Agenda and minutes

The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting.

Cllr Bronwen Behan was a named substitute for Cllr Tony Baker (Malvern Hills District Council).

Apologies were received from Councillors Tony Baker, Karen May, Kuldip Sahota, Juliet Smith and Dave Tremellen.

Declarations of interest were made as follows:

•           Gareth Prosser was a retired Police Officer in receipt of a West Mercia Police Pension

•           Steve Mackay was a retired Police Officer in receipt of a Police Pension (not West Mercia Police).

Members of the public wishing to take part (asking a question or making a statement) should notify the Head of Legal and Democratic Services in writing or by email indicating both the nature and content of their proposed participation no later than 9.00am on the working day before the meeting (in this case 6 February 2019).  Enquiries can be made through the telephone number / email address listed below.

None.

To confirm the Minutes of the Panel meeting held on 27 November 2018.

The Minutes of the Meeting held on 29 October 2018 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman subject to the penultimate bullet point of Minute Number 285 (page 8 of the Agenda) being amended to read ….."92.5% 999 calls were answered in 10 seconds ..... (rather than 30 seconds).

The Panel was asked to consider the:

(i)         West Mercia Budget 2019/20, Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) 2019/20 to 2021/22 and the proposed precept for 2019/20

(ii)        Report of the Budget Scrutiny Task Group; and

(iii)       provide a report to the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) on the proposed precept, including any recommendations, outlining whether it vetoed the precept or not.

The PCC’s presentation the West Mercia Budget 2019/20, Medium Term Financial Plan 2019/20 to 2021/22

The PCC presented the key headlines to the Panel (copies of the presentation slides were circulated to the Panel) as follows:

•       £224.6m Net Revenue Budget for 2019/20, which was a significant increase in spend of £13m

•       2,145 Police Officer Posts for 2019/20, an increase of 215 Police Officers from the 2018/19 MTFP

•       £216.66 per year average Band D Council Tax, an increase of £19.59

•       £5.7m reserves used (an increase of £1m from the 2018/19 MTFP)

•       £122.5m Govt Grant (an increase of £2.3m from 2018/19 MTFP)

This was in the context of:

•       Increased demand (+8% calls for service, +15% non-crime since 2014)

•       Inflation: Consumer Price Index (CPI) 2.3%, Retail Price Index (RPI) 3.2% (November 2018 figures)

•       2% Police Pay Award

•       Increased Employers Contribution for Police Pensions

•       ICT infrastructure/reform

The proposals were funded as follows:

·         £96.4m (43%) from Council Tax (including Collection Fund Surplus)

(Proposed 9.94% (£19.59 average) Council Tax increase which would generate an additional £5.8m revenue.  (West Mercia was proposing the 2^nd lowest increase in England and Wales)

•       £122.5m (55%) Government Grant which included an additional £2.3m (the first increase since 2010)

•       £5.7m (3%) contribution from Reserves.  It was noted that the Reserves were within acceptable limits.

The PCC advised that the additional police officer posts would be filled as quickly as possible to ensure maximum community benefit, he would continue to hold the Chief Constable to account and assured the Panel that the Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) numbers would be protected. 

The Chief Constable emphasised that the proposed allocation of the 115 additional police officers was over and above retiring police officers and would be allocated according to service demand (the detail of the proposed allocation by area was shown on slide 9 of the presentation). He explained that it was hoped that the additional officers would help to increase victim satisfaction, improve response time to emergency incidents, reduce the levels of un-resourced incidents and increase public confidence.

The PCC also mentioned the additional £3m savings over the MTFP required for reforming West Mercia which would be achieved by a reduction in estate cost, ICT investment and changes with the policing Alliance with Warwickshire. 

In respect of victims and commissioning, an additional £200k had been invested in a new Victims Advice line which would be launched in April 2019, an additional £1m had been invested in the Commissioning Fund and there would be some additional dedicated Rural and Business Crime Officers.

Finally, the PCC advised that 75% of responses  ...  view the full minutes text for item 292.

The Panel was invited to consider the Police & Crime Plan Activity and Performance Monitoring Report for October to December 2018 and determine whether it would wish to carry out any further scrutiny or make any comments.

The PCC introduced the Report and highlighted the following key developments:

·         The West Mercia’s new Victim Advice Line (VAL) which was due to go live on 1April 2019

·         Strategic Alliance – a dedicated programme team had been set up to develop service delivery options for every shared area of policing within the alliance.  The options development stage was due to be completed at the end of February with decisions on future arrangements to be made in March

·         Services to Policing - In 2017 West Mercia and Warwickshire committed to preparing a business case for the redesign of the support services.  The aim was to improve both effectiveness and efficiency of supporting services’ practices that had not been reviewed holistically since the creation of the alliance in 2012.  The business case was presented in September 2018 setting out how £26.9m could be saved by West Mercia over 5 years (with a commensurate proportion for Warwickshire).  Warwickshire declined to support the business case then, and again when it was formally offered as a new collaboration under revised governance arrangements in October.  It was therefore decided that West Mercia would prepare for stand-alone Services to Policing but Warwickshire would be able to join in these arrangements should they subsequently decide to do so

·         Network redesign and upgrade (OCC, DCD and KCOM) – funds had been committed to redesign and then upgrade the force’s ageing IT network.  Although Warwickshire’s IT network was connected to West Mercia’s and was in a similar condition, Warwickshire had declined to commit further funds to these critical projects at this stage.

·         West Mercia Police values and priorities – it had been agreed to simplify the organisation’s values and to provide clear and concise policing priorities.  These changes were launched at the beginning of the New Year and were: Public first, Ownership, Courage and Compassion.

·         In early December the PCC opened the official launch event for the DRIVE project, a new response to domestic abuse that aimed to reduce the number of child and adult victims of domestic abuse by deterring perpetrator behaviour. Drive provided a case manager who acted as a single point of contact for perpetrators on a 1-2-1 basis.  The Drive project was being jointly funded by the PCC, Worcestershire County Council Public Health and the Police Transformation Fund and was being piloted in Worcestershire.  The very latest project report showed that 37 high risk perpetrators had been referred onto the Drive project.  All cases were allocated a Case Manager who met regularly with the IDVA team to ensure victim/survivor safety was being managed throughout their involvement with the perpetrator

·         Criminal Justice Performance - Several external performance products were produced by agencies and partners to enable senior officers and the PCC to maintain strategic oversight of criminal justice performance.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 293.