Transcript

Transcript

Welcome to this meeting of the Warwicks police and crime panel and it's a confirmation hearing for the reappointment of a deputy police and crime commissioner and welcome commissioner welcome to Emma, Neil welcome as well. So just a couple of words to read out just before we get started so you'll be aware that the general election is due to take place on the 4th of July 2024 and we're therefore holding this meeting during a period of heightened sensitivity in recognition of the pre-election period we'll need to take particular care with our comments today I therefore ask you all to ensure that any comments or questions cannot be perceived as seeking to influence public support for any candidate or political party. So that's the formal bit done. So John do we have any apologies? Thank you chair yes apologies today from Mr Andrew Davies, Councillor Jenny Fragely, Councillor Bhagwat Panda and also from Polly Reed, chief executive of the OPCC and Neil Tipton is here in her place. Thanks John. Next item is members disclosure of interest. Do any members of the panel have any interest they wish to disclose? No? Okay moving on to next item then it's the appointment of the Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner. Commissioner would you like to introduce and say a few words just to start us off? Thank you Andy yep and it's a pleasure to be here and the point of this meeting is for you. I hope to give your backing to Emma Daniel as my continuing Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner. So I've been I've done about eight years now as the as the PCC for the first six years I experimented with one deputy which didn't work but two years ago Emma was appointed went through the panel if I remember it was in Covid I think we were in the Shire Hall from memory and was has been very successful and helpful to me. I just thought I'd point out a few things I'm sure you'll ask Emma about her own abilities and experience but the duties and responsibilities of PCCs have increased quite a lot over the last eight years. So I think the position of deputy plainly is helpful to me but I think it's also helpful for the running of our office for engaging with our partners for holding the force to account and for some of the extra work that's been put on us. A particularly good example is a criminal justice system where I've taken over the chairmanship of the local criminal justice board which involves quite a lot of meetings with our partners like probation and the courts and the crime prosecution service and others and that's a bit of an add-on to the original concept of PCCs. There's also a lot of home office funding which my office needs to apply for you'll all have heard of the Save for Streets, the serious violence moneys, the anti-social behaviour moneys which we've just got. All of that combined with all the other existing duties is a lot of work for one person and I think I might have said this last time, I don't have the benefit of a cabinet behind me or a group that support what I do. I'm kind of on my own as a decision maker and I do think it's very important whilst always taking soundings from the panel which I regard as redundant and holding me to account, it is very helpful to have someone to play devil's advocate when you're making some of these decisions. There's plenty going on in the force at the moment. We're now embarking on a five year, £14 million estate improvement exercise and I need to keep all my eyes on that. We've obviously sold that land for development and the developers have now got planning commission so we're going to have to regard as to how that affects policing and our headquarters at Beak Wootton and finally the media, I think the media scrutiny of policing in general has grown and I think the amount of what do information requests have come in have increased and I think the social media has obviously added to that. So generally the job I think is much busier than it probably was when I first started. So I've come to the panel, my recommendation is that you support me in my decision to appoint Emma as deputy for the next four years and I know that both of us will look forward to working with the panel over those years. Okay, thank you commissioner. So we've got a series of questions for Emma that we'll ask over the next 30 minutes or so. Commissioner, you're more than welcome to stay or you can leave if you want, it's entirely up to you. Right, in that case let's move on and then we'll close the public meeting at the end of the session, we'll go into a private session and then we'll write to you tomorrow I think is our aim. So that's the process that we go through. So first question Emma, welcome back. Since becoming deputy PCC in May 2022 what have you found to be the most challenging, what's been the most challenging thing about the role and what aspects have you found most rewarding? Thank you very much chair. So coming into being deputy PCC obviously you know a little bit about my background, I was an operational police officer so actually moving, although I did have some strategic oversight in those roles that I had held previously, clearly this role is purely strategic and so I think quite a big challenge for me was obviously we want to push better outcomes and better victim journeys across Warwickshire for the communities there and had I wanted to do that historically I could have put on a pair of boots and put on my uniform and gone out and made sure I was a more effective police officer so stepping out of that and then trying to influence that change across the whole force can be quite challenging but over the two years I think that I've relished that because now instead of just affecting my own outcomes or that of indeed a team that I supported or managed I'm able to influence across the whole force and I think that some the working that we work alongside the chief constable I've absolutely relished because I actually still go out I still go out with the officers and listen to challenges that they have on the ground so I've really enjoyed being able to put an operational spin certainly to our office workings and then also being able to feed back into that strategic framework some of that operational detail that perhaps messaging can be lost we can sit in a boardroom and discuss things and think that's going to land really well on the ground but actually going out and getting some eyes and ears on the ground and seeing how that's been delivered I've really really enjoyed that aspect of this particular role I'm making a wider difference across policing and my love is absolutely pleasing so I've those one of the challenges but certainly I've relished in the challenge Any questions? Councillor Poole do you want to come in? And then just reflecting on the past two years so what advice would you give to someone who's starting out as a deputy PCC so again it's that word notes to yourself what advice would you give yourself if you're starting back two years ago? Don't pretend to know everything but make friends with lots and lots of people whether that's partnerships whether that's in the office and across the force because you need to be able to go and find the answer from somewhere and don't be afraid to say I'm not sure I'll come back to you with an answer when I can I think you have to just be open all the time to everybody's feedback sometimes it's negative but it's about listening and ensuring that you take from that and understand somebody's experience and not necessarily then go back to the force with a holding to account question if it's someone's very specific personal experience but try and then broaden that out and make sure if it's a more general experience that people are having and is it a strategic challenge or is it just one specific experience that needs to be investigated just by the force or is it something that as a force and an office we need to hold the chief constables to account if it for example our 101 service we were continually everywhere I went the engagements would be 101 service was really really poor I'm thankful that that has significantly improved and it's very rarely mentioned now unless it's historic so I think it's about recognising that it wasn't just one or two people that were having a bad experience but actually the whole experience through that 101 process wasn't positive and I'm really pleased to report that that as we well know across this panel has changed. Thank you we'll probably come back to the 101 service I think a little bit later on. OK I want to look at serving the public because at the end of the day that's what we're here for we serve the public and in particular you know that we've got a focus on prevention I just kind of wonder what your thoughts on prevention how can we improve our role in prevention itself just just like to hear your ideas. Yeah absolutely prevention is key I think I might have stated before when I've spoken at evenings that I'd love every police officer to be redundant because we've prevented all of the crime that's very very idyllic obviously and not going to happen and prevention is about partnership working absolutely police officers alone cannot prevent crimes from occurring is absolutely needs to be an integrated approach. I am currently chairing the national combating drugs outcome framework the assigned the senior responsible officers to deliver outcomes across Warwickshire on that and prevention around the drug aspect let's just take that as one example you know if we could remove drugs from our streets that would prevent an awful lot of criminality and obviously the force have also got the prevention hub which is again around joint agency working around prevention. Yes I completely understand physical policing is crucial part of that but there's also the joint agency working that sits around that the safer streets funding that we've obviously secured into Warwickshire has been superb around that to remove that sort of fear of crime as well but also creating safer spaces for people and communities so as I say prevention is from my perspective very much a joint agency approach but equally we need to if it's a policing matter then the policing need to be held to account to withhold responsibility to investigate crimes and have outcomes for victims of crime. Yeah thank you for that and growing strength in community safety partnerships that sort of thing obviously that's our kind of a thrust but that's refreshing and good to hear. Thank you very much. Thank you. When we met or when we held the previous confirmation hearing in April 2022 one of the panel recommendations was an induction program for the DPCC to give particular attention around finance and also around growing awareness and understanding of different conditions across Warwickshire's communities and neighbourhoods and geography. How satisfied were you that that program was actually carried out over the past two years or was it on the job training or was it the specific training that supplemented and complemented that? So it's an odd thing the deputy PCC there's not sort of a training manual and as you said what recommendations was I give to anybody else coming into the role. I was really fortunate I've got a very good commissioner who shares his knowledge willingly and we've also got a superb office in relation to the financial training. I spent time with Sara Ansell who's our officer financial officer but I also had the opportunity every week we meet and I can genuinely say my interest in finance is significantly higher and I feel really much more confident around our capitals revenue on our borrowing and we've just touched upon the commissioner touched upon our 14 million pound project. Now there are some issues around that that will result in we want if we want to draw forward some funding we have to consider whether that's going to affect the visibility of policing and how Warwickshire can be policed if we want to draw down extra funding to deliver some of the aspects of the capital financing around for example our learning and development centre that we would like to support and develop with the increase in number of officers. So I'm very mindful of that that every time we move a million from here or there that there's potentially a cut somewhere else. We're in a strong financial position across Warwickshire some of our neighbours are not in that position so I feel very fortunate in Warwickshire and I think the residents of Warwickshire should be feel fortunate about that. I'm also really mindful again and perhaps had a lack of understanding around that because of the positions I'd held previously around the precept and the setting of the precept and also the fairer funding formula which I will be absolutely supporting the commissioner in nationally to drive that we get a fairer funding formula post the 4th of July because it's I don't feel it's right that Warwickshire residents pay 50% towards policing whilst other residents across the country are not paying as much so if we don't have a full precept increase that can potentially result in a cut of service across policing which none of us I don't think in this room would ever want to see. Next on my list is Councillor Poole. Thank you. Chairman, thank you. Emma, welcome again. My question, what has been your approach to engaging with communities across Warwickshire? What techniques have you helped to reach out and develop an improved understanding of residents' concerns and priorities for policing? Thank you very much, Councillor Poole. I think this is, again, another one of my favourite parts of the role is actually going out and about and talking to members of the public. I have invested heavily in warm hubs. I go out to the warm hubs. They're brilliant community places where people come together. I can meet upwards of sort of up to 100 people in one room and have an opportunity to move around and they can't get away from me so they have to listen to me and I have to have the opportunity to listen to them and I've had some really good feedback, some negative, some positive, some personal which I've been able to take back into the force but not only that, we've got a social media presence which obviously I've got Neil Tipton here supporting me today but I think we as an office are looking to enhance our engagement with the communities and actually enhance the ways in which we engage so it's not always face to face but there's also other opportunities to engage not only with our office but then also support that engagement through across the force. I've been out to town council meetings, parish council meetings to speak, again, to talk about the role, to listen to their issues so as I can take those back in. I've spoken at some national events. I've spoken with the WI. I've also spoken at Probus events. So if there's anything that you think, any other areas, I'm happy to go and be available or speak across any forum and I've also, because of my interest across youth and youth engagement, I've spent time with the cadets and also gone into schools and spoken to schools. I've supported careers fairs and interviews in some of our schools. Again, just trying to ensure that we have a listening to our communities but also have as wide a reach as possible. Thank you. Any other questions on serving the public? If not, we'll move on. Councillor Humphries, did you want to pick up on the police and crime plan? How do you propose to support the PCC to develop the next iteration of the police and crime panel for Warwickshire? Which policy areas do you find most engaging and where could you provide input to help shape strategic priority? Thank you very much. I was fortunate enough that I have worked alongside the commissioner already for two years and we also spoke at length about some of the manifestos that we set out through the campaign with the commissioner. So I think fundamentally we will retain that we wish to protect vulnerable people from harm. That's absolutely fundamental in court policing. My personal interest at the moment and is retained is around retail crime. We've obviously seen the national picture of retail crime and it was heavily reported a few months ago about retail crime being an all-time high. And I think that from my perspective, creating safer spaces within our retail centres and our towns is crucial because as soon as people feel that there's too much antisocial behaviour or there's aspects within our retail community where they don't have confidence, trust and confidence to report to policing. And I think we were certainly in that space that people felt that it's not worth reporting anything because, and that's nationally, and I don't think Warwickshire was any different necessarily to that. So it's really about focusing and bringing our retailers with us to ensure that they have the trust and confidence to report to the police and then that there is an outcome. And I can, I'm glad to report, and I know it was featured in the panel reports that were with yourselves last week, that there has been a massive jump in the outcomes for retailers on theft. Another area of focus for me is obviously I'll continue, I hope, to drive the National Combating Drugs Outcome Framework, which again is more about that prevention piece and about that joint agency working. I'm passionate about young people and again that feeds into that prevention and that serious violence. So those are focus points that we'll be looking at. We will obviously, with the increasing population across Warwickshire, the visibility of policing is crucial when you're out and about, it's what you hear about a lot, and that support the Commissioner in how we can fund extra police officers, but also how we can drive the productivity of those police officers through the holding to account process with the Chief Constable, so that every police officer is more effective in what they can do. And part of that investment, that capital investment that we touched upon earlier, is also around that technology. So the officers now have a greater ability to hopefully be more productive in their workspace. So not just increase the numbers, but then increase the productivity of those that are there and present. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, thank you. We've got a couple of questions now on dealing with change and managing performance. And the force has obviously had significant organisational change in recent years. We've had the investment in additional numbers of officers, investment in ICT, and changes to the core handling processes that have been implemented, and obviously good progress has been made in relation to that in particular. How have you sought to monitor improvements to service delivery and the effect that these changes have made for Warwickshire's communities? And how do you think these could be improved and improved on for the future? Absolutely, Chair, the force has gone through a huge change in the last 12 months. And I think that transformational change has completely revolutionised actually the way in which Warwickshire Police are policing. Everything is in house. There's been an increase in the departments, obviously. And it's about how we now carry on that trajectory of progression, now the increase in the number of officers is there. The performance speaks for itself. We've got the lowest total recorded crime, except obviously 2020, where we had a slightly odd year, if we all recall. The last six years, this is the lowest year of crime. We've got vehicle crime is down by 14%, violence crime is down by 4%, burglary by 3%. And our satisfaction rates for the victims is at 85%. Now, that's not perfect. And I'm not telling anyone, I'm not going to sit here and say that's perfect. We need to continue to drive that through the force to ensure that we are continuing to support that investment in the ICT. We meet weekly with the Chief Constable in holding to account, but we also do that more formally. And that holding to account process, I noted, Chair, that you struggled to find some of our minutes on our website, but some of the holding to account process is changing in this next term of office, which will be more transparent. I think that would be an improvement for all of us, that it's able for us to publish it that more easily. So we do that through the holding to account process. The senior leadership team absolutely has changed. And I am really supportive of the Chief Constable. They've got the new talent pool that they're just looking at how to promote people. So rather than it being historically that you sort of went through the ranks and you had to prove yourself and then have a board at the end, it's far more experience on the job and are you the right person that should be promoted rather than sort of time in the seat and then you get promoted. So I'm really excited about that because I think it will open up the promotion process for others. And we're really supportive of the Chief Constable when she reflects on some of those appointments she may have made and wants to enhance other people and place them in other areas of responsibility. So although those are really operational decisions, certainly the Commissioner and I are really supportive of ensuring that the senior leaders have that opportunity to thrive as well. So I think the way it's monitored is you can just look at your outcomes and our outcome rates currently are up. So if you want to get statistical about it, they are up. But I'm also mindful that just looking at statistics can drive perverse behaviours. So I think from our perspective we need to be really cognisant of that and ensure that there's not perverse behaviours just to drive outcomes. And whilst I recognise we've got HMI coming down the line, Her Majesty's Inspectorate, that, for the Commissioner and I, that's not the focus point and it's not the focus point of the force. The focus point is to build a really resilient and strong force for Warwickshire. Thank you, and you mentioned holding to account. Councillor Gist, did you want to ask your question on that and just delving a little bit deeper into that? Yeah, just sort of touching on what you've already said, but what has been your experience of the holding to account meetings with the Chief Constable and how have you as Deputy been able to complement and support those activities? My experience has been positive. I think we're fortunate in our force that we have a good working relationship with Chief Constable in the sense that we are able to robustly challenge where necessary and we're also, you know, she's able to give robust feedback to ourselves and it's a very professional environment. We hold those regularly and they are minuted, so it's a transparent activity as well so that we're able to report back on that holding to account process. And my experience has been, as I say, positive and I am a player in the room. I'm certainly not somebody sat behind the Commissioner taking notes or anything of that nature. It's certainly we all and I certainly think the Commissioner feels we're all on a fairly level playing field and we have some good conversations and we are robust in our challenge. Anything else, Councillor Gist, you're okay with that? No? Okay. And just to follow on from Councillor Gist then and just on this topic, so around the whole change in managing performance agenda, what do you see as the key challenges for Yorkshire Police in the year ahead and also for the term ahead, so the next 12 months as a timeline but also for the term of your office for the next four years? I don't think we should shy away from the fact that we are in pre-election period and we could see a change of government, which on the 4th, if we look at the polls, that's quite likely and it's how that will directly affect policing. So I think we need to be very cognisant of the current manifestos of other political parties, mindful of how that may affect policing numbers, expectations across policing, you know, there could be a wrath of changes coming down the line, so I think it's very difficult to comment what exactly our challenges will be, but it will be to ensure that we are continuing to support fairer funding across into Warwickshire, so to ensure that we've got the best finances possible to support, you know, visible policing and outcomes in policing so that our communities don't feel there's a degradation of service of any description. And does that apply for the longer term as well, so the whole four year term? Well, potentially four years, I mean four years is a long time, you know, we will make some big statements and some big goals in the police and crime plan, absolutely, we don't necessarily, you know, we'd love to say that we can reduce road deaths further and further and we'd like to not see any road deaths across our roads in Warwickshire, that's aspirational and, you know, we have to be realistic, we may not, you know, we'd love to achieve that, but we have to be realistic about our achievements as well, so I think the next four years we will come out with a police and crime plan and I think our challenge will be to keep and continue to restore that trust and confidence in policing across Warwickshire, you know, we've been nationally hit with a lack of trust and confidence in policing and we just need to ensure that we, that the communities have the trust and confidence in Warwickshire police to report offences and then feel supported through their journey through the criminal justice system. Any follow-up questions on that? If not, we'll move on to the next section, we've got a section now on working with others, so Councillor Poole, do you want to lead us off on this? Thank you, Chairman, you've already alluded to part of the answer in previous answers, now this is very close to my heart, what has been your experience of chairing the Warwickshire Drugs and Alcohol Strategic Partnership and how have you prepared for the approach partnership working to reduce harm caused by substance misuse? Thank you very much for that. Partnership working is key, I think, around this area, absolutely, and I think what we have achieved is we've got everybody in the room, which is a real challenge when you're across so many different partners and commissioned services. Our biggest challenge is ensuring that we're delivering better outcomes for service users but also ensuring that actually aligning everybody's goals because it can be quite challenging when you've got a policing aspect which might be more of an enforcement arm but then we've also got our commissioned services that might not be as comfortable with that enforcement arm and ensuring that we're actually looking at the prevention and the support arm as well, so it's bringing everybody together to ensure that actually what we're providing is the right service across Warwickshire for that end service user. So it's difficult, you know, one of the examples would be that our drug test on arrest rate was quite low and it's a service that we pay for, that the office pay for, and that was quite low, so it was a real drive for all agencies and we had to drive that through the partnership to ensure that not only from policing perspective but also from our commissioned service perspective that we were fulfilling that drug test on arrest and I have to say that is now we have some very good figures, there's been a great chief inspector driving that from the forces perspective and our partners as well. Thank you, any further questions? Councillor Sinnott, you were next. Okay, just building on that and getting a little bit broader, outreach, how do you think we can build stronger bridges and engage with Third Sector, with other interested parties, are we going to get stronger links in there to give it more influence going forward? And funding is obviously nice, but just your thoughts on that please. Obviously you'll be aware that we commission a number of services across different partnerships within the office and we also have the grants which are also awarded which is another form of outreach to financially try and support some of that outreach work. And the way in which we can enhance that I think is also about giving visibility to some of these organisations, Helping Hands in Leamington, for example, hadn't had a huge amount of visibility and I went and visited it, gosh, it must be about a year and a half ago now, it's an absolutely superb organisation and I cannot speak highly enough of that organisation. And we supported them through the grants process, but we've also enhanced their relationship across to policing, tried to get those links stronger as well. So I think there's lots we can do about bringing people together and I'm always open to that whenever I'm out, whether it's at a Brownie meeting and chatting to people or whether it's at the remembrance service and I meet some people, it's about how we can actually link people together and I think that's one of the greatest functions actually of our office and the commissioner and I, is linking people together, not necessarily getting involved in that operational piece around that, but actually making sure people know that somebody else exists or that another agency exists and actually they would dovetail together really well. So I'm quite proactive in that space and actually just linking people together that didn't know they existed. Thank you. Anything else, Councillor Sinnott? Our next section is on personal independence. Councillor Gist, do you want to lead us off on this? If you felt that the commissioner was undertaking a course of action that you felt was unwise, what would you do? Initially, I think the commissioner touched upon it. We do have those debates in the room that we might, you know, it's really good to use one another as a sounding board and I think, you know, as we've already touched upon, there's no cabinet that sits around the commissioner, so we do challenge, but if there was something that was so outrageous, we obviously have our monitoring officer, our chief exec Polly Reed and I would be absolutely directly involved in her within any conversations if we were really concerned about actions of the commissioner and then I obviously appreciate would probably come to yourselves for some support around that if there was some significant complaints, which I am aware would obviously come to yourselves for investigation. But I would rely upon my office support around that as well. Thank you. Anything else, Councillor Gist on that one? No? Okay. Any other questions from any of the panel members? If not, I've got a question for you, which is the last question that we've got, which is, so what's your experience of working with the police and crime panel being like and do you have any comments or feedback on the panel's work that you'd like to share? It's a very tricky question with everyone in the room out making a decision about my future, Chair. I've found the experience to be wholly positive. Thank you very much, Chair. I think it's important that we continue to support the working groups that you wish for if that's something that you wish for going forward. And as I say, I think it's great that we are able to stand aside any other politics and it's a very apolitical forum which this role once elected absolutely is because we are, as you say, here to serve the public. Thank you. No, and seriously on that point, though, if there are ways of improving the working relationship between both ourselves as a panel and the commissioner deputy commissioner in the office generally, I think we're always keen to hear those ideas coming forward. So thank you. You'll be pleased to hear that's all the questions we've got for you. So is there anything else you want to ask us? No, that's great. Just thank you very much for coming together today for this process. You know, having held the role for two years and joining the commissioner directly from policing in another fourth area, I just hope that I can continue to support the commissioner and the communities of Warwickshire. But thank you very much for coming today. Okay, great. Thank you, Emma. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Neil. That's the close of the meeting now. So thank you panel members as well for your support this afternoon. Thank you.