Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed those present and led introductions, reminding those present this was a virtual meeting as permitted under section 78 of the Coronavirus Act 2020 to enable meetings to take place whilst observing social distancing measures.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Alan Walters, Councillor Harper-Davies and Mehrunnisa Lalani – Independent Member.

Councillor Lucy Stephenson was present as a substitute for Councillor Alan Walters.

Noted that Councillor Les Phillimore would be late attending due to another meeting committment.

The Chair announced that this was the PCC, Lord Bach’s last meeting, as he would not be standing at the forthcoming election in May, and took the opportunity to thank him for his work and the improvements made over the last 5 years noting he had taken the office of Police and Crime Commissioner to a new level with one of his biggest achievements being the reorganisation of the office and making that much more professional.

Members of the panel also extended their gratitude for Lord Bach’s input, dedication and integrity to the role and wished him every success in the future.

Lord Bach thanked the Chair and members of the panel for their comments and support and expressed thanks to Kirk Master for his support as Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner.

Lord Bach commented that he was very pleased with the cross party way work had been managed by the panel as all had the aim of trying to prevent crime and noted that Leicester, Leicestershire, and Rutland had a well led and good police force.

Members will be asked to declare any interests they have in the business on the agenda.

Members were asked to declare any pecuniary or other interest they may have in the business on the agenda. There were no such declarations.

A question has been received from Chris Collins as follows:

“My understanding with the precept is that due to the Council Tax Band D payments Rutland County Council receive, that residents of Rutland will be paying more per head towards this increase. Will there be a document or information released that will outline the exact benefit Rutland will receive from the precept?”

This question will be considered and responded to in accordance with the procedure set out in the Police and Crime Panel’s Constitution.

Members of the panel noted that a question had been submitted by Chris Collins a member of the public as follows:

“My understanding with the precept is that due to the Council Tax Band D payments Rutland County Council receive, that residents of Rutland will be paying more per head towards this increase. Will there be a document or information released that will outline the exact benefit Rutland will receive from the precept?”

The Chief Executive of the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner responded that the addedvalue to residents of Rutland was in the provision of local services as well as Rutland’s share of specialised services. In terms of local service, a new operating model had already been established resulting in several advancements such as a reduction in times to priority response incidents, more positive crime outcomes, and 100% response rate in terms of victim satisfaction. Additional services would include more police officers in Rutland neighbourhood policing areas, although exact numbers had not yet been defined. There were also benefits from several specialised services e.g. for vulnerable people, supporting victims and witnesses; helping offenders to reduce offending and reoffending; and community safety. From 21 April 2021 there are plans for consultation on the Police Rural Crime Plan that would establish a rural policing task force specifically relevant to Rutland. The police force was also increasing the level of all-weather drones available which are specifically relevant to policing an area like Rutland e.g. for County Lines crime. There would therefore be a range of policing responses in Rutland from neighbourhood areas to specialised focused policing.

The minutes of the meeting held on 27^th January 2021 are attached and Members will be asked to confirm they are an accurate record.

Item 47 Proposed Precept 2021-22 and Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP)

·         Referring to the recommendation to provide a report detailing the efficiency savings to be made during 2021/22, the Chief Finance Officer advised that planning around the efficiency savings target was almost complete and would be reported to the next formal meeting of the panel. It was noted that the financial year had not yet started, and the efficiency savings target would need to be signed off by the Chief Constable and the Police and Crime Commissioner over the coming weeks.

·         Referring to the Emergency Service Network (ESN) plans, the cost predicted for 2023 of £5.2 million was noted and questioned whether risks around that had been mitigated and were other emergency services contributing to that cost. The Chief Constable responded that this was a significant national programme that had been delayed for several years already and was currently being reviewed. Other emergency service users would be contributing to the overall cost of the new system but inevitably it was not without contention. It was noted that the panels work programme for future meetings included an intention to bring a paper specifically about this subject to clarify matters for the panel.

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 27^th January 2021 be confirmed as an accurate record.

Members to receive a report highlighting the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the budget position, funding and delivery of operational policing and community safety.

The Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) submitted a report to highlight the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the budget position, funding and delivery of operational policing and community safety over the past 12 months.

Lord Bach introduced the report drawing attention to the enormous amount of work that had gone on since March 2020, including supportive work by OPCC of police work around Covid 19, the impact on policing demand and the provision of additional resources i.e. to address increases in domestic abuse crime and provide additional support for victims during this period.

The Chief Constable addressed the panel on the impact on policing demand and the policing response noting that the Covid situation was still ongoing.

Members also noted that:

·         There had been more than 25,000 Covid-19 related incidents to date, averaging 489 incidents per week contributing to a 13% increase in total priority response incidents between March 20 to March 21. In terms of police enforcement, this had been targeted to areas of high reports or community concern and so far, 2870 tickets had been issued, with 80% of those since Christmas in this latest lockdown.

·         In terms of impact on crime, initially overall crime levels had dropped but during lockdown domestic abuse had risen and was an issue, with a typical 56 domestic abuse reports being received every day, that did however vary in peak periods. The force had taken a partnership approach to safeguarding highest risk domestic abuse victims with specialist officers and a team of investigators ensuring all cases are categorised for risk too.

·         In relation to supporting officers and staff,  over 2 million items of PPE had been issued to secure working practices and regular testing was available, however, there was frustration that police officers were not prioritised in the vaccination programme.

The Chair invited Members of the panel to ask questions:

Members raised concerns about the long term lasting effects of the pandemic, its impacts upon the mental health of people, in particular young people, as well as the long term effect of domestic abuse in families. In terms of whether there were appropriate resources to tackle such issues it was advised that there were already systems for referrals of young people through schools and police were doing a lot more work now that schools had reopened to engage with young people, as well as other work around the impact of domestic abuse on young people and the wider effect of mental health on offending. Members were assured there was a shared triage of resources that could be deployed to assess, inform, and support police in handling such situations.

It was noted that the police were planning for potential increases on police demands as lockdown measures eased, including the return of policing the night time economy, the return of significant sporting events and the return to high volumes of students in the area for the next academic year.

Members of the panel acknowledged the disruption that had also been caused to police,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 57.

Members to receive a report updating on current recruitment processes including targets as well as retention and dismissal levels within the police.

The Police and Crime Panel considered a report providing an update on the current recruitment processes, campaigns and outcomes for the recruitment of additional police officers together with an update on retention and dismissals.

1.58pm Councillor Les Phillimore joined the meeting.

It was noted that:

·         There was an obligation to increase police officer numbers with processes in place to ensure that the recruitment targets agreed at the Police and Crime Panel meeting on 27^th January 2021 were achieved as set out in the report.

·         The monitoring of recruitment targets took account of retention and dismissal levels within the police.

·         There was a commitment to also ensure representation of the police force achieved an appropriate demographic balance among its workforce as Leicestershire had a specific demography. In terms of making the force BAME representation equivalent to the rest of population (i.e. around 21%), the ratio was currently around 8.4%, that needed to improve to make the force wholly representative and therefore they had committed towards 1 in 4 new recruits coming from BAME background, achieving this target would take time but current new recruits intake was around 1 in 6.5 from BAME backgrounds.

·         A piece of work had been completed around new interns, with targeted recruitment of new degree holders and building on existing work to improve recruitment.

There followed a discussion around recruitment of additional officers and clarification was sought of the total numbers of extra officers to be recruited over the period 2020-21 and for 2021-22. The Chief Finance Officer explained the complexities of calculating the increased number of officers and the funding mechanisms. It was noted there were two main drivers for officer recruitment, firstly, a specified number of additional police officer posts that the PCC has agreed to in his budget with the panel, e.g. for 2020/21 budget that was 100. Secondly, the national programme “Operation Uplift” to recruit 20,000 police officers across England and Wales, Leicestershire’s target for 2020/21 was 89. The establishment figure at the start of the financial year plus the in-year recruitment targets for PCC and Operation Uplift recruitment combined, defined the end of year target. It was confirmed that the total target 2020/21 was on track to be achieved.

In terms of Operation Uplift, the national figure of 20,000 police officers across England and Wales was broken down into specific recruitment targets for each individual police service over 3 years and was heavily scrutinised to ensure national targets were met to ensure funding received. It was confirmed that Leicestershire’s target for 2020/21 of 89 was absolutely on target to be achieved.

It was noted that funding for the additional officers through Operation Uplift came from the home office who provided grant funding in full the following year when the target was achieved so the burden of cost of salary wouldn’t fall to council taxpayers. Once the additional numbers are recruited they are then included in the overall establishment figure for the next financial year. For next financial year there are plans  ...  view the full minutes text for item 58.

Members to receive a report providing details of section 106 funding and the Leicestershire Police approach to s106/CIL.

The Police and Crime Panel considered a report providing details around Section 106 funding, how that was sought in terms of developer contribution agreements, how it was drawn down from local authorities and how it was used in terms of operational policing purposes together with a summary of the variances in the processes for draw down of s106 funds across each local authority.

The Chief Finance officer introduced the report giving an overview of the legislation and background to s106 funding and the Community Infrastructure Level (CIL) funds.

Members of the Panel noted that:

·         Leicestershire Police were one of just a few forces actively seeking funds.

·         Developer contributions could only be sought where there was significant impact in policing demands linked to development and that warrants a bid.

·         Funds can only be used for infrastructure and cannot be used to fund day to day revenue such as police officers, PCSO’s and the like.

·         The Force currently had 102 development contribution agreements in place, these could have a very long lead time, and depended upon certain trigger points being reached. Many of these agreements historically were in relation to land and buildings and could include contributions that may not be drawn down in future because of changes to local policing models, digitalisation and proposals for policing style will change.

·         In terms of current position, since writing the report there had been notification of a further £700k from 2 local authorities that was available to be drawn down and that would be actively pursued.

Responding to concerns raised previously as to why these funds were not included in the budget capital programme moving forward, this was due to the uncertainty around trigger points being reached, whether monies would be released to authorities and in turn to the Force, and also the timescales involved could be spread over many years therefore it was not prudent or safe to include the s106 funds as a guaranteed source of income to source a capital programme.

The ensuing discussion included the following comments:

·         This was an area of funding that should be looked at seriously to identify how this money could be better obtained for benefit of residents.

·         Reference was made to the Emergency Service Network being a capital investment and queried whether it would be possible to draw down funding to support that initiative.

·         In relation to some parts of s106 not being drawn down, it was confirmed that the OPCC did negotiate where there was a case to be made but could not approach the developer directly and representations had to go through local authority planning officers with a very low success rate around that. Original agreements tended to be quite inflexible so there were limited opportunities for renegotiations.

·         Noted there was a lack of consistency in approach between each local authority and it would be helpful to have a standardised approach, perhaps to include a discussion with planning teams.

·         Members recognised the challenges of developments being in different areas, some sparsely populated and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 59.

To receive a report updating on progress made by the police and OPCC towards the Police and Crime Plan 2017-20.

The Police and Crime Panel considered a report highlighting the progress made by the OPCC and the police towards the Police and Crime Plan 2017-20 with a specific focus on the five V’s – Viable Partnerships; Visible Policing; Victim Services; Vulnerability Protection and Value for Money.

Members noted:

·         The new target operating model now embedded in place,

·         The investments made in technology that support modern policing e.g. drones, body worn cameras and tazers that allow the force to remain effective in a changing landscape.

·         In terms of value for money, just 3% of the overall budget was used by the OPCC with the rest going to the force and whilst the office cost more than in 2016 the team had also grown in its professionalism and capability, e.g. staff had put together and researched funding bids worth more than £6m.

·         The force was recognised as a good force where previously in 2016 HMI rated it as needing some improvement, the force was now larger with additional officers, more diverse in its make-up, better equipped, and crime recording had very much improved.

Members of the panel welcomed the report, noting each of the positive improvements and achievements of the past 5 years and commended the work done since Lord Bach took office.

RESOLVED

                        That the contents of the report be noted.

Members to receive an update of the performance of the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Quarter 3,    20/21.

Members will be asked to comment on and note the contents of the report.

The Police and Crime Panel considered a report of the Police and Crime Commissioner which provided an update on the performance of the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Quarter 3 20/21.

Attention was drawn to the following points:

·         Office staff continued to work from home as they had since last March 2020 due to Covid-19,

·         The meaning of “on time” in relation to correspondence received during the 3^rd quarter was clarified in that, the service standards were to endeavour to answer all correspondence within 10 days, although that was not always possible and future reports would include an explanation of service standards.

·         In relation to FOIA requests the standard within legislation was for a response to be provided within 20 working days so “on time” in the report reflects that standards were met.

·         Custody Visitor volunteers had continued to provide visits throughout the year with a locally set target of 1 visit per month because of Covid.

·         Regarding staffing vacancies, most of those had been filled, the role of engagement officer had recently been interviewed and an appointment to that role was imminent.

·         Several projects had been undertaken, however because of Covid some projects were still on hold such as the Knife Angel visiting Leicester, due to ongoing uncertainties of Covid a future date had not yet been reconfirmed.

·         In terms of commissioning, the correct number of applications at 3.44 in the report should read 11 of which 4 were granted.

Members enquired what Section 4 reviews were and noted that a report was previously brought to the panel in 2018 to explain forthcoming changes to the police complaint system. The implementation of those changes was delayed before coming into effect on 1 February 2020, in summary the change means when a member of the public submits a (low level) complaint against the service received from the police the appropriate authority to deal with that is the Chief Constable using professional standards, under  the old system they could appeal that outcome, now under new legislation in the Police and Crime Act 2017 more independence has been brought to the process transferring to remit of PCC the element to undertake reviews into those complaints. The PCC does not reinvestigate but simply reassesses and decides whether the handling and outcome was reasonable and proportionate. The PCC has power to uphold or dismiss reviews and either way can make recommendations to the force, and therefore the OPCC performance report now included this section to show data around those reviews.

The Chair thanked officers for the report.

RESOLVED:

                  That the contents of the report be noted.

Members to receive an update of the performance exceptions of Leicestershire Police for the period of 1^st October 2020 to 31^st December 2020.

Members will be asked to comment on the recommendations for further analysis based on exceptions and to note the contents of the report.

The Police and Crime Panel considered a report of the Police and Crime Commissioner which provided an update on the performance of the Leicestershire Police for Quarter 3 20/21.

The Chief Executive, OPCC introduced the report and responded to questions of the panel.

Key points included:

·         Previous consideration of several outliers and a reminder that last time the panel looked at violence with injury, within this report it could now be seen that was within the normal range as predicted.

·         The two outliers in this report namely hate crime and child sexual exploitation (CSE) and the analysis carried out around those.

·         In terms of hate crime four different drivers had been identified: changes in national crime recording; another part was increased engagement, with special events trying to promote and make people confident in reporting. There were also two other factors, i.e. Covid-19 acting as a catalyst with restrictions on people and neighbour disputes, incidents in shops etc. and any form of malicious or racist wording would be recorded as hate crime, and an additional spike in reports following the BLM movement. There was a Hate Crime police lead who monitored this area carefully to increase reporting and take initiatives.

·         In relation to CSE, this had been monitored for a while, after a slight increase first surfaced during April 2020, there were believed to be three factors here: the timing related again to Covid-19 and possibility with children being at home due to school closures and online issues, with people being online more during lockdown. Increased confidence in reporting might also be a part of it. The film “Are You Listening” was believed to have increased levels of reporting and there was a lot of focused work around missing children which was closely linked to CSE so those were the focuses in terms of analysis. Monitoring would continue and it was hoped by next quarters report to see a decrease or plateau.

·         Harassment and Stalking data had gone up and as discussed last time, was quite a complex offence in terms of recording as each incidence was recorded as a separate event, and this could rapidly increase e.g. as each text counted. It was also rare that an incident of domestic assault was a one off incident so there was additional diligence in recording not just the offence at the time but any patterns beforehand.

·         Clarified that para 5.4 in the report referred to deaths on roads which was actually 8, and officers were still working on how to reflect this data better.

There was a brief discussion about pressures on policing that could be generated when lockdown eases, around April 12^th, and the OPCC and force were mindful of the coming weeks and what might happen with large football events, reopening of establishments and resumption of night time economy.

The Chair invited comments from members of the panel which included the following:

·         Assurance was sought regarding the exceptions around CSE, that the data was showing more reporting rather  ...  view the full minutes text for item 62.

Members to note the ongoing work programme.

May Member Briefing – Role and Remit of Panel, Introduction to new PCC, Task & Finish Group for s106 Funding – at May briefing set out some Heads of Terms and agree Terms of Reference for T&F group to be started at June meeting

RESOLVED:

That the contents of the work programme be noted and updated as follows:

1.    Report regarding Violence in the Public Domain linked to Domestic Violence Abuse and interventions around that be brought to the June 2021 meeting of the panel;

2.    A report updating on the Emergency Services Networks and impact on budgets be brought to September 2021 meeting of the panel;

3.      The Members Only Briefing 20^th May 2021 to include items as follows: i. Welcome and Introduction of new PCC and brief overview of structure of OPCC; ii. An overview of the role and remit of the panel; iii. Consideration of Terms of Reference/Scoping for a Task & Finish Group to review Section 106 funding.

None notified.

To note there will be a special meeting on Thursday 20^th May 2021 at 1pm, this will be a Members only briefing.

Member Only Briefing:-  20^th May 2021

Next Public Meeting of the Panel:- 10^th June 2021 (AGM)

There being no further business the meeting closed at 3.45pm.