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REPORT RAPPORT |
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REPORT RAPPORT |
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DATE: |
15 June 2009 |
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TO: |
Executive Director, Ottawa Police Services Board |
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FROM: |
Chief of Police, Ottawa Police Service |
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SUBJECT: |
RESPONSE
TO OUTSTANDING INQUIRY #I-09-01:
UPDATE ON COMMUNICATIONS PLAN CONSULTATION |
RECOMMENDATION
The Board received a report at the 25 May 2009 meeting in response to the request from Chair El-Chantiry about the April 2009 Tamil demonstrations in the area of Parliament Hill. Chair El-Chantiry requested that a review be conducted of the Police Service’s communications plan during that event. The report at the May meeting of the Police Services Board indicated that a further report would be forthcoming in June 2009 following the engagement of an outside communications consultant to review the practices used during the course of the demonstration.
DISCUSSION
Derek Johnston of Face Value Communications was contracted by the Ottawa Police Service following the Board’s request, for an additional analysis by an outside reviewer of the communications and events surrounding the Tamil demonstrations in Ottawa during April. His report is attached to this report as Annex A. Mr. Johnston’s report includes background/context, guiding principles, observations, 11 recommendations and an appendix with his background and the interviews conducted.
The report by Mr. Johnston was received by the Ottawa Police on 16 June 2009 and was conducted over a three-week period. His mandate was to explore further any issues arising from the ways in which the Ottawa Police Service communicated with the Board, City Council and the public during the Tamil community demonstrations in April 2009.
The 11 recommendations contained in the Johnston Report are all accepted. The following is a summary of interim management responses to provide the Board with an overview of how the Police Service will build upon existing strengths and learn and improve communications into the future.
5.1 OPS
Corporate Communications should meet with the Board’s Executive Director and
senior counterparts in Public Affairs at the City of Ottawa to formalize processes and protocols
governing both day-to-day operations and crisis situations. The goals should be to regularize
information exchange while leveraging and integrating respective communications
tools and activities to improve the timeliness and accessibility of information
for the public, employees, elected officials, and partner agencies.
There is a clear opportunity to review and where absent, establish clear
processes and protocols for exchange of information between the Police Service
staff and the staff at the Police Services Board and the City of Ottawa. Although there are established processes in
place now covered by the activation of Operation Intersect, there are no
written protocols that exist. There are
internal processes in existence that have been used to date and these can be
expanded to implement this recommendation.
5.2 Communication between OPS and the Police
Services Board must also be formalized.
There needs to be a consistent,
sustainable, and mutually-acceptable approach that will be effective in all
major event situations, whether the Chief is available or not. It is recommended that the OPS Director,
Community Development and Corporate Communications, meet with the Board’s
Executive Director to initiate those discussions and identify desired outcomes.
Interim Management Response: Accept
Discussions will be undertaken to establish a
formal process to ensure communication channels are clear and in place for the
range of major event situations faced by the police service and community. Staff will work with Police Services Board
staff in the development of a formal process that will be forwarded to the
appropriate Board committee and OPS Executive Command.
5.3 Recognizing the
importance of providing the Board Chair
(or his designate) with timely police updates, it is recommended that the
Police Chief (or his designate) continue with the practice of providing verbal
updates (telephone or face-to-face) where developments could have a public
impact. The simplicity, directness and two-way
nature of this approach will ensure the information exchange is timely,
appropriate and accurate.
For non-urgent
matters, communication should be governed by processes and protocols defined by
the OPS Director, Community Development and Corporate Communications, and the
Board’s Executive Director (see 5.2 above).
Interim Management Response: Accept
Similar to Recommendation 5.2, this discussion
will take place to establish a clear and formal process. The discussion will also focus on the range
of communications that are required between staff at the Police Service and the
Police Services Board to ensure timely updates are provided.
5.4 In a major incident,
once the Chair has been updated, the next priority should be to advise the remainder of the Police Services
Board, the Mayor, and the rest of City Council. They must be properly
equipped to respond to enquiries from their constituents and the media.
Given that the Police
Service is accountable to the Board, the most appropriate – and the most
straightforward – communications channel would be email from a member of
Executive Command (or a designate such as the Director, Community Development
and Corporate Communications), to the Police Board’s Executive Director.
In the case of a
major incident, the message content would originate from the Incident Commander
and would be approved, as necessary, through the chain of command.
OPS Corporate Communications would initiate contact with their counterparts in the City’s Public Affairs Department and with other partner agencies to ensure accuracy and consistency.
Once received by the
Board’s Executive Director, the email can then be forwarded firstly to members
of the Board, followed by the Mayor, the rest of City Council, and all of their
respective staff.
In an ideal world,
the Board would receive one communication that includes updates from all the
various players involved (e.g. police, transit, bylaw, surface operations,
etc.). However, the reality is that it would be virtually impossible to craft,
coordinate and approve such a product quickly enough to ensure its timeliness
and relevance.
These updates would
also be posted prominently to the OPS website, the City of Ottawa internet and
intranet, and provided to the City’s 3-1-1 Contact Centre. Updates from other participating agencies
(e.g. RCMP, OPP, STO) and City services (e.g. OC Transpo, traffic, bylaw,
parking) would also be posted or linked to www.ottawa.ca
to ensure consistent public access to the full range of relevant information.
Ultimately, residents
should be able to visit the Ottawa.ca website during a major incident to find
the latest information on police activities, road closures, detours, delays,
parking restrictions, etc. Once realized,
all agencies involved in the incident would simply encourage the public to
visit the City’s website as the “one-stop shop” for all relevant information,
to subscribe to the City’s RSS feeds, and/or to call the 3-1-1 Contact Centre.
Interim Management Response: Accept
While the current working relationship between
Police Service staff and our City counterparts is strong and well-tested during
major events and demonstrations, there is an opportunity to improve the
dissemination of these updates to the primary audiences identified
including: the Board, City Council,
Police and City staff, and the public.
As the capacity and familiarity in the public increases with the existence
of 3-1-1 services, staff at both the Police Service and the City recognize a tremendous
opportunity to improve this situation.
This will be one of the primary goals in implementing this
recommendation. Staff at the Police
Service and City of Ottawa will review and implement best practices to increase
and leverage existing and new technologies available to provide a wider
distribution of information in such situations. We will consult with City colleagues to ensure that cross posting
with Ottawa.ca and 3-1-1 also takes place.
5.5 OPS should distribute
updates on police-related matters via
email to local media as “Advisories.”
Timely updates on other components of the operation would be issued to
media from the City’s Public Affairs Department, OC Transpo, etc.
Interim Management Response: Accept
The acceptance of this recommendation is based
on the principle that information in such situations will be provided based on
the guiding principles of timeliness and targeting the correct audience: in essence ensuring information is provided
to the right people at the right time.
It is recognized that the Police Services
Board, consistent with their role, will receive briefing information from the
police service that may be different than information provided publicly or to
other stakeholders. Every attempt is
made to brief senior police and Board members in advance of public
dissemination in order that they can provide accurate and responsible
information to the media when asked.
5.6 All public updates should be
provided to the OPS Communications
Centre and the 3-1-1 Contact Centre
to assist operators in responding to public enquiries. (In the first few days of the Tamil protest,
OPS alone received about 100 such calls.)
Interim Management Response: Accept
This has been done and is part of the expanded
information sharing with other “entry points” to the organization from members
of the public. The Communications
Centre (Comms Centre) currently receives the updates immediately as soon as
they are received in the rest of the organization. While the Comms Centre does not handle subject matter calls
generally, their access to the information in a formal way will allow them to
ensure the call is passed on to the appropriate section at OPS (including
Executive and Media Relations).
A future opportunity that has been identified
as a result of this report and in consultation with City colleagues will be the
importance of creating channels of information flow to 3-1-1 in order for
residents to access accurate information from as many sources as possible.
5.7 In addition to posting
police-related advisories to the Media Centre on the OPS website, they should
also be posted to a prominent new
“Public Alerts” section on the OPS Home Page, with a link to the relevant
page on the Ottawa.ca website.
Interim Management Response: Accept
Internal updates are sent through a master
distribution email and posted simultaneously on the Intranet at the time of
issue. Media releases are posted
simultaneously on ottawapolice.ca at time of issuance. The introduction of a “Public Alerts” section
is being explored and would be launched in consultation with City colleagues to
ensure that cross posting with Ottawa.ca and 3-1-1 also takes place. There are some financial and human resource
impacts to provide such a level of service, which can be explored as standards
and levels of service are addressed for evenings and weekends.
5.8 Communicating through
mainstream media (radio, television, newspapers) does not fully meet the
public’s increasing expectations for timely, accurate information. OPS and the City of Ottawa should explore
the use of popular social media, such as Twitter,
to distribute quick updates directly to the public. Ideally, Twitter subscriptions should be customizable by Ward or
neighbourhood to ensure that subscribers receive only the most relevant
information. Twitter feeds would
provide short, timely updates on traffic congestion, detours, major criminal
activity, etc. Ultimately, Twitter could
be used by the full range of emergency service agencies to advise of major fires,
health alerts, flooding, power outages, severe weather, etc.
Interim Management Response: Accept
Corporate communications staff have been in
discussion and planning with the Executive Director of Corporate Services on
developing and testing a Twitter initiative with a local community
partner. Staff at the Police Service
will work with City colleagues and review these opportunities with a view to
implement best practices to increase and leverage existing and new technologies
available to provide a wider distribution of information in such
situations.
5.9 OPS should develop protocol to guide decision-making around the use of senior operational officers as spokespeople during major
events or incidents. Anecdotally, it
would appear that Insp. Bernard’s media availability at 4:00 p.m. on Day 3 was
effective in raising the profile of OPS messaging and demonstrating the
Service’s commitment to the safety and security of demonstrators and city
residents. Given that media enquiries
more than doubled from Day 1 to Day 2 (from 15 to 32), there would have been
merit in staging the media availability on the second day, rather than the
third.
Other players (e.g.
City’s Public Works Department, OC Transpo, Fire Department, etc.) should have
their own spokespeople ready to address questions and issues that are specific
to their organizations, using messages that are consistent with other
participating agencies.
The Media Relations policy of the OPS is
permissive. While each situation is
assessed against good practice and past experience, there is a clear benefit to
have guiding principles for decision-makers in the use of senior operational
spokespeople. This would allow the
Media Relations section to have the leverage it sometimes requires in
situations where there may be ambiguity or reluctance.
5.10 As noted in the OPS report submitted on 19 May
2009 (Response to Outstanding Inquiry #I-09-01: Review of OPS Communications
Plan), OPS must develop a standard
approach to email enquiries from the public that are related to a specific
operation such as the Tamil demonstrations.
Interim Management Response: Accept
This process is underway as a result of the
April 2009 demonstrations.
5.11 Finally, it is recommended that the “Major Events Public Affairs Team,” to
be introduced to the Board in September, be given responsibility for the implementation of the recommendations in
this report. The Ottawa Police Service
is strongly encouraged to engage communications colleagues from the City of
Ottawa in those discussions, along with senior members of the local media corps
who are likely to welcome the opportunity to provide advice on the most
effective ways to deliver reliable information to the public.
Members of the Communications
and Media Group of Operation INTERSECT should also be given the opportunity to
contribute to the implementation phase.
Interim Management Response: Accept
The “Major Events Public Affairs Team” – known as MEPAT has been in
development and refinement since the restructuring of the Media Relations
Section in 2006. The creation of this
approach for greater internal coordination of public affairs information was a
direct result of the organization placing a focus on both pandemic planning and
business continuity. Since the
development of MEPAT began, parts of it have been tested during major events
such as the North American Leaders’ Summit, Canada Day, and the Obama
Visit. The roll out of the MEPAT
approach has already occurred at what could be termed the “pre-alpha” stage and
moving toward the “alpha” testing stage.
These next stages include working with City and Intersect partners to
validate the approach of the MEPAT. The
Board will be provided with a report and presentation on MEPAT in October
2009.
The external communications consultant undertook a range of interviews with Ottawa Police and Ottawa Police Services Board members. The details of these consultations are outlined in his report.
The costs for the review undertaken by Mr. Derek Johnston of Face Value Communications were contained in the proposal submitted to Chief White. Face Value Communications was contracted for a period of four days of work totalling $3,750.00 plus GST.
The request for an external review has allowed the Police Service to focus on a number of areas surrounding the range of communications required during incidents and demonstrations that have a high degree of attention from the public, City Council, media and the Board. This situation has allowed the organization to confirm areas of strength and focus on opportunities for improvement. In accepting all of the recommendations, the Police Service commits to implementing them in the coming months consistent with the approach taken in integrated communications with our Board, City, police, and public and emergency services partners.
(Original
signed by)
David Pepper, Director
Community Development & Corporate Communications
(Original
signed by)
Vern White
Chief of Police
Attach. (1)
