Agenda item

10:15

Published by Thames Valley Police Authority and Thames Valley Police, the Delivery Plan outlines the vision for the Force in the current year. The Delivery Plan 2010-2011 is attached (SSC7), and will be supported by the third year of the Strategic Plan 2008-2011 which is due to be published in June. The Delivery Plan outlines the seven strategic objectives, as well as the actions to be undertaken in the coming year to achieve these objectives, and the targets against which performance will be measured.

The presentation from the Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police will cover the strategic plan, with a focus on delivery in 2010-11. All areas within the strategic plan will be covered, including performance in priority crime and other measures such as confidence and satisfaction. The presentation will highlight some key processes that are underway to improve performance and productivity.

Chief Constable Sara Thornton QPM, Chief Superintendent Brendan O’Dowda and Inspector Andy Talbot (Development and Change Manager) (Thames Valley Police) will attend for this item.

The Committee is invited to question the Chief Constable and her colleagues regarding the Plan.

 

Published by Thames Valley Police Authority (TVPA) and Thames Valley Police (TVP), the Delivery Plan 2010 - 2011 (SSC7) outlines the vision for the Force in the current year. This would be supported by the third year of the Strategic Plan 2008-2011 which was due to be published in June. The Delivery Plan outlines the seven strategic objectives, as well as the actions to be undertaken in the coming year to achieve these objectives, and the targets against which performance will be measured.

 

Chief Constable Sara Thornton QPM, Chief Superintendent Brendan O’Dowda and Inspector Andy Talbot (Development and Change Manager) attended for this item in order to answer the Committee’s questions.

 

The Chief Constable gave a presentation on the Strategy for Policing in the Thames Valley 2010 – 11, a copy of which is attached to the signed Minutes.  

 

All areas within the strategic plan were covered, including performance in priority crime and other measures such as confidence and satisfaction. The presentation also highlighted key processes that were underway to improve performance and productivity.

 

Key points from the presentation are listed below:

 

• the first four priorities were about operational policing and priorities 5 – 7 were about operational support work;
• key themes in the Plan were public confidence in neighbourhood policing, reducing crime and disorder, protective services and use of resources.

 

Public Confidence

 

In terms of public confidence, the last government had set this objective (NI 21 - The police and local council are dealing with the anti-social behaviour and crime issues that matter in this area). This relied on joint work between the police and the local authority, both county and district.

 

·        Home Office Public Confidence Target: 59.2% by 2012

 

Thames Valley Police had been above the trajectory set by the government until it had received the data from the government for the last quarter which had caused it to dip down. However, the British Crime Survey (BCS) sample had only used a random sample of 250 people.

 

·        TVPA public confidence target: 68% by 2011

 

The Police Authority had also asked this question by telephone survey and had used a much larger sample size, which had given a more positive result and had enabled officers to drill down to county and district level. Their results had not shown a dip in the last quarter and therefore it was possible that the BCS data had been rogue data.

 

·        Place Survey

 

The Place Survey (how the Council measures NI21) had given a different set of results.

 

·        Public Perceptions of the Police

 

TVP was doing a lot of good work on public confidence, for example, through the Neighbourhood Action Groups (NAGs) and through county wide work.

 

However, there was still a massive communication challenge as the public still did not appear to know what the police were doing. In response to the question ‘How informed, if at all, do you feel about the service provided by your local area?’ the local police has received the lowest score in terms of ‘informed’ and the highest score in terms of ‘not informed’.

 

However, the Policing Pledge would help with this and pledged:

 

o       a stronger voice for the public in how the Thames Valley is policed;

 

o       a minimum standard of service to the public;

 

o       information on how the public can help the police keep communities safe.

 

Pledge commitments for ‘A stronger voice for the public’ are given below:

 

o       better information about neighbourhood officers and how to contact them;

 

o       responding to messages directed to neighbourhood teams within 24 hours;

 

o       higher visibility patrols and neighbourhood teams;

 

o       minimising staff turnover in neighbourhood teams;

 

o       monthly updates on police and partner activity including crime maps and offenders brought to justice;

 

o       public meetings held at last once a month (“Have Your Say”). These provided a large amount of information on what neighbourhood officers do and how to get hold of them.

 

A considerable amount of work had been undertaken to improve the Thames Valley Police Website. For example, any member of the public could enter their postcode to bring up the relevant neighbourhood pages which showed local crime maps and statistics, as well as details of the local Neighbourhood Officers and what issues the police were prioritising in that area.

 

There were a range of pledge commitments in relation to ‘A minimum standard of service to the public’ largely around response times to 999 calls and in person (Refer presentation). Performance in relation to the % of 999 calls answered within 10 seconds and non 999 calls answered within 40 seconds was very high and 84.3% of people had been satisfied with overall performance.

 

Crime

 

The two main targets set by TVPA last year were:

 

·        Crime Reduction: Serious Acquisitive Crime

 

(To reduce the level of Serious Acquisitive Crime (domestic burglary, theft of a vehicle, theft from a vehicle and robbery (personal and business) in the Thames Valley).

 

Both types of vehicle crime had fallen significantly but burglary had only decreased by 2.2%.

 

·        Crime Reduction: Assault with Less Serious Injury (non-domestic)

 

(Assault resulting in actual bodily harm, excluding domestic abuse cases).

 

There had been reductions across the board and large reductions in the Vale of White Horse.

 

Police Authority Targets

 

13/16 had been exceeded. 3 had not been met, but only by a small margin.

 

Recruitment

 

It was very important to change the ethnicprofile of Thames Valley Police. It needed to recruit more police from black and minority ethnic (BME) communities. TVP now had over 10% BME officers but was slightly under targetfor police staff and PCSOs.

 

Finances

 

·        TVP’s budget was £378m for this financial year.

 

·        The current 3 year forecast assumed a 0. 7% increase in government grant in 2011/12 and 2012/13.

 

·        A considerable amount of work had been undertaken to generate efficiency savings and £35m savings had been generated over the past three years. Officers had looked at all of their contracts and had ensured that they had brought down management and support costs.      

 

·        No one knew what the police’s future financial position was going to be.

 

·        The Police Authority had agreed to fund 37 additional police officers and this money had been obtained by cutting back office costs.

 

Staffing

 

TVP had 4,227 police officers and 502 PCSOs as at the end of March 2010 and was probably the largest that it was ever going to be.

 

 

 

Following the presentation, the Committee conducted a question and answer session.

 

A selection of the Committee’s questions, together with the responses, is given below:

 

·        There were three different surveys forpublic confidence with three different results. Why didn’t the police combine these surveys so that one pot of money was used to fund the surveys?

 

This would make sense if it was possible to do so but the three surveys were undertaken by three different organisations: the BCS by the Home Office (which the Force was not happy with due to the five month time lag in receiving the data and the fact that the sample size was at Force not district or county level) and the Place Survey was generated by Communities and Local Government (CLG). Including TVP’s survey, they were three different constituents with different requirements.

 

·        With regard to increasing the number of staff recruited from black and minority ethnic communities, how was the Force doing this and what worked best?

 

Three or four things had been done. There had been a thoughtful advertising campaign to target recruits from the BME community. The advice had been to target areas where potential BME recruits were working, living and studying, and to say “We are looking for new recruits”, rather than saying “we want BME officers”. When applicants from BME communities expressed an interest in joining and TVP was not currently recruiting, it noted their interest and passed their details to a recruitment network who would then liaise with them and let them know when TVP would be recruiting. The Chief Constable also chaired a BME board meeting which looked at vetting procedures and unequal attrition.For example, the board had looked at the standards for presentation and spelling which were too stringent and were not letting through good applicants and had therefore relaxed the rules. The board had looked very hard at every stage of the recruitment and promotion process to ensure that it was leading to fair outcomes.

 

·        How many applicants overall (not just from the BME community) did TVP actually recruit after their initial approach?

 

In terms of police officer recruitment TVP does not recruit continuously throughout the year. It opens up recruitment for a brief period of time to gather in all of the applications in and process them. Last year all of the application packs were given out at events, which tested applicants’ commitment. TVP was currently processing the applications, which was a time consuming process.They were planning on recruiting just under 300 people and had no problem recruiting people.There was the fear that good people might go off and do something else but it was also notable that many officers were not retiring due to the recession.

 

·        What about retention? Did police officers “go South”?

 

Retention had improved. Two of the reasons for losing police officers were retirement and officers moving back North or West due to the cost of housing. Loss of officers to the Metropolitan Police Force (Met) had reduced considerably. Thames Valley Police had lost 18 officers to the Met last March whereas it had lost 78 officers two years ago. When times were tough people tended to stay put.

 

·        How many police officers did TVP recruit from PCSOs?

 

The Chief Superintendent undertook to circulate information on the number of PCSOs who had become police officers from 2006/07 - 2009/10 to all members of the Committee.

 

The Chief Constable stated that although movement from PCSOs to police officers did mean loss of PCSOs, overall it was a positive trend as they were already familiar with the Force and made very good recruits. However, not everyone that joined as a PCSO wanted to become a police officer and this was also good.

 

·        In terms of antisocial behaviour such as graffiti or dog fouling, was it possible to have more overlap between police officers, PCSOs and local councils?

 

PCSOs had a role to play in terms of graffiti and dog fouling as did local authority Street Wardens. It was a partnership activity.

 

·        What could be done about parking in cycle lanes and motorists using their mobile phones?

 

In terms of traffic issues the Safer Roads Partnership was very successful. There had been a huge decrease in the number of deaths and serious injuries on the roads in the Thames Valley (under 90 last year). Some of the reduction was down to excellent medical care and some was due to targeted intelligence work by the police and the local authority. In terms of mobile phone usage 8, 270 cautions had been given. Education was very important.

 

·        What could be done about people who broke the 20 and 30 mph speed limits?

 

In terms of concerns about transgressing the 20mph speed limit it was best to speak to the Neighbourhood Team about any concerns, who could then refer it to the Roads Policing Team (RPT). The RPT would then carry out a survey to see if there was a problem or if it was a perception issue. If the survey showed that there was not a problem then options included using the Speed Indicator Devices (SIDs) or conducting other partnership work.

 

In terms of the 30 mph speed limit the solution was “engineering, education and enforcement”. The message nationally was that the focus in the first instance should be making it very clear to people what the speed limit was. Engineering solutions were not cheap and neither was enforcement.

 

Members of the Committee were asked to forward any concerns to their local police commander or to the Chief Superintendent.

 

·        What should the public do if they wanted to bring speeding to the attention of the police?

 

The public could raise their concerns at “Have Your Say” meetings, at a NAG or through a local Councillor. TVP would then arrange for a survey to be undertaken by a specialist. There were 22 Neighbourhoods in Oxfordshire, 13 of which had speeding as one of their top priorities. Ad hoc reporting was not ignored but proper problem solving was important in order to ascertain whether it was a matter of perception or a real problem. Raising the issue through a local Councillor would help to reduce pressure on the police switchboard.

 

·        Were officers aware of traffic noise generated by motorcycles on the A4704 and what could be done about this? The view of the local community was that the police did not stop them even if they were speeding.

 

The Chief Superintendent stated that he was aware of this particular problem and that the police did have the authority to stop noisy motorcyclists. A number of them congregated on the roundabout by Berinsfield. It was a NAG priority and they had been working with the motorcyclists. It was not solely an enforcement issue although they had done some enforcement.

 

·        What could be done about the low rate of prosecutions by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which angered many members of the public as in their view criminals were not being brought to justice?

 

TVP worked very closely in partnership with the CPS and its relationship with them was better than it had ever been. There were inherent tensions, as the police wanted as many perpetrators to be charged as possible whereas the CPS’s target was to reduce the number of cases that started and didn’t get through. Five or six years ago the rules had changed and the CPS now charged people, not the police. Some charging decisions were now dealt with over the phone by the CPS. The Conservative Party Manifesto talked about returning charging to the police. A pilot had started in Oxfordshire in mid April for less serious offences (eg low level criminal damage) and the charging decision would be given to the Sergeant. The pilot seemed to be going very well. The Chief Superintendent stated that he chaired a meeting which problem solved these types of issues such as charging decisions and involved partners such as the CPS, the youth service and the probation service. It was also notable that the courts in Oxfordshire were the best in terms of performance in comparison with the rest of the Thames Valley.

 

·        Why couldn’t automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) be used to track down illegal drivers?

 

There were mobile ANPR devices and most of the roads policing vehicles had ANPR fitted in them. Mobile devices could be used for prosecutions. TVP had invested significantly in fixed sites in conjunction with its partners over the years. These sites gave TVP a rich source of information but the number of vehicles captured meant that the police had to prioritise. TVP now had a small unit who were prioritising hits on the cameras 24 hours a day and some of those markers were for very serious offences such as hit and runs where culprits had been identified. There would never be the resources to check all of the data as the volume of data was too great. There were hundreds of thousands of reads on the cameras per week.

 

·        There were problems with funding from central government for all councils at all tiers, who would be looking to focus on their statutory duties and make efficiencies elsewhere. If part funding for PCSOs stopped as a result (eg from District Councils) how would this affect recruitment and retention of PCSOs across the piece?

 

TVP had 508 PCSOs at present whereas it could have 530. The money that came for PCSOs from the government had been ring fenced and could not be spent elsewhere. However, the future funding situation was very uncertain. Whatever happened to the ring fenced funding, if the police was to make Neighbourhood Policing work then it must have a mix of PCSOs and other officers. In the Chief Constable’s view Neighbourhood Policing would not work without PCSOs.

 

·        What measures would TVP be taking to address the deficit it would be facing?

 

In terms of the productivity strategy for the next three years, TVP was looking at five areas where efficiencies could be made. One example of this was further collaboration with Hampshire Constabulary on joining up more operational functions, such as all of the specialist staff who were expensive to train and used expensive equipment (eg firearms officers, roads policing officers, dog handlers). This was not without difficulty, but increased collaboration was the way to protect front line services.

 

In terms of the local policing model TVPhad a 2 tier structure and needed to look at its structure in order to de-layer and focus on service delivery. Although it was important to have proper partnerships at county level it was not essential to have a command layer at county level and this was being consulted on at present.

 

The Force used Zero based budgeting on the principle of “look at what you need and take off 10%”.

 

TVP had rationalised some of its call handling. A lot of the tertiary call handling was done at a local level and would be amalgamated in order to reduce the number of posts required.

 

TVP was also in a consortium for its transport costs but this was still a large cost as police officers did need to be mobile.

 

TVP had also clamped down on mileage claims, which was better than cutting posts.

 

The Audit Commissionhad given TVP a very good rating in terms of value for money in comparison with other forces.

 

·        Could efficiency savings be put to front line services?

 

There was still uncertainty regarding future funding. The productivity strategy was about trying to think of every way that costs could be taken out of the organisation without affecting frontline services.

 

Frontline services covered those people directly offering services to the public, for example, Neighbourhood Teams, response officers and detectives.

 

Neighbourhood Policing was not a luxury and the public really valued that responsiveness. PCSOs had been given crime prevention training, had been trained in problem solving and could deal with criminal damage and certain thefts. The key message for the Neighbourhood Teams was for them to really understand their communities and to go into venues such as youth clubs and old people’s homes. The public were saying that PCSOs had been very effective and were Oxfordshire’s success story. However, protecting what the public really valued was going to be tough.

 

·        In terms of efficiencies it was of concern that local accountability might be lost and that the police might lose “the common touch” and “one man’s efficiencies was another man’s cuts”. Once everything had been cut when would it be “the bobbies on the beat”?  

 

There was no suggestion that Neighbourhood Policing would be dismantled as it was valued most by the public. Neither was there any suggestion of amalgamating with other forces. However “better wasn’t always equal to more” and the Force could not afford “more”.

 

·        Should there be locally and not nationally set targets for the police?

 

The Chief Constable stated that she had been reporting success on local targets in her presentation, which had been set by Thames Valley Police Authority with regard to national targets. NI 21 was the only target which had been set centrally. She added that although targets were set locally there were also national performance indicators from London and therefore targets were set by the back door. Strategic partners also worked to the Local Area Agreement (LAA) targets (eg the number of drug users in effective treatment programmes and reducing the number of first time entrants into the criminal justice system).

 

·        Why did PCSOs go round in pairs? The public view was that if they patrolled alone they could cover twice the area.

 

PCSOs should be patrolling alone and the majority did. However, they did double up late in the evening and some PCSOs had worked a bit later in some of the problematic areas as there were safety issues, for example, when dealing with instances of antisocial behaviour at midnight.

 

·        Surely educating the public was an important way of reducing acquisitive crime?

 

Education was important. A surprising number of cars and houses were still left unlocked. TVP tried to spread the message through the NAGs and local papers. PCSOs were heavily involved in crime reduction.

 

·        Would PREVENT agenda money be abolished? If so would this be catastrophic? Had anything been achieved with the PREVENT funding?

 

Whoever formed the new government needed to have some kind of approach in terms of preventing terrorism. PREVENT might need rebranding. There were two types of funding for this: PREVENT Pathfinder money (local authority) and TVP funding. Interesting projects had been supported in Oxford City in terms of Pathfinder and it looked as if good work had been done. Some of these projects were being evaluated but the “success” of these types of projects was hard to evaluate as it was difficult to measure their long term impact. Elsewhere in the Thames Valley PREVENT had not been perfect, for example, in terms of communication with the communities.

 

TVP had increased the number of briefings to Neighbourhood Officers and had encouraged them to log information into TVP systems. TVP had also recruited PREVENT Engagement Officers who worked alongside the above projects.

 

Following the question and answer session the Committee thanked the Chief Constable and her colleagues for attending the meeting.

 

The Chief Superintendent undertook to:

 

• make it clearer to Councillor Viney how to contact the new PACT group which was effectively what used to be the Henley Rural NAG;

 

• put Councillor Lindsay-Gale in touch with the NAG in her division.

 

Ms Coldwell undertook to send the Chief Superintendent the contact details for County Councillors in each division so that they could be easily contacted regarding their local NAGs.