Agenda and minutes

A webcast of the meeting can be viewed at: http://council.webcast.vualto.com/leicestershire-county-council/home/?EventId=18678

The Chairman invited the PCC to make a statement on the Chief Executive of the OPCC. The PCC stated the following:

“The Panel have asked for an update on Paul Stock, Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner Chief Executive who has been on long term sick leave since October 2016. I have been closely linked in with the Force HR Team throughout Paul’s absence and HR processes have been followed. I will keep the Panel updated as appropriate and between meetings of the Panel, I will continue to keep the Chairman updated.”

The PCC also thanked staff at the OPCC for their contribution to the work of the team in Paul Stock’s absence.

The Panel expressed its best wishes to Paul Stock.

The minutes of the Confirmatory Hearing held on 23 September 2016 were taken as read, confirmed and signed subject to paragraph 6 of Minute 23 being amended to read that “The PCC was quoted in the Leicester Mercury prior to his election in May 2016…”

The minutes of the meeting held on 5 December 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 Police and Crime Panel considered a report of the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) concerning the Commissioning Framework. A copy of the report, marked “Agenda Item 6” is filed with these minutes.

Arising from discussions the following points were noted:

·         The PCC intended to simplify contractual arrangements between the OPCC and those organisations that were granted funding so that there would be one contract with each organisation rather than individual contracts for each funding stream they were receiving.

·         The Panel welcomed the intention of the PCC to provide funding for the Supporting Leicestershire Families and the Think Family schemes. It was noted that there had been criticism of Troubled Families schemes nationally however both the PCC and Panel members agreed that schemes in Leicester and Leicestershire had been successful as they had put a local slant on the scheme to maximise the benefits. It was noted that there was not a quantifiable financial return from investing in Troubled Families schemes however there were significant benefits to the Police, NHS and other organisations.

·         The PCC intended to increase the amount of funding to Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) and stated that he looked forward to discussing with CSP Chairs how the extra funding what be utilised. The PCC did not intend to be prescriptive regarding how the funding was used as he was of the view that individual CSPs had the knowledge and expertise to understand what was required in their localities.

·         The investment of over £70k in Out of Court Disposals would be spent on tackling domestic abuse and substance misuse.

·         The Panel welcomed the proposed use of Performance Indicators to assess how well funding was being used, however it was noted that the Police and Crime Plan did not include any targets and the PCC had previously stated that he was not in favour of targets. The PCC explained that whilst he was not in favour of hard targets he did believe it was important to monitor how public money was being spent and therefore he was in favour of Key Performance Indicators being used. It was suggested by a Panel member that the level of monitoring should be proportionate to the level of funding provided so that organisations that had only received a small amount of funding were not spending a large amount of time filling out monitoring returns. The PCC agreed with this approach and stated that the process would be more streamlined with less monitoring for smaller grants and more monitoring for higher level grants.

·         With regard to commissioning Youth Prevention and Diversion initiatives it was explained that originally the process was that funding was given to Leicester City Council and Leicestershire County Council and then the County Council would allocate its share to the District Councils. However, it had subsequently been agreed with the County Council that the funding for the Districts would go straight to the Districts and not via the County Council.

RESOLVED:

That the report and comments of the Panel, as outlined above, 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 the PCC which provided further explanation of his Plan. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 7’, is filed with these minutes.

The Chairman welcomed the Chief Constable to the meeting for this item. The PCC paid tribute to the Chief Constable and officers in the OPCC for the role they had played in developing the Plan.

Arising from discussion the following points were made:

·         Substantial changes had been made to the Plan since it was considered by the Panel at the previous meeting. Comments made by the Panel and other partners had been taken account of and incorporated into the latest draft. An additional theme had been added to the Plan which was entitled ‘Viable Partnerships’. The PCC felt it was important to add this theme because the other four ‘V’s’ did not demonstrate that effective partnership working was essential for the Plan to be implemented successfully. The Panel welcomed the additional focus on partnership working.

·         The PCC acknowledged that more work needed to be done to broaden the demographics of those that responded to the survey for the Police and Crime Plan. The Panel agreed that this was an important issue to focus on.

·         The Panel noted that there was no reference in the aims of the Plan to improving public confidence in the Police and it was felt that this could be a stronger theme as confidence can be increased by increased visibility, ease of access to police services, or providing a sufficiently robust response to specific crime or problems in a specific locality. The PCC agreed that it was important to improve public confidence in the Police. It was noted that public confidence in the Police was routinely measured by local surveys.

·         It was suggested that the aims relating to victim services at point 40 of the Plan should include reference to monitoring victim satisfaction. The PCC acknowledged that this was a good point and agreed to give consideration to including victim satisfaction in the Plan.

·         The PCC intended to focus on what was best for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland and would bear this in mind when making decisions on whether to enter regional collaborations with other Forces. However, decisions not to take part in collaborations would be reviewed regularly to ascertain whether circumstances had changed and if it had become in the best interests of the Force to join the collaboration.

·         One of the PCC’s aims was to broaden the scope of the 101 telephone service so that it could deal with wider issues than just reporting crime. The PCC further explained that he did not want the 101 service to merely give out phone numbers for other services but wanted it to be able to make referrals to other agencies without the caller having to put the phone down. However, the PCC made it clear that he would not continue to invest in the 101 service if it became apparent that the investment was not producing results and improvements were not being made. The Panel welcomed the aim to improve the 101 service.

·         The Chairman noted that at point 24 the Plan referred to diversity and he suggested that the threat vulnerable people can face from radicalisation could be included at this point in the Plan. The PCC accepted this point and agreed to give it further consideration.

·         The Panel welcomed the intention in the Plan to increase the number of black and minority ethnic  ...  view the full minutes text for item 53.

The Panel considered a report of the Police and Crime Commissioner concerning the Proposed Precept for 2017/18 and the Medium Term Financial Strategy. A copy of the report, marked “Agenda Item 8”, is filed with these minutes.

The PCC and his Chief Finance Officer in introducing the item made the following points:

·         The provisional Police Grant Settlement referred to in the report had now been confirmed and it was considered to be less positive for Leicestershire than expected. The amount of ‘topslicing’ was more than predicted. Consequently more savings were required to be made by the Force;

·         Despite the challenging funding position the budget was balanced and would prioritise frontline policing as had been pledged in the PCC’s manifesto;

·         The intended 1.99% precept increase would enable the Force to maintain cash levels but the following years of the MTFS would be particularly challenging. It was noted that the Government might change its 2% precept increase trigger point for a referendum and the PCC would be alive to precepting for a higher rise if he was able to do so without triggering a referendum.

·         It was announced that the PCC would be adding an extra 8 frontline officers with 1 allocated to each of the neighbourhood policing areas. It was noted that there was currently a Police Officer for every 599 citizens in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland whereas a decade ago it was one Officer for every 430 citizens.

Arising from discussions the following points were noted:

·         It was noted that in previous years the Force had been able to bid successfully for funding for specific projects where the funding had been taken from ‘topslicing’ which had resulted in a net gain in the overall budget for Leicestershire Police. Confirmation was given that for the current year every effort was being made to again bid for additional funding for specific projects. There had thus far been two successful transformation bids relating to NICHE and other ICT projects.  However, it was emphasised that the Force would not bid for all available funding as some schemes might not be appropriate for Leicestershire.

·         It was explained that the “flat cash” pledge (referred to in paragraph 9 of the report) referred to statements by Government ministers in 2016 in which they submitted that whilst the Police Grant Settlement would be less for 2017/18, taking into account the ability of PCC’s to raise the Precept by 1.99% this resulted in the same level of funding overall for the Police.

·         With regard to the Funding Formula Review the PCC stated that he and the Chief Constable would be meeting with the Minister on 21 February 2017 to present the case that the current funding formula was not fair to Leicestershire. After this meeting the PCC would meet with 10 MPs from the region to ask them to canvas on behalf of Leicestershire with regard to the Funding Formula. The PCC asked Panel members to help by raising the issue with MPs themselves. It was believed that the new funding formula would run from 2018/19.

·         It was noted that a future financial risk was that auto-enrolment on the pension scheme could increase the amount of people in the pension scheme and therefore the amount of employer’s contributions that would have to be paid. It was confirmed that whilst the amount of Police Officers already in the pension scheme was a very high percentage, the amount of police staff currently in the pension scheme was much lower so there was the potential for many more police staff to join which would significantly affect the level  ...  view the full minutes text for item 54.

The next meeting of the Panel is scheduled to take place on 29 March 2017 at 1:00pm.

RESOLVED:

It was noted that the next meeting of the Panel would be held on 29 March 2017 at 1:00pm.