Agendas, Meetings and Minutes - Agenda item

Agenda item

Police & Crime Plan Activity and Performance Monitoring Report (July - September 2018)

Minutes:

The Panel was invited to consider the Police & Crime Plan Activity and Performance Monitoring Report for July to September 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:

 

·       Child sexual exploitation (CSE) service – the PCC agreed £445,625 of funding for West Mercia Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre (WMRSASC) to deliver a CSE service across Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire to those identified as at risk, or a victim of CSE.  WMRSASC would deliver a complete wrap around service to assist the young people to cope and recover. The Victims Commissioner (VC) was recently complimentary about the West Mercia Independent Sexual Violence Advisers (ISVAs).  The PCC was mutually supportive to the VC in the quest for the voice of the victim to be heard more loudly.

·       The PCC had decided that a proportion of the Safer Roads Partnership (SRP) reserves would be used to provide both a targeted and strategic funding opportunity to address the rising number of people killed and seriously injured on West Mercia’s roads. 

·       The Early Intervention Youth Fund bid, jointly made with West Midlands, Warwickshire and Staffordshire, was declined by the Home Office. This was the first round of grants for this fund and the 6 successful bids were targeted solely on major cities.

·       Spice Review – The classification of Synthetic Cannabinoids (‘Spice’) would be reviewed as part of a series of national initiatives around drugs. The PCC had pushed for ‘Spice’ and other synthetic cannabinoids to be reclassified as Class A drugs; due to the devastating impact they could have on users and wider communities.

·       Confidence survey - Quarter two results on the PCC’s Confidence survey continued to suggest a high level of public confidence in West Mercia Police (85%).  However, it would be two more quarters until the desired confidence levels and intervals had been built up and therefore fully reliable.

·       Town and Parish Council Survey - the results from this survey had been published. The PCC was disappointed with some of the responses but planned to repeat the survey annually.

·       Strategic Alliance update – In October, the PCC and the Chief Constable formally notified their Warwickshire counterparts of their decision to withdraw from the strategic alliance between West Mercia Police and Warwickshire Police.  This carefully considered decision was made to ensure the public get better value for money, with a greater clarity and focus at a local level.  This decision was discussed by the PCP at its meeting at 29 October.  The two PCCs and Chief Constables had recently met and agreed to negotiate an exit strategy for the alliance based around three options of shared, hosted or stand-alone service provision, assessed function by function.

 

Discussion points

 

·       The PCC confirmed that in respect of the use of the SRP Reserves, the £500,000being invested by the PCC must be spent on projects that were over and above the statutory remit in addressing harm caused by collisions and able to demonstrate outputs and outcomes before March 2020.  £150,000 was being invested in the Local Policing and Community Ambassadors Fund (LPCAF) for safer roads and £350,000 would be made available for larger West Mercia wide projects or localised projects requiring a larger sum of money to make a difference.

·       The PCC didn’t envisage that there would be any financial savings to be made as a result of the splitting of the Alliance; it was about improving the effective use of resources in West Mercia.

·       During the last quarter 86% of those emergency incidents which received a response had a 20 minute response time.  The PCC advised that response times were improving and were subject to close monitoring.

·       The PCC was successful in securing two small pots of funding from the Police Transformation Fund to address Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking (MSHT).  For maximum impact and effectiveness, it was important to work with Community Safety Partnership's (CSP's) and partners and the ACC gave the Panel some examples of local work with partners.

·       It was suggested that the 23% response rate for the Town and Parish Council Survey was not a particularly valid response rate for a questionnaire of its type, where a 65% response rate was required to make it valid.  It was therefore suggested to the PCC that consideration should be given to the method of distribution deployed next year to increase the response rate. 

·       With reference to Appendix 3 Performance Summary, it was noted that there was a 10% increase in rural crime on the previous quarter and for business crime 3,063 business crimes were recorded in the last quarter, which was a 6% reduction on the previous quarter (3,245) but above the quarter average (2,668). The role of the Rural and Business Crime Officers was discussed and the PCC thought that they were doing some really good visible work, but there weren’t enough of them.

·       The Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for answering 999 calls was 90% in 10 seconds and for 101 calls was 80% in 30 seconds.  For the w/e 25 November 2018, 92.5% 999 calls were answered in 30 seconds and 77.5% of 101 calls were answered in 30 seconds. Performance overall was satisfactory, but there would be peak periods where there were delays.

·       With regard to the Parish Survey, the PCC suggested that in respect of police visibility, people will express their views at Parish Council meetings, but it was also important to complete the survey.  The PCC asked councillors to urge Parish Councils to respond to the Survey.

·       It was suggested that he effectiveness of the Assault on Emergency Workers Bill would dependent on court action when incidents were reported.

·       To date, the PCC confirmed that no meaningful progress had been made by the courts service in respect of the criminal justice system and witnesses being able to appear by appearing by video link.  However the service was discussing this with the PCC

·       It was confirmed that there would be no impact to any West Mercia initiatives as a result of being unable to secure the Early Intervention Youth Fund bid.

·       The PCC was asked about public confidence in respect of the all England Survey which suggested that confidence was down nationally but locally looked better.  The PCC agreed to provide a considered response in due course.

The Report was noted.

 

Supporting documents: