Operation Aegis: Child Protection

Operation Aegis is an innovative approach that has run as a ‘proof of concept’ on the South BCU (Bromley, Croydon and Sutton) to improve the outcomes in safeguarding investigations. The police working with external partners have improved their capability in dealing with such investigations and in the management of risk and harm. This decision seeks to roll out this programme across all the other BCU’s in London. Operation Aegis is part of the Metropolitan Police’s response to the report from HMICFRS concerning child protection in 2016. This response is overseen by the London Child Protection Oversight group, chaired by the deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

1. Approve the utilisation of £2.7m from the approved budget to roll out Op Aegis over a two year period;

2. Approve a Single Tender Action for £500k to deploy a supplier to develop and upskill the delivery team in developing sustainable performance frameworks, training and coaching; and

3. Approve initiation of a further competition via the YPO (Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation) framework, Managing Temporary & Permanent Recruitment - 942 to a value of £1.2m to recruit Public Protection Advisors (PPA) to audit, deliver the coaching and mentoring across the remaining BCUs to ensure sustainable change.

4. Delegated authority to, Director of Commercial Services, to award the contract to selected PPA Provider following successful procurement via the YPO Framework.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. In 2016 HMICFRS published a highly critical report into child protection procedures within the Metropolitan Police. Since then the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime has overseen their response to the recommendations. As part of this Operation Aegis was started in the South BCU. This Operation involves a structured period of capability building and targeted auditing to drive improvement and leave a lasting performance improvement legacy. The programme is delivered with partners who bring additional capacity, experience and capability to lead change and embed new practice. In the South BCU it has addressed the needs of and prevented further harm to children, improved outcomes for the most harmful offenders, and improved the quality of investigations and the management of risk.

2. Issues for consideration

Operation Aegis

2.1. Operation Aegis was the name given to an initiative to improve standards in aspects of public protection work, focusing on child protection. It involves a structured period of capability building and targeted auditing to drive improvement and leave a lasting performance improvement legacy. The initiative was piloted in the South Command (SN), which covers Bromley, Sutton and Croydon Boroughs, with encouraging results. With the development of the MPS Public Protection Improvement Plan, it is the intention to mainstream the Aegis approach to support the implementation of the plan across all BCU’s.

2.2. Op Aegis is part of the response to HMICFRS 2016 Child Protection Inspection. The Met’s central team team is consistently recognised by the HMICFRS as critical to the success of delivering improved safeguarding performance within the MPS and nationally recommended as good practice.

2.3. The Aegis model to be rolled out will build upon the four themes from the proof of concept: child abuse (S47), indecent images of children (IIOC), Missing Children and CSE and will also include the challenging themes of rape and domestic abuse. This is line with the Mayoral priorities within the Police and Crime Plan.



2.4. Benefits of Operation Aegis

• Address victims needs and prevent further harm to children

• Improved CJS outcomes for the most harmful offenders

• Results have been achieved without an uplift in staff into SG

• Eliminating errors reduces rework

• Dealing effectively with suspects reduces repeat demand

• Dealing with victims empathetically will reduce victim attrition - minimising failed cases

• Increased capability of officers improving their identification, assessment and management of risk

• Performance management information to increase organisational grip of risk

• Improve standards of supervision

• Growing detective capability

• Stronger more balanced partnership relationships

• Achieve a HMICFRS Good grading in future Child Protection Inspections

• Deliver a positive legacy for the MPS in the future, minimising risk of future historic enquiries.

• Potential to eliminate the need for the CSDG, returning officers to FLP

• Sustainability of standards through establishing practitioner networks connecting BCUs best practice.



Delivery

2.5. Delivery of Operation Aegis across the MPS will take two years and will be supported by Programme 16 (TD), this will prevent ‘change on change’ occurring within BCUs. Programme 16 will provide governance and PMO support. The TD programme team will ‘wrap around’ the proof of concept model of Supplier and Public Protection Advisors (PPA) to deliver an aspiring roll out.

2.6. The Supplier will support the MPS delivery team to establish a baseline of continuous improvement maturity and performance reporting which will be used to measure success; feed in lessons learnt from the proof of concept and support the project team in setting up the project including defining the engagement strategy and planning the roll out schedule; run training sessions, including train the trainer and coaching and mentoring to delivery and operational teams in the first BCU; and transfer skills to the delivery team to allow the full implementation to complete independently. They will launch Aegis II into a further two BCUs to ensure an effective start to those areas, continuing to support the delivery team with expertise and advice. They will also ensure appropriate sustainability packages are in place for EA BCU.

2.7. The Public Protection Advisors (PPAs) will be experienced safeguarding practitioners having had a minimum Pip 2 qualification. The practitioners will provide support to BCU officers across all strands and ranks. They will ensure capability and efficiency of Safeguarding Teams to all BCUs; augmenting the proof of concept team with expert detectives in rape and DA, limiting abstraction by using retired detectives, will ensure that the front line is not depleted of operational resource whilst creating sufficient resilience to establish and maintain a central delivery team.

2.8. The requested budget will fund the posts required to both drive the initial change and then ensure on going consistency and embedding of good practice.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. The budget requirement for this work totals £2.7m. The programme will be funded from within the existing budget across two years.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. The Mayor's Office for Policing Crime is a contracting authority as defined in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (the Regulations).

4.2. Regarding the single tender action paragraph 4.13 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides that the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) has delegated authority to approve all contract exemptions for £100,000 or above.

4.3. The report confirms that the MOPAC intends to procure the services under the Yorkshire Purchasing Organisation framework: Managing Temporary and permanent recruitment. Procuring from a compliantly procured framework agreement where its terms and ordering processes are adhered to will constitute compliant award under the Regulations. Section 4, Conclusion in the Commercial section confirms this is the case.

4.4. Paragraph 4.13 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides that the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) has delegated authority to approve all requests to go out to tender for contracts of £500,000 or above

5. Commercial Issues

5.1. The Supplier, PWC, contracted under a single tender action will allow Retention of and development of the Perform© model in-house, reducing the cost of using a managed service framework by approximately 5%, offering economies of scale and allowing knowledge transfer and to provide two of the remaining BCUs launches and training through one full Perform© cycle. There are opportunity, time and momentum costs to be saved by not on boarding new suppliers lacking the experience of the proof of concept.

5.2. PWC were initially engaged for the proof of concept through a competitive process undertaken via the Bloom managed service. It is clear from research conducted prior to the proof of concept that no other provider can offer or has experience in the Aegis Model, it was designed by the CSDG and delivered by merging the chosen supplier’s approaches. As a proof of concept the operational business acumen accrued and continuity will be lost if we do not continue with PWC who were clear outliers in the initial competitive process.

5.3. Public Protection Advisors(PPA) will be procured through an existing framework enabling the MPS to ensure public money is spent on delivery. Procuring a managed service of the PPA’s delivers further financial advantages in terms of training, CPD’s and overall management costs. Additionally, as the PAAs will be required for delivery for two years, it also avoids the unintended consequences and costs of employing contractors who automatically become MPS employees after two years.

6. GDPR and Data Privacy

6.1. 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.

6.2. 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.

6.3. The Information Assurance and Information Rights units will be consulted at all stages of the work arising from the current paper to ensure that all compliance requirements in respect of GDPR and Privacy are met. A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) has been completed for this procurement, and has been seen by MOPAC.

7. Equality Comments

7.1. MOPAC is required to comply with the public sector equality duty set out in section 149(1) of the Equality Act 2010. This requires MOPAC to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations by reference to people with protected characteristics. The protected characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

7.2. The Met have not identified any equality or diversity issues with regard to this work. The Met will conduct a full EIA prior to commencing the Operation.

8. Background/supporting papers

8.1. None.