Dal Babu, Chief Inspector, Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan Police Officer, Dal Babu is Chief Inspector of Operations at Enfield Borough police station and was a participant on Common Purpose London in 2001. Here he explains how he benefited.
Common Purpose was instrumental in making me understand the importance of partnership working
"I have worked as a Police Officer in The Metropolitan Police Service for twenty years and in that time I have attended many management courses. They have varied from poor to very good. By far the most useful and eye opening development tool was attending the Common Purpose "Matrix" programme in 2001.
I first became aware of Common Purpose in 1990, when I was asked to give a presentation during a Common Purpose Crime & Justice day. I remember being overwhelmed by the spirit and enthusiasm of the Common Purpose participants, who were from a wide cross-section of organisations.
The Common Purpose participants in my group reflected a great diversity of managers and included an interesting cross section of organisations from the public, private and voluntary sectors. This combination of people led to a vibrant exchange of views and genuinely challenged the "normal way of doing things".
I learnt a tremendous amount from my fellow participants and the guest speakers who were at the pinnacle of their particular areas of expertise, including a Chief Inspector of Prisons, an Educationalist, Members of Parliament and Senior Police Officers. The presentations were innovative and informative.
Common Purpose was instrumental in making me understand the importance of partnership working. Since the programme I have utilised these ideas to develop joint initiatives with fellow Common Purpose participants. For example, I worked with Keith Palmer (a fellow participant) from the Comedy School to organise visits to a local prison for a group of Camden Borough young people who had been arrested for youth disorder crimes .The young people met with inmates who spoke about their experiences and helped develop strategies of avoiding getting involved in crime. This initiative was a real example of Common Purpose bringing together people and making exciting and new events happen
I would recommend the Common Purpose programme to anyone who wants to be challenged by vibrant participants, staff and speakers."
