Reflections on a significant week for the Met

At the end of what has been a busy and in many ways challenging week, I’d like to share some reflections on Baroness Casey’s report and on the conversations I’ve had inside and outside the Met in the days since it was published.

The first thing to say is that we welcome the report and its findings. As Baroness Casey has requested, we will take time to carefully consider its recommendations.

I’ve been clear in all the remarks I’ve made in recent days that it must act as a catalyst for police reform. We have let people down and I’ve repeated the apology I gave in my first weeks to Londoners and our own people in the Met.

The appalling examples of discrimination, and the systemic and cultural failures underpinning them, the letting down of communities and victims, and the strain faced by the frontline are unacceptable and I’m sorry.

As professionals who care about policing, the report has prompted feelings of shame and anger, but it has also increased our resolve. I am proud of those people - our officers and staff - whose passion for policing and determination to reform moved them to share their experiences with such honesty.

This is, in many ways, their report. All of us who have served and are serving must reflect on why we haven’t delivered the scale of the change needed.

Our Turnaround Plan is already building momentum across the Met. I am reassured that a number of issues highlighted by Baroness Casey – our service to victims, rebuilding neighbourhood policing and how we protect the most vulnerable – are priorities we too had identified. The plan is a shared mission with our good officers and staff. Baroness Casey’s insights, alongside feedback from the public, will greatly influence the next version.

Of course there are external factors – funding, governance, growing demand, and resource pressures that shouldn’t sit with policing – that the report has identified. Baroness Casey is right to identify the impact these have had on our ability to police London, but there can be no excuses for us. The core of the problems are for policing to determinedly confront.

I’ve also cautioned of the need to guard against this report just leading to pillory and blame of the exceptional majority of officers. If that happens then only criminals will benefit. Instead we need it to galvanise Londoners, the dedicated police majority and politicians to coalesce around reform and the renewal of policing by consent for the 21st century.

I was confident in our ability to take on that challenge before this week, but the conversations I’ve had have strengthened that belief.

In addition to the many media appearances and official meetings I’ve had, I’ve also been travelling to different police stations talking to officers and staff from across the Met. My colleagues in our senior leadership team have been doing the same.

The majority of our officers get the seriousness of this moment. They want to be part of the change and they have shown us that they really care. We’ll take on those who don’t.

When I appeared at the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee on Wednesday I was grateful for the recognition from Assembly Members for the contribution made by the vast majority of our fantastic officers. It is true that each day they are out on the streets of London doing remarkable work.

If we can turn their passion, zeal and determination not just to fighting crime but to the problems in our own organisation and the challenges arising from this report, then we can take on anything.