The head of Britain’s biggest police force has said he is frustrated with the Home Office for its slow progress at reviewing “perverse” rules that prevent him from being able to sack his own officers.
Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, which has some UK-wide responsibilities, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he had expected results from the review in May but was yet to see them.
The home secretary, Suella Braverman, announced the internal Home Office review in January. It was to consider putting police chiefs in charge of all misconduct hearings, sidelining the independent panels chaired by lawyers that have been criticised for hampering the removal of officers.
The review was announced in the wake of the scandal over David Carrick, the Met officer jailed for life for raping and assaulting at least 12 women.
Asked about his power to fire officers, Rowley said: “I’m frustrated about that. The government announced a review that was due to report in May to look at police regulations and make the changes I’d asked for.
“We haven’t yet heard the results of that review and I’m frustrated. I’m getting on with things, I need those changes in regulations to help me get on with them because some of the processes are too long and too bureaucratic.
“Some of the decisions are made outside the Met, so people we’ve decided shouldn’t be police officers, an independent lawyer says ‘bad luck, you’ve got to keep them’. That can’t be right. No other employer has to deal with that.
“If I’m trying to get the minority out of the organisation, while help the majority of my people succeed it’s not helpful to have useless, slow bureaucratic processes.”
Asked why he thought the government was being slow, he replied: “I don’t know.”
He continued: “I’m a man in a hurry, we’re an organisation in a hurry to build the trust of Londoners and I’d like that support as quickly as possible.
“You’re robustly challenging me on the culture of the Met and our ability to build trust in communities. It seems perverse that I don’t get to decide who works here – that’s a bit weird.”
Rowley said the force was “doubling down” on standards after the damning Casey review, commissioned in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder, which concluded the Met was guilty of institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia.
“I’ve been really clear about bearing down on standards,” he said. “The majority of my officers want that, they’re reporting more cases, and we’re having a big effect.
“It’s the biggest doubling down on standards simply in the Metropolitan police for 50 years.”
He also appeared to reprove the home secretary for telling police to increase the use of stop and search powers “to prevent violence and save more lives”.
In a statement aimed at all 43 forces in England and Wales, Braverman said officers who used the powers had her “full support”.
Asked about her comments, which were described by a former senior police officer as a “troubling intervention”, Rowley said: “The amount of stop and search in London is not the home secretary’s decision, it’s not the mayor’s decision, it’s our decision based on the operational needs for London.”
The police chief said it was not about using stop and search less or more but about “using it right”. He added that it was a critical tactic that if used well could save lives, but he acknowledged that if it was used badly it could damage trust.
