Return to AgendaITEM CM3
COMMUNITY SAFETY SCRUTINY committee
MINUTES of the meeting held on 15 September 2008 commencing at 11.10 am and finishing at 2.10 pm
Present:
Voting Members: Councillor Rodney Rose - in the chair
Councillor Ray Jelf in place of Councillor John Farrow Councillor Jenny Hannaby Councillor Lesley Legge in place of Councillor M. Altaf-Khan Councillor Olive McIntosh-Stedman Councillor Charles Mathew Councillor Bill Service Councillor Carol Viney
Other Members in Cabinet Member for Community Safety: Councillor Mrs J. Attendance Heathcoat
By Invitation: Cabinet Member for Transport: Councillor Ian Hudspeth (for Agenda Item 10)
Officers:
Whole of meeting: K. Coldwell (Corporate Core); C. Thomas (Community Safety & Shared Services)
Part of meeting: J. Parry (Community Safety & Shared Services)
The Scrutiny Committee considered the matters, reports and recommendations contained or referred to in the agenda for the meeting, together with the following additional documents:
and agreed as set out below. Copies of the agenda, reports and additional documents are attached to the signed Minutes.
34/08 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE AND TEMPORARY APPOINTMENTS
Apologies for absence and temporary appointments were received as follows:
35/08 DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST
Councillor Lesley Legge declared a personal interest at Agenda Item 2 in relation to Agenda Items 5 and 6 by virtue of being a member of the Red Cross Fire and Emergency Support Service.
Councillor Rodney Rose declared a personal interest at Agenda Item 2 in relation to Agenda Items 5 and 6 by virtue of being Director of the South East Fire & Rescue Service Control Centre Ltd (SEFRCC Ltd).
Councillors Hannaby, Heathcoat, Jelf, McIntosh-Stedman, Service, and Viney declared personal interests at Agenda Item 2 in relation to Agenda Item 10 by virtue of being members of Neighbourhood Action Groups.
Councillor Mrs J Heathcoat declared a personal interest at Agenda Item 2 in relation to Agenda Items 5 and 6 by virtue of being a member of the Regional Management Board for Oxfordshire Fire & Rescue Service.
36/08 MINUTES
The Minutes of the meeting of the Committee held on 7 July 2008 were approved and signed. Matters Arising
Update Report on Sprinkler Provision and Premises Survey – Progress on Installation of Active Fire Suppression Systems in schools – at this Committee’s previous meeting Councillor Mrs J. Heathcoat had been asked to confirm the policy for the installation of sprinklers in academies. Her response had been provided to all members of the Committee as follows:
Sprinklers are intended to be incorporated with the Peers school/academy rebuild but would not be incorporated within the Drayton School/North Oxford Academy partial rebuild and refurbishment because the government "policy" was only communicated after the design stage of North Oxford Academy had been completed.
Councillor Legge stated that Councillor Fooks’ motion at Council had raised the issue of sprinklers, not government policy. She expressed concern that a decision had been made not to install sprinklers at Drayton school, given the traumatic effect of fire in terms of classrooms, classwork and the impact on everyone concerned.
Councillor Mrs J. Heathcoat stated that she took the issue very seriously, adding that risk assessments were carried out for each school in order to protect people, as agreed by the Cabinet.
37/08 FIRE SERVICE COMMAND AND CONTROL ROOM – THE FiReControl AND FireLINK PROJECTS (Agenda Item 5)
Mr Colin Thomas (Acting Assistant Chief Fire Officer) had provided a written update on the progress of the project (CM5) which was before the Committee.
Mr Thomas introduced Ms Carol MacKay (FiReControl Project Assistant) and reported as follows:
· his greatest concern was the timescale for the FireLink project. Officers were still awaiting a firm date for the start of FireLink Phase B. The latest date given was 2 February 2009. Current planning was based on the fitting out of all Oxfordshire vehicles to take 45 working days and to be completed by the end of April 2009. The official timetable for Oxfordshire’s cut-over to the Regional Control Centre remained unchanged at January 2011; · progress continued to be made in terms of Local Authority Controlled Company (LACC) Activity. Officers had been working on staffing issues over the Summer and were making good progress, although this was a complex matter; · officers were still awaiting the official rollout of the FireControl Data Management Toolkit availability and activity; · good progress was being made in terms of early station end equipment (ESEE) as this was largely in the hands on the Oxfordshire Fire & Rescue Service (OF&RS); and · the service was not prepared to sign off the Statement of Brigade Requirements document until their questions had been answered, as this had ongoing budget implications.
The Cabinet Member for Community Safety thanked Mr Thomas for the work he had undertaken with the Oxfordshire Fire & Rescue Service Control Room staff to reassure them during this period of uncertainty.
The Committee also AGREED to send their thanks to the Oxfordshire Fire & Rescue Service Control Room staff for their sterling work during difficult circumstances.
38/08 FIRE SERVICE COMMAND AND CONTROL ROOM – THE FiREControl BUSINESS CASE PART 1 – REGIONAL ELEMENT: PRESENTATION AND Q&A (Agenda Item 6)
There had been increasing concern amongst members of this Committee regarding the FiReControl Business Case and the cost of the new Fire Control Room to Oxfordshire County Council.
In July this Committee had noted that following receipt of the final Business Case, scope issues would require clarity and agreement of intra regional apportionments would be needed, prior to any further investigation of the implications for the County Council; and had agreed to request a report from Mr Thomas setting out the issues relating to the Business Case and other activities in relation to this (eg review of the concept of operations which would give an overview of what was in and out of scope and what could be done) to its September meeting, with a view to the Committee potentially conducting a scrutiny review or select committee in future.
A report was before the Committee at CM6.
The Community Safety Scrutiny Committee was recommended to:
· consider the information currently available and the level of certainty of that information and decide if a scrutiny review would be appropriate and beneficial; · if considered beneficial, decide on the timing of the review; · consider that should a scrutiny review not be appropriate, whether any alternative course of action should be undertaken and if so, its timing; and · decide if it would be beneficial and appropriate to provide comments to the Cabinet Member for Community Safety to consider as part of the preparation for the September Regional Management Board meeting.
Mr Colin Thomas (Acting Assistant Chief Fire Officer) attended before the Committee in order to give a powerpoint presentation on this matter and to answer the Committee’s questions.
A summary of key points in Mr Thomas’s presentation is listed below:
· the interim Business Case (Part 1) had been published on 8 July (4th edition) and was built on the previous version which had been released in June 2007. It had been published in two parts and was the first time that it had been separated. This was of concern as both parts were interdependent; · this version had been informed by an independent audit of current control room costs by PKF (forensic accountants) who had been asked to do this by the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG).
Changes since the previous version of the Business Case:
- the previous estimate of current national control room costs had reduced by around £15m; - the forecast national regional control centre (RCC) running costs had increased by £3m (this was understandable due to the greater visibility of the contracts that were being let); - national net costs (before resilience payments) were now projected at £3.4m above the projected costs across England (5% increase) rather than the previously predicted saving of £14m (18% saving); - five of the nine regions were expected to lose; - officers had originally been assured that there would be 30% savings and that the new control centre would not cost more money. The concern was that if further iterations were produced the cost increase across England might be greater. The South East was slightly different – everything was done on a regional basis and costs were predicated on that. Savings of £1½ m were forecast for the South East and in London costs had increased by £2m. CLG had added an annual resilience payment to those “losing regions” and therefore London would gain an extra payment of £2m per annum.
Resilience Payments:
- the resilience payment would be paid on a regional net basis. Therefore if the South East made savings overall but some FRAs lost, nothing would be provided to those individual FRAs. One or two FRAs in the South East would lose as a result although Oxfordshire would not. This might be a reason to review the intra-regional cost apportionment model; - the intra-regional cost apportionment model was based on population and was designed to be as predictable and stable as possible. Factoring in call volumes resulted in volatility and therefore it was questionable whether this was the model of choice.
Unknowns:
- it wasn’t known how long the resilience payment would be made for, whether the figures quoted in the Business Case represented planned payments, whether there would be a further review of costs/savings to recalculate the payments at a later date and whether the payment would be made as a specific grant or handled through the general government grant system.
Cost Breakdown:
- the cost breakdown showed how funds to run the control room would be spent. The largest portion (£3.6m) had been allocated to ‘Other’ which was 41% of the total funds. This was surprising as any control room environment was predominantly staff based and therefore staffing costs were usually a larger percentage of costs than any other factor. Staffing had been allocated £3.2m (36%) and accommodation £2.0m (23%). The accommodation was a PFI led initiative led by CLG. FRAs had very little involvement or ability to change the scale of provision.
The South East Position
How credible are the RCC cost estimates?:
- the forecast was based on assumptions: some of which were fixed (eg lease and IT costs), some of which were subject to RCC decisions (eg staffing) and some of which would evolve further (eg rates and utility costs); - it wasn’t known how much the buildings would cost to run; - if the forecast was accepted as a yardstick of what the RCC would cost, in ballpark terms “it ought to be there or thereabouts”; - £0.218m was included for activities expected to be undertaken locally by FRAs. This seemed out of step with the anticipated costs in this area. It was not yet known how this would be sub divided in the South East; - the figures were based on returns made by FRAs as part of the exercise coordinated recently by PKF; - it was difficult to avoid the conclusion that the savings that could be made were overstated. For example: § it was assumed that 100% of existing staffing costs would be saved. Although the aforementioned allowance was included in RCC costs for FRA work, at less that £25k per brigade, this looked inadequate; § no adjustment had been made to reflect non-control activities undertaken in control rooms; § an assumption that 20% of accommodation and management costs would become cashable savings was untested; § there needed to be certainty that the IT infrastructure expenditure reported in returns related purely to control activity and did not include wider network costs. Some figures from other brigades in the region looked out of kilter, which raised the question of whether Oxfordshire was representing the figures in the same way as other FRAs.
What does the situation look like at FRA level?
- the RCC cost share was the future estimate of how much the regional control centre should cost each authority – officers had grave concerns about the figure given for Oxfordshire; - current costs represented PKF’s estimate of the true cost. Oxfordshire did not recognise this level of current “in scope” costs; - the fourth column of the table represented the apparent saving to each authority but it didn’t represent the real position, as it would be dependent upon how much an authority needed to spend on out of scope activities. Oxfordshire’s position appeared favourable with a 20% saving but this did not seem like a credible figure.
Wider Concerns
- the national costs were not yet fixed; - the regional apportionment of these costs was not yet agreed; - regional costs were based on apportioning across England. If CLG had its preferred solution it would be apportioning national costs on the basis of population, which would give the South East 16% of the costs. Consultation was currently underway. If a different method of apportionment was used then costs would be different. - the intra-regional cost sharing model (based on population) could be revisited; - the true costs of the RCC could be higher than currently envisaged by CLG; - the South East Fire and Rescue Service Control Centre Ltd (SEFRCC Ltd) could elect staff to a higher level than envisaged, which would increase the cost above current levels.
Next Steps
- the Regional Management Board (RMB) would meet to discuss the Business Case in October; - meanwhile, the Joint Project Board had met and had agreed to undertake further detailed work on the published Business Case and to ensure full transparency between the information supplied via the PKF audit and that used in the Business Case; - DCLG’s view was that that the Business Case was based on the best information available to them to date. Officers were permitted to submit evidence to the contrary by 30 September, which they had undertaken to consider; - West Sussex FRA would co-ordinate a response. All FRAs were reviewing their current cost information to satisfy themselves that the assumed savings would be cashable; - SEFRCC Ltd were also making a response from their perspective. The Committee then conducted a question and answer session. A selection of the Committee’s questions, together with the officer’s responses, are listed below:
· What did Mr Thomas see as the main benefit of the new control room?
The main benefit would be resilience. The secondary benefit would be the state of the art mobilising systems where the best was available to all rather than parts of a very good system available to some. From a cost point of view the reduction of control room staff would be a financial benefit.
However, what had never been recognised by the government and was of concern to FRAs was that a new and different relationship would be established between the staff on the ground and the staff taking the calls. There was a very good relationship between them at present. In future, when staff were mobilised by data there wouldn’t be any personal relationships between the two and they might not feel duty bound to support one another. This was a major obstacle to overcome.
· A number of serious incidents had occurred following the regionalisation of the ambulance service – had Oxfordshire Fire & Rescue Service learnt any lessons from this?
There was not a direct parallel between the two as the ambulance service had been regionalised, followed later by the slow movement of the control centres; whereas in the Fire and Rescue situation only the control centres were being regionalised. Mr Thomas conceded that there would be some areas of similarity and undertook to look for parallels with the regionalisation of the ambulance service (in terms of their control centres) to see if there were any lessons that could be learnt from this in relation to the South East Fire & Rescue Service Control Centre.
· What impact would the lack of knowledge in the regional centre of the road systems have on service delivery? Satellite navigation systems were not always accurate and could lead crews in the wrong direction. How could local knowledge and up to date road maps informed by this be used?
The concept of local knowledge was important but could be overstated for all sorts of reasons. Control room staff had a certain level of knowledge but didn’t all live in the county due to the cost of living. Therefore, current knowledge was not based on a 1950’s model of locality. However, the responding crews did live in the area and were knowledgeable, especially the retained firefighters. EISIC (a method of ascertaining the location of the caller from the telephone line) would be part of the new package. Some functionality was currently available to OF&RS, but this information did not appear on screen instantly as it would under the new system. The new system would produce a grid reference. New mobile data terminals would also be provided, as would satellite navigation equipment. The satellite navigation equipment would be used as an aid but not on its own. Officers had undertaken work comparing the national dataset against local knowledge. There was a high match, but officers would be undertaking additional work where gaps had been identified. Each appliance would have automatic vehicle location equipment in it so that crews could be informed if they were going in the wrong direction.
· Would gaining state of the art technology be one of the benefits of the new control room?
Local knowledge supplemented by good technology would be the optimum situation. The service would move to a position where it would have the best technology available but it would be important to ensure that local knowledge within its own staff was the best that it could be.
· Had the costs of other work being carried out by control room staff been taken into account by PKF? Had officers expressed this concern to them?
This concern had been expressed to PKF and CLG on a number of occasions. The FRA response would be specifically identifying those types of anomalies and officers would reiterate their views on those costs.
Following the question and answer session the Committee AGREED:
· to thank Mr Thomas for his presentation; · to forward the following advice to Mr Thomas:
This Scrutiny Committee strongly supports the concerns expressed by the Oxfordshire Fire & Rescue Service both relating to finance and to timing and asks that these problems continue to be addressed
· that due to the lack of clarity, it would not be appropriate to conduct a scrutiny review into the issues at this point of time. However, this Committee might wish to consider undertaking a review in future should the situation change.
39/08 NOMINATIONS TO SCRUTINY REVIEW INTO DEBT AND MONEY ADVICE (Agenda Item 7)
In July this Committee had nominated Councillor McIntosh-Stedman and possibly Councillor Charles Mathew* to the Lead Member Review Group for this Scrutiny Review.
*Councillor Mathew had stated that he wished to have sight of the scoping template prior to making a final decision. On 2 June 2008 the Scrutiny Co-ordinating Group had agreed a process for the management of the scrutiny work programme, including the need to nominate four named members who were willing to take part in a review. The Committee was asked to nominate an additional two members to this review.
The Committee AGREED to nominate Councillors Service and Hannaby to join Councillors McIntosh-Stedman and Mathew on the Lead Member Review Group for this piece of work.
40/08 SCRUTINY WORK PROGRAMME (Agenda Item 8)
The Committee noted the scrutiny work programme (CM8).
41/08 UPDATE ON CORONER’S BILL/CORONER’S CASELOAD AND INTERACTION WITH OXFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL SCRUTINY REVIEW (Agenda Item 9)
This item had been included on the agenda to inform the Committee of current progress on the review and to enable Councillors to ask questions on areas of interest.
Councillor Mathew reported as follows:
· the Coroner’s Review Group on the Coroner’s Court still awaited the publication of a White Paper which was currently scheduled to be announced in the Queen’s Speech on 4 December this year. The Ministry of Justice envisaged that the provisions of any ensuing legislation would, however, probably be phased in over a five year period;
· discussions had been taking place between Oxfordshire County Council and Thames Valley Police as to the possible transfer of responsibility for the Coroner’s officers to the county council. Officers from this council were also actively discussing the matter with their counterparts in other Thames Valley authorities. It was not at all likely, now, that the transfer would take place in April 2009. Discussions were likely to be around improving the current arrangements and paving the way for a potential future transfer;
· these matters were fundamental to the final recommendations which the scrutiny review would advance and might affect the draft recommendations which had been published previously;
· Oxfordshire County Council would be hosting the next meeting of the South East Region of local authority officers who supported coroner work. This would take place on 9 December and would be an opportunity for officers to discuss some of the immediate implications of any proposed legislation. This would enable officers to report quickly to the Lead Member Review Group on the implications for their scrutiny review;
· the promised pamphlet for the bereaved to explain the role of the Coroner and his duties was in the process of being drafted, having regard to best practice elsewhere and in liaison with the coroner himself;
· there had however, been a very good rate of progress in dealing with outstanding coroner casework. In July 2007 there had been a combined total of 266 outstanding military and Oxfordshire inquests. By July this year this had been reduced down to 172. Assistant Deputy Coroner Mr Andrew Walker had one military inquest scheduled for two weeks this October and then one further case which it was hoped would be concluded by the end of this calendar year;
· Councillor Mathew reminded the Committee that the Wiltshire Coroner had been responsible for all Lyneham military repatriations since April 2007 and that the Oxfordshire Coroner was not expected to resume responsibility for military repatriations until Brize Norton undertook that role again – which was not expected until at least this time next year.
Councillor Mathew undertook to circulate a copy of the draft pamphlet for the bereaved to all members of this Committee once it was available.
42/08 NAGS SELECT COMMITTEE: EVALUATION OF PROGRESS IMPLEMENTING THE RECOMMENDATIONS (Agenda Item 10)
[Lead Member Review Group comprises Councillors Rodney Rose, Carol Viney and Nicholas P. Turner].
The recommendations arising from the select committee investigation into ‘How can Oxfordshire County Council and County Councillors best engage with the County’s Neighbourhood Action Groups’ had been considered by the Cabinet in October 2007.
It was nearly a year since Cabinet consideration. Therefore it was now time to review progress regarding implementation of the review recommendations.
Chief Superintendent Brendan O’Dowda and Inspector Andy Talbot (Thames Valley Police), Mr Paul James (Head of Partnership Working), Mr Nigel Strick (Head of Community Safety and Trading Standards) and Ms Anastasia Hargreaves-Hands (Oxford City Community Safety Officer) all attended before the Committee in order to answer questions regarding progress made implementing those recommendations which had been accepted by the Cabinet and by Thames Valley Police. Councillor Ian Hudspeth, the Cabinet Member for Transport, also attended for this item to give his view on matters that needed addressing regarding how the NAGs were dealing with transport issues.
The Committee had before it the results of a questionnaire which had been circulated to all County Councillors asking them a number of questions about their local NAG, together with some piecharts which summarised the key trends from the responses, a draft flyer for the NAGs marketplace event, and a consultation paper produced by Thames Valley Police: ‘Effective Neighbourhood Action Groups: A Good Practice Briefing’.
The piecharts before the Committee showed that just under half of respondents had been invited to a NAG meeting (12/26), were a member of a NAG (12/26), regularly received notice of meetings (11/26) and felt that their NAG worked well (12/26),with 9 answering ‘no’ and 5 ‘don’t know’ for the last question.
Mrs Carole Stow (Consultation and Marketing Manager) summarised the qualitative feedback arising from the survey responses as follows:
· Twenty-six out of a total of seventy-four County Councillors had responded to the survey. The last section of the survey enabled them to feed back general comments about their experience of the county’s NAGs. This perhaps provided the richest data and would provide a useful springboard for today’s evaluation. The respondents had wished to remain anonymous so that their relationship with Thames Valley Police (TVP) and the Neighbourhood Action Groups (NAGs) was not compromised;
· The comments had fallen under the broad headings of communications, the administration of NAGs, the role of NAGs and outcomes for communities, the geographical structure of NAGs, timing of NAG meetings and overall performance. Both positive and negative comments had been received. There was also concern about County Councillor representation on the NAGs and the TVP consultation process in general.
The Committee then assessed the implementation of each recommendation in turn by considering the evidence before them on the tracking document and questioning the relevant witnesses.
R1 Request Oxfordshire County Council’s Partnerships Unit to produce a user-friendly information pack for Councillors, which sets out: a) The role of Neighbourhood Action Groups (NAGs) and the role of councillors at all three tiers of government in relation to NAGs; b) How to get involved with NAGs; c) The role of and activities undertaken by all the different organisations which might be called on to address the issues raised by NAGs and key contact numbers within each organisation; and d) A chart which sets out the existing lines of reporting to address community safety issues, including where the county’s Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs) sit within the overall community safety structure.
Mr James stated that a lot of the actions in the above recommendation were underway. The Partnerships Unit had picked up the governance and communication issues as part of the Partnerships Governance Review, which covered a broad range of areas, including NAGs and how to get involved. The review had evolved partly as a result of the NAGs select committee and from other scrutiny requests. This had been signed up to by the County and District Councils, the police, the PCT and the voluntary sector organisations that the County Council worked with.
The Public Service Board (PSB) had received a report in the past week on improving the membership of the partnerships and the partnership options. The PSB would consider further options in November and there would be further consultation on the final issues, with a view to getting the principles in the review agreed in January. By the end of the financial year information would be in the public domain setting out a list of all the different partnerships, who was on them, and where to access their agendas and papers on the internet. This information would include clarification of the relationship between the CDRPs, the NAGs and the Safer Communities Unit. Much of this information was already in existence but would be formalised.
Councillor Jelf stated that the Banbury NAG had produced an excellent guide on NAGs and suggested that it should be used county wide.
R2 Request Thames Valley Police to produce a comprehensive governance framework for use by all of the county’s NAGs to ensure that they all operate to similar terms of reference, including how NAG members are recruited and trained.
Chief Superintendent O’Dowda stated that consultation had taken place at Force level with all of the NAGs. The key issue for everyone was how NAGs escalated issues to the correct individuals or departments. The document before the Committee entitled ‘Effective Neighbourhood Action Groups: A Good Practice Briefing’ clarified how this should be done.
Councillor Rose asked why the TVP good practice briefing paper was in consultation stage when the Committee had asked for governance arrangements to be drawn up at its meeting in July 2007.
Inspector Talbot apologised for the delay and stated that he had wanted to take prompt action in Oxfordshire but had felt it best to wait until the Thames Valley wide consultation took place [the draft good practice briefing that was before the Committee]. TVP wished to agree the document as soon as possible and it would be ratified within the next fortnight. He added that the fact that all of the county’s NAGs were now up and running had enabled a better document to be produced, rather than rushing it through too early.
A member of the Committee commented that her local NAG had not wanted their minutes to be sent to the Council as individuals had been named in them, and therefore it was hard to know how much information should be provided to Councillors, who did need to be informed of what their NAG was doing.
Inspector Talbot confirmed that there should be no secrecy around the work of the NAGs and that nothing sensitive should be recorded in the minutes/action notes, especially not the names of individuals.
The Cabinet Member for Community Safety stated that she was concerned because as a local member she had not known of any NAG meetings in Faringdon East until very recently and only one of the three district councillors in the division had heard about the meeting. She added that she had not been provided with any minutes.
This comment was endorsed by another Councillor who stated that she had not received any minutes from her local NAG and had not been able to find out who to contact.
The Chief Superintendent responded that the aim from the beginning had been that NAGs should evolve and that one size should not fit all. However, the time had now come for each NAG to have clarity around membership arrangements, chairing (although the police had originally chaired the NAGs, the chairmen/women should now be independent), routine forwarding of the minutes/action notes to Councillors, and that information should be placed on the Thames Valley Police’s web site and on the County Council’s web site. He further stated that officers had tried to encourage the Chairmen of the NAGs to publish their minutes, agendas and dates of future meetings, although performance did vary across the county.
Inspector Talbot undertook to ensure that action notes/minutes were routinely sent to local Councillors, as it did not appear to be happening county wide.
In response to a suggestion by the Cabinet Member for Community Safety, Ms Coldwell undertook to provide Inspector Talbot with a list of parishes in each division together with the named Councillor for each parish, in order to enable the minutes/action notes from each NAG to be sent to the appropriate Councillors (a number of Councillor’s divisions cut across the NAG boundaries).
Councillor Hudspeth stated that the NAGs’ top three priorities tended to be speeding, parking and anti-social behaviour. He asked Thames Valley Police how the county council should feed into the process to address these issues and if work was being duplicated. He expressed concern that the NAGs were coming forward with solutions and ideas to problems that were already being dealt with by the county council. He further expressed concern that those individuals raising issues with the NAGs were being told by the NAGs that Oxfordshire County Council would address the issues. He asked whether the NAGs should be giving that message to them.
Councillor Hudspeth further stated that the creation of the NAGs seemed to have lead to a reduction in the police attending town and parish council meetings and that the county council was having to resource matters that it did not have any input into. He added that officers were already attending traffic and other meetings and dealing with the issues, yet the perception was that the county council was not responding to the NAGs when it did not respond through that route. He asked whether the county council should be responding to the NAGs or whether they should be dealing with issues through the normal process.
Inspector Talbot conceded that this was a valid point. He stated that the NAGs’ priorities raised across the county normally fitted into five categories. The NAGs should ensure that they obtained their priorities from the local community so that a single issue from one person was not fed through. The SARA problem solving method should be used, then the correct channels for addressing the issue. Inspector Talbot conceded that the NAGs should not be duplicating work which was already being addressed elsewhere and that there were some instances that needed addressing. Effective engagement and problem solving were key to this.
The Chief Superintendent stated that some of the county’s NAGs could be operating a lot better, although there was some excellent work taking place across the NAGs relating to speeding, criminal damage and acquisitive crime. He further stated that the Green Paper ‘From the Neighbourhood to the National: Policing our Communities Together’ contained a new policing pledge which the police service had committed to. This included the need to publicise information about the local neighbourhood policing team, including how members of the public could contact their local team and what response they could expect when they did. He further stated that NAG meetings needed to be publicised a year ahead so that the community knew when meetings would be held. This would enable them to escalate issues to their NAGs through their elected members. The Chief Superintendent added that it would be helpful if NAG meetings were held at the same time and location, for example, on the first Tuesday of every month. He conceded that in cases where the police chaired the NAGs their operation could be affected if they were taken off the NAGs to perform other duties. Appointing independent Chairmen to the NAGs would solve the problem.
R3 Request Thames Valley Police to ensure that the relevant local councillors are provided with electronic copies of action notes/ minutes from the NAG meetings in their division so that they are kept informed of their activities, as is the practice with the City’s NAGs.
This recommendation had already been discussed as part of the previous recommendation. R4 Request Thames Valley Police to report the main issues arising from NAGs to the relevant district Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership every two months, in order to ensure that they are kept informed of NAG activity and their key issues.
Mr James stated that everyone concerned supported the recommendation that the NAGs should communicate with the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs). He added that work was underway and that he would address this issue further when he spoke regarding Recommendation 7.
The Chief Superintendent stated that links between the NAGs and other structures varied across the county, for example, the city’s NAGs were aligned to the area committees. Not all policing areas had a policing committee. He stated that he wanted his five Local Area Commanders to ensure, together with the CDRPs, that they met regularly with the NAG chairmen to discuss best practice, adding that the LPA Commander within the CDRP should lead on this piece of work.
The Cabinet Member for Community Safety stated that when she had sat on West Oxfordshire CDRP she had felt that there were too many tiers of communication. It had been agreed to cancel the police board in that area as they felt that the CDRPS and the NAGs should report directly to each other.
The Chief Superintendent stated that the local area policing boards were mechanisms to enable the police to consult with the public and that the NAGs were now carrying out this function.
R5 Request Thames Valley Police to ensure that the county’s NAGs’ priorities are fed into the annual Strategic Intelligence Assessment; which will then feed into the Local Area Agreement, Sustainable Community Strategy and Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership Strategies.
Mr James stated that this had been a success story. Strategic intelligence was now being used to inform the County’s targets. The new Local Area Agreement (LAA) had been signed off in June 2008. Strategic Intelligence had been very successful in bringing together a much wider range of opinion from data surveys, which had looked at what was important to the people of Oxfordshire. Officers were starting to plan how they would target resources at their priorities based on this data, including what was being said at the CDRPs.
Mr Strick confirmed that the entire recommendation had been adopted by all concerned. He added that the only slight gap was around traffic related issues which were not already being dealt with by the Oxfordshire Safer Communities Partnership (OSCP) but were being dealt with directly by the transport partnerships.
Mr Strick undertook to ascertain the concerns that the county’s NAGs had expressed regarding transport related issues and to bring them into the remit of the OSCP.
The Chief Superintendent stated that Inspectors had been asked if they were aware of the antisocial hotspots in their vicinity. He added that they were being asked to look at data for incidents of antisocial behaviour for the previous year and to reduce this by 5% this year and therefore reach the partnership target relating to reducing antisocial behaviour.
R6 Request Thames Valley Police to send a report setting out the current priorities identified by the county’s NAGs to the Head of Partnership Working, for dissemination.
The Committee noted the response on the tracking document.
R7 Request the Head of Partnership Working to look into whether the county’s Local Area Co-ordinators could be asked to ensure that the county’s NAGs’ priorities are properly represented in the forums in which the county council plays a part.
Mr James stated that it had not been possible to action this recommendation as the role of the Local Area Co-ordinators had changed.
However, the Oxfordshire Partnership had undertaken an audit of the governance of the partnerships as previously mentioned, including the Safer Communities Partnership and the District CDRPs. Their recommendations were being driven by a group including two district council representatives and the PCT. Some discussions had also taken place with the police. It was important to ensure that the membership of the partnerships was correct and that the outcomes of meetings were made publicly available. It was anticipated that all of this information should be put onto the County Council’s website, including contact names and email addresses. The final options would need to be finalised by January 2010 and the Public Service Board wanted them up and running from March 2010 onwards.
Mr James added that the Change Board had given £6000 to ICT to enable them to improve the way in which local information for Councillors was presented and undertook to ensure that information relating to the County’s NAGs would be included on the County Council’s Website as part of these improvements. He further stated that in future, information for Councillors would be organised around localities rather than by subject area.
Ms Hargreaves-Hands undertook to speak to the county’s CDRPs to confirm that information relating to them could be put on the NAGs web page that she was setting up on the County Council’s web site, which would include links to relevant partners.
The Chief Superintendent stated that Thames Valley Police would have an interactive data platform up and running by this December. This would enable a citizen to enter their postcode in order to view information regarding crimes and incidents in their neighbourhood.
R8 Ask officers to consider adding a target to next year’s Local Area Agreement, which will include local priorities, to ensure that issues identified by the Neighbourhood Action Groups are given a higher profile.
Mr Strick stated that their negotiations had been successful, with five community safety targets being included in the second LAA. He added that the target for National Indicator 21 was the most important (the perception of the response by the County Council and the police to local concerns about crime and disorder).
R9 Request the new Community Safety Officer in the county council’s Safer Communities Unit to organise the Unit’s proposed “marketplace” information event (as detailed on page 17 of the report) for Neighbourhood Sergeants and PCSOs, which would provide them with details of responsibility and contacts for main services, an overview of local provision and accurate information for NAGs to access.
The Marketplace event had been booked for 28 November. Oxfordshire County Council was leading on this as part of its statutory duty to reduce crime and disorder and therefore its function was to facilitate these types of events.
R10 Request Thames Valley Police to offer training to all groups whose services and resources could support NAGs, in order to increase the capacity and effectiveness of NAGs and mitigate against officer overload.
Inspector Talbot reported that problem solving training had been delivered during June 2008. He stated that problem solving was key to NAGs’ effectiveness and avoiding officer overload; if the proper tools and techniques were utilised then everything else should fall into place.
Councillor Hannaby commented that she had attended one of the training sessions and had found it very useful.
R11 Request Oxfordshire’s Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships to provide training for the county’s NAG members on the work of existing community safety structures and processes in order to raise awareness.
Mr James undertook to ensure that a recommendation that a forward looking training programme should be delivered for the partnerships would be included as part of the Partnerships Governance Review and conceded that there was still more to do to at all levels of the partnership in this respect.
R12 Request that the Oxfordshire Rural Forum be approached to assist with addressing priorities raised by the county’s rural NAGs in order to ensure that use is made of existing networks in the community.
Inspector Talbot stated that he had given a presentation to the Oxfordshire Rural Forum on 17 July 2008 which had included an overview of Neighbourhood Policing and the role of NAGs.
Mr James stated that this had been a very useful briefing. Further work was now being undertaken to try to develop the role of the Rural Forum, for example, in relation to the rural economy and crime and safety in rural areas.
R13 Ask Oxfordshire County Council’s Media & Communications Unit to include a feature on Neighbourhood Policing and NAGs in a future edition of the Oxfordshire Magazine, which sets out the range of assistance which can be provided by a range of county council and other service providers in order to prevent officer overload.
The Committee noted the information on the tracking document.
R14 Request Thames Valley Police to ask each of the county’s NAGs to produce an annual report which evaluates the NAG’s performance over the previous year, in order to: ● assess its performance and identify any work which still needs to be done; and ● celebrate success; The annual report could then be used to judge the effectiveness of each NAG.
Inspector Talbot stated that there were no plans for annual reports in the form that the Committee had envisaged. However, internally the police were completing neighbourhood priority profiles for each priority, which were updated regularly, with neighbourhood updates every two months. Inspector Talbot emphasised that it was important to use the neighbourhood priority profiles, as sticking to the same format would ensure that the NAGs worked to the SARA problem solving model.
The Chief Superintendent stated that the Force held a number of performance review meetings in which the CDRPs and others were involved. This included looking at the quality of the completed neighbourhood priority profiles, the abstraction profiles (officers being put onto other duties) and that the whole Neighbourhood Team was held to account.
Mr Strick stated that he welcomed the identification of the best NAGs and for best practice to be shared between the NAGs. He added that they would need to be monitored and that it might be necessary to do this on an annual basis. R15 Request Thames Valley Police to ask NAG Chairs to send NAG annual reports to relevant contacts at the county’s parish, town, and district councils and to the county council, to enable the respective authorities to judge how any reports relating to their vicinity meet corporate priorities.
This recommendation had already been discussed as part of recommendation 14.
R16 Urge the Police Authority to request that there is a full cohort of police resources for NAGs in place to help to ensure that NAGs in Oxfordshire are robustly supported and that there is no downgrading of funding priorities for Neighbourhood Action Groups in future.
Inspector Talbot reported that the resources were in place, from PCSOs upwards, as follows:
· 160 PCSOs (Police Community Support Officers). This was very good as the establishment figure was 158. There was a turnover rate of 15% as some PCSOs moved on to become police officers; · 50 NSOs (Neighbourhood Specialist Officers) – Ring fenced 95%; · 20 Neighbourhood Sergeants; · 14 Neighbourhood Inspectors with a role that encompassed a wide range of areas including Neighbourhood Policing.
The posts of Neighbourhood Administrative Assistant were also being recruited to with half a post for each Local Policing Area (LPA)/district. Officers would be short-listing and interviewing within the next few weeks. Neighbourhood Administrators for the Vale and South were already in post. They were also hoping to have recruited approximately 49 to 50 special constables by the end of the year, who would also be aligned to Neighbourhoods.
Councillor Service then asked if Thames Valley Police had the resources to deal with traffic survey requests.
Inspector Talbot stated that if speeding had been identified as a priority then this would be investigated. The Force would work with the County Council to ascertain the level of speeding. He stated that the Force did have the resources to address this and that PCSOs operated the speed indicator devices. This could be done supported by special constables and Neighbourhood Support Officers as part of the problem solving process.
The Cabinet Member for Community Safety stated that the county council could not action the volume of requests for speed monitoring that it was receiving from the NAGs. She added that the county council was being expected to resource something that was not necessarily a county council responsibility as the police authority had the records. She added that the county council’s insurance did not cover civilians and therefore it was not appropriate for civilians to be carrying out the checks themselves. TVP were supplying the resource where possible.
A member of the committee stated that police officers had told her local NAG that there were not the resources to carry out speed checks and that they were trying to get the parishes to carry out the speed checks, but they did not have the resources either. At present, the issue was being passed to Local Authorities. She asked the Chief Superintendent to ensure that his officers on the NAGs realised that there were the resources within TVP to do this.
Councillor Mathew asked for clarification regarding the availability of transport for the PCSOs to the NAG meetings.
Inspector Talbot stated that all the PCSOs that needed a bicycle had one. In terms of vehicles the Basic Command Unit had looked at the fleet and there would now be more pooled vehicles for everyone to use including by the Neighbourhood Teams.
The Committee thanked all of the witnesses for attending and AGREED to evaluate further progress at its 6 July 2009 meeting.
42/08 TRACKING SCRUTINY ITEMS (Agenda Item 11)
Report back on advice by this Committee to the Cabinet or Council.
· Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership Strategies
In July, when considering the above strategies, the Committee agreed that it did not see the need to offer any advice to the Cabinet as substantial activity to address crime and disorder was clearly underway.
The Committee noted that on 15 July the Cabinet had agreed to recommend the Council to approve the CDRP strategies, who had duly approved the strategies.
43/08 FORWARD PLAN (Agenda Item 12)
The Committee was asked to suggest items from the current Forward Plan on which it might have wished to have an opportunity to offer advice to the Cabinet before any decision was taken.
No items had been identified for consideration.
................................................................................... in the Chair
Date of signing.................................................................. 2008
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