £2.4m in 2021/22. A total of 739 young people received support from providers to help them cope, recover and reduce their risk of harm to themselves and others. This includes one to one case work support and working with partners agencies around issues such as education, housing and health.
• Through the Lighthouse, young people who have experienced sexual abuse can get full access to support from medical, psychological, therapeutic and social care experts all in one place, eliminating the need for victims to go through the trauma of repeating their statement several times to different agencies. The service was the first of its kind in the UK. Following a successful three-year pilot and MOPAC-led evaluation published in June 2021, work has been undertaken over the last 12 months to develop a sustainable delivery model designed to maximise the most impactful elements identified through its evaluation and secure future funding across a number of partner agencies. The Lighthouse is funded in partnership with NHS England, CPS, NSPCC and North Central Clinical Commissioning Group across a three-year funding agreement until the end of 2024/25 with £1.5m MOPAC funding over the next three years.
• In 2021/22, MOPAC also invested a further £500,000 help develop and extend three Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Hubs in North West, North East and South East London. The MOPAC funding has helped address an increase in demand, expanding services into more boroughs and improve local pathways with other agencies such as local social care teams and CAMHS.
• The Mayor invested a further £1.8m in the Rescue and Response service, which supports young people who are vulnerable and caught up in county lines drug distribution networks. The Rescue and Response programme was developed and is led by a coalition of London boroughs, including Brent, Islington and Newham, that help coordinate support across London for young people up to the age of 25. They work side by side with three service delivery partners – St Giles Trust, Abianda and Safer London - who provide tailored support for young people referred to the project. The programme has worked with 430 young people, of which more than 80 per cent have either reduced or been supported away from county lines activity. The service has also carried out 80 rescues, which involves collecting a young person from another county following arrest, ensuring their safe return home and the provision of ongoing support to help divert them away from criminal gangs. This new investment will mean an uplift in capacity to deal with the number of referrals into the programme – there have been more than 1,600 in the last three years - and to maintain the ‘rescue’ function to collect young Londoners found being exploited outside the capital.
• The Mayor increased investment in the London Gang Exit (LGE) programme from £1.2m to £1.9m so it can support more young people to leave gangs. The LGE programme, led by Safer London, aims to divert young people caught up in gangs and violence to leave their destructive lifestyle behind and move onto a more positive path by providing specialist one-to-one mentoring support, and help for young Londoners with employment, training, housing, family and relationship support. Between 2016 and March 2021, 273 young people have completed intervention activity with London Gang Exit, and 85 per cent having reported either a reduction in involvement in criminal gangs or a complete exit. The additional funding will boost the number of support workers and provide specialist capacity where it is most needed across the capital, ensuring that LGE can provide more support as restrictions continue to ease.
• Service delivery began at the innovative Newham Transitions Hub, which works with 18-25-year olds under probation supervision to reduce reoffending and put them on a positive path in life. The Hub, the first of its kind, is based at Newham Probation Office and has been developed by the Ministry of Justice and MOPAC. Mental health and substance misuse experts work alongside National Probation Service staff, ensuring that vulnerable young adults, many of whom had troubled upbringings and poor education, receive the enhanced support they need to avoid a life of crime. Offenders released without a home or a job are significantly more likely to reoffend, so accommodation, training and employment services also operate from the Hub to help cut crime.
• Since 2018 MOPAC have been commissioning services for London women in touch with the criminal justice system as part of an innovative, holistic service to reduce reoffending. MOPAC has continued to build on provision for women in contact with the CJS including co-commissioning women’s centres (costing £1.6m in MOPAC funding) and continuing a scheme offering conditional cautions for women in 4 London boroughs (costing £261,000 in MOPAC funding).  During this period focus has also been on increasing investment from partners and additional investment has been secured through co-commissioning with the Ministry of Justice, health and local authority partners to sustain and grow the provision between 2022 and 2025.
• The Mayor allocated an additional £400,000 investment in a grassroots fund to empower communities to counter extremism, tackle the rise in hate crime offences and keep vulnerable Londoners safe from radicalisation. This new investment builds on the work of the Shared Endeavour Fund, which has directly benefited 25,000 participants and reached more than 600,000 Londoners overall since it launched in 2020 - enabling community groups to deliver vital grassroots projects that tackle all forms of violent extremism, racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and misogyny. Projects have taken place in every London borough, including during lockdown, and the new funding will empower grassroots organisations to continue to engage with Londoners of all ages and backgrounds to tackle a broad array of issues, from right-wing extremism, racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism to extremist content online and misogyny.
• In December 2021, London’s Independent Victims’ Commissioner, Claire Waxman, published a new review of rape cases in London, with new data from MOPAC revealing that two thirds of rape victims in the capital withdrew their complaints and just one per cent reached trial. Claire has repeated her call for increased independent support for rape victims and drastic improvements in how victims’ mobile phones are requested and searched during an investigation.
• MOPAC has led the way in pushing for improvements in the police response to rape and sexual offences. MOPAC has developed a new approach, working with academics, that has been piloted in Avon and Somerset Police.  The Programme, called Operation Soteria, is funded by the Home Office, and seeks to improve convictions for rape cases, and to ensure victims are better supported through the investigation process. This has resulted in bearing down on prolific offenders and the introduction of measures aiming to reduce the number of victims withdrawing from pursing cases.  The Soteria research was completed in the Metropolitan Police in 2021/22, with work now underway to consider the findings and implement improvements.
• The Mayor announced a new £4.3 million investment package to provide vital one-to-one support for hundreds of victims of sexual violence and domestic abuse in the capital and improved help for rape victims throughout the criminal justice process. This new investment, successfully secured by MOPAC from the Ministry of Justice, will fund the appointment of an additional 21 Independent Sexual Violence Advisers (ISVAs) and 23 new Independent Domestic Violence Advisers (IDVAs) in London to help victims understand the process from ‘report to court’ and receive ongoing practical and wellbeing support - building on the 88 specialist advisors already funded by City Hall. An additional fund of £850,000 from the Ministry of Justice is also being used to increase counselling services for victims and survivors of sexual violence. Both sets of advisers are independent from the police and can enable victims to access housing advice, legal support, counselling, assistance within health services and provide vulnerable victims with phones, travel cards, food and medical supplies.
• In 2021/22 the Mayor announced a £2.4m investment using funding secured from the Home Office in expanding existing programmes and implementing new schemes which focus on addressing the behaviour of perpetrators of domestic abuse and protecting victims. This includes funding for an innovative new pilot programme which will enable services to intervene sooner in cases of domestic abuse to better protect victims and their children. The programme, called ‘Restart’, will run as a pilot for three years across five boroughs, and will include evaluating the impact of focusing on changing the behaviour of perpetrators of abuse in reducing violence and safeguarding victims of domestic abuse. It will deliver training for social workers to ensure they have the skills and confidence to challenge perpetrators of domestic abuse – right from the from the early signs of domestic abuse, the response from social workers will be focused on what needs to be done to address the behaviour of the person perpetrating the abuse.
• In 2021/22 the Mayor invested £672,000 to continue sustaining the London Stalking Threat Assessment Centre (S-TAC), which was originally funded by the Home Office as part of the Multi-Agency Stalking Interventions Programme (MASIP).  S-TAC is a multi-agency, pan-London, victim focussed response to stalking, looking at improving the identification of and response to stalking reports in London, through rehabilitative interventions for all types of stalkers.  The unit is co-located within the MPS and is comprised of a partnership between the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, the MPS, London Probation and Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust.  Since commencement of the unit in 2017, stalking reports and demand has steadily increased and in 21/22, S-TAC received over 5000 referrals for stalking reports across London.  As a result of significant efforts from MOPAC and the Metropolitan Police, commitment has been secured from all statutory S-TAC partners to sustain the programme until March 2023, with additional police resources to meet the increased demand.
• In March 2022 the Mayor announced an additional £11.3m funding for domestic abuse services in London. More than 6,000 Londoners will benefit from the wide range of new services which will include counselling, mentoring and therapeutic support as well as practical help with legal, housing, employment and schooling needs. The new funding has been awarded to City Hall from the Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities and will deliver specialist help to survivors of domestic abuse. All women, LGBTQ+ individuals, male victims of domestic abuse, young women leaving care, and people with learning disabilities will all benefit from the new services put in place following the Mayor’s investment, which has been designed specifically for survivors with complex needs.

The tailored support has been made possible by the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 which allocated responsibility to local authorities, such as City Hall, to provide support to victims and survivors of domestic abuse in safe accommodation for the first time.

• In March 2022 the Mayor launched a landmark new campaign speaking directly to men and boys about how their actions can help end violence against women and girls. Research by UN Women UK indicated that 71 per cent of all women have experienced some form of sexual harassment in a public space with this number rising sharply to 86 per cent among 18-24 year olds. With the key message: “Male violence against women and girls starts with words. If you see it happening, have a word with yourself, then your mates.”, the campaign aims to challenge the sexist attitudes and inappropriate behaviours exhibited by some men in order to tackle the epidemic of misogyny and violence against women and girls. The campaign has received an exceptional reaction, with the video receiving more than 10 million views and 13,000 shares in its first few weeks.

Following consultation with more than 4,000 Londoners, justice agencies, partner organisations, community and voluntary groups, in March 2022 the Mayor published his Police and Crime Plan for London, setting out his agenda for policing, crime and community safety in London for this term. The four priorities of the Plan are:

• • Reducing and preventing violence – preventing and reducing violence affecting young people; making London a city in which women and girls are safer and feel safer; tackling the harm caused by drugs; reducing reoffending by the most violent and high-risk groups; preventing hate crime; and working together to prevent terrorism and violent extremism.
  • Increasing trust and confidence – increasing public trust in the MPS and reducing gaps in confidence between different groups; ensuring that the MPS engages with Londoners and treats them fairly; and ensuring that the MPS, borough councils and all community safety partners respond to neighbourhood crimes such as burglary and anti-social behaviour.
  • Better supporting victims – improving the service and support that victims receive from the MPS and the criminal justice service; working to ensure victims receive a better criminal justice response and outcome; and reducing the number of repeat victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence.
  • Protecting people from being exploited or harmed – reducing the number of young people and adults who are criminally exploited or harmed; keeping young people in the justice system supported and safe; and keeping people safe online.

In 2021/22, MOPAC, with the VRU and GLA, started work on the Mayor’s refreshed Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy, consulting widely with Londoners, partner agencies, victims and community groups. The Strategy, published in June 2022, sets out how the Mayor will lead a public health approach to tackling violence against women and girls and its underlying causes, support victims and increase the trust and confidence of women and girls in the MPS.

The refreshed VAWG Strategy sets out Sadiq's long-term ambition to eradicate VAWG in London, and for every woman and girl to be able to participate fully in life in our city without experiencing or fearing harassment, abuse or violence from men.

• In support of these strategies, in February 2022 the Mayor announced his plan for a permanent increase in funding of £23.2m every year for violence prevention programmes, tackling violence against women and girls and better supporting victims of crime. As part of this, £13.2m will be specifically focused on work to reduce teen homicides and serious violence. In addition, this package includes funds to help provide a swifter service to Londoners through boosting the MPS contact centre, and funds to tackle illegal drug use which is a key driver of crime and violence in London. £5m every year will be dedicated to tackling violence against women and girls - supporting victims and survivors and tackling the perpetrators of these appalling crimes.
• Supporting the MPS’ work to increase trust and confidence among women and girls, London’s Victims’ Commissioner convened a group of survivors to meet with MPS senior leadership as part of the development of their VAWG Action Plan. This meeting, followed by a subsequent reconvening of the same group, ensured that the voices of survivors fed directly into the plans.

MOPAC reports year-round on its work, as part of our commitment to transparency and openness.

You can read the latest news from MOPAC on london.gov.uk, and can follow our work on Twitter @MOPACLdn.

You can read our detailed quarterly performance reports for 2021/22 here:

• Quarter 1
• Quarter 2
• Quarter 3
• Quarter 4

MOPAC publishes a wide range of regularly updated data relating to policing, crime and community confidence through its interactive online dashboards.

MOPAC also publishes its academic studies and project evaluations on an ongoing basis. Reports published in 2021/22 include evaluations of the Lighthouse service for victims of child sexual abuse and exploitation; the London Gang Exit service and the GPS tagging community sentencing pilot. All of our published reports and evaluations are available here.

New dashboards are being developed to reflect the new Police and Crime Plan for London, the first of which is available here. Additional dashboards will come online during 2022/23.

MOPAC has published its draft Annual Governance Statement – which describes how we do our work and discharge our statutory duties, which can be accessed here.

MOPAC’s draft Statement of Annual Accounts is also available here.

Police Appeals Tribunals (PATs) hear appeals against the findings of gross (serious) misconduct brought by police officers or special constables. MOPAC is responsible for appointing the chair and a lay person to conduct the proceedings. You can find details of the Tribunals conducted during 2021/22 and preceding years here.