Agenda and minutes

A webcast of the meeting can be viewed at: http://council.webcast.vualto.com/leicestershire-county-council/home?EventId=17289

The minutes of the meeting held on 23 September 2016 were taken as read, confirmed and signed.

There were no questions submitted.

There were no urgent items for consideration.

The Chairman invited members who wished to do so to declare any interest in respect of items on the agenda for the meeting.

Col. Robert Martin declared a personal interest in respect of all substantive items as the Trustee of “Warning Zone” which was in receipt of some funding from the Police and Crime Commissioner.

Cllr. M. Sood declared a personal interest in respect of all substantive items as a member of the Police’s Independent Advisory Panel, as the Chairman of the Leicester Council of Faiths and a member of the Bishop’s Faith Forum.

The Panel considered a report of the Police and Crime Commissioner which provided an update on the structure and budget of the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC). A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 5’, is filed with these minutes.

Arising from discussions the following points were noted:

(i)            In answer to a question regarding the costs of the OPCC the PCC stated that it was not a target of his to keep the costs of the office below £1 million, as had been the case with the previous PCC. He would implement the structure needed to fulfil his role and the Deputy PCC Kirk Master was leading a review on the appropriate staffing structure for the OPCC. In answer to a question about whether the Deputy PCC was the appropriate person to carry out this task given the short period of time he had been part of the team, the PCC stated that in view of the previous work experience of Kirk Master he was the right person to conduct the review, though he would be assisted by members of the Senior Management Team and the final decisions would be made by the PCC himself. A report on the results of the review would come to a future meeting of the Panel early in 2017and the OPCC would liaise with the Police and Crime Panel Secretariat on its timing.

(ii)          In addition to conducting the staffing review the role of the Deputy PCC would be to attend events that the PCC was unable to attend, lead on community relations, and provide advice particularly in relation to the Prevent Strategy which he had prior experience of from his previous role at the Home Office.

(iii)         Due to the long-term absence of the Chief Executive on sick leave the Head of Governance and Assurance had also been appointed Deputy Chief Executive, in addition to the Deputy Monitoring Officer role she already held.

(iv)         The role of Advisor listed in the structure chart involved providing advice on communications and the Police and Crime Plan, and overseeing the office generally.

(v)          The member of staff in the role of Resources Manager would be leaving the office at the end of the week and the replacement would start in January 2017 on a 9 month fixed term contract.

(vi)         In the table under paragraph 12 in the report, ‘Misconduct Tribunal Costs’ referred to the costs relating to appeal hearings regarding Police Officers who had been dismissed, and the hearings were managed by OPCC staff. It was also explained that the Transitional Reserve was a fund to facilitate arrangements for the new Police and Crime Commissioner.

(vii)        The Deputy Chief Constable had been on the OPCC structure for the previous year as he was the line-manager for the areas of Business Support and Communications which were previously shared between the force and the OPCC, and as these areas were no longer shared the Deputy Chief Constable was no longer listed on the OPCC structure.

(viii)      The OPCC agreed to produce a document which would show which posts were previously in place and whether they remained part of the structure or whether they had been removed. It was also agreed to provide the specific names of the post holders.

(ix)         The Ministry of Justice permitted their Grant for Victims and Witnesses to be used for administrative and staffing costs and this is what Leicestershire OPCC was currently utilising the grant for. Many other regions did the same and in fact they used a greater proportion of the Grant than Leicestershire were for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 42.

The Panel considered a report of the Police and Crime Commissioner which provided an update on the Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) and the Precept considerations for 2017/18. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 6’, is filed with these minutes.

The Chief Finance Officer of the OPCC reported the following:

(i)            There had been a consultation on the precept with local residents and stakeholders via telephone and internet which resulted in 83.3% support for increasing the precept. The PCC confirmed that he was satisfied with the number of respondents who had completed the survey and stated that the 3026 residents who had responded was much higher than the 600 minimum recommended by statisticians for a representative survey. The PCC acknowledged however that the survey was not perfect and some ethnic minorities were underrepresented. He would therefore consider how this could be improved in the surveys he would be conducting in the following years of his term of office. Members asked for a more detailed breakdown of the age, ethnicity and postcode of respondents to the survey and the OPCC agreed to provide this following the meeting.

(ii)          It was confirmed that the Youth Commission was still in existence, with new members currently being recruited, and the Youth Commission was used for consulting on important issues such as the Precept.

(iii)         The review of the Funding Formula appeared to be higher up the political agenda than previously and the PCC had spoken to two Leicestershire Members of Parliament in an attempt to gain their support for a Formula which would be fairer for the force area.

(iv)         The Capital Programme and Estates Strategy was a budgetary pressure which was being monitored in case it turned out to be higher than envisaged, however the Capital Programme was contained and not too many changes were anticipated. It was noted that the decision not to sell Braunstone Police Station would have some impact on the forthcoming MTFS. It was expected that a contribution would have to be made towards the Emergency Services Network as the Home Office would not pay the full cost.

(v)          It was acknowledged that the equalities implications in the report did not take full account of the full implications of carrying out the survey and engaging hard to reach communities. It was suggested by Members that future reports would need to have more regard to this issue.

RESOLVED:

That the contents of the report be noted.

The Panel considered a report of the Police and Crime Commissioner which presented the draft Police and Crime Plan 2017-2021. The Panel also received an oral presentation from Lord Bach which provided further explanation of his Plan. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 7’, and the presentation slides are filed with these minutes.

Arising from the presentation the following points were made:

(i)            This was an early first draft of the Plan and sections were to be added on Governance and holding the Chief Constable to account. It was noted therefore that the Panel’s formal role in reviewing and making recommendations on the Plan would be carried out when the final draft plan was submitted to the Panel in February 2017.

(ii)          The PCC was minded to change the title of the Plan as he felt that it needed to make reference to partnership working. He invited suggestions for the new title.

(iii)         Where the Plan referred to visible policing this did not just refer to being able to see police officers/staff in person but included the public being able to communicate with the Police via social media technology such as Twitter.

(iv)         The Chief Constable had been consulted on the contents of the Plan and was in agreement with the greater part of it. One of the few areas where there was disagreement was the extent to which Police Officers would be visible, but a form of words on this subject for the Plan was being agreed between the Chief Constable and the PCC.

(v)          In response to a question about the lack of targets in the draft Police and Crime Plan and how it could be judged whether the Plan had been successfully implemented, Lord Bach stated that he did not intend to include specific targets in the Plan and was of the view that targets could be misleading and did not provide the complete picture of whether an initiative had been successful. Members stated that the dashboard provided by the former PCC had been of some use in assessing crime data and performance, and in response the PCC made Members aware of the monthly crime report which the force sent to the Home Office which contained some of the information that was in the dashboard. The PCC stated that he was sceptical about crime figures and was of the view that targets were not the only way of judging success.

(vi)         The issue of the lack of targets in the Plan was raised further by Members in regard to commissioning and how Community Safety Partnerships would know how their use of the Commissioning money would be judged. The PCC acknowledged that organisations in receipt of commissioning funding were entitled to a fair assessment criteria but he stated that the clarity on this would not be improved by the setting of targets.  

(vii)        The PCC recognised that cybercrime was an increasingly significant problem and stated that in his view it needed to be tackled more on a regional and national level rather than locally due to the resources required to tackle it. He felt the National Crime Agency should take the lead on cybercrime and stated that he would be using mediums such as the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners to promote the importance of tackling cybercrime. It was asked whether there was a lead PCC for cybercrime and the OPCC agreed to find out and inform Members.

(viii)      The PCC acknowledged that there was at present too little weight given in the Plan to preventative work such as early intervention, the County Council’s Supporting  ...  view the full minutes text for item 44.

The next meeting of the Panel is scheduled to take place on 3 February 2017 at 1:00pm.

RESOLVED:

It was noted that the next meeting of the Panel would be held on 3 February 2017 at 1:00pm.