Government Affairs Insight

The man from the met

Craig Hoy and Brett Alderton talk to Dick Fedorcio about the challenges of leading the Met’s Public Affairs division.

For the Metropolitan Police, 2005 was a tough and turbulent year. The July 7 bombings saw the force using skills it hoped never to deploy. The subsequent shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes put the country’s most senior police officers in the spotlight and led to demands for the removal of the Met commissioner himself.

But from his office in New Scotland Yard, Dick Fedorcio takes adversity in his stride as he grapples with one of the most challenging roles in public affairs. “There is no such thing as normal. This is a big job, it is one of the biggest jobs anyone could imagine,” he says. “I am looking after the reputation of the Metropolitan Police on a street in outer London. I am looking after its reputation around the world. Scotland Yard is a brand, and it is a very strong brand.”

Fedorcio’s role covers all aspects of public affairs, press relations, marketing and advertising and the corporate end of internal communications. “When you are dealing with an organisation that employs 50,000 people, you can see that public affairs operates at many different planes,” he says.

Seventy per cent of the department’s work is press relations, but managing and defending the Met brand is vital. “The Met is challenged daily on everything it does. From face-to-face public affairs, with what happens out there on the street, to the top end of the organisation in terms of what happens in policy,” he says.

Building and maintaining relationships with the media, politicians and community groups is essential for the future reputation of the force. “I describe the relationship between public affairs, press people and the media as a bit like relatives. You may not like them but you’ve got them. Build relationships, build trust and, where you can, you see benefits,” he says.

Fedorcio’s team has to work in conjunction with a tripartite system of the mayor, the Metropolitan Police Authority and the Home Office. As a former press chief in London government, Fedorcio says he “anticipated the politics” involved in his current role. “There are people in the political community who have views and interests and we have to monitor them and see whether we have to talk about it,” he says.

Face-to-face contact is conducted by the commissioner’s office – which on occasion has given rise to claims that the country’s top officer is playing politics. “If you are dealing with politicians, it is important that this is seen as giving professional advice to the politicians, and not as politics. That was one of the issues that got a bit confused around the 90-day [detention] debate.”

Whilst the Met will engage directly with backbench MPs, Fedorcio says the organisation benefits from “direct access” to the top. And as the force investigates the Labour Party over claims of cash for peerages, Fedorcio is keen to press the point that policing organisations need to “sit on both sides of the fence”.

“I remember sitting in a meeting in this building when the prospective Conservative candidate for the Mayor of London came in to see the commissioner to discuss what he was going to do when he was elected mayor. Three days later he was being investigated. That reminds you where you sit as a policing organisation. We tread a very careful line in political territory.”

Charged with running the Met’s massive press and public affairs operation, Fedorcio denies that crisis ever confronts his team. “There are always surprises. There is always something you didn’t plan for,” he admits. “The Met’s reputation is built on its ability to tackle crime – that is what it’s all about. I want us to demonstrate that we are doing it day upon day upon day. That’s the starting point – to make sure Londoners are with us. That’s the focus – being safe. You have got reality and you need to reinforce it with the media.”

Fedorcio says his team was “fantastic” in the hours and days after the July 7 London bombings. “What happened last July was of an order we have never seen before. Had we planned for it, yes, but had we hoped it would happen, no,” he adds.

Prior to the July 7 attacks, Fedorcio had led his team in an awayday, based around a scenario involving multiple bombings in the capital. “We take a group of people away. We run through a scenario – it is not a desktop exercise. We think through the strategic implications at the various stages of an incident. On July 7, after about an hour and a half, the calmness on this floor was amazing. A number of people went to the chief press officer and asked: is this an exercise?”

However, mindful of the noises off over the recent year, Fedorcio admits he has a continual challenge in winning hearts and minds. “We are running a programme around the values of the organisation, in a low-key way, to say what are we here for, how do we do our business? This is a long-term project. We cannot change this organisation overnight. What we can do is set standards, principles, and hope to bring about change, highlighting where it works.”

The murder of Stephen Lawrence tested the Met’s image among minority groups. “The Lawrence case presented a real challenge with the black community. The Met had established independent advisory groups for race and sexual orientation. So when we moved along to July 7 we were ahead of the game, not following it. For us 7/7 wasn’t the start, it was part of the continuum.”

Being at the front line raises personal issues unseen in many areas of the public affairs industry. “The death of Damilola Taylor was a key moment and a very personal case for me. Damilola was 10 on the day he was stabbed and my son was 10,” he says. “I looked at my son on the day that it happened and thought, it could have been you.”

And when press or political attention falls upon the ‘challenges’ – such as the political furore surrounding the commissioner –  Fedorcio takes a tough line. He insists that Sir Iain Blair is above politics, although he concedes that in recent months the lines may have become blurred by the media’s onslaught. “He is not political, he is a police chief,” is the blunt message.

Fedorcio sees “dealing with the myth” that neighbourhood policing is on the wane as a critical challenge. “Post 9/11 it was true that we moved people from the outer parts of the city into the centre to secure the real target threat areas. In the last 18 months the safer neighbourhood teams have been established in half of London and their job is to stay there. We have got more cops. How do we know? We do qualitative and quantitative research. We have been running public attitude surveys for many years. We see satisfaction rising.”

A key weapon in his armoury, believes Fedorcio, is London’s Evening Standard – a paper which he describes as “a national newspaper presenting tomorrow’s news today”. “My guess is that the majority of its circulation are our key Public Affairs targets – be it in government departments, key business, the city or Westminster. It is a key battleground for people in my job.”

There is a global picture to Fedorcio’s work – past collaborations including with the Scorpions policing in South Africa, forces in Jamaica and with the Greek police involved in the Athens Olympics. And it is the London Olympics which could signal the next challenge for Fedorcio. “We have got six years to refine what we learnt in Athens. And if I work until I’m 60 that’s one of the last jobs I’ll do,” he concludes.

BACKGROUND ON DICK FEDORCIO

CURRENT ROLE:
Director of Public Affairs and Internal Communication for the Metropolitan Police Service (since September 1997).

POTTED HISTORY:
Started his career with the Greater London Council; Became County Information Officer for West Sussex County Council in 1983, joining Kent County Council as Director of Corporate Communication in 1986. Went to the Electricity Association in 1994 as Director of Communication. Left Electricity Association to move into consultancy with Westminster Advisers. He is also a former President of the Institute of Public Relations and was made a Fellow of the Institute in 1991.