Agenda item

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.  In particular, the Local Criminal Justice Board and PCC scrutinised monthly file quality, charging, listing and court outcome reports. The latest monthly and quarterly summary reports evidenced a marked improvement in performance over time.  Over the past 12 months West Mercia had seen a 54% reduction in the time it took for a criminal case to be completed in the Magistrates’ court.  Conviction rates in the Magistrates’ court stood at 90.54%, the highest in the region and 5% higher than the National Average.  A relentless focus on improving file quality and timeliness had resulted in West Mercia moving 23 places up the National Transforming Summary Justice league table.  West Mercia had the highest conviction rates for Rape, Domestic Violence and Hate Crime across the West Midlands region. 

Discussion points:

·         A Member referred to page 99 of the Agenda (Appendix 1 - Delivery Plan Extract: B3 (Make sure the Safer Roads Partnership responds to community concerns as well as working to reduce deaths and serious injuries on our roads). He suggested that he thought that there was more emphasis on working to reduce deaths and serious injuries on roads than responding to community concerns. He asked if the PCC would request that the Safer Roads Partnerships consider communities’ requests for mobile speeding cameras, highlighting that a sign for a mobile speeding camera operating in the area was an excellent deterrent for reducing speeding and helping communities to feel safer

·         The PCC acknowledged that the perception of speeding and its anti-social nature was an issue and he had been focussing on community speed watch and gates to villages etc.  The PCC added that there was a £0.5m grant available to communities to apply for in respect of initiatives to reduce accidents, but the funds couldn’t be used for meeting any statutory duties. The PCC explained that in his holding to account sessions with the Chief Constable he had focused on community speedwatch. Currently, there were 40 community speed watch schemes, which was double what the PCC had inherited when he came into office and he intended to double the number of schemes again

·         The Chief Constable confirmed that speeding was a force priority and it was important to work with local communities to address the causes of it. The priority for community speed watch schemes was identified by the local policing teams

·         In response to a question about what preventative crime measures the PCC was putting in place, he advised that an additional £1m had been allocated for diversionary activities and strategies were being developed for drugs, rural and serious organised crime. £0.25m had also been allocated to CCTV and some additional resources for smart water

·         The point was made that although smart water was a preventative measure for crime reduction, rural crime was still an issue for communities and significant work was still to be done

·         It was confirmed that the Mini officers used in local policing areas were used for short periods of time then moved around

·         The Panel were pleased to note that a 54-year-old man from Worcester had become the first person in West Mercia and one of the first people in the country to be charged under the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 which came into to effect in November 2018.  A Member asked if the Panel should lobby the Home Secretary or local MP’s to underline that assault on emergency workers was totally unacceptable.  The PCC reassured the Panel that the Home Secretary was very supportive of the legislation, but any support from local MP’s was welcome

·         It was suggested that the Panel may wish to establish a Task Group to investigate road safety

·         Deaths on Shropshire highways was highlighted as an issue of concern and given that there was a collective responsibility for roads, the PCC was asked if he met with Highways England.  The PCC confirmed that he did meet with Highways England.