Agenda item

Andy Champness explained that the latest quarterly figures were presented in the report in the agenda. Since the report had been written an update from the Crime Survey for England and Wales stated confidence in the police in West Mercia had increased to 79% - the average for England and Wales was 77%.

·         The panel queried why the summary stated there was 'no significant change' in areas such as sexual offences and business and rural crime when the graphs suggested these had increased. It was explained that the summary showed there was no significant change to the trend, which was increasing,

·         There was concern that there were no figures to support the statement that there had been 'no change' to the number of crimes.  The Office of the PCC noted that it was a helpful observation and they would alter the report for the next meeting. The Chief Constable stated that they were aware that 'no change' does not mean that everything was ok and work was still needed in those areas,

·         The Chief Constable clarified a query regarding response times – new resources had been moved to Leominster but it had been recognised that too many had been moved and as a result some had been moved back to Tenbury. He also stated that there was more to response times than time and the way the call was dealt with and followed up was also important,

·         The Chairman summarised that it would be helpful to have the performance report presented in a different way – perhaps with a traffic light system. Members were asked to feed any further changes to Jodie Townsend. Andy Champness replied that the new PCC would have a new plan so that would be a good time to consider the presentation of the figures,

·         Traditionally sexual offences had been under reported so an increase in the number of crimes being reported was a good thing and showed the police were increasingly empathetic,

·         There were queries that the figures showed that burglaries had increased while at the same time it was generally believed they were decreasing.  The Chief Constable clarified that burglaries were increasing across the country and if Councillors wanted more specific information regarding their areas they could speak to their local police Commander,

·         The Chief Constable explained that the increase in crime numbers had been caused partly because of a new way of reporting crime – that it was recorded when it was reported regardless of whether the evidence supported the claim; and also historical crimes being reported due to the effect of high profile cases. This was now settling down and reports were close to a steady state,

·         A panel member asked if the numbers of hate crimes could be broken down by age and location and how they were reported.  The Deputy PCC explained that a commissioning exercise was being carried out with community safety partnerships and projects were being undertaken with different groups. Also the police were visiting all village halls within West Mercia so would be more available in rural areas,

·         It was pointed out that the increase in numbers of rape and sexual attacks being reported was very scary for members of the public and the PCCs office was asked to break down the figures per capita, as this would be more meaningful locally.

RESOLVED that the Police and Crime Panel noted the Performance report for October to December 2015 and requested that a new approach be developed in regards to how performance information was reported to the Panel by the PCC.