Transcript

I'm pleased to say that we now co-rate, so thank you very much. We can continue with the meeting. We did get a little bit worried because we were only five a few minutes ago. So there we are. Anyway, obviously we'll start off with welcome and thank you very much to the Commissioner team for coming this morning and I hope everybody got here despite the ice floods and goodness knows what else this morning is chucking at us. There we are. Anyway, I'd like to welcome everyone to this meeting of the Surrey Police and Crime Panel on Thursday 28th November at 10.30 in this council chamber. Now there is no fire drill expected today, so in the event of fire and arms sounding, everyone present is asked to leave by the nearest exit and assemble at the top car park, reporting to a member of the building management team. Staff will be on hand to guide you to your nearest exit. Please ensure that your mobile phones are either switched off or put on silent. I've forgotten mine, so mine is on silent. Thank you. I was just very pleased I forgot it and panicked when I got here when I was greeted by three people who said, Oh, your wife's phone is. Your phone's on. So at least I knew where it was. In line with our guidance on use of social media, I'm happy for anyone attending today's meeting, including members of the committee, to use social media if this does not disturb the business of the day. Today's meeting is being webcast to the public and a recording will be available online afterwards. Has it now started? Okay, so we are now being recorded live. I'd also like to mention that this meeting allows for participation by video conference via Microsoft Teams and that some attendees are participating remotely. For those participating, if the chat feature is enabled, please don't use it. Its use limits the transparency and open discussion we aim to maintain in a public meeting. And of course the rules are that if you're not here in person, you can't vote, so please remember you can't vote if you're online. For those officers who have joined the meeting remotely, please use the raise hand function to indicate that you would like to speak and please mute your microphone and turn off your camera when not speaking. For those officers and members who have joined us in person, may I please ask anyone presenting to speak clearly and directly into their microphones. When called upon to speak, press the right hand button on your microphone and start speaking when the red light appears. Please remember to turn off your microphone when you have finished, otherwise we get tremendous feedback. If you are sharing a desk or microphone and you need to press the right or left hand button, depending on which side of the microphone you are sitting on. And Paul, you've got comfy, there we are. Morning, we've literally just started so you've not missed anything. So first of all item 1 is the election of the Vice Chairman. Now obviously we need a Vice Chairman to back up in case I'm not here or indeed to assist me on some of the items and get to understand what goes on behind the scenes as well as perhaps just the meetings. Now at the moment we've had one nomination that's been received for Councillor Barry Jane. Are there any other nominations? No, so can I ask if Councillor Barry Jane can have a nomination please? Thank you Paul and I'm happy to second Barry. Are there any other thoughts, nominations? Right, we'll now put the vote which is obviously going to be unanimous as there are no other nominations. So Barry, thank you very much. I take it you are in agreement to be Vice Chair. Thank you. So in that case perhaps you'd like to come and sit up here. Thank you Barry. So if we then get on with the agenda. Item number 2, apologies for absence and substitutions. Okay. Yes, apologies for absence been received from Councillors Mike Smith, Richard Smith and Councillor Steve Greentree is also with us remotely today as well. Thank you. Okay, I've not received any other apologies. Minutes of the previous meeting, can we approve those? A minute, is there anything that you feel is not written correctly in there? Okay, Councillor Kennedy. I mentioned a very minor typo. I think it was my speech. I think it was just the spelling of the word I used should be led not lead. Yes, there are a couple of drop letters and small typographical changes that will be made but otherwise they are final. Okay, thanks for that. If there's nothing else then can we approve the minutes please? Do we agree? Thank you. Declarations of interest, receiving any declarations of disclodable pecuniary interest, significant personal, any gifts or hospitality. Is there anybody who wants to answer this? Have we received any yet, Jake? No, no declarations have been made in advance of the meeting. So unless anybody wants to shout now. No declarations of interest then, thank you very much. So we start on to the public questions. First question from Dr Rishi Shah of Cambly. So, the question is, I own my following in Cambly on Park Street and experienced significant amount of crime and antisocial behaviour. I've never seen it so bad but what is worse is the age of people. He talks about two young girls walking in and stealing food. They very clearly knew that nobody would touch them or stop them. Before they came to us they tried to steal from other places as well. He's put the answer today and today he was informed the case was closed. Now, he's also been assaulted and he's getting tired and fed up without actions. Now, what specifically is Surrey Police doing about the crimes being committed by children, specifically in Cambly Town Centre? What is Surrey Police going to do about retailers losing faith and even raising police incidents? What can the Surrey Police do to bring retailers together in Cambly to exchange information better? The radio system does not work for us as we can have a radio in our desert bar as our customers would feel very uncomfortable. However, the underage kids is a very dangerous situation in Cambly. We cannot touch them, we cannot stop them and they know this. It is not legal or fair to expect me to pay council tax and business rates and not receive the police service we deserve. Now, obviously the Commissioner is here and we need to make sure the policy is there to try and stop this Commissioner. A written response has been sent in. I don't really have anything to add to it. I'm really sorry, I didn't quite catch that. A written response has been received, is it not? Yes, by the panel. Yes, thank you. A written response has been circulated as part of the supplement thank you. That's very helpful. I don't know, is there any further supplementary? Councillor Gerson. Thank you, Chair. Dr Shah has asked me to ask a supplementary question on his behalf. He asks about what can be done to deter crime committed by children in effect or young teenagers, which is the case in his establishment. Is there anything that Surrey Police is doing or can be done to educate children and deter them from committing crimes? There's a lot of work going on. I'm happy to write to the panel with an answer on that, but I don't think it would be appropriate for me to speak on behalf of the force regarding operational issues. Yes, we accept that you are in charge of policy, not policing matters on a day-to-day basis. But it is obviously a question that has been made by the public, so yes, thank you, we would appreciate an answer. Councillor Kennedy. I'm not going to query the answer that's been given, but just to say that the concern raised could have been raised almost anywhere in Surrey, and I'm aware of incidents in my ward. And you speak to shopkeepers, and they say, well, it's below the £200 limit, and therefore we're... You've heard me speak about it, everybody on the panel should have heard me speak about it. You may even have seen the numerous public articles that have been written about it where I've been quoted, so this is not something that we ignore or something that the force ignores. You'll be aware of the 3,500 extra charges or extra arrests that have been made in the last 12 months opposed to the previous 12 months. 137 of those have been for shoplifting, so clearly there is an awful lot of work happening, I've no doubt there is more to do. But I also speak to shopkeepers, obviously, and it is an issue, but we know that Surrey Police is doing an awful lot better on it now than it was under the previous Chief Constable. Despite the massive uptick nationally in shoplifting, you will all have heard me say repeatedly that the £200 is a myth and always has been, has never applied in Surrey. I'm not aware of any police force that it has applied in, but it certainly doesn't and has never applied in Surrey, and I would expect every member of this panel to be making that very clear when they speak to shopkeepers in their locality who bring it up. Just to say I certainly did, but nevertheless, that was very recent that I was hearing that from people, so it's a continuing battle, that myth persists. It is a battle and I appreciate everybody's work helping me and helping the force to get the message out. Thank you, is there any other supplementaries on that? No, it is a topic we have discussed before and will continue to discuss, and thank you Commissioner for bringing something back later on. So on to item 6, the Commissioning Strategy, Domestic Abuse Services in attending to represent Surrey Domestic Abuse Services. So if I could ask for a presentation, please. Thank you. If we could just put the presentation up on the screen, that's great, thank you. Thank you. So yes, I'm here today... Can I just ask if the people on Zoom can see that? Yeah, I think that should be clear to people attending remotely. Yes, I can see. Lovely, thanks very much. Sorry, carry on. Hello, yes, thank you. So I'm here today, I'm Lisa Harrington, Head of Policy and Commissioning with the Police and Crime Commissioner's Office. And I'm joined by our guests who are going to talk to you about the value and the expertise of the services that they provide. So I'll just let Michelle... So I'm Michelle Blancson, I'm CEO of East Surrey Domestic Abuse Services, the lead provider of the community-based domestic abuse services across Surrey. Good morning, my name is Rachel Roberts, I'm the Head of the Victim and Witness Care Unit based at Surrey Police. We provide the generalist support service in complementing specialist service work that Michelle and her team and others undertake in Surrey. Thanks very much. So I'll keep my introduction fairly brief about our overall commissioning activity so that we can give sufficient time to Michelle and Rachel. But yes, if you could take us just to the next slide, please, thank you. So the Police and Crime Commissioner's Office commissions a range of projects and services and activities that cover community safety, reducing reoffending and supporting victims of crime. All these areas are intrinsically linked. The activity overall is creating a safer Surrey and it benefits all residents and communities. You may not be a victim of crime, but actually the work that we're doing is improving safety in Surrey. Overall, we have just under 7 million that is coming through our office to manage and a large proportion of that funding is dedicated towards small charities which are embedded in local communities. And the way that they work, they work in a way that really matters to those local people. I didn't watch the Children in Need funding appeal evening, but for me, when I was watching that, it's a real demonstration of how those services that work with adults and with children really understand what people need. They take the time to listen and they deliver their services in a way that makes those people feel very valued and heard. And I don't think that can be underestimated when you're trying to help people get their lives back on track, be that whether they're actually offending behaviour or a victim of crime. So that is really important to us that we empower organisations, charities and other organisations like our Victim and Witness Care Unit to work in that way. It was in 2014 that the PCC took responsibility for commissioning victim services. Prior to that, it was done by the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Justice devolved funding to the PCC for that. We did get an annual grant allocation, which has remained pretty static since that date of taking responsibility. But in 2022, the MOJ opened up the opportunity to submit bids for a significant funding uplift for services for domestic abuse and sexual violence. And Surrey was very successful in that and that has enabled us to increase services that we're able to provide in Surrey. That was done during the time of COVID and there was a huge spotlight on domestic abuse in particular, violence against women and girls and so that was a very welcomed funding opportunity. That funding does come to an end in March 2025 and that is creating what we're calling a significant funding cliff edge. There's real uncertainty as to what the future holds for that funding. And obviously that does create quite a lot of nervousness and anxiety within the sector in terms of what that means for the care that they are able to provide and actually the sustainability of that expert workforce that we've been able to establish during that time. All the charities are actually recruiting from a fairly small pool of expert people and it's not just our office, that's offices across the country where this is happening. So yeah, we're hoping that we will get news on that funding towards the end of the year. Next slide please, thank you. So in addition to the central government funding, which I'll come on to on our next slide, the PCC also dedicates a percentage of her annual budget towards commissioning activity. And this really complements what we're able to provide with the home office funding and the Ministry of Justice funding. About 72% of our budget does come from central government, but this, just under one and a half million really does make a difference in Surrey and we're able to provide services that we just simply wouldn't be able to provide had we not had this funding. So that does include services like support for children that are criminally exploited as well as support for those where their home has been taken over by criminal gangs and used for criminal activity. That's a term known as cuckooing and they are normally very vulnerable people. It could be people with disabilities, older people, which leaves them very isolated. So also we've provided that funding and some more specialist support around domestic abuse and stalking. We've got the funds that are detailed there, so we've got Community Safety Fund, Children and Young People Fund, a Reducing Reoffending Fund and the PCC Fund, which is a flexible fund which we can use across the policy areas. As I said before, all of this activity does work together. You'll have heard from government, there's a very strong message around prevention and preventative activity and if we are going to prevent harm, then we really do have to tackle offending behaviour, understand the root causes and understand that that is a person that is behaving in that way, understand what is causing that behaviour and as it says there, our fund for reducing reoffending is really looking at preventing harm. The Reducing Reoffending is really looking at some of those root causes around homelessness, substance misuse, not being employed and we've got some fantastic work being done with young people where a staggering percentage of those young people that are supported by a charity called Amber Foundation, they don't have any formal qualifications, they've come out with no formal qualifications as a result of their education. That doesn't put them in a very positive place in terms of securing employment, which can be a factor which then leads them to go on to be offending. This is really about turning people's lives around, helping people to get their lives back on track. We're seeing an unprecedented demand for services is what I would say, so all of our funds are under significant pressure, the charities that are providing that support are under significant pressure and so it's really important for us that we try and manage this in the most open and transparent way that we can and have that relationship with the services, which I think we do. If you go on to the next slide, that would be great, thank you. So as I said, we have been very successful in bringing in additional funding through competitive opportunities, either through the Home Office or through the Ministry of Justice and this is an annual figure here, so this is for this financial year. Two of those funds, the What Works Fund and the Perpetrator Interventions Fund, they were very competitive opportunities, one was the Preventing Borg Fund was over three years and the Perpetrator Fund was over two years, so obviously quite a significant amount of money that we've brought in there. And we've been able to really do some very innovative work with that funding and we've worked with partners in Surrey County Council in our education, getting into young people through schools, which has been fantastic, and our Steps to Change Perpetrator Hub. I really welcome the opportunity to come back and tell you more about that because that's actually working in a really holistic way, bringing in service providers to work alongside one another in a way that we've never done before and we've got a service for young people who are using violence and abusive behaviour in their close relationships, as well as the services for adult domestic abuse and stalking perpetrators integrated with our survivor support and we're seeing some really good outcomes from that work. And it is seen as an exemplar of good practice, so we'd very much welcome the opportunity to share more on that. But as I say, all of this funding that you see there on that slide, it does run out at March 25 and we don't know what the future holds yet, so we are hopeful for good news, but we just have to wait and see what that means, but obviously that does make planning in our team quite difficult and it makes planning for the services very difficult as well. So as well as our day-to-day activity, there's been one new duty which is now enacted, which is the Serious Violence Duty, and we've been able to work with our partners on that to really complement activity that we're already doing in the office. We did come with a budget for commissioning interventions and a number of those interventions are up there on the slide. And then we have another duty coming, which is through the Victims and Prisoners Act, which is a duty to collaborate for commissioning of services for domestic abuse, criminal conduct of a sexual nature and serious violence. So we're already working in this collaborative way, I would say, but this does present new opportunities and new levers for increased collaboration. So I will leave it there because I don't want to take up any more of your time. I'm very welcome to take questions afterwards, but what I'd like to do is hand over to Rachel first and then Michelle, and then perhaps we could take some questions at the end. Can I just ask, are you going to circulate these slides to us so that we can see them afterwards as well? It's a little bit much taking just sitting here, thank you. Yes, sure, no problem. Okay, good morning everyone. My name is Rachel Roberts, Head of the Victim and Witness Care Unit. If I could maybe go to the next slide. I think my slides are attached to Lisa's, thank you, and then the next slide please. So as I explained in my introduction, so the Victim and Witness Care Unit is a joint service provision, so we provide a traditional witness care service, as well as a generalist victim support service for victims of crime in Surrey. So we are a jointly funded unit, 45% funding comes from the Police and Crime Commissioner and 55% funded by Surrey Police. We then also receive additional funding from the PCC's office to support a specialist post, a fraud caseworker, a children and young persons caseworker, and a non-intimate stalking caseworker to support victims of crime under the support service. Next slide please. Okay, so I'll do a very quick summary of the two different functions. It's fine if you want to put them all up on the screen at the same time. Sorry, I didn't realise there was a fade in there. So the witness care provision that we provide, so we have victim and witness care officers who are that single point of contact for all victims or witnesses through a criminal justice process. We provide information provision, we update questions, we undertake needs assessments to identify if witnesses may need any special measures in court. We are responsible for practical arrangements, childcare arrangements if needed, taxis, and we provide that emotional support to try and maintain that victim and witness engagement and support all victims and witnesses to achieve, giving their best evidence in court. The victim support, we also escalate, one last point there, we are also a point of contact, so we escalate into senior managers in HMCTS and the CPS if there are issues with a case or we are asked to. The victim support arm of the team, so this is the generalist support service I referred to. So we have victim and witness care officers and caseworkers who undertake an initial needs assessment to identify any needs immediately in the aftermath of a crime being committed. We either support in one contact at the point we are having that conversation to undertake a needs assessment and that might be providing information at the time, contacting an officer in the case if need be on behalf of the victim, or we provide ongoing tailored support if that is identified. As I mentioned, we have specialist caseworkers who are available and trained in fraud, non-intimate stalking, and children and young persons. So what does that look like? What does the victim support look like? We use the acronym R.I.P.E., we are a police force obviously, we have lots of acronyms. Referral and signposting, so we identify the most appropriate needs and risk assessments and we refer to specialist services if needed, such as Michelle's service and Michelle will talk about her service later on. We provide information to assist victims and witnesses, we offer practical supports, we have a range of preventative measures and everyday support available for victims and that emotional support. We also support caseworkers and volunteers who are independent of friends and family, offer that emotional support to those in need. We focus on supporting the four main impacts of crime, physiological, physical, behavioral, and practical. Next slide please. So I'm going to mention a couple of case studies, but these have obviously been anonymized, obviously there's no personal details to protect the privacy of those victims affected. The first case study, apologies, I'm going to read off here just to make sure I don't miss anything pertinent. So we had an elderly victim of burglary, the offenders broke into her property using force and restraint, they stole cash, jewelry, and lots of other sentimental valuables. This obviously had a significant impact physically, psychologically, and financially on the victim. What did we do, what support did we provide, we referred to her GP, we provided information and assistance completing the seeker, so that's the compensation, criminal injuries compensation application for her. We offered advocacy, we provided security items for her home, we offered face to face emotional support and ongoing needs assessments with the victim as she worked through that criminal justice process and we worked with the officer in the case to ensure we were delivering the most tailored support to suit her needs. Second victim was a vulnerable victim of courier fraud, so she was contacted by suspects posing as officials from the fraud department of her bank. They convinced the victim to download an app onto her phone and her computer and then they were able to see, they were able to link into both her phone and computer and look at her activity. They asked her to enter her bank details on both devices, which she did, they were able to see that and then they stole a huge sum of money from her. We provided emotional support, phone calls and emails, the victim said to us she felt incredibly frustrated and ashamed, so we helped to try and provide closure for her and help her move through that process as a result of that impact. We provided practical support, so we sent her a phone blocking device to prevent calls like this from happening again and we provided advocacy with her two banks, so we had those phone conversations with the bank to try and recover her money, which was actually successfully we managed to do in this case, which was great. Next slide please, sorry. So just to give you an idea of the sorts of numbers we are talking about, so we in one month, so for this financial year from April to October. This is the number of recorded crimes in Surrey, so we contact every single victim of crime in Surrey, because we are the data owner, we are the data controllers. There is no consent needed to refer to an external organisation, so we contact everybody for that circa 4,000 to 5,000 victims a month. Except the only victims we do not contact are high risk victims of domestic abuse, as they are better supported by the specialist domestic support services. Approximately 30% of those victims that we contact are identified for enhanced level of service and 50% of that 30% are victims of domestic abuse, but we would categorise them as a standard risk domestic abuse. So all those numbers we make contact officer for undertaking these assessments or support them in that one contact, it might just be that they want the details for that officer in the case, they want their officer in the case to contact them by which we can then provide the advocacy to get that to make sure that happens. So ongoing support numbers, so in a similar same time period from April to October 2024, out of those thousands that we're contacting each month, there were 820 referrals for ongoing support. At the moment, half of those are still open and engaged, 274 of those have been closed and out of those 820 victims, 511 were victims of fraud. That's a huge significant increase in fraud and the impact it's having on victims in Surrey. It's the fastest growing crime type. Next slide please. So it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the challenges in the criminal justice system at present that we're facing from both sides of the team, the witness care and the victim support side of the team, that's impacting victims and witnesses and all agencies and services. So the backlogs in the criminal justice system are of a national concern and particularly in the south-east region is not an outlier in that. The retention and recruitment crisis is a central issue due to the lack of funding. There aren't enough criminal barristers essentially to take all the cases in the system and reduce these court backlogs. Other areas of law are often more attractive and profitable than criminal justice, so that lack of incentive to do criminal justice work after years of training and the cost that lawyers put into training, criminal justice isn't where they then want to stay and practice. It also damages efficiency in the growth of the criminal justice system and we're seeing that play out with the backlogs that we're currently experiencing. I've highlighted here a few key areas, so the challenge of HMCTS sustainability against rising receipts, that's not helping the system. We've had capped Crown Court sitting hours for judges. Guildford Crown Court isn't affected directly because they recognise the issues that we are facing with our backlogs, but judges in our neighbouring regions are being affected and we have been utilising courts in Winchester, Kingston, Salisbury to help move our backlog through the system, where their hours have now been capped, we are no longer able to use their facilities. The prison capacity continues to fluctuate, which may cause delays in producing individuals for hearings and there's obviously, as you will be aware, there's a big push around performance and increasing officer numbers, so that's creating a greater workflow into an already challenged system. Next slide, please. So the impact demand, just to give you a brief snapshot of the increase in demand, so I've got two slides here. The first is showing you a snapshot of April 2018 when the unit was launched and created to April 24. You can see the rise, so if you look at that yellow column, cases assigned to Witness Care Officers, you can see the rise in caseload and if we move on to the next slide, we've moved even further from there now, so we're now holding 2,411 cases as of October, which is 137% increase in workload from when the unit was launched, which just represents those backlogs and that increase of volume in the system, which just isn't moving through. Next slide, please. So really, most importantly, the impact of this on our victims and witnesses, a significant disruption, last minute moves and court moves. At five o'clock at night, your case was at Guildford, you're now being asked to go to Chichester or Salisbury. Many victims and particularly vulnerable victims have pre-trial visits to make sure they are familiar with the courtroom before they attend. All of that, when the case is then moved overnight, all of that goes out the window. They're not familiar with the layout, they don't know where the side entrance is, they don't know where the parking is, they're concerned about if they're going to meet the defendant in the car park. It's very disruptive to victims and it's very difficult to keep them engaged in the process when this disruption happens. Multiple adjournments, so I've got a couple of cases here. We have vulnerable victims, this one particularly of a sex case. She had eight sentencing dates, hearings, and it was adjourned and adjourned over and over again and her feedback was, I can't get any closure, I can't move on with my life. It is continuing the extension of control through the criminal justice system. I feel completely devalued, I don't feel important, and I feel entirely let down by the entire process. All of this significant disruption is causing attrition in the system. These delays where victims are waiting years and they are waiting years for justice, Guildford Crown Court is currently listing into 2028, so that is for cases now. We had an elderly victim last week who sadly said, I may not even live to see the outcome of this case. It's very difficult to hear and see this day in, day out, and that's not an exception anymore sadly. Their criminal justice process in its entirety is compounding the impact of the crime. It's exerting tremendous toll on many victims as their lives are put on hold while they await that outcome and their time in court essentially. It's not really surprising that we see attrition and increasing numbers who are deciding that they just can't stay the course anymore. We are also representing a serious challenge to what we do in the entire criminal justice system as well as that denial of justice and potential denial of justice where victims withdraw from the process. We run the risk we have defendants out on bail for many years with the potential to commit further crimes in that time and that damage to public confidence in the system. There's an increased pressure on all criminal justice agencies, not just us and the police or the victim/witness care unit and services, with no additional funding at the present to keep those victims and witnesses engaged and deliver a good service. With a 137% increase in work, it's very hard to deliver the gold service that our victims and witnesses deserve. That has a subsequent impact on the well-being of staff in all these agencies. With the scale of individual caseloads we're seeing, we're doing our best to mitigate it. But that stress, vicarious trauma, the frustrations that we're dealing with on a daily basis is very hard to manage and we have a very high attrition rate, which leaves a real capability gap, again impacting that service that we are trying to deliver for our victims and witnesses. Last slide. This just highlights that impact on victims and witnesses I was referring to and the length of service delivery. This backlog and delays, if you can see, in 2019 the average length of supporting a victim of crime was 23 days for ongoing support. We're now looking at 80 days and that was 2023 and I don't have the figures for 24, but that's so much more pressure that cases are staying in the system longer, requiring a lot more work from those who are there to support them. Despite all of the above, I work with many wonderful professionals in this field, all working their hardest to keep our victims and witnesses supported and engaged and keep the cogs of the criminal justice wheel turning and making a difference to victims' lives every single day. Please don't just take my word for it. The last slide is a quote from one of our victims of fraud, which is the last slide. Can I thank you so much for your expert kindness? It meant so much to have a mature and efficient support who was understanding and although I'd done the stupidest thing possible, who treated me as a functioning adult woman. No condescending there, there dear, but upfront and practical. Thank you for your time this morning. I'm now going to hand over to Michelle. Thank you Rachel and I echo all the challenges with the criminal justice system. Can you just turn the microphone on? No, not yours. That's it. Thank you. Yeah, I echo everything that Rachel said about the criminal justice system. It is challenges in the system with our courts at the moment. So, if you go to the next slide, mine follows on just after Rachel's. So I'm Michelle Branson, I'm the CEO of ESDAAS, as I said. So I'm responsible for East Surrey, so covering Raggett, Manstead, Tandridge and More Valley, but also I'm lead provider of our specialist partnership across the county. So I'm going to talk to you very briefly about domestic abuse, a few of the stats, but also most importantly, the services that we provide to survivors. Before I do so, just a little health warning. I don't know any of you. I don't know your families and the likelihood is that someone you know or love is affected by domestic abuse. So you'll get the slides afterwards and these are the support service details. We can't presume that this is an issue that affects somebody else, you know, not us, not in our backyard because it absolutely is. Quite often, obviously, it's behind closed doors and we don't see it. So there's help there for survivors, for those who are concerned about their own behaviour, for male survivors. We work with male survivors, but there's also bespoke service and also people from the LGBT+ community as well. So I hope most of you have a little understanding about what domestic abuse is, so I won't go into this in huge detail, but just to say that all the services in Surrey work with domestic abuse in its wholeness form. So we obviously look at physical and sexual violence, psychological abuse, economic, financial abuse, even the fraud type offences in the context of domestic abuse are ever increasing as it becomes more easy to undertake that sort of abuse. Harassment and stalking and again the rise of online and tech abuse is significant. Whereas you might have been able to separate from somebody and hide some years ago, you can't do that. It's almost impossible to flee and to stay invisible and rebuild your lives. So we're dealing with things like surveillance and tracking more and more and more. When I first started, if someone thought they were being tracked, I'd look under their car and go, Yes, you are, because you could see a tracker. Now you can't. We have mobile phones. We have all sorts of technology that makes those things much, much easier. One of the primary things, one of the things we work most closely with Surrey Police on particularly is around coercive control. There's a lot of myths around domestic abuse, the idea that it is about physical violence. Actually, you may or may not experience physical violence, but what people will experience is coercive control. Where you have coercive control, that is the conditions within which physical, sexual, financial, digital stalking occurs. So in almost every single case, there will be coercive control because the perpetrator aims to limit your space for action, to shut down your world, to isolate you from friends and family and from work, from being productive in your communities. And even just keeping a secret, being who you are when you come to work or when you go to college and then being somebody else at home is not good for our mental health or our physical health. Coercive control also is the context in which most women particularly are killed. So at the moment, it's one woman a week is killed by their current or ex-partner. Unfortunately, a huge part of my role is sitting on domestic abuse-related death reviews and serious adult reviews. So looking at the circumstances in which someone was killed or unfortunately completed suicide as a result of their experiences. And I'm sure we can pass the stats on for you in terms of the number of cases that we've got in Surrey at the moment. Next slide, please. So it won't have passed your attention that the National Police Chief's Council in the summer named domestic abuse as a national emergency. Women's aid have also done the same. The government also see it as a national emergency. I think whatever your political allegiance, all the governmental parties agree that there is an epidemic of domestic abuse and violence against women and girls that needs to be tackled. Thankfully, in cross-party support for a lot of the things that interventions have been put in place. The estimates of one in four women experienced in their lifetime, as I said, one woman a week is killed at the hands of their male partner or ex-partner. If we're including male strangers in that, then we're talking about two women a week. And sometimes it's on the news, sometimes it isn't. But it is happening at a scary rate. And if we just talk about the pure financial, it was $78 billion a year to the public purse is the cost of domestic abuse if we don't resource it in that prevention frame and the support services. Next slide, please. So just a bit about who we are. So obviously, as I say, I am East Surrey Domestic Abuse Service. I've been doing this for 23 years and this has been around for slightly longer than that. All of us across Surrey were born out of our communities, not through commissioning, but we spoke to our local communities and survivors and we are the response and we continue to do that to this day. Next slide, please. So there's us, there's North Surrey, South West Surrey and your sanctuary. We all work together, so there's no duplication of service, there's no competition between us. And actually what it means is that wherever you live, there's no postcode lottery. You can access the service for free as and when you need it. Next slide, please. We work with survivors, both male, female and those who identify as LGBT+ and non-binary in a needs-led, strength-based way, which means there is no criteria for who is able to access our services. If you're experiencing domestic abuse, we're open to you. I'll go on to talk about the specialist services that we've got in a second. We very much believe that the responsibility for the abuse is with the perpetrator. This is not about changing survivors to help them not do the things that annoy perpetrators. A lot of people carry those myths around. Abuse and the choice to be abused is absolutely with the perpetrators. So we do lots of things to help people deal with the very real risk to life on a daily basis. And then hopefully once that risk to life has minimised, we can then go on to help them to heal and rebuild their lives and become active in their communities again. Next slide, please. So our core service is our outreach service. So every time the police go to an incident of domestic abuse, they talk to that person, that they would say victim, we would say survivor, about us and ask if they can refer. If it's high risk, that person is automatically referred to us. If that is a young person, between 16, 17-year-olds, they also get automatically referred. And we provide our support in any way in which somebody needs it. So that can be face to face. Some people, they just can only use a secret email address. Particularly for a lot of our older clients, some in their 70s, 80s, they might have a secret email address that their other half doesn't know about because their other half hasn't been text savvy and they have. I've pretended to be cash protection. I've been a Jehovah's Witness. I've done shopping with people, whatever it takes to make sure we can have that connection with people. We're trained in criminal and civil law, in the benefit system, in debt, in housing. We do all sorts of injunctions and things like that. But most importantly, we make sure that we navigate these really complex systems, like Rachel was saying, like every single system. Criminal justice is really complicated. Children's social care, family law, all of it is incredibly complicated. We're all experiencing extreme trauma and trying to get your kids to school and have a job and be a good child to your aging parents or friend to your friends, all of those things that are normal to us in everyday life. Next one, please. So these are, as well as our outreach service, which is like our front door, these are the incredible services that we're able to offer. So again, as part of the criminal justice process, when people go to criminal court, we're able to have somebody in court on a Thursday at Guildford Magistrates Court. So people who might not have wanted to engage with us before, we can engage with them through that process because we can be in court. We can say this is what just happened at court and get that safety planning in. We do specialist group work with children and young people. The children that we work with are absolutely incredible. Their ability to heal and recover is inspirational, but what they need is that one person to listen to them, to understand their experiences and to not judge them. And then take that work into the work we do with adults to help that family repair. We've got the sanctuary scheme thanks to central government funding. Through safe accommodation duty, we're able to put panic rooms in people's homes, fireproof letter boxes because there's a risk of increased arson when a separation occurs, ring doorbells, all sorts, new windows, new doors, security lighting, fencing, whatever it takes. We've got counselling services thanks to some of the Ministry of Justice money. Huge volunteering projects. So this is a community. Our services are so embedded in our communities. We've got so many people that give their time for free to enable us to do more and more and more. We've got big programs of group work, board prevention, so getting out there into schools, talking to young people about what unhealthy behaviours look like, engaging with youth groups and some of those young people who are really far away from service who don't want to engage. We work really closely in the safer street stuff with the YMCA and with some of our street pastors and people like that. We've got specialist workers set around. We've got police advocates, advocates based in the police station, helping that kind of really raise the standards of what police response is, making sure they're looking at the right things at the right times. We've got a rural aid staff because if you're experiencing domestic abuse in a rural community, it can look very different to if you're living in the centre of Red Hill or the centre of Guildford. So the risk factors, which I won't go into because of the nature of the meeting, but the risk factors are very unique if you're experiencing that sort of rural domestic abuse. We've got a specialist men's service, stalking advocates and then a communities worker who engages with minoritised survivors. As Lisa mentioned, we've also been a fundamental part of the Steps to Change hub where our young people services and perpetrator services come together to wrap around that family and make sure that those interventions complement each other. Most importantly, we can get some change in that perpetrator's behaviour because otherwise they will just go on and on and on to more families once we've got somebody out. A crucial bit of that work is something that people aren't doing and something that the government are very interested in is working particularly with women who've used what we call violent resistance. So women who've experienced coercive control for a very long time and then lash out and actually commit a criminal offence but they're not the perpetrator. They've used physical violence as a way to resist the abuse and that's really quite groundbreaking work. It's not really done anywhere in this country. And what I say about the vast majority of these services is we've been so lucky in Surrey with our unique partnership as specialist domestic abuse services but also our unique partnership with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner, Surrey County Council and Surrey Police, that whenever the government releases funding, they always do it and they say you've got a week to apply for this funding. Thankfully, because we already work together on so many things, we can get a funding application together really quickly. And so we've been so successful in getting about five million a year for the last few years additionally into the residents of Surrey. So I'm really, really proud of being able to do that. Next slide please. Just last couple. So how busy are we across Surrey? Exceptionally busy, like Rachel, this has gone up. So this is last year, so 8,124 new referrals into our service so that doesn't include the people that we're currently working with. That's just new referrals into our service, which I think is exceptional. When I first started doing this job, I used to go to lots of meetings and people said that's very interesting dear, but not in Surrey. I think we're past that now, but I think the volume is still surprising. Next slide please. Similar to Rachel, this is the first six months of this year. So it continues, demand continues to increase. So already we've superseded the same period as last year and it's no signs of slowing down at all. Next slide please. So just a quick bit about, I just wanted to very quickly plug that there is a local counsellors network, which is a national network. So this is something that you can take back to your own individual local authorities. I've bought a couple of copies here, but also you'll have this on the slide. And it's about how local authorities and local counsellors can really engage with the end to try and eradicate domestic abuse. Because it's all of our kind of responsibility. And next one please. So just a few kind of comments. I think it can feel like everything is quite dark out there at the moment. There is lots of pressures on lots of different systems which are causing people to be traumatised often by the system as well as the trauma they've experienced. But I absolutely believe that you could be, it's not just about us, we're fundamental, but it is just about being kind to somebody. Like if you come across someone experiencing domestic abuse, just tell them that you believe them and that you know about a specialist service that might be able to help. And that's the message that we need to get into our communities. You don't have to take it on, you don't need to do the specialist work, that's what we're here for. But we do need to start having different conversations and not shying away from things that feel, can feel quite overwhelming, can feel scary. Like other crimes, other crimes are very visible, but domestic abuse is not visible often. And we need to make it visible, otherwise we continue to have people suffering in silence behind closed doors. So I guess I just compel all of you to have a few more conversations about it and shout a bit more about the fact that there are people that can help in your communities. Thank you. Thanks Michelle. I think Rachel and Michelle demonstrated so much better than I could have done about the value of the services that we're commissioning. I'm very grateful for them giving up their time today to come and explain that to you. And we will obviously share the slides and I'm very happy to take any questions now as well from the panel. Well thank you very much. I'd like to echo the fact that it was a very interesting presentation and it obviously came from the hearts of the people that are doing it. Thank you very much indeed. I have a couple of questions before we throw it out to others I'm afraid. First of all when I was working there then most of the victim support schemes were voluntary. Do you still employ volunteers now or is it run professionally by paid people? Yeah we've got a mixture of both. So we've got paid staff who do quite a lot of the high risk work and then we've got big teams of volunteers. So the Surrey domestic abuse helpline that's run solely by volunteers with a paid then volunteer coordinator to support them. And then we have people that go to housing appointments, doctor's appointments, lots of our counsellors are volunteers. We have lots of people out putting leaflets around, doing that community engagement. So we definitely couldn't do it without our volunteers. I mean they add so much value. Thank you for that. So very roughly because you've got a huge workload there, what sort of staff numbers do you think you actually have? For us, so for me in East Surrey I've got 20 staff and about 35 volunteers. 20 staff, the vast majority of those are part time so probably it's about 11 if I worked out full time equivalent dealing with 8,000 referrals. That's a lot of workload for the number of staff you employ, thank you. That's why I have to dry my hair. I think that's the case with pretty much all of the services that we're commissioning and obviously the victim and witness care unit too. It is a mixed model of paid staff and volunteers. Yeah so it's like a hidden army of community support out there. Yeah we always found that the volunteers brought other professionalism with them so they could talk on a different level to perhaps paid staff. And my last point was that obviously we've got this very serious case going through Woking at the moment. We don't talk about it itself but is there any way that you could ask us or we could help you to try and stop this sort of thing happening again? We're mostly council, the borough workers here, different boroughs. Is there anything you think we ought to do to try and stop this sort of thing occurring again? I think the main thing is starting those conversations, like going back into your local priorities, asking what are we doing about domestic abuse, how well do we know our specialist service. Where if you personally are involved in rotary clubs or residence associations, anything like that, any opportunity for us to come and speak and break that silence just means that someone might hear something and think differently about it or see something and think oh maybe I'll have a conversation with them. We always just encourage people to call us if you're not sure about something. You don't have to give us any details at all. Just say I met somebody and this is what they said or this is what they did and I'm worried. What can I do? And then we'll try and help you to do that. So it really is about breaking that silence I think. Thank you sir. If we found a group that we'd like a presentation to, would there be somebody willing to come and talk to that group? Could you say that again? Sorry. If one of us found a group that we'd like to know more about, you know the presentation today, would there be somebody amongst you that could come and give that presentation? Yeah absolutely. And my equivalence I can put you in touch with. Just come through me and then I'll put you in touch with your equivalent in your area so you get that real community local feel as well. That's lovely. Thank you very much. Perhaps we could have the details of a contact when you leave. Thank you. So going on to questions now please. I think Councillor Richard Wilson. Yeah thank you Chair and thank you very much for the presentation. It's really disturbing to hear about how the situation's getting worse as well. If it's okay Chair, rather than ask the question that I've got on the paper, I'll ask something else. I'm interested to hear about the victim and witness care unit's response to people who have been burgled. So you gave the case study but what would be like a default response, a minimum level and then maybe for somebody who is older but not necessarily vulnerable because of that, but what would be the response to them? Thank you. All victims of crime, anyone who's a victim of crime in Surrey is referred into our unit. So all referrals come across and we make contact. Mixed methodology depending on because it's happening within 24 or 48 hours after the crime. So depending on what contact details we have at that time we will get in touch with every single victim and we will offer support. We will have an initial needs assessment phone call with anyone identified as being in an enhanced category. So any risk, any flag, so that could be a victim of burglary that could sit in that enhanced category or not but every victim of burglary will receive an offer of sorts to either come back into our service to contact us if they would like that ongoing support or we are proactively calling them. It's needs led so we undertake a needs assessment with them, identify what they believe their needs are. It might be that the officer in the case might bring things to us as well. They might see things that or have concerns around victims. It's all dependent on what needs are then subsequently identified. The ongoing support plan is tailored to that. So we go out, we do face to face visits. It could just be phone calls, emotional support, that practical support. Like Michelle said, we also have an array of resources that we can send out door locks, window locks, whatever it is we need. We have designing out crime officers based in Surrey Police. So we work with those that are almost old school crime prevention officer role. We work with those. We will work with any professionals in any of the support services we advocate on their behalf. So really whatever that victim feels that they need, we are there for as long as they need us. We have no waiting times. We have no SLAs. We have no three contacts and that's it for support. It is as long as is needed. Hence the huge increase in length of time we are now supporting victims because that's often whilst they go through or move through that criminal justice process which takes a while. You mentioned the time that is taking cases to go through because of the collapse of the criminal justice system and also the prison system. Is it possible to estimate the harm that's causing compared to when the system was working maybe five years ago or whatever? Is there any sort of measure of the harm it's causing like deaths or additional crimes or anything like that? I suppose the best way to see what the harm is is actually the individual cases that are going through because that impact could be very different depending on the circumstances of that person. We do know it has a detrimental impact on people's mental health and their physical health just from the cases that we see. People need closure. They won't necessarily get the closure that they are hoping for through the criminal justice system but actually just that milestone of going to court is hugely important and having that hanging over you is traumatic. Sorry, just to build on what Lisa said. I think what we are seeing is individual cases and we are seeing that anecdotally as opposed to there being a measure per se for that but what we are certainly seeing is those victims of what we would maybe class as a non-enhanced crime, lower risk, more volume crime are actually becoming vulnerable because of the process. We are seeing over the lifespan of the time it's taking to move through the system at the initial outset there was no vulnerabilities identified but they appear as we go through the journey which is why being an internally commissioned team our witness care officers who might be supporting are sitting next to victim support caseworkers and they can have conversations about victims who are then identifying needs further down the line. Thank you. Councillor Paul Kennedy. Thank you Chairman and thank you very much for that presentation. I am proud that Mole Valley also contributes to the funding of ESDAAS and I have heard Michelle before and I think at the last time I did ask how far are we getting in terms of the entire population of potential victims of domestic abuse and I think the answer you gave was we are just at the tip of the iceberg. We all need to work harder to get deeper in. I think Lisa has actually answered the question that I had on the sheet but one thing that did occur to me was what impact all those court delays and also the additional volume that you happen to deal with is having. I was a victim last year of a vehicle crime and actually received very good service from the police so thank you very much for that. During the presentation I did on my phone so I may have got the figures wrong, I was looking on the hub which shows victim satisfaction for various aspects so overall in the last two years victim satisfaction has fallen from 59% to 51% and domestic abuse victim satisfaction is much higher but also it has drifted down. So 80% in July, 90% two years ago so 83% in July, ASB much lower, probably inevitably with ASB so it seems to fall from 60% to 35% and to what extent would you attribute that to the court delays or to the extra volume and the inability to deal with all the extra victims you are having to cope with? I was having this conversation actually at a meeting yesterday and I think those dips in satisfaction are inevitable because it's not just the criminal justice system, children, adults, social care, mental health services, all the services that traditionally would have wrapped around somebody, it sort of shut their doors pretty much. So we find where even our referrals into those services they say no and we say well we already know what a risk is and we're managing loads of risk but actually we need you now and it's still a no. So I think people's overall experience is far worse than I've ever known it in my time and we're hanging on to these people it feels like, we're sort of hanging on but of course as Rachel said our teams are also struggling under that weight. The work is huge, the work is hugely complex and when you're saying to somebody you've got to wait until 2037 for a domestic abuse or sexual violence case, how do you hold someone because healing can't stop until you've had that case, you can't even begin to heal and so you're in this sort of frozen moment in time really. We can do some stuff but the real stuff, the recovery is really tough. I know how important these services are because I know somebody who's been supported by one of them specifically so absolutely vital. My question's been largely answered by Rachel already but if I'm specific, what challenges is the victims and witness care unit governance board currently considering and what solution is the board considering to address these so maybe a specific problem within that, thank you. I'm happy to answer that, so yes we do have a board and we have membership from our office and Surrey Police and Rachel and myself, it's chaired by me. Rachel has set out the biggest challenge is this increase in demand, unprecedented demand for services and so we're going to do a review anyway of the unit because it's been now open five years but obviously it's very timely that we did this review and we are looking at a new delivery model where we separate out the functions within that unit. Because at the moment we have an omni competent team that do the victim care and the witness care and we're looking to separate that out so we just have a witness care team and a victim care team. And we hope that that will help with the workload, we're looking to increase resourcing as well but that would need investment so we're looking at what opportunities we have there. That is I suppose the biggest challenge for us is just that demand for services. Thank you, thank you. Councillor Richard Ralston. Thank you, I think you've touched on the advantages already of the VWCU being run by Surrey Police but I was wondering if there were disadvantages perhaps and especially on police perpetrated domestic abuse cases? Yes, it's an internal service so we do acknowledge that but we do have our commissioned independent services so we have the domestic abuse services as Cheryl has touched on, sexual violence, criminal exploitation. So there is a network of services out there for victims that are independent of the police and we have worked very closely with our domestic abuse services in terms of police perpetrated DA as well to make sure that there's support and confidentiality so yeah. And just to add to that as well especially services, we're part of like a national network that looks at police perpetrated domestic abuse and we did off the back of the Centre for Women's Justice super complaints. We did some bespoke work with the Surrey Police Force around their response to it and we continue to monitor that because obviously it's an ongoing concern about public trust but also for those individual survivors as well so that's ongoing stuff that we do. Thank you. Councillor Azad. Thank you very much Chairman and thank you for that presentation, I think it was illuminating to say the least. I just wanted to pick up the point about external grants. So in terms of commissioning specialist support, how much of the external grants is available and is being affected by the current state of the economic environment that we're currently in because I'm sure in order to make progress funding is going to be critical. I mean, on the slides I think we showed the external funding that we get coming from the government, which makes up 72% of our budget. So yes, we don't know what that looks like beyond March 25 and it's very likely that we might see some change in that but we are hopeful that for domestic abuse and sexual violence, the government has a very strong commitment to having VORG over the next 10 years so we're hopeful for that funding but yes, I mean the economic situation is putting a pressure on not just government funding but all funders. So people like Children in Need, Big Lottery, etc. I mean, the Great British Republic is hugely generous so the public is actually putting their hands in their pockets to support that external grant funding but it's not just our funding that's going to the services, you have a patchwork of funding, don't you, which is, do you want to say something on that? Yes, our funding, like we have obviously a lot of statutory funding, thankfully because of those, a lot of those additional posts were, you know, additional from Ministry of Justice or Home Office, so probably for us in realistic terms from the first debate before I lose half of my service. So that's the reality of it and the other side of it, I guess, is that private trust and foundations who we would also apply to to make sure that we're adding value is a lot of them have shut their doors as well because they're oversubscribed so they're redoing their grant priorities so we're in this, you know, I'm always positive about it though, I haven't today had to, you know, in 23 years I haven't had to shut a service so I'm hopeful something always happens because it's so needed. But yeah, that's the, yeah, it's a cliff edge that we're faced with. Thank you, Councillor Wilson again. Thank you, yeah, going back to the initial part of the presentation about the commissioning and thinking about the Reducing Reoffending Fund in particular, I was thinking about is it possible to measure the outcomes of the activity and the funding. I mean, obviously, there's a lot that can be measured, but maybe the Reoffending Fund, is it possible to measure an improvement in reoffending due to the work of the fund? Yes. So the Reducing Reoffending Fund, it funds a number of navigators that support the Surrey Police checkpoint scheme, which is our out of court resolution scheme. So deferred prosecution, so instead of going to court, the person who has offended will undertake work with that navigator to address the root causes of their offending behaviour. And that scheme has a reoffending rate of just over 6% in the first year. And that drops further for over two years to just over 5%. If you compare that to the reoffending rate of those people that don't go through that scheme and that go to court and that reoffending rate is over 20%. So that scheme is really successful. And those navigators are helping that person to understand their behaviours. And, you know, there's a number of interventions, it's very bespoke to that individual. And then also, we have other support services who, like the case study I said about Amber Foundation working with young people, we do monitor the success of those services and those people are going on to live healthy, happy lives that are crime free, really turning their lives around. And by recognising the change that they need to do in their own life to then have a much more positive future. So yes, we do monitor those services, but that checkpoint scheme and the reoffending rate I think is really a good example. The Ministry of Justice data is always delayed a couple of years, so it makes it quite difficult to do a direct comparison, but I hope that gives you a reassurance. Is there any other Councillor who wants to ask any additional questions? Councillor Newsome, thank you for your presentation, very informative. I would be more interested in the stats because when I look at police figures, and this is a general comment, it seems to me where I am, definitely when I plug into it for feeding back to residents, that violent and sexual crimes are lumped together in one category and they're very different types of offences. So obviously a sexual offence and a violent offence could be a punch up, but it could also be an assault. So I'm just wondering if there's a way of breaking down the figures a bit more, because I can see clusters in my constituency, but I can't tell what it is. So it would be helpful to actually break it down a bit more. They do categorise them and break them down, so it might just be what is available publicly, but they will be available and I'm certain that's not an issue. Yes, the data is split out into domestic abuse, sexual offences, so I'm sure we can look to point you in that direction. Well, thank you very much. Yet again, as an old fashioned crime prevention design advisor, it's nice to see how much you've improved the service since I retired many years ago. So we'd love to thank you very much for that very interesting presentation to see where the police are going with your help on victims, which are probably the most important part of anybody's work. So I'd like to thank you again on behalf of the committee and perhaps sometime in the future we'd like to see an update on your presentation. Thank you for all your hard work. You're free to leave or you can sit in on this committee if you wish to. Thank you, we will leave, thank you. I think most guests tend to leave. Commissioner? Can I just make the point that, and you're absolutely right, I mean these three women do the most phenomenal job and I'm really interested in the responses from the panel because this is the absolute core bread and butter of what the OPCC does. It's the bit that a lot of the panel we often don't think about, we often don't talk about because it's not policing. This is the commissioning work. This is the victims work. This is so important. We all get caught up and I understand why because I'm guilty of it too. You all get caught up on the policing bit and your questions to me about what the police do and your operational questions. This is the core of why PCCs exist. This is the core of why we were given statutory responsibility for victims. It's what these three women have talked to you about today. I would hope that all councillors would take note of the women's aid and the motion and consider at their own councils, whether that might be a really useful piece of council time in the chamber, in full council, and maybe a better use of time in the full council. Perhaps in debating how useful or a political debate on how useful the PCC is and just think a little bit about our victims in Surrey. This is what we do. This is why I do what I do. It's why these three women do what they do. It's why my office does what we do. So I really, really hope that you all take that away this afternoon and think very, very carefully about how you can contribute to supporting victims of violence against women and girls and domestic abuse in your own districts and boroughs. Thank you. Thank you, ladies. Now we'll continue in Item 7, but I must say that we are half an hour at least behind. Now, we're scheduled to finish at 1, so we want to try and finish by then. Commissioner, are you leaving dead on 1? I had a feeling you might say that. So we're going to have to try and cut down a little bit towards the end. We couldn't cut that off, it's too important. So if we carry on then, please, to Item 7. If everybody bears in mind, please, no duplication, let's get on with it. Surrey Police Group Financial Report. So if I could have a presentation, please, from Kelvin. Thank you, Mr Chairman. I'll try and make it short. Just in relation to the last item, I think it's worth saying that the victims' funding comes from the Ministry of Justice. But the funding for the witness unit comes out of general police funding, so that's a precept and general grant. So if they need any extra money, and they clearly do, you've seen the demand, they will have to compete with all the other priorities within the force for that additional funding. And that will also include deciding whether a portion of the precept goes to help fund that as well. So I just thought that was worth mentioning. So this report sets out the finances as at the 30th of September 2004, and some of the eagle-eyed people among you have noticed a couple of typographical errors. So the first one is in paragraph 1 in the forecast out-turn column. At the bottom there, it should say 0.8, not 1.3. And in the first sentence of paragraph 2, it should say 0.2 and not 0.8. I've been a victim again at my cut and paste, so there we are. So I thought I'd point those out first. I don't intend to go through the report as we're pushed for time, but I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Councillor Paul Kennedy. I think Kelvin has just answered my first question. Thank you. Councillor Tony Barlow. Increases in areas such as wages and salaries, premises and capital financing and reserves have been offset this year largely by increased grants and income, the forecast for which has risen by 3.3 million. Is this likely to be repeated in future years and what will it mean for the group's finances if not? Thank you. Thank you. Well, those of you at local authorities will know it's very difficult to predict what our funding is going to be in the next few years. We've been quite lucky in that we had some of the pay increase that was over 2.5% was funded by government. That was unexpected. In terms of costs, the overspending wages and salaries is principally due down to overtime. We have a group that's looking at trying to manage cost of overtime. Those of you who've worked in the police will know that it's quite a difficult thing to manage because things happen at the end of shifts and such like. And we've also had to put additional staff into areas such as a contact. Mutual aid is another thing that I've mentioned in previous meetings and secondment. This year, we've had a bit of mutual aid. There's been a little bit of a disorder around the country earlier in the year that generated mutual aid income. In previous years, we've had some national events. There could be more things later in the year. So there are quite a lot of uncertainties. I am hoping that we will get additional income, but overtime we bought under control. You're asking what the implications if that doesn't happen. Well, if it's a negative prospect, then we're going to have to find more savings or we might have to take money out of reserves in the short time to cover the gap. Thank you. Councillor Barry Chain. Thank you, Chairman. Last year's report projected a positive 5.5 million variance in the wages and salaries count and a positive grants and income variance of 6.6, double what it is for mid-year '24/'25. So what are the reasons for the changes from the '23/'24 figures to this year? Thank you, Councillor Cheney. I did have a look back to see which report it was. And actually, the one that was presented this time last year was for the whole year up to the 31st of March, 2022. And the variance in wages and salaries was really due to the timing of uplift at that point in time in that financial year. So it was possible with uplift, you got all of the funding up front, but your recruitment was phased over the year. So with a bit of planned recruitment, you could have underspend against grants. So that's what a large chunk of that 5 million was, variance in wages and salaries. That's not possible in the current year because uplift funding is now not linked to recruitment. We just have to maintain numbers, so that's not possible. In terms of the income side, obviously we're comparing half the year with the whole year. So there might be more money to come. But obviously, in 2022, we had a number of different things that were happening, national events and stuff. And if we do do better on income than we're expecting, I suspect we'll put that towards funding some of our capital program. Thank you, Mr Miller, for that answer. So to sort of summarise, are you expecting that the results at the end of the year are going to reflect a far better picture than perhaps the projected ones at the moment? Well, as a finance officer, I would say it's not going to be any better. But as an optimist, I would hope that it is going to be better. I would hope that there will be some more income. But we just have to wait and see how things turn out. Thank you. Councillor Newton. As the Guildford Borough Council, obviously I've been planning to get Mount Brown. Planning's gone through, as we know, minor alteration with an access road, I think. But just to see how will the overspend in the premises budget be impacted by, there's been so many delays with Mount Brown as well, so let's just see how it will affect it. So the revenue overspend on the premises budget shouldn't affect Mount Brown at all. That's really a relation of cost of the move to Ray Park, which was unanticipated. Mount Brown has been built into our medium-term financial strategy, so it shouldn't have any impact whatsoever. Thank you. Councillor Richard Wallace. Thank you, Chair. My question is probably about the capital spend on Mount Brown. It's page 4 of your report, paragraph 6. It's just an explanation really about the forecast in the estate's line, because it looks like the 21 million that was budgeted for capital spend, at the six-month point, only 300,000 has been spent. So does that affect the forecast in the estate's line for the end of this year and the table above? Thank you. Most of the money that hasn't been spent relates to Mount Brown, and there have been some delays with Mount Brown. We had to take a little while to get the planning. We're finalising the contract with the developers. We want to make sure that we're building, that we're surveying various operations in the force to make sure that the specification is correct. There's discussion as to how many desks and such like we need to provide, so we don't want to rush in and find that we've built the wrong thing, because this is a once in my lifetime, anyway, opportunity to do this. So I honestly think some of that spend will be pushed into next year and probably some of it into the year after, but it will be spent. It's just the timing that might change. So the number for the forecast, the 24.2 million in that table, should really be revised down a bit? Yeah, I think that's probably a little bit optimistic. Maybe some of that will be spent. I suspect we might have put a spade in the ground by the end of this financial year, but I don't think we'll have built half of it. Thank you. Now onto my question. Can you please clarify what the cost has been to Surrey Police Group finances of the move from Rygate Station due to the discovery of RAAC? I believe it's around £700,000, so that's the cost of moving, the cost of fitting out, the cost of making Rygate safe, and then also we've got rent that we have to pay for Ray Park and service charges. We didn't have rent when we were in Rygate. That's an ongoing cost, but that's also why we're looking to re-provision that on a more sort of a long-term solution. That said, we're very grateful for how fast Surrey County Council moved and made the facilities available, because if they were not available, then it would have been very difficult for us to find somewhere where we could accommodate all the staff and also, in addition, all of the vehicles that we need. Yes, thank you. Three quarters of a million pounds is a lot of money to suddenly find. Councillor Burrell. Thank you, Chair. Why were the transfers required in the financing and reserves area unbudgeted, and how can this be prevented in future years? Thank you. So we make an estimate for transfers to reserves, but for things like insurance and ill health, our professional advisors will make an assessment as to what they feel the level of claims may be that are going to be settled, and so we make a transfer for that. And then we also make transfers for capital expenditure during the year, and if we need to put more money into various change initiatives, then that will also come out of the general budget as the year goes by. Thank you. Back to Councillor Wilson. Thank you. It's just a query, really, on page three of the report. The table with the average number of full-time equivalent police officers, it says 2,222. It seems to be lower than the uplift baseline and lower than previous planned figures. Is there an explanation for that? I've had a number of discussions with people servicing the force, and I think every time I get a different number, if I'm honest. I suspect that the figures that I have in my report that have been supplied by finance are to do with a number of FTEs, whereas uplift, I believe, is measured on headcount, which doesn't really help. It would help if there was a consistent way of measuring it, but I think that's part of the reason. I have asked the force a number of times as to whether they believe that we will hit the required uplift total at the end of the year, and I've been assured that we will. However, it would be wrong of me not to say that it's becoming even more challenging to maintain the throughput that we need of recruits coming through the system. So I think as every year goes by, it's becoming more difficult. Thank you. Councillor Kennedy, I think you wanted to ask a quick question? Yes, it was a supplementary on the financing and reserves, and I was just wondering whether there'd been a change of approach. And I seem to remember looking at the outcome for 2022-23, and I think you basically said we've identified this, I think, the surplus or we're below budget, and we've allocated it to the following reserves, whereas this seems to be happening mid-year. Is there a distinction in any way or difference of approach? Not necessarily. I think if we have a recalculation of the insurance reserve in the year, then we'll make the transfer if we can. And similarly, if we find that there's a number spend, we'll try and put that against capital if we can, because as I said previously, we don't get any capital funding, and I'd rather fund it out of revenue or reserves rather than borrow, and so far we haven't had to borrow. So that's the logic behind it. Thank you, Councillor Morrison. Councillor Chain. Thank you, sir. The chart on page 5 of the report shows a £16.4 million requirement which has yet unidentified savings up to 2829. I know I've asked this question a couple of times before, earlier this year and last year, but what does the Commissioner feel at this stage will be the most likely source of those savings over the period, and what frequency of request increases to the precepts are likely over this period? And just throwing in at the end there, I wonder what pre-referendum precepts have been used to calculate these figures. I'm assuming it's probably 2%. So to answer your last question first, it is 2%, but I'm getting very excited because today we will all hear, I believe, what the referendum limit is going to be. So we'll see. It might even appear during this meeting. You never know. I'm sure you're just as anxious to find out what it is as I am looking at all your budgets too. The frequency of precepts increases, well, annually, obviously, and whether that will be up to the limit or below, who knows, because we don't know what the limit is yet. So we'll see what happens with that. As for what the savings are going to be, well, I think as we said previously, as 80% of our costs are staffing, it's probably going to be headcount, but I think the Chief Constable came to their last meeting and set out his plan for the vision of the force, which is all about driving productivity and savings and investment in technology and, importantly, his new operating model. And his vision is that we should be able to drive the efficiency and the savings by working better rather than impacting frontline services. But working better means you need less people to do that work, and so therefore the savings will come from reduction in headcount and also from things like procurement and probably more joint working. Thank you. Councillor Kennedy. Yes, thank you. Can you please update the panel on the nature of the audit disclaimer found in paragraph 10 of the report and how much confidence can we have in the 2022/23 accounts? Oh, well, as I've signed the accounts, I say you can have lots of confidence in them. The last set of accounts we had audited were 21/22, and our auditors are in the process of auditing 23/24, but our auditors didn't have time to do 22/23, so we've fallen into the backstop, which I'm sure a number of you will have again heard about at your Council meetings. And so 22/23, the auditors are able, because of a change in statute, to issue a disclaimer, and I think that's to deal with the backlog of, I think I was told yesterday, 580 sets of accounts across the country that are overdue their audits. So that's just a situation that we're in, unfortunately. But there's no need to infer that there's anything particularly wrong with those accounts, and the auditors should make that clear in the report when they publish it next week. Thank you. Councillor McShane. Thank you, Chairman. On Tuesday last, the Home Secretary made a range of announcements about the future of British policing, including a new police performance unit, a neighbourhood policing guarantee, a national centre of policing. Has the Commissioner been made aware of any future funding arrangements associated with these new measures? So, yes, as you'll probably all be aware, there have been an awful lot of headlines from the manifesto right the way through, and we're still seeing headlines around this, including that number of 13,000 extra neighbourhood officers, and we don't know what that means either, except that it's likely to be a mix of police officers and PCSOs and all of that. But we haven't yet been told how either we're as forced as expected to fund it, what our commitment is to it, how many we're supposed to have, or indeed how it's supposed to be paid for. As Kelvin's already said, we're hoping to get more details in the coming weeks about some of the details around it. The Home Secretary did say in a speech at the joint APCC/NPCC conference a couple of weeks ago that an extra £500 million would be provided for policing, 260 million of that going to forces, so the rest not coming to us as individual forces. But we don't know whether that's going to pay for next year's, this year's pay increase, next year's pay increase, or any of that. We've also, as you will be aware, because I believe we've shared the letter with the panel, that I've written to the Home Secretary about the NI costs, and in particular we all know about the funding issues and the funding formula, about the NI costs that we will face as Surrey, and generally the way in which we lose out in police salary and everything else. The Home Office have again recently said that they are looking at how it's being done, but I'm not expecting any quick answers on that, I'm afraid. So, yeah, we will all wait and see, both for the local authorities and policing, what we're going to get. Thank you very much. I just hope we get a positive result out of it. Onwards and upwards to item 8, the estate's update, including the housing strategy. Would you like to present, please? Thank you, Mr Chairman. So, this update on the estate strategy, which the main part is the Mount Brown redevelopment, but there are quite a lot of other elements in it, particularly to do with the Eastern Hub and such like. So, again, I don't intend to go through it. I'm happy to take any questions, which the Commissioner or myself will try and answer, but if we can't answer them, we might have to refer them back to the estate's team, back at the force, and then come back to you with a more comprehensive answer. Yes, thank you very much for that. We have Councillor Burrell first. Can I remind all the Councillors, et cetera, please, that we are still behind, and I would like to get through as much of the agenda as we could. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I think this has been covered partially. If the 2021 decision to return and redevelop Mount Brown was taken again today, do you think that this course would still be chosen? How did the wider implications of this decision on the rest of the force become clear? Thank you. I appreciate it. Councillor Burrell won't have been on previous panels where we've discussed this. This decision was taken in, as you say, 2021, after I was elected for the first time. And yes, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that I'd absolutely take the same decision again. The evidence hasn't changed. The facts haven't changed. Thank you. Councillor Chai. Paragraph 3 states that the Public Works Loan Board loans to redevelop the building will be paid back from money saved by reduced running costs. Can the Commissioner provide an assurance that this will occur and monies will not be redeployed to other services as the financial picture becomes more challenging in the coming years? And how greatly will these repayments add to the pressures across the medium-term financial plan? So the whole business model for the redevelopment of Mount Brown relies on the fact that the savings from the running costs will finance a loan. So we have a lot of litigation under the potential indicators to obviously cover the interest and the repayments. So I can assure you that that will be the first call on those savings. They won't be used for other things. And then you ask whether it will affect the medium-term financial plan. It shouldn't affect the medium-term financial plan in the context of pressures on the police operational budget because, as I've said, the whole redevelopment of Mount Brown is predicated that savings generated by the move, by the redevelopment, will pay for the loans. Thank you, Councillor Wilson. Thank you, Chair. What controls and contract management practices will be in place to ensure that the risks of overspends and overruns are protected against in the construction project because this is a huge project as a percentage of the 40s total budget. And I don't know if you know, but my council took out a huge loan a few years ago and it didn't exactly go as planned and leaves the finances in a really difficult position now. Hopefully, that won't happen to Surrey Police. Thank you. So there's been a lot of negotiations with the developer on the development contract. That's part of the reason it's not quite signed yet. There's been a lot of going back and forth to make sure that we are protected as much as we can. So the contract is divided into stages and before we enter each stage, the developer is required to submit a bid for that stage through an open book process and we can go back and challenge it. We have appointing our own cost consultants to review the costs and we have quantity surveyors that will also assess the spend and if we find actually that cost for a particular stage is more than we were going to be prepared to pay, then we would look at changing the specification to bring it back into budget. So on top of that, we have also put in contingencies for inflation and also for interest rate rises. I can't give you a 100% guarantee that everything will go to plan, but we believe that we are addressing risks as well as we can do for a project of this size. Thank you. Councillor Newton. These points are linked. I think it's my theory as well about risk register because I know they use them in Waverley and Guildford between the two of them. They've got a shared administration and it's something I'm wondering whether you're going to run something similar. So a risk register is already maintained by the estates team. It's looked at and discussed at each and every estates board. Councillor Newton again, please. So I'll just, the second part of the question was, is it regularly updated? So how often is that, what's the frequency? It's done at every estates board. I mean, in reality, it's far more often than every quarter, just given the current sort of estates plans. But yeah, it's not maintained by my team. It's maintained by the estates team and I chair the estates board and we go through it at every, it's on every agenda and we go through it at every meeting. I've got a few questions here. So it's about how much money do you think you'll get by selling Rygate? And if you don't get that level, what impact will it have on the Eastern Division accommodation strategy and how's this eventuality be modelled and planned for? So Rygate's on the market at the moment and we're waiting to see. There's been quite a lot of offers but we're waiting for final bids. So I understand, I won't, I don't know what the bids are yet so that the estates team aren't managing those but I'm hoping they're very large, so let's hope so. If they don't meet expectations, then the strategy will mean that we'll have to have additional borrowing. We might have to have a slightly less ambitious Eastern Divisional headquarters, I suppose. So we'll have to look at how the project works. Again though, we'll be looking to fund some of the borrowing from reductions in running costs from a new Eastern Divisional headquarters. Councillor Newton, again. Sorry, this is the lawyer in this speaking. So to put this in context, I used to run coal mining claims and when they private, those liabilities went back to 1954. So I was just wondering, if you're going to sell a building with rack in it, how are you going to indemnify the force so you don't retain any liability for anything that comes forward out of that? I'm not a legal expert but as I understand it, we're selling it as seen. So it's not a secret it's got rack in it, a lot of people know. So it's been sold as seen and I imagine once you sell it, the liabilities then fall away. To be fair, I have a feeling that most of the people who are going to buy it are going to knock it down straightaway. So I don't think it's going to make a great deal of difference to them. But I'm happy to ask that question to the lawyers, just to be sure. So thank you for bringing that to our attention. Councillor Kennedy. Yes, thank you. I'm not on the Royal Valley Planning Committee so I'm delighted that the proposed HQ is in Leatherhead. What revenue savings are expected to be delivered by the plans for the Eastern Division? I don't have the exact figures so I need to go back to the estates team for that. But obviously there'll be the saving in rent that we're paying for Ray Park at the minute which I think is around £300,000 or so. There'll certainly be savings in the operation of the building because it'll be brand new, it'll be built to Bream standards and such like, so that's a big saving. But I suppose operationally, it'll be the first time the Division's actually had bespoke premises that actually meet their needs exactly. So that'll certainly make a difference. And Leatherhead for that Eastern area is quite a good location because it's near the road network. So we're very happy to put the Eastern headquarters, we did look at a number of sites across East Surrey, there was quite a lot of work done. And although you're not on the Planning Committee call, maybe you could whisper in people's ears that it's a really good thing to have, so we'd really appreciate that. Thank you. Councillor Kennedy again. Yes, thank you. There is a reference in paragraph 4 to contributing to the Force's ambition to reduce its carbon footprint. There was a previous goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. I mean, is that still valid or is that sort of dead and gone now? I don't think it's dead and gone. I think it's more an aspiration, probably, and particularly the previous Chief Constable, it was his aspiration. Certainly the redevelopment of Mount Brown and the Eastern headquarters, they'll all be done to breeding standards. So that's the intention. We have to see what the quotes come back as, but that is certainly the intention. That was what was put in the planning application. So that will reduce our carbon footprint for those premises quite substantially. The challenge we have as a force is still in relation to vehicles. There just aren't enough suitable electrical, hydrogen or clockwork or whatever it is, vehicles for us to use. And also we need quite a lot of investment in infrastructure. We did look at maybe putting in charging points in Mount Brown, but even to do that we need to have a substation because there's not enough electricity. So there's all those sorts of challenges that we face for that. So carbon neutral by 2030, I think, honestly, is a bit of a long shot, but it's still an aspiration to reduce our carbon footprint in the most economic way that we can. Thanks for the answer. Councillor Baker. Thank you, Chair. When will more information be available regarding a force's housing strategy for newer offices? So we have a housing strategy to provide new housing for offices. We do have a housing stock that was in a sort of, let's say, a rather mixed state of repair. We are now upgrading those, so we're selling the empty ones and using those proceeds to upgrade those premises. And certainly the ones that have been upgraded are very good and good housing for offices. As part of the Leatherhead Eastern headquarters, we would like to put some social housing there for our particularly trainee offices because that is a real challenge. But recently we've been made aware of the, I think it's called the Renter's Bill that's going through Parliament, and there are a number of implications in that that impact police forces specifically. So at the moment, we can give assured, short-hold tenancies, which means we can say you're there for a period of time and then we can give you notice, or we can tie the tenancy to a person's employment. We've had some legal advice that says in the new proposed act, although you can tie the lease to a person's employment, we have the complication that the PCC owns the buildings, but it's the chief comfortable that employs the officers. And even then, we're not even sure if officers are employees. Sometimes they don't consider to be employees, they're considered to be crowned some special category. So we run the risk that we may build social housing, we put officers in them, and then when they cease being officers, because they don't want to be policemen anymore ever, we can't get them out again. So the PCC has just written to the minister bringing this issue to their attention to ask whether there could be an amendment to the bill that allows us to tie occupational premises to a police officer's employment, and if we can get that amendment, then that will make the delivery of a housing strategy a lot easier. If we can't get that amendment, then it's something that we might not be able to proceed with, just because of the level of risk around it. Thank you. Are there any more questions? We'll move on then to item number nine, which the commissioner's response to the planner's recommendation on the commissioner's annual report. Is there anything you wanted to add to that? Otherwise, we've only got one question. Thank you. If I could ask Councillor Kennedy, please. Yes, basically, when is the commissioner planning to publish the annual report? Or have I missed it? Obviously, the commissioner's response indicates that she wasn't minded to make significant changes in response to our recommendations. That's correct. It will be published imminently. I believe the final work from the designers came through yesterday. I believe the commissioner's predecessor used to come every year to our council and give a presentation along these lines, essentially explaining what their report was and what their plans were. The commissioner would be very welcome to our council to do that. I'm sure other councils would welcome that. Just as we, for example, as I indicated earlier, receive an annual presentation from ESDAAS on domestic abuse, which we also find very helpful. Thank you. Any other questions? If not, we'll move on to item 10, PCC decisions and forward plan. Commissioner, is there anything you want to add? Sorry, I missed it. I've got it now. Is there any questions on item 10? We haven't got any formal questions. No, thank you very much. We've now caught up on time. We're five minutes ahead, in fact. Thank you all. So we don't want the commissioner's question time for the planner to raise any issues or queries concerning crime policing in Surrey with the commissioner. Now, there is a question here from Councillor Mike Smith of Runnymede. Is there anything you wanted to say on that, commissioner? Just very briefly, because I don't want to get you behind time. So in terms of, I mean, we've talked a little bit about this already, obviously. I'm obviously not going to talk about any specific cases, but you will be aware, as I heard Councillor Smith is, and actually I believe he attended the Runnymede Community Engagement meeting that I held with the chief constable and the borough commander on Monday of this week, where actually this was discussed in quite a lot of, quite some length. But very quickly, there is a significant focus on improving grade one and grade two responses within Surrey Police. There's been quite an extensive data-led review as well onto it, and it's going to be implemented from actually just on the 9th of December. So we're getting very, very close to this. The changes have been informed by a whole load of things and have taken some time to come through because I know the force wanted to make sure they got it right. There's been internal analysis. There's also, as you'd expect, been comparison with other forces. So for grade one, increasing the time limit from 15 to 20 minutes, which aligns us with Sussex Police and reduces confusion for some of our collaborative teams, including the Roads Policing Unit. You can understand why it would make sense to align those. But we've also, although there's a slight increase to grade one time, we've raised the performance target as well to reflect that as well to 80%. For grade two, this is something we've discussed at panel a lot and something the force discusses an awful lot. And what the analysis there is showing is that the criteria used for both grade two and grade three were being handled in a single grade two by Surrey Police. And so, of course, it inflated our grade two pool quite significantly to contain the wrong volume content and risk profile, again, compared to other forces nationally. So as a result, we've separated grade two with a new grade three, which is set at 24 hours. And again, that matches Sussex Police and other forces as well. And the grade two range time is caveated as one to 24 hours with a target of 80%. And there are various ways that this risk is going to be managed. Grade three is a scheduled appointment vehicles. That was implemented already on the 14th of October. I've already spoken to two divisions about how that's going. They're really pleased. There are daily reviews to make sure that that's operating to the benefit of our victims and our witnesses, of course. Yeah, and there's a new embedded chief inspector silver role as well within the command room, which is due to start imminently. So there's a huge amount of work that's going on around it. And I'd also say the Surrey Police have also been making really good use of the Suspicious Activity Portal, which went live in March. And that allows public to upload CCTV, suspicious activity. That's really helping as well. I think the chief constable spoke quite length about that as well when he was here last month. Thank you. We look forward to when he gets in practice to improve attendance, et cetera, et cetera, at least as positive going forward. Thank you. Councillor Richard Wilson. Thank you for the answer to my first written question, question two. This is a subject that's come up a lot over the months and years at this panel. It's really of interest to business improvement districts to be able to report directly to Surrey Police from the DISC system. And it relates back to what we were discussing earlier about shoplifting and crime retail and leisure facilities crime as well. So I welcome the answer, obviously. But I'm just wondering what's changed because I think it was September, you said that you weren't in favour of this facility for DISC to report directly and that people should dial 999 or 101 instead. And then in October, the chief constable, as is noted in the public report, told us basically the same answer that you've given, that it will be possible in three months, two months. Has there been a change in policy? No. I mean, the response the chief constable gave to you, I do have concerns about it. I've been very open with the chief constable about that. I know he shares some of my concerns around it. I think that when you get into multiple reporting systems, that leaves you with more risk. And so I do have concerns about it. It's not possible to bring it forward, as you've asked, simply because they've got to get it absolutely right. And I want force and partners, because of course this is not led by the force, and partners to make sure that they are getting it right and they're reducing the risk as much as possible. And I would support all partners, including the force, in taking as long as is necessary to do that. But I'll certainly be keeping a very close eye on it, because as I've been very, very clear, I do have concerns. Just to be clear then, there's a concern, isn't there? There would be a large increase in reporting of shoplifting, which might look bad for the figures. Probably not, no. My concern, as always, is that victims won't get the response that they need, or that there is a concern when we have-- I'm approached quite a lot and lobbied quite a lot by different organizations representing different groups of victims, including domestic abuse, for new and different reporting mechanisms for a particular crime. I think we're all intelligent enough here to imagine the challenges that that might present to police. Challenges to the police are not a bad thing and are a really good thing. My concern is that it opens up the risk where you have multiple channels and multiple ways of reporting. And that's my concern with this. My concern is absolutely based on different ways of doing it and confusion around it from people using the system, whereas we know that if a crime is in process, then 999 is always going to be the best way of reporting it. I have no issue that the figures will be what the figures are. I just need to make sure that I am satisfied that we absolutely get it right for victims. Thank you. Councillor Kennedy. Yes, well, thank you for the answer to my question. I'm just curious as to whether there's been any change in your thinking as described at the previous meeting. There were a couple of paragraphs indicating the likely direction of travel and potential changes to the plan itself and its objectives. I attended the Mull Valley engagement meeting and picked up a copy of the very interesting Youth Commission recommendations on that. Are you likely to be swayed by those, or are you sticking primarily with the proposals that you set out back in September? Thanks, Councillor Kennedy. I can pick up firstly on the Youth Commission report. The majority of what is in the report that you would have seen has already been delivered. That's last year's Youth Commission report. We're just about to launch the new one. It's currently set with designers and will be out as soon as it can be. So in terms of that, then I don't think that will have much sway, but I'll let the Commissioner answer anything else on that question. I don't think there's anything particularly to add in terms of the police and crime plan. It's obviously, as you will be aware, still undergoing consultation. Consultation is still open. So no final decisions have been taken and won't be taken until that's completed. I guess one of the concerns is that the February meeting will be a busy meeting anyway, because obviously we'll be concerned about precepts and budgets and so on. I don't doubt the panel's capacity to manage that. So whether there's sufficient time, and obviously I guess you and your colleagues may need to be here for a bit longer potentially. Well, I mean, it will take the time it takes, but it would be, I'm sure you will agree with me, it would be absolutely wrong to rush it and to certainly have any preconceived notions of what should go in it before the public consultation is ended. And I've noted in the past that Councillor Kennedy is very keen for me to undertake as much public consultation as possible, and that's exactly what we're doing. Thank you, Lisa. Any other questions from the Councillor? If not, we'll move on. Thank you very much. Oh, sorry, yes. Just referring back to early on in the meeting, sorry, the people about domestic abuse. Are the delays in court hearings all due from chronic underfunding over the last decade of the criminal justice system, or is there any other factors involved? It just seems massive delays. Yeah, I don't think any government in recent history has covered itself in glory in some of the changes made to the criminal justice system, and I include mine in that, but I think there's a fairly obvious thing that happened in 2020 that's had a significant impact on court delays, which we'll all be aware of. COVID in some ways seems like a long time ago now, but it had an absolutely enormous and unprecedented effect on the courts and the criminal justice system right across the board for all of, I think, reasons that I know we've discussed in this panel before and that I think are probably fairly obvious to all of us. The courts are very clear. I chair the Criminal Justice Board in Surrey, where we have representation from the courts, from the CPS, obviously from policing, from the youth justice sector, from probation, from the prisons. They're all very, very clear. They are all still dealing with the aftermath of COVID. So I think that's probably been the big, that's been the biggest significant effect. We also know that people are leaving and not joining the criminal bar. There are all kinds of reasons for that, and I absolutely accept my very, very small part of responsibility for leaving the criminal bar many years ago. I'm doing this instead. So there are all kinds of reasons. Does it need better funding? Almost certainly. Find me a service that doesn't. But I don't think it would be fair to blame this government, the previous government, the one before that, alone for where we find ourselves. I think the important thing is that we are sort of bold about finding solutions to it. Thank you. So I just wanted to follow up on my questions about the NPR funding. Thank you for the answer, the provisional answers. I have discussed the background with Mr Menon. Essentially, I've been got at by a number of councillors in Mole Valley on a cross-party basis who have been asked to support SIL bids for ANPR. I've been lobbying on behalf of the borough commander for more ANPR cameras in Mole Valley, primarily in the rural areas, I think, to support the response to rural crime. Many of these, I don't want to get too localised about where the requests are, but they're not necessarily. They tend to be linked to development. And we're getting a bit of pushback from councillors on this, partly because I suspect we will be using SIL to fund public realm CCTV cameras upgrade as well. And I think a more general concern about a lack of transparency and who should really be paying for something that has a broader, a more national anti-terrorism organised crime characteristic as well. I'll pursue it with Kelvin and the commercial director, but I think certainly my colleagues at the moment need a bit of convincing. So hopefully we can try and get a bit more transparency for them. I should say I was out in Mole Valley on Saturday night into Sunday morning. I did the 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift with with Mole Valley response team. And we were following, well, trying to locate and then followed one particular vehicle that had come in from the Met area that they'd let us know about. And I have to say we had no problem finding it using AMPR. Chair, if I could also add to that, for obvious reasons, I won't disclose publicly, but there are an awful lot of other things that AMPR can be used for other than terrorism, which has a much more local impact. And can I just add that the SIL regime and the Section 106 regime are a bit of a mess in that the emergency services are not included as being statutory benefactors, let's say, of that funding. And the PCC has just written another letter to the minister. It's going through a lot of stamps recently. She's just written to the minister asking for that to be taken into consideration of in the planning bill that's going through Parliament so that emergency services do have a right to call upon SIL funding. I'm doing more lobbying than when I was a lobbyist. Yes, thank you. We wish you luck. Right, any other question? I'll move on to item 12, which is the Surrey Police and Crime Panel Budget and Mid-Year Claim. Jake, is there anything we need to say about that? No, not really. There's nothing to add to the information from the Mid-Year Claims or in the papers. It's just a note. Anybody want to say anything on the panel? No? Okay. So if we could note that, please. Thank you. So item 13, the complaint since the last meeting. None have been received. So, in fact, there's nothing to discuss under item 13. And then item 14, Recommendations, Tracker and Forward Work Programme to review the Recommendations, Tracker and Forward Work Programme. Is there anybody who wishes to comment on that? We've suddenly gone very quiet, haven't we? Isn't this lovely? Okay. So there's nothing on that. Councillor Wilson. Sorry, apologies for keeping you waiting there. I think we were expecting to get an update on establishment numbers and a breakdown by division and role. Is that something we're still expecting? Commissioner? I had a chat with Jake, I believe, and we discussed about making sure that was included in future workforce planning documents, which are received by the panel every two meetings. Is that the case, Jake? Yes, that's right. Yeah, we did have a chat about those being included in future reports, if that's satisfactory as a response. That's great. Thanks. Anything else? Otherwise, thank you very much. We seem to have come to the end of the programme and it is now only 12.40. So in fact, thank you very much, all of you, for getting ahead of time as opposed to behind time. And I would like to thank the Commissioner of the team for coming along and answering the questions. Thank you very much. And of course, to reiterate, a thanks to our presentation, which I found absolutely brilliant and intriguing. Thank you. So the date of the next meeting is the Monday the 3rd of February. Otherwise, I will now close the meeting. Thank you all very much for coming. Safe journey. It's probably still icy out there. So good luck and be careful on your way home. Thank you. Thank you. .