PCD 1635 Offensive Weapon Homicide Review (OWHR) HO Pilot

PCD 1635 Offensive Weapon Homicide Review (OWHR) HO Pilot

This paper seeks approval to accept grant funding a total of, £104,397.63 from the Home Office (HO) to fund a post in the Metropolitan Police Service Specialist Crime Review Group (MPS SCRG) to coordinate the MPS’s response and information resulting from an 18-month pilot of Offensive Weapons Homicide Reviews (OWHRs) which started in April 2023.  

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:   

1. Approve the request to accept a total of, £104,397.63 grant funding from the Home Office to support the continuation of the OWHRs pilot in 2024/25.   

PART I - NON-CONFIDENTIAL FACTS AND ADVICE TO THE DMPC. 

1. Introduction and background.   

2. The strategic and operational context for the funding proposal is an ongoing HO pilot of Offensive Weapons Homicide Reviews (OWHRs).   

3. The Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Act 2022 introduced a requirement on the police, local authorities in England and Wales, Integrated Care Boards in England and local health boards in Wales to review the circumstances of certain homicides in where  the victim was aged 18 or over, and the events surrounding their death involved, or were likely to have involved, the use of an offensive weapon. 

3. The HO has funded a post since October 2023 to undertake this work. The paper seeks MOPAC approval to accept a further grant from the Home Office to continue supporting this function for a further 12 months to 31 March 2025.   

2. Issues for consideration.  

1. The MPS is legally required to support any OWHRs carried out in the London pilot boroughs.  The pilot is being run in five Boroughs of London (Barnet, Brent, Harrow, Lambeth and Southwark), West Midlands (Birmingham and Coventry) and South Wales. 

2. The MPS is required to input and support the reviews as one of the Relevant Review Partners in London.  Additional staffing resources are required due to the additional demands placed on the Specialist Crime Review Group in terms of the volume of OWHRs expected in the London pilot boroughs. Funding has been agreed with the HO for a period of 18 months to fund the OWHR Review Officer. 

3. The purpose of the reviews is to ensure that where a qualifying homicide takes place, local partners identify the lessons to be learnt from the death, consider whether any actions that should be taken as a result and to share the outcome. 

4. The reviews will also aim to improve the national and local understanding of what causes homicide and serious violence, better equipping services to prevent weapons-enabled homicides.  

5. The OWHR pilot commenced in April 2023 and will end on 30 September 2024.  The MPS assure that HO has confirmed that the funding will be provided for 12 months in 2024/25 beyond the end of the pilot to ensure that MPS input into all reviews undertaken in London can be completed.   

6. The MPS involvement in the OWHR pilot will contribute to delivering the London Anchor Institutions Charter, in so far as the learning and actions from any reviews undertaken will help to create safer communities in the five boroughs participating in the pilot. 

3. Financial Comments.  

1. The HO has confirmed a funding provision of £104,317.88 for the cost of the post for 2024/25. Funding arrangements between the HO and MOPAC will be formalised with a grant agreement, overseen by the MPS Grant Manager. 

2. HO funding a total of, £48,182.47, for the first 6 months of the pilot to 31st  March 2024 was approved in 23/24 by the MPS under delegated authority.    

4. Legal Comments. 

1. MOPAC acceptance of this Grant is permitted under Schedule 3 Paragraph 7 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, whereby MOPAC may do anything which is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to, the exercise of the functions of the Office which includes entering into contracts and other agreements (whether legally binding or not). 

2. Paragraph 4.8 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides that the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) has delegated authority to approve all bids for grant funding made and all offers made of grant funding. 

3. MPS assures that the grant funding can be accepted after consulting with the Directorate of Legal Services. 

5. GDPR and Data Privacy. 

1. The MPS is subject to the requirements and conditions placed on it as a 'State' body to comply with the European Convention of Human Rights and the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018.  Both legislative requirements place an obligation on the MPS to process personal data fairly and lawfully in order to safeguard the rights and freedoms of individuals. 

2. Under Article 35 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Section 57 of the DPA 2018, Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA) become mandatory for organisations with technologies and processes that are likely to result in a high risk to the rights of the data subjects. 

3. The Information Assurance and Information Rights units within MPS will be consulted at all stages to ensure the project meets its compliance requirements. 

4. A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) has been completed for this pilot. The pilot will ensure privacy by design approach, which will allow the MPS to find and fix problems at the early stages of any project, ensuring compliance with GDPR. DPIAs support the accountability principle, as they will ensure the MPS complies with the requirements of GDPR, and they demonstrate that appropriate measures have been taken to ensure compliance. 

5. The Home Office has completed a DPIA and put in place memorandums of understanding on information sharing with all the relevant review partners involved in the pilot.  They have also published a privacy information notice on the pilot on Gov.UK. 

6.       Equality Comments 

6.1.     This business case has undergone an initial equality screening. Due regard has been taken to the Equality Act’s Public Sector Equality Duty. Real consideration has been taken to assess the equality impact caused by the proposed business changes. As a result, no positive or negative impact has been identified to any individual and/or group safeguarded by a protected characteristic and those who are not  

7.   Background/supporting papers. 

          7.1.MPS Report. Offensive Weapons Homicide Reviews Pilot.