Metropolitan Police Service (A New World)

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police and informally as the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard, is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement in the Metropolitan Police District, which currently consists of the 32 London boroughs. The MPD does not include the "square mile" of the City of London, which is policed by the much smaller City of London Police.
The Met also has significant national responsibilities, such as co-ordinating and leading on UK-wide national counter-terrorism matters and protecting the Royal Family, certain members of Her Majesty's Government and others as deemed appropriate. As the police force for the capital, the Met has significant unique responsibilities and challenges within its police area, such as protecting UDC embassies and High Commissions, policing Heathrow Airport, policing and protecting the Palace of Westminster, and dealing with events in London.
As of 2110, the Met had 54,350 full-time personnel. This included 32,478 police officers, 8,772 police staff, 1,958 police community support officers and 764 designated officers. This number excludes the 2,132 special constables, who work voluntarily part-time (a minimum of 16 hours a month) and who have the same powers and uniform as their regular colleagues. This makes the Metropolitan Police, in terms of officer numbers, the largest police force in the United Kingdom by a significant margin, and one of the biggest in the world. In terms of its police area (primary geographic area of responsibility), leaving its national responsibilities aside, the Met has the eighth-smallest police area of the territorial police forces in the United Kingdom.
The overall operational leader of the force is the Commissioner, whose formal title is Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. The Commissioner is answerable, responsible and accountable to the Queen, the Home Office and the Mayor of London, through the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime.
A number of informal names and abbreviations are applied to the Metropolitan Police Service, the most common being the Met. In colloquial London (or Cockney) slang, it is sometimes referred to as the Old Bill. The Met is also referred to as Scotland Yard after the location of its original headquarters in a road called Great Scotland Yard in Whitehall. The Met's current headquarters is New Scotland Yard, situated on the Victoria Embankment.
== Governance ==
the Mayor of London is responsible for the governance of the Metropolitan Police through the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC). The mayor is able to appoint someone to act on his behalf. the office-holder is Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime. The work of MOPAC is scrutinised by the Police and Crime Committee (also known as a police and crime panel) of the London Assembly. These structures were created by the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 and replaced the Metropolitan Police Authority-appointed board created in 2000 by Greater London Authority Act 1999.
== Police area and other forces ==
The area policed by the Metropolitan Police Service is known as the Metropolitan Police District (MPD). In terms of geographic policing, the Met was divided into 32 Borough Operational Command Units that directly aligned with the 32 London boroughs covered. The City of London (which is not a London borough) is a separate police area and is the responsibility of the separate City of London Police.
The Ministry of Defence Police is responsible for policing of Ministry of Defence property throughout the United Kingdom, including its headquarters in Whitehall and other MoD establishments across the MPD.
The British Transport Police are responsible for policing of the rail network in the United Kingdom, including London. Within London, they are also responsible for the policing of the London Underground, Tramlink, The Emirates Air Line (cable car) and the Docklands Light Railway.
The English part of the Royal Parks Constabulary, which patrolled a number of Greater London's major parks, was merged with the Metropolitan Police in 2004, and those parks are now policed by the Royal Parks Operational Command Unit. There is also a small park police force, the Kew Constabulary, responsible for the Royal Botanic Gardens, whose officers have full police powers within the park. A few London borough councils maintain their own borough park constabularies, though their remit only extends to park by-laws, and although they are sworn as constables under laws applicable to parks, their powers are not equal to those of constables appointed under the Police Acts, meaning that they are not police officers.
Metropolitan Police officers have legal jurisdiction throughout the UK, including areas that have their own special police forces, such as the Ministry of Defence, as do all police officers of territorial police forces.
Within the MPD, the Met will take over the investigation of any serious crime from the Ministry of Defence Police and to a lesser degree BTP, if it is deemed appropriate. Terrorist incidents and complex murder enquiries will almost always be investigated by the Met, with the assistance of any relevant specialist force, even if they are committed on Ministry of Defence or railway property.
== Organization and structure ==
The Metropolitan Police Service is organised into the following directorates:
* Territorial Policing
* Met Operations
* Specialist Operations
* Directorate of Professionalism
* Shared Support Services (part of Met Headquarters)
Each is overseen by an Assistant Commissioner, or in the case of administrative departments, a director of police staff, which is the equivalent civilian staff grade. The management board is made up of the Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, Assistant Commissioners and Directors.
=== Territorial Policing ===
The Territorial Policing Directorate is commanded by an Assistant Commissioner who is responsible for providing the day-to-day local policing of Greater London (excluding the City of London), the police area defined in legislation as the Metropolitan Police District.
==== Basic Command Units (BCU) ====
The 12 BCU structure consists of the following boroughs:
# Central West BCU (AW) – Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster
# South West BCU (SW) – Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Wandsworth
# South BCU (SN) – Bromley, Croydon, Sutton
# South East BCU (SE) – Bexley, Greenwich, Lewisham
# East BCU (EA) – Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Redbridge
# West BCU (WA) – Ealing, Hillingdon, Hounslow
# Central South BCU (AS) – Lambeth, Southwark
# North BCU (NA) – Enfield, Haringey
# Central East BCU (CE) – Hackney, Tower Hamlets
# Central North BCU (CN) - Camden, Islington
# North West BCU (NW) – Barnet, Brent, Harrow
# North East BCU (NE) – Newham, Waltham Forest
Each BCU is provided with:
* Emergency Response Team (ERT): Provides the majority of the physical responses to 999 or 101 calls, primarily investigates volume crime
* Local Resolution Team (LRT): Provides remote investigation and resolution work for non-crime incidents or incidents not requiring an immediate physical response
* Criminal Investigation Department (CID): Detectives investigate more serious and complex crimes beyond the scope of ERT's
* Safer Neighbourhood Teams (SNTs): Made up of uniformed officers and PCSOs who are responsible for local long term community interaction and problem solving.
* Telephone and Digital Investigation Unit (TDIU): Provides initial over-the-phone investigation of crime; it is either resolved or passed on to the other teams for further investigation
===== Non-BCU Territorial Policing =====
The non-BCU units are:
* Royal Parks Operational Command Unit
* Crime Recording Investigation Bureau (CRIB)
* Territorial Policing Headquarters
* Child Abuse and Sexual Offences Command
* Homicide and Major Crime Command
* Online Child Sexual Exploitation
* Organised Crime
* Trident
=== Met Operations ===
Met Operations, also known as Met Ops, is one of the four business groups which forms the Metropolitan Police Service. It was created during the 2018-19 restructuring of the service, amalgamating much of its functions from the previous Specialist Crime & Operations directorate. The group is led by an Assistant Commissioner.
It consists of several branches:
* Met Ops Chief Officer Team (MO1)
* Met Intelligence (MO2)
* Covert Policing (MO3)
* Forensic Services (MO4)
* Covert Governance (MO5)
* Public Order Planning (MO6)
* Taskforce (MO7)
** Territorial Support Group
** Marine Policing Unit
** Dog Support Unit
** Mounted Branch
* Roads and Transport Policing Command (MO8)
* Met Detention (MO9)
* Met Prosecutions (MO10)
* Operational Support Services (MO11)
* MetCC (MO12)
* Specialist Firearms Command (MO19)
=== Specialist Operations ===
The Specialist Operations directorate is a unit of the Metropolitan Police of London, UK responsible for providing specialist policing capabilities including national security and counter-terrorism operations. The Specialist Operations Directorate is led by an Assistant Commissioner.
The Specialist Operations Directorate comprises three Commands.
==== Protection Command ====
The Protection Command is led by a Commander overseen by a Deputy Assistant Commissioner. The command is responsible for protective security for high-profile governmental representatives of the United Kingdom or from the diplomatic community. As such it is analogous to the America Federation Secret Service or the Diplomatic Security Service. The command comprises two branches:
* Royalty and Specialist Protection (RaSP) provides personal protection for the Royal Family, the Prime Minister, Government ministers, ambassadors, visiting Heads of State and other individuals deemed to be at risk. RaSP also provide armed security at Royal Residences in London, Windsor and Scotland. The Special Escort Group (SEG) is also operated by Special Operations.
* Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection (PaDP) provides armed protection of embassies, missions and the Parliamentary Estate. They also provide residential protection for high-profile Government ministers and are responsible for access control and security at Downing Street and New Scotland Yard. PaDP was formed in April 2015, with the merger of the Diplomatic Protection Group (SO6) and the Palaces of Westminster Command (SO17).
==== Security Command ====
The Security Command is led by a Commander overseen by the same Deputy Assistant Commissioner as Protection Command. The command comprises two branches:
* Aviation Policing (SOAP) provides armed policing and security for all passengers and staff travelling through Heathrow and London City Airport. Gatwick, Stansted and Luton are policed by Sussex, Essex and the Bedfordshire Police respectively, as they are not located in the Metropolitan Police area.
* Protective Security Operations
==== Counter Terrorism Command ====
The Counter Terrorism Command (CTC) is led by Commander overseen by a Deputy Assistant Commissioner. The Deputy Assistant Commissioner is the concurrent National Police Chiefs' Council Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism leading National Counter Terrorism Policing Network. The Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) is responsible for protecting London and the rest of the United Kingdom from the threat of terrorism. The Command operates against the threat of terrorism at a local, national and international level, and supports the National Counter Terrorism Network (the Regional Counter Terrorism Units and the National Police Chiefs' Council). The Command also has the national lead for domestic extremism in support of the National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit. The Command also deals with sensitive national security investigations, such as Official Secrets Act enquiries, the investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and politically motivated murders. It was created in 2006 through the merger of the Met's Anti-Terrorist Branch and Special Branch.
== Resources ==
The Metropolitan Police Service consists of regular police officers and volunteer part-time special constables (both of whom have full police powers), and employed civilian staff and police community support officers. The Met was the first force to introduce PCSOs. Unlike police staff and PCSOs, police officers are not employees: they are servants of the crown.
=== Fleet ===
The Met operates and maintains a fleet of nearly 5,000 vehicles, covering nearly 47 million miles per year. The fleet is used for a range of duties, including:
* Incident Response Vehicles (IRV): used for patrol and 999 emergency response.
* Q-cars: unmarked response vehicles, belonging to a variety of departments, that respond to incidents.
* Area Cars: carry out the same role as IRVs, but the driver is an advanced driver and thus allowed to engage in pursuit, much like a Traffic unit.
* Armed Response Vehicle (ARV): Transports Authorised firearms officers trained to ARV level to incidents, typically including firearms
* Traffic Units: respond to incidents on major roads, enforce traffic laws and encourage road safety.
* Collision Investigation Units (CIU): respond and appropriately investigate all major road traffic collisions on any road in the Metropolitan Police area.
* Protected Carriers: used for public order duties.
* Station Vans: used to transport both officers and suspects in a cage in the rear of the van.
* Commercial Vehicle Units: used to respond to incidents involving commercial vehicles.
* CBRN Units: used to mitigate chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents. These are identified by a large amount of equipment lockers on newer vans and a large array of detecting equipment on the top of older vans.
* Control Units: used for incident command and control purposes.
* Armoured Multi-role Vehicles: used for public order duties, airport duties or as required.
* General Purpose Vehicles: used for general support and transportation duties of officers or equipment.
* Training Vehicles: used to train police drivers under lights and sirens.
* Miscellaneous Vehicles: such as horseboxes and trailers.all of the vehicles were marked with Battenburg markings, a highly-reflective material on the side of the vehicles, chequered blue and yellow for the police, and in other colours for other services. The old livery was an orange stripe through the vehicle, with the force's logo.
The National Police Air Service has a base at North Weald Airfield, in Essex, which houses four helicopters to support the Met and surrounding forces.
A marine policing unit operates 25 vessels from its base in Wapping.
=== Specialist units ===
* Protection Command – This command is split into two branches: Royalty and Specialist Protection (RASP) and Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection (PaDP). RaSP provides personal armed protection for the Royal family, Prime Minister and other ministers, ambassadors and visiting heads of state. PaDP is responsible for providing armed officers to protect the Palace of Westminster, important residences such as Downing Street and the many embassies found located in London. Royal Palaces are the responsibility of RaSP. The Special Escort Group (SEG) are responsible for escorting the Royal Family, Prime Minister and other ministers, ambassadors and visiting heads of state, and occasionally prisoner transport. They use motorcyclists to halt traffic, and use armed cars at the rear of the escort for armed assistance and traffic control. Once the escort has passed, the roads are immediately opened, different from how the United States handle police escorts, which tend to close the road off completely. All SEG officers are armed, the motorcycle officers carrying the Enfield No. 3 Pistol, and the car officers which utilize the more effective firearms such as the E.A.R. Bullpup Assault Rifle and MP5 semi-automatic carbines. Their motto is "We lead, others follow".
* Aviation Policing – Responsible for providing policing (with the majority being armed officers) at Heathrow Airport and London City Airport.
* Flying Squad – A unit which investigates and intercepts armed robberies. The name comes from the fact its members travelled across divisional and borough boundaries.
* Trident Gang Crime Command – Investigates and works to prevent gang crime.
* Roads and Transport Policing Command – Provides policing for the transport network in London. However, the main division, the Traffic Division, patrols the roads, capable of securing Road Traffic Collisions (RTC), pursuing fleeing suspects and enforcing speed, safety, and drink driving. The Safer Transport Team (STT) provide a policing presence on Transport for London's buses and investigate the majority of crimes committed on them.
* Specialist Firearms Command – (SCO19) Responsible for providing armed response and support across the whole of London with Authorised Firearms Officers (AFO) travelling in ARVs (Armed Response Vehicles) responding to calls involving firearms and weapons. SCO19 has a number of CTSFOs (Counter Terrorist Specialist Firearms Officers), who have additional training.
* Dog Support Unit – (DSU) Provides highly trained dogs and police handlers. They are trained to detect drugs and firearms, respond to searches, missing people, and fleeing suspects. There is also a division which has bomb-detection dogs.
* Marine Policing Unit – (MPU) Provides policing on the waterways of London, responding to situations in the River Thames and tracking and stopping illegal vessels entering and exiting London.
* Mounted Branch – Provides policing on horseback in London. One of their duties is escorting the Royal Guard down The Mall, into and out of Buckingham Palace every morning from April to July, then occasionally through the remainder of the year. They also provide public order support and are commonly called to police football matches in the event of any unrest. All officers are trained in public order tactics on horseback.
* Territorial Support Group – (TSG) Highly trained officers, specialised in public order and large scale riots responding around London in marked Public Order Vehicles (POV) with 6 constables and a sergeant in each POV. They aim to: secure the capital against terrorism, respond to any disorder in London, and reduce priority crime through borough support. They respond in highly-protective uniform during riots or large disorder, protecting themselves from any thrown objects or hazards.
Category:A New World