Mr Rupert Matthews, Police and Crime Commissioner will be present to provide an overview of his vision and priorities for the city.
Minutes:
Mr Rupert Matthews, Police and Crime Commissioner for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (PCC), was invited to address the Overview Select Committee about his work in the role to date and his priorities for the future.
Mr Matthews touched on the role of the PCC, what it was and wasn’t entitled to do, during which the meeting was informed that:
· The role of PCC was to decide the ‘what’ and it was the role of the Chief Constable to decide the ‘how’ of local policing. The public held both the PCC and the Chief Constable to account. Operational matters were the decision of the Chief Constable.
· The Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Police and Crime Panel scrutinised the work of the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC).
· The Police and Crime Plan, which each PCC had to produce when they first took up office, was a living document and set out the broad parameters of what the PCC expected of the Chief Constable. The Plan was largely based on the elected PCC’s manifesto.
· There were a mass of national guidelines, rules and regulations about what the police were / were not allowed to do, for example, the Home Office mandated how may officers should be licensed, trained and fully updated to carry firearms, which was not a decision that could be made locally, but had cost implications locally for training those officers and having the requisite number of weapons.
· Mr Matthews then went on to pay tribute to Simon Cole, who had left his role as Chief Constable the week prior to the Committee meeting, a role he had held for nearly 12 years. He added Mr Cole had been a tower of strength for the police and community and would be very much missed.
· It would be the PCC’s duty to recruit a new Chief Constable, the system for which was largely mandated by the Home Office, though there was room for local discretion and variation on how a Chief Constable was selected and recruited. The PCC would involve local elected representatives in the city and county to play an advisory role in the process as it was important the voices of elected representatives for the people in the city and county had an opportunity to be heard.
· The Plan had been put out to consultation to the public, the P&CP and the Chief Officer Team of Leicestershire Police. Many changes had been made to produce the first draft of the Police and Crime Plan which was used to produce the final draft, and printed copies would be sent to the council over the next week or so.
· The Peelian Principles still underlay the modern concept of policing by consent, for example, the police are the public, and the public are the police. The PCC said it was essential to draw recruits from as wide a selection of the public as possible, and that the police force is made up as near as possible that they were representative of the communities that they served.
· Public support and confidence in the police had fallen over the past few years, largely to do with incidents and activities not involving Leicestershire Police. The PCC wanted to see support and confidence in the police increase. The PCC would bring a series of reports to the PCP on this which would be public documents, with more detail available from the OPCC.
· The PCC was looking to have further public engagement with the Police, Police Cadets and community.
· There were certain aspects of crime of particular interest to the Members and public they represented, for instance, knife crime with a number of incidents of knife attacks recently with some fatalities. There were several ways to deal with the issues, including police action on the streets, through intelligence and responding reports and calls from the public. The work of the Violence Reduction Network was noted which the city and county were fortunate to have as not all police forces received funding for it. The VRN and PCC were involved in crime reduction work, victim support and navigation of the criminal justice system.
· Over the coming months and years the PCC looked forward to supporting the work of the city council with the police on crime and victim support.
· The Chair fed back that he believed that one person was not an adequate way to undertake the public sector equality duty on an EIA and spending review as there was previously an Ethics, Integrity and Complaints Committee which had previously produced the Diversity and Inclusion report. The Chair asked if the Committee was to be replaced, and if so when would that be. The meeting was informed that the new members of the new body had been appointed, with the date for the first meeting in the not-too-distant future. The role of this body would be advisory and would receive matters referred to them from both the Police and OPCC, such as how the Police were operating, and were they doing so in an ethical way with due regard to equality. It was further noted that the Committee itself could raise issues and concerns with both the PCC and the Chief Constable. With regards to EIAs internal system which the PCC had inherited, he stated he was happy to go back and look system if the Overview Select Committee was not satisfied with the system.
The PCC then received questions from Members and was provided with the following information:
· The Chair welcomed the opportunity of the involvement of Members in the appointment of the new Chief Constable, and he hoped there would be an opportunity for the different communities to have some input in the process. He added that the key point for many was the public sector equality duty, and that for the OPCC it could be seen there was a lot of policies and spending in relation to equality which was important. It was noted that the policies and budget of the Council were scrutinised through Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs), which were very detailed on all equality issues. The Chair asked, when the OPCC was working across the city and county with the different communities and different needs, how was its work and implications assessed. The PCC informed the meeting that the OPCC had a member of staff that routinely looked at everything the OPCC did and drew up an EIA, with only issues of concern being brought to the attention of the PCC, which had been on two occasions over the past 12 months for additional information. A Member then asked how the OPCC could have subjective interpretation of the EIAs when one person had singular oversight of the EIAs and could minimise some of the issues that could be seen differently by another set of eyes. The PCC said he would write to the Chair with more information on the OPCC EIA Policy.
· The PCC had instigated a policy called ‘Community Thursdays’. The whole of the force area had been divided into twenty districts which meant in theory the PCC could visit each of these twice a year, to meet a diverse range of people and organisations, in various locations. All councillors and MPs for each area would be written to with an invitation to meet the PCC at the various venues. Members of the community, Members and MPs can contact the PCC directly with issues of concern, through contact details on the website. The PCC also had a proactive social media policy.
· A Member noted that vacancies had arisen in the post of Chief Constable, and in the posts of Chief Executive, Deputy Chief Executive and senior staff in the OPCC, and that an advisor was currently under investigation. It was stated it was crucial that any PCC needed staff in its office and good advisors. It was recognised that the Chief Constable had retired, and that not all of the senior management team had left since the election of the PCC, and there was a full-time acting Senior Finance Officer pending recruitment of a permanent Senior Finance Officer, which had been delayed due to the pandemic.
· Members further noted the OPCC had discretionary grants in its budget, and it was asked what the split was between the city and county. The PCC informed the meeting there were three aspects to the grants. Grants were reserved for people zones, with one people zone in the city and two in the county with none in Rutland, with grant monies split equally between the three zones. The PCC was looking to create two new people zones dependent on funding and was a decision to be made and would affect how grant monies were split up.
· Another grant went to community safety partnerships, including the Safer Leicester Partnership in the city. Through a funding formula, the money was divided between the partnerships and varied in amount. The City of Leicester received most of the grant monies, whilst money in the County was distributed to the districts.
· £300k per year had been allocated for distribution through a bid process, and was open to any organisation, which each request being looked at on its own merits, value for money, the track record of the organisations delivering that sort of a project and so on. Staff would then produce a score card which was viewed by the PCC and the decision made whether or not to grant funding.
· The PCC was asked about the recruitment and engagement of communities with reference to the PCC’s draft plan, where one of the short-term priorities was ensuring the recruitment of officers was representative of the diverse communities within Leicester. He was asked that during his time as PCC, how many recruitment exercises had taken place and how many recruits were there from BAME communities, with information to be broken down for each community. The PCC responded that central government had had an operational uplift across the country, and meant there would be 20,000 more officers across the country at the end of the recruitment process by the end of the next financial year. Leicestershire Police had been recruiting continuously since funding had become available in 2020. The PCC’s predecessor instituted a policy which aimed at having one in four new recruits coming from an ethnic minority, with a view to having a police force having a balanced ethnic mix. It was reported that to date of the 178 additional officers recruited in the current financial year, 14% had come from ethnic minorities against a target of 25%. An initial paper on recruitment and retention had been taken to the last the P&CP. However, the PCC stated he was still not satisfied with it as it did not provide detail on what the police were actually doing to recruit more ethnic monitory officers, and had asked for another report which would be reported to the next P&CP meeting in June. He added there was a second stage around retention, as anecdotally across the country more ethnic minority than white police officers were leaving the police force around four to five years after joining. It was noted the percentage of recruits from ethnic minorities had increased every year but was not at the 25% target being aimed for. Detail on what was being done around retention would also be reported to the P&CP meeting. Following a request the PCC agreed to provide a breakdown of recruitment numbers by ethnic groups to the Chair and Members.
· A Member referred to reports in the media about problems within the police force at a national level, and what measures the PCC was putting in place to address any problems with the culture in the police force. The PCC responded that Leicestershire Police had very firm guidelines and guidance on issues such as racism and misogyny, and that since he had taken office there had been a number of disciplinary procedures taken against officers, not all in the public domain. In looking at each of the disciplinary cases the PCC was satisfied that Leicestershire Police were dealing with issues in a robust fashion, that procedures were fit for purpose, and that Leicestershire Police held themselves to a very high standard. It was noted that the P&CP could ask for a report on disciplinary which would be a public document.
· A Member referred to the drop-out rate of BAME officers and asked if there were any early indication as to why they were leaving the Police so early on. The PCC stated that this was a national rather than exclusively a local trend, and said he was not aware of any formal study of exit interviews, and anecdotal information was fed back to the PCC by the Black Police Officers Association or the National Association of Police and Crime Commissioners who were also concerned. He did, however, note that one factor mentioned to the PCC more than most was those officers from communities that do not have a long history of members joining the police force felt they were not supported in their role when dealing with members of their community who were hostile towards them, and were not receiving support from the police to enable them to deal with the issue which was stressful for them.
· The Chair stated the community, businesses and partners had drawn attention to a planned cut in police numbers, and it was assumed that resources were being withdrawn from the city and being placed in and Rutland. The PCC assured the meeting that there had been no cuts in police numbers, but there had in fact been an increase in numbers since he had taken up office, and no cuts were planned, but the funding of police was dependent on national government. It was added that the former PCC had put in place a medium-term financial plan for five years that would have seen police numbers rise to 2,342. However, when the PCC had looked at the plan in which there had been a delayed takeover due to pandemic, he found that if the original budget had been followed, then all available reserves would have been spent by the end of 2024, and there would have been a funding gap of £3million by 2025. It was also found there was also a level of capital expenditure not budgeted for, part of which was moving police staff from the Purple Book system to the Hay system and was expected to cost somewhere in the region of £3million over a three-year period. Further, the call management system was old and some of the equipment was not functioning properly, with nothing in the budget to replace that. The PCC therefore had taken the decision that it would have been reckless to recruit 200 police officers more than the government was giving essential funding for and recruited 100 police officers above the government funding which had come from the precept but had stopped at this point. The figures would be looked at in two years-time as to whether to recruit and had avoided a £3million shortfall.
· Police numbers in the city were not being reduced. Central Government was providing more funds to have more officers than at any time over the past six or seven years, and Leicestershire was in the fortunate position to have more police officers deployed across the area.
· A specific rural crime unit had been established which currently consisted of three full-time officers, and the PCC wanted to increase it to eight full-time officers.
· The PCC discussed training and, as an example, had introduced training for call handlers to recognise language that rural people used when reporting a crime, such as fly grazing and hare coursing, and to ask the farmer specific questions to ascertain if criminal damage was occurring. The PCC was seeking to address the concerns of people in rural areas, who had been neglected in recent years, and that this was down to staff training rather than the deployment of officers, and also down to equipment, for example, four-wheel drive vehicles would be provided to enable officers to police rural areas better.
· The PCC spoke in terms of full-time equivalent of officers, but the Home Office had used actual head count, so there was a mis-match of about 70 officers between full-time equivalent and actual officers. The PCC had also lobbied the Home Office about the funding formula used for police forces which included disparate information, for example, average size of a domestic dwelling, whereas the number of business premises wasn’t taken into account at all. It was noted the Government was committed to the figure of an extra 20,000 police officers, and once they had been recruited, trained and deployed on the streets the Government would look at increasing the police numbers.
· The PCC said that there were adequate police numbers but the answer to whether there could be more was also yes. He added that as long as any crime was unsolved or a criminal unpunished or if any victim felt they had not received justice then more should be done, and not just from the police force but other aspects of the criminal justice system such as Magistrates Court, restorative justice and so on.
· With regards to response times to phone calls, Leicestershire Police were better than average. In terms of how quickly the police arrived at a reported crime, it varied dependent on the nature of the crime. For example, a Category One crime where physical violence may be imminent, the Police were classed as good at the last inspection, but clarified that further information would be provided to the Chair and Members.
· In relation to beat officers, the Leicestershire Police had gone through two reorganisations; one seven years ago to make the police more efficient in its use of resources and more effective when responding to serious crime. In doing so in three or four years it was realised that by becoming more effective in its response, the Police had rapidly lost contact between local officers and local areas and communities, had become centralised and they were losing local knowledge. The Police two years ago then developed the Target Operating Model (TOM) to place police local geographically. At the same time the training of recruits and retraining was changed to emphasise the importance of forming good relationships with people, e.g. newsagents who know what is going on in an area.
· The Community Active Scheme, first trialled in the St Phillips area and Lutterworth areas in the County, had been very successful in involving local members of the community and volunteers in going out and educating the local community, speaking the correct language, and in coming from the same cultural background they understood the cultural norms of the community, which was in large part teenage boys.
· The Violence Reduction Network had just had a three-year funding formula agreed by Central Government, allowing for more long-term planning on what they were doing.
· With regards to stop and search it was reported that guidelines for the Police were only to ‘Stop and Search’ if they had good reason to believe a person was carrying a knife or similar or strong evidence of engaging in a criminal activity. There were however, two sides to stop and search. Firstly, the Police could make the maximum possible use of stop and search so that anyone carrying a knife would be stopped and the knives retrieved. Or secondly, if people were routinely stopped and were not engaged in criminal activity, who were not carrying knives and were perceived to be stopped unfairly, it could damage community relations. There were some communities that historically had not had a good relationship with the police force and stop and search was seen as a factor of that. It stated that stop and search relied on the personal judgement of the individual officer, and training and experience had a lot to do with getting it right.
· There was a debate on whether there was more hate crime, or whether victims of hate crime were more confident in reporting it as they now felt they would be taken seriously compared to a few years ago. Repeat training of officers was putting more emphasis on hate crime, and it was important the law-abiding public had faith in the police taking it seriously.
· The meeting was informed that, with regards to news reporting on Mr Beale (an advisor for the OPCC), he was not being paid £100,000 per year, but was paid on a day rate, was a personal matter of payment, and that his contract was public but not the figure paid. It was reported that should be legally declared was available on the OPCC website, and was a requirement for all contractors. The meeting was told Mr Beale was a former Chief Constable of two police forces and highly experienced of police matters, and had a lot to contribute. Mr Beale was under investigation for charges unknown.
The Chair thanked the PCC and Members for the thorough discussion. The Chair summarised the discussion with a motion:
· The Committee expressed serious concern with regard to the level of commitment that the PCC had for policing and for the protection of community safety in the city, particularly in light of his reversal of the decision taken previously to increase policing numbers in Leicester. The Committee asked the PCC to strongly reconsider his decision at the earliest possible opportunity in order to provide the level of policing that it felt was necessary for the city.
· The Committee asked the PCC to look urgently at the way in which his office gave regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty and strongly recommended that the OPCC carry out formal Equality Impact Assessments when developing policy and setting budgets.
· The Committee asked for a clear breakdown based on ethnicity in respect of the 14% of BME employees within the constabulary.
The motion was seconded by Councillor Joel. On being put to the vote the motion was carried. Councillor Porter voted against the motion.
The City Mayor also gave thanks to Simon Cole, and stated he was very grateful for his service in the City, County and Rutland as Chief Constable. He added that Simon had been particularly inspirational as a leader to the local police, and had been particularly active and determined to engage with and understand the many different communities in the city and county, and to reflect that in how policing was carried out the area. The City Mayor joined the Committee in wishing him well for the future and saw him go with a lot of gratitude.
The Chair moved that the Committee wished to thank the former Chief Constable, Simon Cole, for many years of dedicated service to policing in Leicester. The Committee wished him all the very best in his retirement from the constabulary.
The motion was seconded by Councillor Joshi, and on being put to the vote the motion was carried.
RESOLVED:
That:
· The Committee expressed serious concern regarding the level of commitment that the PCC had for policing and for the protection of community safety in the city, particularly in light of his reversal of the decision taken previously to increase policing numbers in Leicester. The Committee asked the PCC to strongly re-consider his decision at the earliest possible opportunity in order to provide the level of policing that the Committee felt was necessary for the city.
· The Committee asked the PCC to look urgently at the way in which his office gave regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty and strongly recommended that the OPCC carried out formal Equality Impact Assessments when developing policy and setting budgets.
· The Committee asked for a clear breakdown based on ethnicity in respect of the 14% of BME employees within the constabulary.
· The Committee wished to thank the former Chief Constable, Simon Cole, for many years of dedicated service to policing in Leicester. They wished him all the very best in his retirement from the constabulary.