Agenda and minutes

A webcast of the meeting can be viewed at: https://leicester.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/296034

The minutes of the meeting held on 22 May 2017 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 Chairman sought and obtained the agreement of Members to defer this item to the next meeting of the Panel due to the amount of Members who had given their apologies for this meeting.

A verbal update will be provided by the PCC.

The PCC gave an oral update on progress with appointing a new Chief Executive for the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner. The PCC informed that a recruitment process had been carried out and the post had been advertised in several different forums including The Guardian newspaper, the Jobs Go Public website, and through the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners. There had been 17 applicants for the post, of which 5 were shortlisted for interview and psychometric testing. The interview Panel included the Chief Constable, the Director of Human Resources at Leicestershire Police and a member of the Ethics, Integrity and Complaints Committee. At the end of the recruitment process a decision had been taken not to appoint any of the shortlisted candidates and therefore a new recruitment process would be undertaken. The role would be re-advertised the following week and it was intended that an appointment would be made in September 2017.

In response to a question from the Chairman the PCC explained that The Guardian newspaper had been chosen to advertise the post as it had a reputation for advertising public service jobs, not for any political reasons.

RESOLVED:

That the contents of the oral update be noted.

The Police and Crime Panel considered a report of the Police and Crime Commissioner which presented his Annual Report for 2016/17. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 6’, is filed with these minutes.

In introducing the report the PCC highlighted the following:

(i)        The report covered the period March 2016 to March 2017 and his predecessor Sir Clive Loader had set the budget for that period.

(ii)       With regard to an error in the report the PCC clarified that he came into office on 12 May 2016, he was not elected on that date.

(iii)      Decisions had been made on who would be the successful applicants for small grants from the PCC’s Prevention Fund which aimed to help voluntary and third sector groups support the public safety goals in the Police and Crime Plan and confront pressing community issues. However, those who would receive the funding had not been informed yet and the announcement would be made shortly.

(iv)      Government Ministers had visited the Braunstone Blues project and been impressed, however decisions needed to be made regarding the future funding of this project as the funding would cease at the end of the 2 year trial period.

(v)       The PCC had agreed to invest in CARA (Conditional Cautioning And Relationship Abuse), a project designed to break the cycle of domestic abuse.

Arising from discussions the following points were noted:

(i)        In response to questions the PCC agreed to produce a further report for a future meeting of the Panel regarding the Youth Commission and in particular the demographics of its members. The Chairman stated that it would be helpful for the Panel to be able to speak to some members of the Youth Commission and he invited the PCC to bring some Youth Commission members along to a future Panel meeting. 

(ii)       The PCC had not received a response from the Government to his representations regarding fairer funding for Leicestershire Police, however, he was hopeful that the new Policing Minister Nick Hurd MP appreciated the importance of resolving funding inequalities. The PCC was also aware that a lot of work was going on nationally to impress on the Home Office the perilous nature of the issue. The PCC and the Chief Constable had written to The Guardian newspaper regarding funding cuts and their letter had been published in that newspaper on 28 June 2017.  All new Members of Parliament for Leicestershire had been invited to a meeting with Leicestershire Police to discuss funding cuts however only 2 of those MPs attended. However, the PCC had met with Nicky Morgan MP two weeks previously and a meeting was arranged with Neil O’Brien, the new MP for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, for the following week.

(iii)      In response to a question regarding whether all of the cuts to the Leicestershire Police budget were due to reduced funding from central government the PCC said that whilst there had been a need within Leicestershire Police for efficiency savings, police numbers would not have had to go down by 23% if the funding provided by the government had been reasonable.

(iv)      Clarification was given that whilst the figures in the table on page 15 of the agenda pack appeared to show that 101 call volumes had gone down compared to the previous year, this was because the table did not include April, May, June and July of 2017 and in fact the call volumes were going up. The figures for June 2017 were particularly high. The PCC stated that whilst significant reforms were underway with the 101 telephone service, positive results  ...  view the full minutes text for item 81.

The Police and Crime Panel considered a report of the Police and Crime Commissioner which provided an update on how knife crime was being tackled in Leicestershire. The report was presented by the Deputy PCC Kirk Master. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 7’, is filed with these minutes.

The following points arose from discussions:

(i)        It was questioned whether Victim First needed to carry out more work to discourage victims from carrying knives. The Deputy PCC agreed to give this consideration.

(ii)       In response to questions the Deputy PCC agreed to provide information to the Panel on the demographics of people involved in knife crime to see whether work needed to be carried out with particular communities to raise awareness and tackle the issue.

(iii)      In response to a suggestion that learning packages on knife crime could be developed for Personal and Social Education lessons in secondary schools, the Deputy PCC confirmed that Leicestershire Police were giving this consideration and it had been suggested that the lessons could be conducted by other members of the community with more influence on young people rather than just police officers. A Panel member also suggested that the lessons could include First Aid training for injuries caused by knives and the Deputy PCC stated he was in support of this idea. Reassurance was given that Schools Forums in Leicester City and Leicestershire County were being consulted to make sure there were no objections to these proposals.

RESOLVED:

(i)        That the multi-agency approach taken locally to tackle the increase in knife crime in LLR, which reflects the increase nationally be noted;

(ii)       That the communications messages that Leicestershire Police are producing by raising awareness internally and externally to maximise the reach of the messages be supported;

(iii)      That the preventative activity particularly deployments into schools and organisations for young adults to maximise the consequence messages around knife crime be supported;

(iv)      That the activity of the multi-agency pursue panel in dealing with those causing or likely to cause most harm through their criminal activities be supported.

The Police and Crime Panel considered a report of the Police and Crime Commissioner which provided an update on progress with addressing the issues raised in the HMIC report – PEEL: Police effectiveness 2016. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 8’, is filed with these minutes.

RESOLVED:

That the contents of the report be noted.

The Police and Crime Panel considered a report of the Police and Crime Commissioner which provided an update on progress with re-commissioning the Victim First service. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 9’, is filed with these minutes.

RESOLVED:

(a)       That the contents of the report be noted;

(b)       That the PCC be requested to provide a further report on Victim First for the next meeting of the Panel.

The Police and Crime Panel considered a report of the Police and Crime Commissioner which presented the Ethics, Integrity and Complaints Committee Annual Report 2015/2016. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 10’, is filed with these minutes.

Arising from discussions the following points were noted:

(i)        The Ethics, Integrity and Complaints Committee had decided to include the Ethical Scenarios in the report for public transparency reasons.

(ii)       When carrying out ‘dip sampling’ of complaints files the Committee were provided with a list of numbers from which they chose at random and they would then be provided with the files corresponding with the numbers they had chosen. Usually 30 to 40 files would be chosen on each occasion. On some occasions the Committee would chose a theme such as disability to focus on.

(iii)      Many of the members of the Ethics, Integrity and Complaints Committee worked at universities. In an attempt to broaden the demographics of the Committee additional recruitment had been carried out which resulted in 2 female members of the Panel being added however the majority of the applicants for the role had been of a university background.

RESOLVED:

That the contents of the report be noted.

The next meeting of the Panel is scheduled to take place on 28 September 2017 at 1:00pm at County Hall, Glenfield, Leicester.

RESOLVED:

That the next meeting of the Panel would be held on 28 September 2017 at 1:00pm.