Hampshire County Council Hampshire Police and Crime Panel (Statutory Joint Committee) Meeting

Apologies were received from:

• Councillor Andrew Joy, Hampshire County Council

The Chairman also noted that Mark Steele had recently resigned from New Forest District Council and therefore was no longer a Member of the Panel. A new appointment was expected from New Forest District Council shortly and the Chairman thanked Mark for his contributions to the Panel during the year.

Members were able to disclose to the meeting any disclosable pecuniary interest they may have in any matter on the agenda for the meeting, where that interest is not already entered in their appointing authority’s register of interests, and any other pecuniary or non-pecuniary interests in any such matter that Members may wish to disclose.

No declarations were made.

The minutes from the meeting held on 27 September 2021 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

The Panel received deputations from Teresa Skelton, on the topic of Police and Crime Panel Working Groups, and from Steven George, on the topic of the Police and Crime Panel Work Programme.

The Chairman invited the Vice Chairman to give a brief overview of topics discussed at the Police and Crime Panel National Conference, which had been recently attended by the Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Panel’s supporting officer.

Since the previous meeting the Panel had made a submission to Part 2 of the Home Office review into the role of Police and Crime Commissioners and the  Panel’s supporting officer was invited to contribute to a focus group on the review held by Deliotte.

The Chairman also offered his congratulations and support to the City of Southampton for being longlisted as a City of Culture for 2025.

The Chairman thanked the Commissioner for sharing the role profile of the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner, further to the recommendations of the Panel, and for inviting Members to attend a forthcoming visit to the Marine Unit. The Chairman also commented that briefings provided by the Commissioner and her team, ahead of the public consultation on the draft Police and Crime Plan, were helpful and engaging

Members heard that the Commissioner had made the Chairman aware of changes within the estates team over the summer, following the identification of a number of issues. The Commissioner subsequently confirmed that the issues had been addressed and the estates team was now working on business as usual. The Chairman suggested that the Finance Working Group, on behalf of the Panel, lead on estates as a strand of work, and, following the Panel’s request for an update on estates at their meeting in March, that a fuller update be brought back to the Panel, by the Commissioner, in April 2022.

The Chair invited announcements from the Commissioner, who highlighted the following to the Panel:

·         Jason Kenny, the new Chief Executive, had been in post for several weeks and the new Head of Estates, Mike Ottaway, had also recently started in post.

·         Public scrutiny sessions with Chief Constable, formally known as COMPASS, had been renamed to COPS (Commissioners Oversight of Policing Services). Members heard that COMPASS had previously cost £12-£15k per annum to produce, however COPS was being hosted using Facebook Live at no additional cost and also allowed the sessions to be more open and transparent. Recordings of COPS sessions were accessible on both the Commissioner’s and Constabulary’s social media pages, YouTube and were also shared via email.

·         The Commissioner had assumed the Chair of the Local Criminal Justice Board. Through this role the Commissioner had identified concerns regarding the Criminal Justice Service (CJS) both across Wessex and locally in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, which would require her to dedicate a significant amount of time and focus upon the CJS provision.

·         Of particular concern was the closure of remand courts on a Saturday in Newport and Portsmouth with short notice, due to legal adviser availability, with Basingstoke also to stop Saturday sittings later in the month. Members heard this would result in all cases in the Hampshire Policing Area being heard in Southampton. This would have a significant draw on police resource to transport those accused to Southampton. As a further impact, prisoners on remand were unable to be transported to prisons as reception desks would be closed by the time a case was heard, and instead would be brought back to police custody. Members heard that it was not legal to hold prisoners on remand in police custody and therefore Hampshire Constabulary had self-referred themselves to the IOPC. The Commissioner had written to HM Courts & Tribunal Service (HMCTS) to advise that this situation was wholly unacceptable. The Commissioner made Members aware that the Attorney General had recently visited the Eastern Police Investigation Centre (PIC), to look at how to improve and expedite the number of cases being heard.

·         £5.4m in grants had been issued by the OPCC during the current financial year. The Commissioner highlighted that her team had successfully secured two to three times the level of grant funds allocated in the base budget through applications to central government grant rounds. This had included funding for the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) and £78k to support male victims of rape. Members heard the latest grants round, which had just opened for applications, would focus upon youth crime, ASB and preventing criminalisation.

·         The Commissioner held the national portfolios for both Victims and Serious and Organised Crime. There was a significant national focus upon violence against women and girls (VAWG) and Members heard that the Commissioner had been working with the national VAWG lead, Maggie Blyth, who was a former Assistant Chief Constable at Hampshire Constabulary. The Commissioner had introduced a VAWG working group, which would run for a period of a year and bring together lead organisations from across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight to focus on delivering tangible outcomes.

·         As of end of September, Hampshire Constabulary had recruited 621 additional officers, of which 385 were funded through the central government uplift programme. This had brought the officer FTE establishment of the Constabulary to 3029. Members heard that a further 192 officers were due to start between October and March 2022. Having commenced the recruitment programme in April 2020, it was expected that the true operational benefits would start to be realised from March 2022, as the new officers complete their training period

·         In addition to officer recruitment the Constabulary had recruited 103 new PCSO’s during the financial year, bringing the PCSO FTE to 248.

·         The first formal meeting of the ASB task force was scheduled to be held in December and the PCC would be happy to provide an update to the Panel on the work of this group at a future meeting.

Councillor Ian Stephens joined the meeting.

The Commissioner’s ‘More Police Safer Streets’ Draft Police and Crime Plan was introduced by the Chief Executive who explained that the Plan set out the Commissioner’s strategic direction for the period 2021-2024.

The Commissioner noted that an initial draft of the Plan had been shared with the Panel on 20 August and that following initial comments from Members of the Panel and an 8 week consultation, which had received 7336 responses, the final draft was presented for the Panel’s consideration.

Members heard that:

·         The plan would be one of the most accessible Police and Crime Plans nationally and was considered a living document which would evolve and grow over the period to 2024.

·         The layout of the plan was designed to clearly inform residents what the Commissioner would deliver and the outcomes to be achieved.

·         Alongside the Plan document, which would be available both electronically and in print, there would be a microsite, which would go live once feedback on the draft plan had been received from the Panel. The microsite was intended to be very interactive and contained embedded videos to make the plan more accessible. The Commissioner shared a video which featured the Chief Constable, explaining that the video would be one of those available to view on the microsite.

·         The response to the Police and Crime Plan consultation was the highest to date and along with seven focus groups, the OPCC had used YouGov to ensure responses were provided across all districts within the policing area and were representative of views from a diverse range of communities.

·         The Commissioner had been surprised by the lack of priority given to call handling within the survey responses and felt this was mostly likely driven by a wording issue. The Commissioner had therefore sought to make clearer within the final draft plan what this priority meant.

Members congratulated the Commissioner on the clarity of the content within the plan and its accessibility and the level of public engagement with the consultation.

Cllr Margot Power joined the meeting at this point.

In response to Members questions it was heard that:

·         Following public feedback, wording within the Plan had been adapted to ensure the content was clearer and some of the imagery had been updated.

·         The Commissioner and her team had worked with the Victim Care Service to seek feedback on the draft plan from victims of crime in a way which was sensitive to their needs. It was further noted that a number of victims had engaged directly with the survey, through signing up for inclusion in the Commissioner’s distribution lists.

·         Along with the Panel, the Commissioner had shared an early draft of the Plan with Community Safety Partnerships, Hampshire Constabulary and health partners for feedback on the development of the Plan.

·         The figure of 600 more police officers was based on the establishment as at January 2020.

·         There was a shortage of police detectives at a national level as well as locally. Hampshire Constabulary were carrying a 40% vacancy rate in Investigations Command and the Commissioner had been actively supporting the Chief Constable in enhancing recruitment activity in a bid to increase detective capacity.

·         In response to the Panel’s request, baseline establishment figures for Hampshire Constabulary since 2010 would be shared with the Panel following the meeting, along with an update on the diversity of the force.

·         The Commissioner had spoken with the Chief Constable regarding the vetting of new recruits, and whilst updates to national vetting guidance  were awaited, the Chief Constable provided assurances that the current vetting used in Hampshire was comprehensive and in line with other policing areas.

·         Hampshire Constabulary had put forward a bid to the Commissioner to increase in staff numbers in the Professional Standards Department (PSD) to meet any future demand resulting from the increased focus, at a national level, on police officer conduct. In response to Members comments the Commissioner offered to provide an update to a future meeting on how appropriate standards of behaviour were being set with new recruits to the force.

·         Resulting from the Constabulary’s need to move to a high-harm model in recent years, public dissatisfaction existed around the response to  medium-low level crimes. The Commissioner had identified that whilst the Constabulary were taking action in respect of these reports, they weren’t feeding this information back to those reporting crimes which had in turn impacted on confidence in policing. The Commissioner hoped to develop a new crime reporting app which would enable this feedback to be given. Further, once the additional 600 officers were fully operational, the Commissioner would be challenging the Constabulary to deliver an enhanced preventative approach in communities and to tackle more lower harm concerns.

·         The Commissioner agreed that more attention could have been drawn in the plan to enhancing public confidence in policing, however it was an area of focus and actions to address this included holding the COPS sessions.

·         Third Party Reporting Centres were a joint initiative between the OPCC and Hampshire Constabulary who regularly reviewed the coverage, numbers of reports being received and feedback from victims of crime.

·         Should central funding for the Violence Reduction Centres (VRU’s) be cut or discontinued the Commissioner would look at how funding could be maintained locally. Whilst this would likely result to cuts in other services, the Commissioner recognised that the Constabulary would want maintain the VRU’s as an effective approach in addressing high risk offending related to knife and gun crime.

·         Policing powers were limited if there wasn’t an appropriate space to signpost those using unauthorised encampments towards. The Commissioner was engaging with all councils, outside of the IOW where the issue was less of a concern, to find a solution which would be of benefit to all.

·         The Commissioner was cognisant of the pledges made when the previous precept was set and was having ongoing conversations with the Constabulary regarding the delivery of these.

·         The Commissioner’s Office had secured £460,000 of funding from the Ministry of Justice to be spent on trauma informed approaches by the end of March 2022. Training was planned for 1600 professionals from across Hampshire and the IOW in the application of trauma informed approaches.

·         Operation Magenta, which was investigating historical deaths at Gosport War Memorial Hospital, required funding from the Commissioner in the region of £2m per year for the next three years, with the remainder of the funding being covered by the Home Office due to the scale of the number of cases involved. Members heard that the Commissioner had written to the Home Secretary and Home Office regarding the sustainability of local funding for the investigation.

·         Members highlighted that the time period the plan was to cover was not transparent within the document itself.

RESOLVED:

That the Panel reviews the draft Police and Crime Plan and makes such report and recommendations upon it as the Panel considers appropriate.

Members were presented with a report setting out the membership of the Panel’s working groups and sub-committee. 

Councillor Sarah Vaughan volunteered to join the Plan Working Group, with agreement that the vacancy on the Finance Working Group and vacancy on the Equality and Diversity working group would remain unfilled.

RESOLVED:

That the Panel appoint members to the Complaints Sub-Committee, Police and Crime Plan working group, Finance working group and Equality and Diversity Working Group until the annual meeting of the Panel in 2022 as set out within the report and the additional appointment of Councillor Sarah Vaughan to the Plan Working Group, as proposed at the meeting.

Members received a report from the scrutiny officer to the Panel setting out the proposed work programme for the Panel

The Chairman noted that he intended to add the following items to the Panel’s work programme, for consideration at the April meeting:

• Estates Strategy

RESOLVED:

That the work programme is agreed.