Essay on Structure of Metropolitan Police

ANALYZE
METROPOLITAN POLICE
WITH SIMILAR
ORGANIZATION

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
The Metropolitan Police Service also known as MPS is a territorial police force that is
responsible for the enforcement of the law within the district of Metropolitan Police that at
present includes 32 London Boroughs (Emsley, 2014). This agency was formed on 29 September
in the year 1829 and the aim of this organization is to co- ordinate and lead UK on a national
counter- terrorism matter and also for protecting the Royal family.
The present essay will discuss the structure of Metropolitan police and similar
organization. Further, it will discuss about the culture prevalent in the agency. In the end, the
discussion will be done to identify the role and impact of the central and local government on
allocation of resources and its impact in accountability and monitoring.
MAIN BODY
Structure of Metropolitan Police and comparison with similar organization
It is very necessary for every organization to have a structure and to work in accordance
with the structure. This is because of the reason that if the work will be done in the though way
then it will be easy to manage the work on time and with efficiency. This is also due to the
reason that deciding the organizational structure helps all the employees to in advance that what
work they have to do and in what time. This helps the employee in understanding the work in
advance and if they have any doubt then it can be cleared well before performing the task. There
are many different types of structure which can be followed by the company to ease the work
and to ensure that work is done with effectivity and good productivity.
The structure followed by Metropolitan Police is the functional structure. This is because
of the reason that the MPS divides its work based upon the functions performed by the company.
This agency has divided its work under five directorates which are like Frontline policing, Met
Operations, Specialist Operations, Directorate of Professionalism and other shared support
services. This type of structure helps Metropolitan Police to easily divide the work as they know
if the person is good in front line policing then they have to be placed under that functional unit
and if it can perform the function of specialist operation then it has to be placed under that
specific function (Eitle, D’Alessio and Stolzenberg, 2014).
But in contrast to this another similar agency that is City of London Police. This is a
home office of police force that is responsible for the London city including the Inner and
Middle temple and the MPS is responsible for the rest of London except this part which is under

jurisdiction of City of London Police. As compared with the MPS this organization follows the
tall organizational structure. Under this type of structure some departments are made and under
them also further departments and sections are made. This helps the company in building a tall
structure as every department has further sub division under it. The main four department of City
of London Police are Crime investigation, Economic crime, Intelligence and Information and
Uniformed policing. These departments further have different sub division under it (City of
London Police, 2018). Like for instance, under crime investigation further departments are made
to deal with threat relating to serious issues.
Culture of Metropolitan Police
Organizational culture is defined as the system of values, attitude, beliefs and perception
of the within the company as maintained by the organization. The culture influences the working
of the employees to a great extent. The underlying reason behind this is the fact that if the
employees will not find the environment comfortable then they will not be able to work properly
and effectively. Due to importance of maintaining culture, many models and theories have been
evolved which can be applied by MPS for maintaining better culture within the organization. For
maintaining good culture MPS uses the Handy model of culture. This model states that there are
four different types of culture which the organization can employ in the business. These are as
follows- Power culture- it is a type of culture where the main focus is on the power. In this type of
culture, the power is concentrated in the hands of few people and only those people who
are having the power or authority will take the decisions. These people only have to take
the decisions and the rest of the employees have to follow those instructions. Here the
employees working at low position has no option but only has to strictly adhere to the
decisions of higher authority. Task culture- it is a type of culture wherein the different teams are made in order to
achieve the different objective of the company and to perform the task. Here the person
doing same work or are having common interest comes in form of team and perform the
task (Bull, Back and Howes, eds., 2015). This culture ensures that the work done is
accomplished with proper efficiency. Person culture- it is again a type of culture in which employees feels that they are more
important than the company. This is because of the reason that the employees are the one

who makes the company run. But this culture is not good as the employees may feel that
the company is running because of them and this may lose interest of the employees
within the company and mislead them and their working becomes more lethargic
(Graham, Ashworth and Tunbridge, 2016).
 Role culture- it is a type of culture wherein every employee is delegated its roles and
responsibilities in accordance with the capabilities of that employees. This is because of
the reason that if the employee specializes in some area and that work is only assigned to
him then it will perform it with more efficiency and productivity. Therefore, this type of
culture helps both the employee and the company itself. This is due to the reason that the
employee will work faster and with efficiency and this will increase the overall
productivity of the company.
Therefore, the role applied by MPS for maintaining better organizational culture is the
role culture. This is because of the major reason that the organization also follows the functional
structure of working which ensures that the company divides the work on basis of function
performed by the employees (Ater, Givati and Rigbi, 2014). This structure works more better
when the agency follows the role culture. This is because of the reason that this culture follows
the concept of assigning that task to the employee in which it specializes. This ensure work to be
completed in time and adding on to the productivity of the company and its services of policing.
Role and impact of central and local government in allocation of resources and impact in on
monitoring and accountability
The Central Government of the country is the main governing authority of the country.
There are many resources which is required by the police officers and other related duty persons.
These resources are like Area cars, armed response vehicles (ARV), protected carriers, control
units, training vehicles and many other different types of resources. All these resources are
allocated to the MPS by the central government. Also, the main resource that is money is also
allocated by the central government only.
The local government or the mayor help the MPS in analysing the needs of the crime
level within the country (Street, Inthorn and Scott, 2015). The government overlooks the
working of the police and if there is any issue relating to any of the reason like increase in crime,
theft, or any other criminal activity. The local government oversees all the additional
requirements other than the resources provided by the central government. Like for instance, if

the MPS needs any resource in addition to the resources provided by the central government then
here comes the role of local government or the mayor. This is the role of local government to
provide for the additional requirement of the police (Neubert, Hunter and Tolentino, 2016).
The working of these government also impacts in the monitoring and accountability
process of the MPS. This is because of the reason that if the government not provide for the
resources to the agency up to the required amount then the police will not be able to work in
proper way and this will impact the working of them. And this will affect the overall safety of
the place as if the police will not be able to work effectively then how they will care for the
public and the local residents. Also, this impacts the monitoring by the police because of the
reason that if the police will not be having all the resources then they will not be able to oversee
all the issues within the country relating to their jurisdiction. Also, if they will not be provided
with all the necessary resources by the government whether central or local then they are not
accountable to serve the public. It is so because of the reason that the government is not
providing the MPS with the necessary resources and this affect their accountability towards
public (Ahmady, Mehrpour and Nikooravesh, 2016).
CONCLUSION
From the study of above essay, it is concluded that maintenance of good structure and
culture within the company is very necessary. This is because of the reason that if the company
will have a clear structure of working and will promote a happy and cordial environment then the
employees will be happy and will work up to their fullest capacity. The present essay highlighted
the structure of MPS which is functional organizational culture as compared with City of London
Police which uses the tall structure within its management. Further it discussed the different
cultures under the Handy model of organizational culture and it was inferred that MPS uses role
culture as it is more suitable for the MPS agency. In the end it discussed about the role and
impact of central and local government in allocating the resources.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ahmady, G.A., Mehrpour, M. and Nikooravesh, A., 2016. Organizational structure. Procedia-
Social and Behavioral Sciences. 230. pp.455-462.
Ater, I., Givati, Y. and Rigbi, O., 2014. Organizational structure, police activity and crime.
Journal of Public Economics. 115. pp.62-71.
Bull, M., Back, L. and Howes, D. eds., 2015. The auditory culture reader. Bloomsbury
Publishing.
Eitle, D., D’Alessio, S.J. and Stolzenberg, L., 2014. The effect of organizational and
environmental factors on police misconduct. Police Quarterly. 17(2). pp.103-126.
Emsley, C., 2014. The English police: A political and social history. Routledge.
Graham, B., Ashworth, G. and Tunbridge, J., 2016. A geography of heritage: Power, culture and
economy. Routledge.
Neubert, M.J., Hunter, E.M. and Tolentino, R.C., 2016. A servant leader and their stakeholders:
When does organizational structure enhance a leader's influence?. The Leadership
Quarterly. 27(6). pp.896-910.
Street, J., Inthorn, S. and Scott, M., 2015. Politics and popular culture. In From entertainment to
citizenship. Manchester University Press.
Online
City of London Police. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/about-us/structure/Pages/default.aspx>