Transcript

Sorry about the Chamber being in use, but that's the way it is, so we've been devoted to coming here. Oh dear, oh well. Actually, it's worked out quite well, because it makes it a more intimate meeting, perhaps. Before we start, can I just introduce you to a Home Office team, which has come down. So, Steve Brody, Head of the Police, Government, Specialist and Security. I'm not sure it was an interview. It was more than a conversation. So, thank you for your time, thank you for having us. We are here just to observe what... Sorry about that. Anyway, let's start the meeting properly. So, as I say, welcome to all of you that are here today. This is a welcome to the meeting of the Surrey Police and Crime Family at 11.30 on Thursday 24th in the Committee Room at Water Act Place, Reigate. We are, of course, starting one hour later than usual, and we'll attempt to finish the business on the agenda by 1.30pm, as I understand you've got other appointments anyway. There is no fire drill expected today. So, if it does go off, then please, in case of an emergency, in the event of a fire alarm sounding, everyone present is asked to leave by the nearest exit and assemble at the top of the 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 your mobile phones are all off or put on sign-up, please. Social media. In line with our guidance on the 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 meeting. Today's meeting is being webcast to the public, and a recording will be available online afterwards. I'd also like to mention that this meeting allows for participation by videoconference by participating locally, as you can see in the corner of the screen there. For those participating remotely, if the chat feature is enabled, please do not use it as an emergency and open discussion we aim to maintain in a public meeting. 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 it reduces what we can hear. If you are sharing your desk and microphone, then you need to press the right or left-hand button, depending on which side of the microphone is being recorded. Thank you. So if we start the formality, apologies for absence. Yes, apologies have been received from councillors Tony Burrell, Danielle Newson, James Baker and Steve Greentree. Thank you and I would also like to inform everyone here today that a member of the panel representing Mole Valley District Council, Councillor Paul Kennedy, has left the panel as he resigned as a councillor from this authority. Paul will be moving to Cornwall. We wish him all the best in thanking for his contributions to the work of the panel for the last few years. Thank you Paul. So we have the minutes of the previous meeting on Monday the 3rd of February to approve the minutes. They have been laid out for some time. So has anybody got any comment about the factual accuracy of these minutes? I see nothing. The members are able to vote please. Do you agree with that? I agree. Thank you. Excuse me, I've got a bit of a tickle. I've had a cough for about two or three weeks like most other people. It's left me sometimes with a bit of a cough. Declarations of interest. To receive any declarations of disclosable pecuniary interest, significant personal interest, any gifts of hospitality accepted. I'm told there's no declarations have been received in advance. Is that still correct? None received. Yep. So is anybody today wants to come forward with any declaration of interest? No, I've seen them. Thank you very much. So public questions. One question has been received from Councillor Jonathan Essex. Yes, we have a public question from Councillor Essex. The written answer to that has been circulated as a supplement. Councillor Essex actually is with us on teams and would like to ask supplementary if that's if that's all right. Yes, Jonathan, if you'd like to go ahead with your supplementary, please. Thank you very much. And thanks for the answer given to the advance question and for confirmation of the future HQ plans for the police. Could you please confirm the current timescale envisaged for moving the police headquarters from the Ray Park site in Rygate and whether there will be a public front counter plans in Redfield and Rygate, either at this site while it's still operational or when the site closes? Thank you. I don't think I can add any more at this time to the answer that's already been provided to Councillor Essex. As I'm sure the Councillor will appreciate given the districts and boroughs are going to be abolished within the next couple of years and all the changes that are taking place, it's forcing Surrey police quite rightly into reviewing our own estate as well and looking where. I think we've been very clear around the plans for Rygate. We are looking for an appropriate property. A number have been potentially identified, but for all of the policing teams that it needs to house. So what I will say to Councillor Essex to reassure him and his and my constituents, which I think is the most important thing here, I'm sure this is what Councillor Essex is asking as well, and he'll correct me if it's not, is whether Rygate and Banstead Public will continue to receive the high level of policing support. I will not see any detrimental service from the police. As soon as I'm in a position, I should say Chairman to update the panel on plans around buildings or any of that, I'm more than happy to do so, but I'm just not in a position at the moment to do that. Thank you for that. Jonathan, does that certify you now? Yes, I think that's helpful. Just to clarify, I wasn't looking at indications of a high level of police support in general, but a public front counter presence in the Redsland and Rygate areas, clearly it's moved to Catron now, which is quite distant and not that located in Rygate and Banstead. But I mean, if there are more details, happy to receive details in writing, but I appreciate that the planning application is ongoing. Thanks. I'm happy to provide Councillor Essex with details of one of the things that we are looking at as we look at our front counters across the county is making the most use of them, making the most use of the officers and, of course, looking at how do the public want to contact their police? And the reality is very few want to attend the front counter. And it would be wrong from a taxpayer and value for money position if we didn't look at that and consider that as well. And the plans around the buildings are, as you will all understand, commercially sensitive at the moment, but I'm more than happy to stick with more details around that as and when we can. Thank you. In that case, thank you, Jonathan. And thanks for looking on. You can stay at the meeting if you wish to continue watching as it is a public meeting. No, he's going. Yep. That answers that question, doesn't it? Okay. On to item five on the agenda, which is the... Sorry? What? Oh, he's come back again. That's it. So let's go on to item five, then the Surrey Police Group financial report for the 10 months ended 31st of January. Perhaps you'd like to introduce this, please, Commissioner. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Chairman. So this sets out the performance of the first 10 months of the year, up to 1st of January, the revenue and capital position. So I won't go through the report. Hopefully you've all read it. But if you've got any questions, I'm more than happy to answer them for you. Thank you. Thanks for all the way. We've sent you a number of questions, which I believe you've looked at so you could answer. Unfortunately, today there are one or two apologies. So what I intended to do, if it's all right with you, is just to read those questions. Is that all right? Yes, that's fine. Lovely. Thanks very much. So Councillor Azat. Thank you very much, Chairman, and good morning, everyone. So just starting off with the most significant changes in the financial position since last month. How can it be demonstrated that these are necessary and proportionate in your view? So in terms of the revenue budget, actually, it hasn't been a great deal of change since last month. Last month, we had a beneficial variance of 0.8 on our budget of 300 million means there's basically no change at all. Really, the 100,000 change, I think, is to do probably with the payroll forecasting, as that's 80%. Thank you. Could you turn your mic off? Thank you very much. Councillor Chayne. Sorry. I forgot we're sharing, aren't we? We're sharing. Okay. I think this is probably a question for Mr. Merlin, but reference the second table on page two of your report. Wages and salaries is forecast to be overspent by 3.4 million, and I think what we want to know really is what impact is expected on the overall budget and service provision, and what mitigation is in place to control this overspend, and hopefully it doesn't get any larger, but do we have any mitigation proposals in place? Thank you, Councillor Chayne. Thank you, Councillor Chayne. Yes, it is. So, you're right, it is overspent by 3.4 million. Some of that overspend around about 1.4 million is due to the pay rise that was agreed after the budget was set, and has been funded by a special grant from the Home Office. So that's a sort of, I suppose, a technical overspend, and so that will be, that's something that will be carried forward. But 2 million of the overspend is due to overtime, and I think on previous meetings I've mentioned that overtime is an issue for the force. There is an overtime review group that is in place that is looking at what has been charged for overtime, how it can be avoided, what can be done in shift patterns and such like to try and reduce that level of overtime. But it is a potential financial strain going forward. There have been steps overtime is on a sort of downward trend if you look over the last few years, but it's still quite significantly above budget. Some of that is driven by staff vacancies, particularly in areas such as contact, and some of it is driven by operational demand, and it's really how you manage all of those different sorts of pressures. In future, Mr. Mayor, are we going to show that grant from government as a separate item to mitigate the 3.4 that we've got? And, you know, the overtime 2 million, was this not forecast in the early part of the year? Thank you. So in answer to your first question, the pay budget will reflect certainly for the year 2526 reflects the grant and the pay that the Home Office are funding. It's only it wasn't included in the original budget for 2425 because it wasn't announced until later in the year. So it's part of that. And we're waiting for the pay review body to come back for 2526. So the same thing could happen again. We just have to wait and see about that. In terms of overtime, we do have an overtime budget, and it is included. It's just that the cost of it, as we're predicting, is going to turn out at 2 million more than that budget. It's had been taken during the year to try and reduce that overspending. In fact, I think the prediction early in the year was it was going to be significantly more than 2 million. So it's moving the right way. But there's still quite a long way to go and it's still, I would say, a risk. Yeah. Thank you. Councillor Smith, I think you wanted to add a question. If I can, just briefly, unrelated to Councillor Jane's last question. Looking at the tables, I think it's easy to start from the first table and say, you're only ever so slightly over budget and that's great. But then I felt I had to pick through the subsequent paragraphs to find out where the various unders and overs were. For example, you referenced overtime. There's a paragraph that says 1.2 million was received for hotspot policing. That was offset by overtime. So I think it would be useful to me to see just a slightly bit more breakdown within each of the lines on the second table for what's over and what's under and what compensates. And that would perhaps because the factors can very clearly be explained. And just one more plea within that grants and income paragraph. There's a lot of acronyms and jargon. I think we had to have them explained last time, but I can't remember. So it will be helpful to have a key of some kind, perhaps for those of us that don't immerse ourselves in this day after day. No, there's a very good point really acronyms. There's a lot of police acronyms. When I started waiting for the police, I was in the same issue. I didn't know what all these acronyms were. And then you soon get into the habit and use them yourself. So I'll take that on board. So for the unders and overs, I do try and write a bit of a text about what drives the main unders and overs, but I'm happy to include a bit more numerical detail in the next report if that would help. Yes, thank you for that, Kelvin. As you know, we're always asking for a little more data, so it always helps. Thank you very much. Now, Councillor Kennedy isn't here, so I'll read his question out. Page three of the report, page seven of the agenda pack, describes how £0.7 million was transferred to a reserve for the purchase of short-life assets and that this was not budgeted for. What were the reasons for this and what were the assets and why was this decision made? So the £0.7 million was excess interest we received on our balances. So we're building up balances for projects such as building the future, the new headquarters. So we received more interest on those balances than we budgeted for. So that's what the £0.7 million was. And we're using that to pay for, to fund some of our short-life assets. So rather than, say, using internal borrowing to fund those, we're using this extra income that we've received. As I've mentioned before, there isn't any funding for capital specifically. So all of our assets have to be funded out of revenue or asset sales or out of reserves, so that's what that's been used for. And as for the type of short-life assets, I suppose vehicles, IT equipment, those sorts of things that have a life probably of less than maybe five years or so. Transfer to a reserve, things like use of sales, which is a one-off item every year. But I think it was about £3.4 million unbudgeting transfer to reserves forecast, which is £7.2 million. Are these figures about correct? I can't remember. If that's what you say, it must be right. So I think that means that reserves increased by about £15.5 million in the previous financial year, the amount received in council tax in the last financial year. Would that be equivalent of then transferring 8% or 9% of all this year? Would these figures be correct? I don't want to say anything that's wrong, obviously. Obviously, I haven't had a chance to check your figures, so I can't say whether they're correct or not. But what I would say is that the level of reserves we have in relation to our budget is, I would say, is proportionate when you consider we've got a £300 million budget. The reason it's, as you would say, a larger portion of council tax, that's just, I think you're probably taking the figures, you're not really comparing light with light. We've said previously that we're building up reserves in order to fund our new headquarters project. A significant slice of those reserves are from the disposal of surplus properties, of which the panel will be aware of. So we're building up that reserve so that we don't then need to borrow so much money for when we do redevelop the headquarters. We also need to keep reserves for contingencies, if we have an emergency or a sudden civil disturbances, for an example, of something that we would have to fund our response for, maybe through overtime, but we might not get the funding from the Home Office for several months. So I think in relation to our budget, our reserves are proportionate. If you look at the level of reserves held by other public bodies, the ratio of our reserves to budget is actually relatively small. So, and I think I've also said before, you can only use reserves once. So if, for example, you decide not to put up council tax in a year and use those reserves, then you have lost that money for every year going forwards. Sadly, we don't live in Wales where you can have a sort of catch up. That's just the way the system works. So I would disagree that they are excessive. Yeah. Thank you. Right. Excuse me. Next question from me. Why does the mix of ranks at salary police have more senior ranked officers than budgeted for? And what are the reasons that the 1% vacancy margin has not been achieved? Thank you, Chairman. So the 1% vacancy margin for officers is 22 officers. And I think we missed it by one officer or so. So it hasn't quite been achieved. And that there are only 21 posts vacant. And trying to balance the number of officers and getting it within that 1% when it's only 20 odd officers is quite difficult because predicting the number of people are going to leave and the number of people are going to join. I think they do quite well to hit it, hit it so closely. And that's one of the challenges with, you know, meeting the uplift target and that sort of thing. As for the overrepresentation in higher ranks against the budget, I think there's a table in the workforce report that sets that out. And looking at that, it seems to be that there's an overrepresentation probably of sergeants and maybe chief inspectors. I think some of that is to do with acting up on particular projects or operations. But maybe that's something that might be able to be covered more in the workforce report. Okay, thank you very much. And if not, I'll come back to you with an answer. Yes, if you would, please. I would like some sort of information on it. I'm quite happy to wait for the next item. Thank you. Councillor Wilson. Thank you, Chair. And thank you again for the email that tried to answer this question. I'm still slightly confused though, and it's probably my fault. But I just want to read you a bit from the workforce planning update. So you told me in the email that the minimum number of officers would be 2253. And it says in the workforce planning. I know you tried to explain it, but it's still not understood. And I have to say my head goes round with it as well, Richard Wilson. So it's not just you. So the 2253, if you look on the Home Office website as to what our uplift figure is, it is 2253. And that is a total that we have to meet. The number we've budgeted for is 2289. And I think sometimes people use the budget figure and the uplift figure maybe interchangeably. The 20 odd that you said on top of that is due to the additional uplift that the Home Office offered. I think that was in two tranches. I think 10 and maybe another 12, something like that. They don't form part of your uplift target. So you don't have to maintain that head count to retain the funds. So that just adds another layer of complexity on top. But the figure that we get that we get Grant clawed back on if we don't meet is the 2253. Yeah. Okay, thanks. That's understood. And if I could just ask one more point on this. Why is the target in head count numbers and not in full time equivalent? Because the number of full time equivalent is a bit less because a few people are part time. Surely then a force could meet their target by having lots and lots of people on 50%, 75% contracts. I don't set the rules for the target. We just have to comply with the rules as they are set. I'm sure all sorts of things are set by people and you think, why do they do that? But that's just how it is. Yeah. Thank you. Councilor Smith. Thank you, Chair. I'm referencing paragraph 10 of the report where it mentions the savings of 3.8 million baked into the budget and delivered. That's great. But also another 1.4 million was found. A flippant person might imagine you lifting the sofa and there it was, but I know that's not the case. So I think it would be helpful to know how were these savings found? Was there a particular investigation exercise that led to them? In what areas have the savings arisen? And I think most importantly, are they one offs or are they ones that are repeatable year on year? Thank you, Councilor Smith. So I suppose metaphorically there's been a little bit of lifting up the cushions on the sofa in that each of the number of budget areas have been looked at quite closely by the finance team. So most of these are what I'd call tactical savings. So they look through the list of costs against budget and they say, you haven't spent that. I don't think you need it anymore. Are you going to spend it? That sort of thing. So they've been in areas such as estates in the finance division, in IT, local policing, that sort of thing. We've also had a new contract for telephony and Internet, and that's yielded, I think, around 300,000 pounds worth of savings. And on top of that, within that 1.4 million, it was assumed that due to the increase in the firearms license charges, there will be a further 300,000 pounds worth of income. For those of you who have been on the committee a while, you'll know that firearms licensing runs at a loss. So it's subsidized by the rest of the policing budget. The government agreed to put up the license fees and it was estimated that will raise another 300,000 pounds. That was our estimate. I think it's going to raise actually more than that, but that was the estimate when the budget was done. Now, though, we feel that some of that money may well have to be used to improve the firearms licensing service, because the public, not unreasonably, think if they're paying more, they should get a better service, not realizing that it was being subsidized to everyone else in the first place. So maybe not all of that 1.4 million will probably be realized when we get to the end of the year. I think it's probably also worth noting, because you do ask Councillor Smith about whether there's any, you know, is there a particular project going on or anything to look at savings. You'll be very aware, as will everybody on this panel, that we have 18 million pounds worth of savings to find over the next four years. And the force has already made 18 million pounds in the last 10 years. So there is a program of constantly looking for savings. And I've spoken to this panel about it before, about that program. I know the Chief Constable has come and spoke to the panel about it in October, about this constant need. And I think that's exactly as it should be in every public service. And I think you'd be surprised if we were doing anything other than looking for savings. We're very aware that every pound that we receive, whether it's from council tax or from the government, is a pound that could have gone somewhere else to some other service, whether it's education or health or somewhere else. And so we have a duty to spend that money very carefully. And as part of that, the Chief Constable, and he takes that duty incredibly seriously, has instructed officers across the force and managers across the force to look at savings where they can. So I think you can expect to sort of see that we will be finding money wherever we are able to do so. And it won't always be possible. But where it can happen, it absolutely will. Thank you. Thank you. Can I assume therefore that the old way of doing things where you had silos and at the end of the financial year, left please spend it, that is now gone and we are actually making more savings rather than that? I think that's been the case, Chairman, for quite a while. I think your time in policing may have ended a bit before mine started. Yes, it was only because the subject was brought up just now. Thank you. Councillor Chayne. I think this question, as you know, is not specifically referenced within the report, but I think it's something that has exercised our minds a little bit. We do have a number of officers who are seconded to other areas and other forces outside of Surrey and occasionally some quite senior ranks. So how are these accounted for within the headcount, within the figures, and how are their salaries and expenses paid? And does this whole secondment have any significant effect on Surrey Police Group's finances? Thank you, Councillor Chayne. So if an officer is seconded to like a regional body, I was going to say, the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit, for example, then that's looked after by Thames Valley Police on our behalf. So those officers stay, I think, within our headcount, but they are paid for by Thames Valley Police. Thames Valley Police add all the costs together and all the costs are divided up by the ratio of our budgets between all the members of Soroku. So that's how that works. If, say, though... So what that means is that's a financial benefit on the one hand to Surrey Police, because we're not paying for that officer any more. But we do get recharged it. So it all depends on if we're giving more officers away than our proportion of the recharge as to whether it's an overall financial benefit. If, on the other hand, though, the Metropolitan Police phone up and say, we've got this big march happening and we need you to come and help, sort of a mutual aid, then those officers' offices stay on Surrey Police. But then we can bill the Met at... There's nationally approved rates for mutual aid for billing those officers. And those costs then... That income then comes back to Surrey Police. So there will be some financial benefit from that. And we've seen that sometimes in the... That we've had at the end of the year. So if I get it right, Mr. Madam, just to clarify, the officers' headcount will remain the same. They are still on the Surrey force. They don't go under somebody else's force. And can you quantify, and this is probably unfair and you can answer it some other time, but what sort of money are we talking about as far as secondments and particularly on the Met and other forces around the country? Yeah, I mean, in terms of secondments, I think the numbers are quite small. In terms of mutual aid, it all depends on how many times you're asked to assist. But in proportion to our overall policing budget, it's not a major amount. But I can come back with you for a figure for last year if that would be useful. I think it's also worth pointing out that, for example, where an officer is seconded to the Regional Organised Crime Unit and therefore is maybe based in Thames Valley and all the pay that's associated with that, of course we are getting a benefit from that. Surrey is receiving a benefit from having... And that's why we pay into the regional units. So I don't want it to sound like it's a net loss to Surrey. It's not. We benefit from joining with our other local forces because we're, for obvious reasons, greater when we do that. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Wilson. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, it's just a question on staff problem. Is it the kind of expected levels? So just a clarify, Councillor, when you say staff, you mean police staff. Yeah, police staff, not police officers. Yeah. So I'd have to find out what the actual attrition rate is for police staff. But we still have challenges in recruitment. Certainly the attrition rate for police staff is higher than for police officers. I think part of that is because we can't compete with the private sector. Certainly in technical roles we find that difficult. So people, we have that in IT. They will get offered significantly more money to work in the private sector. And then we find it hard to recruit somebody. And that is why we're holding a vacancy rate. I think of 10.6% or no, we're not holding a vacancy rate. We have a vacancy rate of 10.6%. I will need to find out what the level of attrition is and come back to you because I don't know the exact number, but I'm happy to do that. Move on to item six. Oh, sorry. Apologies. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to go back to a question on overtime if possible. You talked about the forecast of overtime. Are you able to tell the panel what the position was versus this time last year as it relates to overtime in terms of the trends relating to reasons for overtime as well as the costs? Just off the report here. So it looks as though the projection for overtime between 2024 and 2025, that sort of level. But there is still a lot of overtime. And if you look at the analysis for staff, a large chunk of it is in areas such as contact, where there have been a number of staffing issues, people off ill maybe with stress and such like. And it's a bit of a vicious circle, isn't it? Because if you have gaps, you have a lot of pressure on the ones that are left and then it gets worse. So that's where that's in terms of officer overtime. Quite a lot of it is for like firearms officers, specialist operations officers, those sorts of areas. And they're the areas that have been looked at to see if maybe by changing shift. You know, sometimes I'm not an expert on the way police hours work. But if you go an hour over your shift, then that might be an entire shift that then you get paid for. There's all sorts of anomalies like that. So also it's controlling those sorts of things and trying to manage it better. So is that something then, for example, when you think about budgeting for next year, then we can consider so that you're not always in a position where the trends are the same and perhaps there may be overspends? We're looking to try and reduce the level of overspend, reduce the level of the budget. And also, I suppose, with a non-financial hack, we also have to worry about the wellbeing of people who are having to do all this over time. You know, they should be home with their families and such like, not working every hour nonsense. So that's something else that we're trying to address as part of the factor as well. Thank you. And if I may, I have a linked but separate question as it relates to the question Councillor Wilson asked relating to attrition and specifically around police staff attrition and retention. Retention is an issue a lot of organisations face, whether you're private or public. Have you considered any options for attracting different types of demographics into the police staff roles? So, for example, graduates coming in who could come in, essentially cut their teeth, build their skills and experience police staff that then you have a risk of potentially losing as well? Yes. So, as I understand it, we do have stands at a number of different careers fairs for the university, for Epsom College, I think. You know, all those sorts of places for school leavers. We've got a new marketing campaign for police staff to try and stress what a good organisation it is to work for, how you can move around, how they'll sponsor you through training. Indeed, people are sponsored to take qualifications and such like, but part of the downside of that is they take the qualifications and they find out, oh, I could get paid so much more working in this place rather than that one. So, yeah, those things are being looked at, but if there's anything else that anyone can suggest. Well, I'm very happy to offer my expertise in this area separately outside of this meeting. Obviously, I'm Chief People Officer for the Operator of the National Lottery. So, if it is very helpful, I'm very happy to work with the team in terms of ideas that we've had as well. Because, as I say, I think it's an issue for many organisations. Thank you. It is, and it's something that we look at a lot. I sort of spend a lot of time talking, as does Ellie, speaking to school children at sort of GCSE level and above when they're starting to think about their careers. We speak to the universities. All the police officers I speak to are very, very aware of it. Our forensics team recently had an open day. And the great thing about policing is that I really believe there's something for everybody in there. Whether you're interested in forensics and you've been watching too much CSI Woking or whatever it is. We've all been there. We've all been there. Through to the contact centre, which takes people on, sometimes quite young, and trains them up to a phenomenal level. There really, really is something for everyone. And that's something that's part of this new marketing campaign that the Force are doing. But yeah, as we all know, Surrey is a real challenge when it comes to that. Particularly then, as those graduates start to get older, we see this within the Force itself. And they, not unreasonably, may want to move out of their childhood bedroom. Of course, they struggle to then be able to afford to live somewhere within the county. So as well as finding that it's cheaper to live somewhere outside of Surrey, they can probably also make more outside of Surrey. So it is a challenge, I think, that we face as a county that is, I don't want to say it's unique to Surrey, but we are in a particularly difficult position. Yeah, I think those contact centre roles as well have always proved for us definitely great routes to other professions within an organisation as well. So again, just offering it, happy to help as much as I can. Thank you very much. Just one thing to mention is very small point. Obviously, the recruitment pipeline is very important, but the Force put a lot of effort into retention of staff. So Stacey will probably talk about this a little bit in his session, but a lot more focus is on whether it's on happiness amongst staff members, empowering managers to try and identify that at an earlier stage. If people are talking about leaving, trying to understand why they want to leave. So I guess it's a two-prong attack, as they would say. It's the recruitment pipeline, but also the retention side of stuff. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Sheriff. Can I just explain to our visitors that Mr. Sheriff is our independent member? Thank you. So we move on to necessarily more questions. No, it can't seem to be with the hand. So item six, oversight for the handling of police complaints, vetting and policeman conduct. Would you like to open? Thank you. Yes, Salish will take most of the questions on this because he is the expert and has very diligently put together this report. But I just want to thank the panel really for the opportunity to highlight an area that's vitally important to policing. And I know it's been in the news very recently. And it's a role that's undertaken by my office. And I have to thank Salish, but also Nick and Gary in the office, who have patience that some of us can only, I think, dream of having for the work that they do, because they really do work incredibly hard. And it is an area of policing that's very, very important because it speaks directly to public confidence. It speaks directly to the confidence that we all have in the force as well. And their work does go largely unnoticed, not sort of specifically by the panel, but I think more widely. And it really does need to be made clear to everybody that what they do is absolutely vital to maintaining confidence in policing. I'm also enormously proud of the force and the work that they do around it. And I have to say, as far as blushes, but the change that we've seen since Salish joined the office and joined the team, I think has been felt throughout the force and throughout PSD as well. And not always necessarily for them in a good way, but I think we've made a real difference. And I also have to say this because Salish won't say it. He's now asked to go and talk to other forces and other OPCCs around the country because the work he's doing is considered to really be best in practice. Close force when, of course, the net problems are totally different to us most of the time. OK, so I've got the first question then. How readily does the Commissioner review complaints handled by Surrey Police's Professional Standards Department? How do these review processes help the Commissioner to maintain a close watch over complaint handling within the force? So the performance of the Professional Standards Department is monitored on a monthly basis through updates that they provide to the office. We have regular meetings again every month to monitor their trends, the performance, areas of concern that they have or that we have, particularly in complaint handling. The office also attends joint quarterly meetings with the Independent Office of Police Contact, the IOPC, and PSD. And that's where we review that data in obviously more detail. And the IOPC have a wider look over the whole of England and Wales. So the meetings that we have give me direct oversight over how Surrey Police is handling complaints, both at that sort of individual level, so whether it's individual cases that we can look into, or at that wider, more systematic level to see trends and other areas. And it allows us to obviously compare ourselves nationally and against regional and national trends as well. And of course, really, really importantly, and as the panel knows, this is something I feel very strongly about, it helps ensure and maintain that we remain transparent, accountable and committed to learning from the complaints, particularly because there's no point in complaint just being dealt with. So we've got to learn from them as well to improve the public. Thank you. Another question from Councillor Kennedy. What seems to have emerged from the regular meetings between the PCC and PSD? And what learning has this facilitated and what effects will this have? I think so. I can't answer that one. So I think the first thing to say is that we have unfettered access to the complaint system that Surrey Police use to log and manage all complaints and handle complaints. We're restricted in, as a local policing body, around what we can do within the legislation. So therefore, on behalf of the commissioner, who's given me a strict direction around the scrutiny that she wants on this area, is that I use that database to review all complaints that come in on a monthly basis with the head of complaints. And what we found is that the first thing to say is there's been quite a dramatic increase in the amount of complaints that come through. That's a national problem. It's not just a Surrey issue. They've seen about 11.3% increase compared to last year in the number of complaints that are coming through. As I say, that is a national, we've seen that nationally. I think part of that is down to the accessible way that complaints, people can make a complaint now. The public can make far easier contact with police than ever before to raise those concerns. What I've noticed in relation to my scrutiny work is that not only have we seen an increase in demand, but we are seeing a couple of issues emerge. Number one is connected with the increase in demand, we're seeing an increase in timeliness. Now clearly that's not good for a complainant. A member of the public wants to see a timely resolution to their complaint. So the commissioner has been quite clear that we need to speed up that process. So I work with PSD really closely to try and improve that. And we've most recently introduced an improvement plan to try and speed up the manner and the timeliness of complaint management. And another area is 28 day meaningful updates. The independent office of police conduct have got statutory guidance, which part of that guidance dictates that the complainant should have meaningful updates every 28 days. It's good customer service, and that's something that I look for in my work and my depth check work that I do with PSD to make sure that those 28 day updates are provided regularly. So as a result, what PSD have done is they've introduced a support plan with them. They've introduced the KPIs to try and improve their performance. And we're going to be reviewing that again in pretty much time to see whether they've made more improvements. Thank you. Moving on then, Councillor Jain. I think a lot of the answers to this question have already been made, but you may want to put a little more meat on the bones of some of it. I mean, it's obviously regrettable that the worsening situation that we've seen and is referenced in the report with regards to the recording of complaints and contacting complaints. You've already mentioned some of the reasons that have been identified here. And has it had any identifiable effect on the complaint handling outcomes? And how effective the change has been put in place for improving performance so far? And has this really changed since the same period, so last year? Thank you, Councillor. I think the first thing to say is that we are still better than the most similar forces and the national average. We do outperform the national forces in this regard. So we're not complacent, though. Surrey are not complacent, and they want to go back to being the leader in this regard. So where they used to make contact within one to two days with a complainant is now taking slightly longer, up to four to five days. They're not happy with that. We're not happy with that. We want to see that go back to where they were at the top of the leaderboard. But they are still better than national forces who sit at an average eight days where it's sitting at four to five days. So we're still better than them. In relation to recording complaints, Surrey are the best. They record within one day. A lot of national forces take three to five days to record a complaint. So I think it's really important just to demonstrate that actually Surrey is performing really well. However, they're not happy that they've taken slightly longer because what happens in turn is that the investigations take longer. So a complainant, a member of the public, has to wait longer for an outcome, whereas before the same period last year, it would be slightly shorter. The service would be far quicker. So Surrey wants to go back to being outstanding in that regard. So they're not happy with that. We're not happy. But they are still one of the best performing forces. Again, I think you've really covered most of this, but I think if we come down to sort of the more individual level, do you see your past comments being reflected in the, for want of a better word, the diligence of the staff and our expectation from the actual handlers themselves? And we know where we are as far as the performance of the report, but is it possible that maybe ongoing, we as a panel could have a bit more data on the figures such as, as it says here, the complaints, stroke duties, et cetera, is that something that can be quantified? Yeah, so data captures is set at a national level by the AOPC. So the Independent Office of Police Conduct and the Home Office set guidance nationally at a standard that data has got to be provided. So there's limited around what data we can provide. Having said that, I know that the commissioner has worked really closely with the force to try and introduce a bespoke system called Power BI to try and improve exactly what you said, councillor, to give us more granular information around specific data. Specific complaints against officers against certain trends. What I will say is that at this present moment in time, professional standards departments have a real good understanding of any complaints. If a repeat officer keeps reappearing, the PSD know about that individual because if a named officer has won three complaints, there's a dedicated review that takes place by a supervisor within PSD in relation to that one officer. And a support plan is put in place to try and reduce or try and understand why the officer keeps coming to the attention of complaints department and what needs to be done to try and reduce that. So in answer to your question, absolutely, at this present moment in time, we're restricted with the requirements nationally. However, having said that, Surrey are looking to go further and beyond by introducing a Power BI product that we're sort of months away from that. But hopefully that will give us more granularity. Councillor Smith. Councillor Smith. Councillor Smith. Councillor Smith. Councillor Smith. Thank you. I had a similar question to Councillor Chain around the reading of paragraphs 211 and 212, which I felt some readers could say, well, yes, possible reasons for increases in complaints are over recording, more diligent recording, etc. But also it could be that there are more underlying issues to be complained about, which is an equally valid reason. So some readers might think this is a little bit dismissive of that. So I think the constraints on data that you can give us, but certainly the dip test results that we've got later on are really useful in that. Is it possible to include whether certain themes of complaints are growing or declining year on year and how that compares to other forces? I think that that would give us reassurance that complaints are being dealt with appropriately, seriously when they are genuine complaint and independently see that that is the case. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. So every quarter, the commissioner's office reviews the IOPC data that comes out. We scrutinise that with the force, including thematic areas, as you've just highlighted there, Councillor. And there is a narrative that's provided by the commissioner's office, which is published on our website that gives a breakdown of the thematic areas. The IOPC data itself is published on the PCC's website, the commissioner's website that details a breakdown of all the thematic areas and the areas that are coming to the notice of professional standards departments and how they compare to other forces. But in relation to your question about the number of complaints and the increase, I think there is, in my view, I think Surrey are really ethical when they record complaints. Because what happens is you could have one complaint, but within that one complaint, you could have one, two, 20, 30 allegations within one complaint. Surrey are methodical when they record everything. They absolutely record what the complainant was recorded. I know for a fact there are other forces that don't do that. They record the bare minimum. So I'd much rather Surrey do what they're doing now to give that level of satisfaction to the complainant and record everything to deal with all the dissatisfaction they've got rather than not record everything. So I think that's really important to mention. The other thing that I will mention is that there is an opportunity to reduce the numbers that are recorded because the IOPC do allow categorization. So for example, detention in police custody, you could have a number of complaints that relate to their detention. Rather than recording five or six different allegations, you could probably group them under one or two. So that would reduce the numbers. So I know it sounds quite complicated, but there is an opportunity to reduce that. And that's a bit of work that I'm doing with Surrey Professional Standards to see whether their recording could be slightly more better than what it is at the minute. Although I'm quite comfortable with what they're doing because they're recording everything that a complainant wants recorded. I'd just say as well, I think you asked a really important question, Councillor Smith, around sort of this categorization and genuine complaints. And I think we have to take all complaints as genuine. And even if they may seem trivial to us, they won't necessarily be trivial to the person who's complaining. But having said that, I think we need to be quite open and honest about what we mean when we say complaints, because it really is an incredibly broad category. And all the talk about police complaints and police misconduct in particular and public confidence in policing has taken on obviously a much more serious tenor, I think, in recent years. And actually, a lot of the complaints that we're talking about and the ones that come through through our office, maybe in the first instance as well. And since I appointed a caseworker to the office and Gary really is excellent and he will anybody who calls the office even just sort of slightly disgruntled and want to have a bit of a conversation about something they're not happy with and get it off their chest. Gary will absolutely say, well, you should make a complaint to PSD, which I'm sure PSD are not thrilled with. But he's absolutely right, because it is important that we capture all of these things. So much of it comes under communication or lack of. But we get I mean, some of the ones I saw very recently were things like, you know, I'm complaining because an officer turned up to my house and they didn't tell me they were recording what I said. So therefore, I want to make a complaint about it. Of course, all you have to do is look at the body-worn camera and find out that yes, no, the officer made it very clear. We've seen reports in national and local newspapers in recent months about Surrey police, you know, complaints made, if you like, in national newspapers about Surrey police did this. And then everybody in my office gets hounded about it. And actually, it turns out that's not what happens at all. So it's incredibly broad when we talk about police complaints. And as Salish says, one of the issues is around. I had one recently, which was somebody was complaining about the fact they were kept in police detention for five hours and had to be pointed out. That's because it took his lawyer four and a half hours to turn up and we can't do anything about that. So but it's quite right that the process is robust. I think it's absolutely right that everything gets recorded. And that way we can come to you and more importantly, the public and say, this is the situation and this is how things stand. Thank you. It's just a question on the same thing regarding the 11% increase. So I know that you suspect that accessibility has led to the increase and it's a national issue. But I'd just be really keen to understand what data you're relying on to inform this conclusion. So, for example, what changes specifically have been made to accessibility and to support your view? Is there a significant number of complaints being received by maybe a new method backed by data? Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Councillor. I think the first thing is not just accessibility that would cause an increasing in complaints. A number of factors. Number one is more people want to complain full stop. They know that they can complain more. If they're not happy, then they will do so. So the other reason for an increase in the numbers recorded is, I've touched on it already, is around the data integrity and the capturing and recording of every single complaint rather than grouping them too much and recording too few. And then the other thing, of course, is the administration team within the professional standards department are very thorough and they go through everything meticulously to make a report and record it as a formal complaint. So it's not just accessibility, but accessibility is important because there's a lot of work that we have done or the commission has done to try and improve accessibility, including, and you would have seen it in our report, a leaflet that we provide to anyone that makes contact with us. If they're not satisfied with the service they receive from Surrey police, then we would signpost them to Surrey police to make a formal complaint to the professional standards department. Whereas before people would struggle, we actually are that common link between the community that want to complain, putting them in contact with the Surrey police that can deal with that complaint. It's also worth saying that when an event happens that's quite big in Surrey, particularly if it gets national coverage, but it doesn't have to, some of you may remember the cow in Staines. That leads to a real spike in complaints from people who, and of course, unlike, of course, we can receive complaints from anybody, you don't have to live in Surrey, you don't have to have even witnessed the incident as the cow showed, the cow is fine by the way everyone, the cow is living its absolute best life. But that resulted in a massive spike in complaints from all over the country and beyond. The same if they perceive that we've, you know, we've arrested somebody who's managed to put out their side of the story, which is perhaps slightly different from the full facts. We will receive a load of complaints about that arrest from people who have no particular locus, just they happen to have read it in the Daily Mail. So I think that's worth bearing in mind as well, and that will sometimes lead to spikes. So the kind of complaints that come in, they vary enormously and there can be reasons for them. As I said earlier, that is absolutely not to dismiss any complaint that comes in because to the person who's making it, it's important. And that's why I say that's just the work it does. Thank you. Yes, my question may have been answered, I think, or some of it. What common reasons or themes emerge from the timeless reviews where delays of the completion were found to be disproportionate and not have a reasonable cause? What learning points have these generated and how have they been implemented? Thank you, Councillor. Yeah, I think the first thing to say is sometimes a complaint can be delayed when it's placed in what they call subjudice, i.e. there's a parallel court case running. So the court case would always take precedence over a complaint investigation, because the last thing that you would want is that investigation that's dealing with a complaint to prejudice the court case. So therefore, the vast majority of those that are notified to us are within that process of the court process. So we're quite satisfied that those delays are reasonable. There are other ones that we've picked up and identified following the scrutiny work where there's a current live parallel criminal investigation running that hasn't quite reached the court stage, but it's sat out on an investigation team somewhere. Sometime there's been a disconnect and an undue delay in that criminal investigation that has meant that the complaint has not been progressed. So we the work that we've done from the commissioners office is from intervention is to speed that process up to try and get a link between the two so that that criminal investigation can be sped up to then enable that complaint to be dealt with far quicker. The other thing that we have noticed from scrutiny work is a couple of occasions where there's been unexplained delay. So I'll give you a couple of examples. There's one example where we did an independent review of a complaint as a statutory requirement. The review officer, Nick, made a recommendation that one point of the complaint hadn't been dealt with effectively by PSD. So they had to go back and reinvestigate that complaint. I then did a timeliness review on that 10 months later and nothing would be done on it for 10 months. Clearly I wasn't happy. The commissioner wasn't happy. They were given words of advice and that same day it got picked up and dealt with. That should never have happened. Another example, the IAPC, for example, have had an independent investigation review. They've directed the force to do a reinvestigation of a matter. I've then done a timeliness review on that case and no one's touched it for four months. Again, it's unacceptable. So we've intervened and that got picked up straight away. So anything that's longer than 12 months, the commissioner gets notified of that. We do a review or I do a very thorough review of that case. And if it's not been dealt with because there's no valid reason, then we intervene to make sure it gets picked up and dealt with. Thank you very much. Councillor Sherriff. That's Councillor. Ms Sherriff. I do like these promotions you keep giving me, though. It's quite nice. Some of us would call it Evo. Promoted twice in one meeting. It's fantastic. Just referring to paragraph 2.50, which relates to statistical insight from public contact data. I guess cows aside, what insights have been produced from the analysis of the data from contacts by members of the public? Yeah, so we collate all that information on our case work product. It's quite a lot of information and I'm more than happy to come back and provide that in greater detail. But giving you some high level figures, 28% of contact is in relation to complaints about Surrey Police. 22% relates to members of the public wanting to make a report, but they're making it to us rather than Surrey Police. We get a couple of general inquiries, roughly about 18%, 8% in relation to review requests. Lots of contact about antisocial behaviour and so on and so on. So we do capture and format have themes for all contact and if you want. Action planning is it relates. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. Can I just quickly add on that? On the data hub, Gary very kindly updates it on a monthly basis. So if you're on our data hub, you can see various graphs and charts plotting everything from total contact, contact reason, by borough district, time to close cases, etc. It's all on the data hub. Great. Thank you very much. Right. Thank you. Before calling Councillor Wilson, what I would say is that please note the time we're running behind. So if we can cut down on some of the questions and answers. However, I find it very interesting. So I'm finding it difficult how you cut down. Councillor Wilson. Thank you, Chair. Just anticipating what I was going to do, I'd like to skip question 7 and go straight on to number 8. How are Surrey Police working to improve its responses to police perpetrating abuse in light of the super complaint on the matter submitted by the Centre for Women's Justice in 2019? I guess my point is that was over 5 years ago and has the force succeeded in improving officers behaviour in that 5 years? Thank you. Yes. So the force has done a tremendous amount of work in this regard. And actually it feels number one of the police and crime plan for the commissioner. And so the force have really thrown themselves behind delivering against the commission's plan. I think some of the things that I will touch on is the fantastic relationship that the force has with the outreach services who come in and provide that critical advice, that critical support service to victims of domestic abuse. But also in relation to officers and staff that behave in a way that we would not expect any police officers to behave. The force have been really proactive in identifying those officers and bringing them up in front of misconduct hearings. And you've read it in the paper where we've seen an increase in the number of cases being brought now that would never have been identified years ago as a result of the work that the force have done. So every officer receives domestic abuse matters training, DASH training, which is the risk assessment training when they're dealing with victims of domestic abuse. Regular CPD takes place, which is continual professional training of officers and staff throughout the year. New recruits get training, but also professional standards department, which is the department that I look at, is what are they doing to firstly identify those officers? And secondly, do the investigators themselves, are they trained? And there's a lot of work that's gone on within the professional standards department, including specific supervisor reviews that take place on any case that involves an officer that's been highlighted for misogyny or violence against women or girls or domestic abuse, stalking, harassment that would never have been identified before. So there's been an immense amount of work that's gone on. And all police perpetrated domestic abuse is reviewed every 28 days by a dedicated supervisor within professional standards department. And also the commissioners directed that we have thematic dip check work. So on a themed basis, I also look at violence against women and girls themed areas of public complaints as well, just to reassure the commissioner that actually the PSD are dealing with those effectively. I think something that we've said here before is that one of the things that I'm very pleased about, if that's the right sort of word, is that most of the complaints about police officers, particularly in this area, come from other officers. It's coming from their colleagues reporting them. And I think that's a really, really important and important and improving part of police culture as well. And sorry, particularly when it comes to this area. Thank you. Councillor Chen. In October 24, the Home Secretary announced changes to the police abetting an accountability system such as strengthening requirements relating to the suspension of officers under investigation for violence against women and girls and the presumption of dismissal for gross misconduct. I think here may be the question that has been slightly superseded as it was announced yesterday that the necessary instrument will be laid before parliament fairly immediately. But what is Surrey Police doing to ensure that it's going to be able to align with the changes which will be announced by the government? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Thank you, Councillor. I think the first thing to say is the Surrey and Sussex Police Vetting Department have adopted in totality the new vetting APP. The guidance has been set by the College of Policing. 370 pages long, near enough. I've been through that cover to cover four times. I've scrutinised the vetting team on it numerous times, and I scrutinise and dip-check vetting decisions on a quarterly basis. In fact, I was there yesterday doing a load of more dip checks. And what I will say is their threshold for approving vetting is much better now than it's ever been before. A prime example is if you are now working in a team that requires you working with vulnerable victims, you need to have a higher level of vetting compared to previous where you could just move between team to team without ever having to undergo another vetting. Now what happens is you are routinely vetted before you move on to a team where you're working with, you know, vulnerable victims. So a lot of work has gone on around that yard. In relation to misconduct, absolutely. We're seeing more and more cases come through. We've seen about 46% increase in the number of misconduct proceedings being brought as a result of all the changes. The scrutiny that we apply to that is quite thorough because we track every single gross misconduct hearing that goes through the process to ensure there's consistency in outcomes. And the office obviously is responsible for the appointment of independent panel members and legally qualified advisors that would advise on those panels. So the scrutiny that is applied by the commission's office is quite intense in this regard. So the UCWS. Mrs Sherriff, thank you. Demoted again. Just in relation to misconduct hearings, I guess what I'm very interested in is to understand the number of the hearings that have resulted in warnings, rank reductions and dismissals and have any key themes emerged from those hearings? So, first of all, police forces do publish this data. It is published on the website, but I don't have it to hand, but certainly that is something that can be shared. In terms of the themes, Solesh, I don't know if you want to update them. Yes, so, as the Commissioner said, it is published on the police and the Commissioner's website after each grass misconduct hearing. We track all the themed areas. What I will say is that there have been more dismissals than ever before, because the standard and the threshold has changed dramatically because of what we have been seeing in the delineating inquiry, the Baroness Casey review, the Sarah Avraib author of what's happened in the Met. I think, suffice to say, Surrey police now are more robust in dealing with any standards of professional behaviour that's been breached or is not at the standard that a public would expect. Those officers are brought in front of a misconduct hearing and either dismissed or given a final written warning. More and more officers are being dealt with via accelerated hearing, which the Home Office, with the changes to the regulations, allows greater use of that process. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Two appeals, neither upheld. Go on to my supplementary question. Of the outcomes in the table on page 15, I think this relates to 10, 25 cases, only two allegations not proven, less than 10%. So, 90% some sort of sanction was applied, 60% were what I would call the very serious sanctions. Again, as a lay reader, I'd expect a bit more of a normal distribution. So, one interpretation of that is that proceedings are only started when the misconduct is so obvious or serious as to make it a no-brainer, and therefore maybe less serious but still important situations are not getting to proceedings, and some might interpret that as being ignored or swept under the carpet. Can you reassure us on that? Yeah, absolutely. There's two different sets of proceedings. You have a misconduct hearing, which would deal with those cases that would, in the view of the decision-maker, be warrant dismissal. So, there's only those cases that would go to a misconduct hearing. You then have those breaches of professional behaviour that would not warrant dismissal, but still need to be dealt with, which would go to a misconduct meeting. So, therefore, you may have officers that are going to a misconduct meeting that would receive a written warning or some other form of sanction, but not dismissal. So, the data that you're seeing on here is in relation to misconduct hearings where a dismissal, anything up to dismissal is available to the Chair and the panel. Thank you. Can I ask members, please, to note the report? Do you agree with that? I agree. Thank you very much. On to, well, before I move on to item seven, can I just thank Silesia, because that has been one of the most detailed reports we've seen on this subject since I've been Chair. So, thank you very much for your hard work and bringing you here. Thank you. I don't know if you can tell that Silesia was a senior police officer when he retired from Surrey Police a couple of years ago. So, I would not want to be in PSD if I had a former chief officer come and tell me that I was getting it wrong. Yes, there's a lot of us about. On to item seven, then, workforce planning update. Again, if you could introduce... I think this is a standing update that you have every six months, so I won't go through the report. It follows a similar structure to previous ones you've received, but obviously with updated facts and figures. But if you've got any questions, myself and Lisa and anyone else, we'll try their best to answer them. Thank you very much. And, as I say, we're running up against time, so we'll try and keep it briefer. Are there any changes to the workforce expected to be required to implement a new police and crime plan? I think it's worth just clarifying that, obviously, decisions around the structure and organisational composition of the force sit clearly with the chief constable. And it's worth saying that the creation of the police and crime plan was done very much in sync with the existing force strategy, which is called our plan. It's very hard to get that into a sentence, so bear with me. And equally, you'll be aware that we ran a very comprehensive consultation exercise to develop the police and crime plan, and that was done in close association with the force as well. So it wasn't as if the plan was developed in secret isolation and dropped on them at the last minute. As such, there's a clear synchronisation between our plan and the police and crime plan, and they sync very nicely. There's nothing in there that would, I imagine, require the chief to make any drastic changes to the composition of the force. Obviously, if he felt that's something he wanted to do in the future, that'd be within his powers to do so. But there's nothing in the plan that would necessitate that. Thank you. Councillor Boulton. Thank you, Chair. I'm happy to skip that question. I think we've talked about the uplift target enough. Thank you. Councillor Chayne. If we look at paragraph 3.1 of the report, it shows that the PCSO attrition rate and the projected establishment. Now, if this is maintained at the current rate, how considerably is the vacancy rate of 16% below target, and what effects is this going to have on services to residents, and are there any plans in place to correct this? Yeah, so I believe organisationally 10% is considered with intolerance. So, obviously, if we're operating at 16, we're outside of that. I think previous updates to the panel where we've looked at PCSOs have hopefully emphasised the extent to which the force are looking at PCSO, both recruitment and also retention, and it's a huge area of focus for the force. So, obviously, I won't go through them again, but Kelvin has outlined some of the challenges we have around recruitment, particularly to PCSO roles, and I think we shared that with the panel previously. So, at the moment, the force is just keeping a laser-like eye on it. We're monitoring it through the various boards and governance forums, and it is improving as per the report. We are making progress, but it's just the key focus at the moment for the force to ensure that community local policing is in place, and they play a big part of it. So, pretty much what you said previously. Very quickly, do you see an appreciable level of the shortfall being due to PCSOs coming in and using it as a stepping stone to move on to promotion to warranted officers? I mean, Lisa's probably got lots of views around this, because I know she talks to the Chief a lot about it. One thing that is important to recognise, that during the uplift a few years back, a lot of PCSOs went from being PCSOs to police officers. So, yes, that is a very clear trajectory if you're a PCSO coming into the force. And I think it's also worth emphasising that although PCSO levels are lower than they were historically, by a little bit, a lot of those have become police officers in the local areas. So, neighbourhood policing as a whole hasn't drastically suffered in terms of total footfall in terms of officers and staff. Well, exactly the opposite, because numbers have gone up overall. But, no, you're completely right. I think for many people, the PCSO conduit is a stepping stone. But I think also, conversely, in the old days, a lot of people that wanted to be police officers had to be a PCSO first. And so it was easy to get people through the door. Whereas now, because obviously the need to get more police officers, you can skip that to a certain extent. So you don't have that natural tendency to see it as a way in, which makes it hard to recruit. I don't know whether Lisa's talking about it. Yeah, we do. I think we are seeing a real change. And a lot of forces have gone out and recruited PCSOs on the basis that try it out and see if you like it. And if you like it, become a police officer. And Surrey certainly did that years ago. And it worked as a tactic. It absolutely worked. And so I think suffering is unfair because we've got some excellent police officers out of it. And equally, people who decided that, oh, no, actually, that's not for me, didn't go through that process. So that's really good. I admit, it's always lovely when I meet police officers. There's an excellent one in Waverley based in Hazelmere called John Savage, PCSO John Savage, who only ever wanted to be a PCSO. He's a young man. He just wants to be a PCSO. That's what he loves doing. But that's relatively rare to find that, actually. Because of that, and as Damien said, I do speak to the chief about this an awful lot, the new recruitment campaign around PCSOs is very much designed sort of less around, do you want to be a police officer or come in this way? And more around, do you want to support your community? Is there work within your community? Do you feel, you know, something like that? And I think that's a really, really important part of it. But we are going through a bit of a change at the moment in that. One more point, which just follows on what Lisa was saying. So moving away from PCSOs, there is a very valid point around people's expectations of what police roles are and look like, whether that be staff, PCSO or an officer. And exactly as Lisa said, beyond PCSOs, there's a lot more focus now around trying to make sure new recruits understand the nature of the role. Because what we saw a few years back was quite high attrition rate amongst particular graduate entries and certain pathways like that. So, yeah, exactly that. There's a lot more focus around being more upfront about what certain roles look like in practice. Yes, thanks for that. Councillor O'Leary. Thank you very much, Chairman. So two separate entities, that's the CCP board and the SRMMS, sorry about the acronyms, consider the force attrition rates and regional trends. What learning and actions have these recently produced, in your view? Yeah, in terms of previous discussions, there's obviously national issues at play. I know Kelvin touched upon these. So it's extraordinarily expensive to live in Surrey, particularly on a lower salary. And I guess all those economic challenges make certain roles less attractive, make you look for other roles or not apply in the first place. There's, I guess, that shifting public perceptions of the nobility of policing because of some of the horrible incidents that have happened over the last few years. And that also puts off certain people that might feel that they don't want to be associated much in the same way that they would have done in the past. I think really what we're doing at the moment, as I said earlier, it's twofold. We're looking intensively at those recruitment pathways and trying to make sure the people that come in are both suitable but also ready for the role that they're going to experience. And it's on the other side, too, around how we keep people in post. And that's through giving managers more responsibility for keeping an eye out around unhappiness, people that are making noises about wanting to leave, trying to get in at the earlier stage before it's too late. And just doing both of those things in parallel. So I don't think there's any easy answers there. And it's something the force, I think, all forces nationally have been grappling with. But they do focus on it extensively. And as you've seen from the report, there are almost endless meetings now where we're looking at different parts of the recruitment of the attrition process to really understand what it looks like and try and dissuade people from leaving or encourage people to join us. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. So, Councillor Blake is not here, so I'll skip straight to Councillor Mike Smith. Thank you, Chair. It might be beginning to sound like I'm constantly looking between the lines for what's not being said and what's being hidden. But I'm genuinely seeking reassurance. My question relates to Section 8 about wellbeing and there are some very concerning underlying causes of lack of wellbeing among workloads, lack of equipment, et cetera, et cetera. 8.5 goes on to describe the wellbeing strategy and some great steps to address the wellbeing consequences. But can you reassure us that the underlying causes of these wellbeing concerns are also being addressed at the same time? I'm going to take the bureaucratic part of that. And then I'm going to suggest perhaps Lisa and Ellie, who spend a lot of time with police officers, might be able to deal with some of those wider concerns. So, we have got an update with the force, I think, at the next resource and efficiency meeting where we're looking in detail at their new wellbeing strategy. So, that's something we have overall good oversight of. I think some of the issues outlined, so one of the big concerning ones that I think you touched upon was officers not even having the right equipment, which came out of the last staff survey. And we did dig into that and I think, sadly, it wasn't always the case that the force didn't have the equipment or it wasn't the case that we couldn't afford the equipment. It was the case that sometimes people just didn't know who to ask for the equipment and so sometimes you had officers that felt they needed something and they just weren't getting the satisfaction they needed from their manager in order to sort of get that stuff. So, there's definitely been a lot of work since that staff survey around looking at how managers can both be empowered but also be better at solving issues within their teams. So, I guess that's the bureaucratic side and there's lots of work taking place with action plans around, you know, how things are progressing as an outcome from those staff surveys and all the metrics. But I think perhaps more importantly, I know Ellie spends a lot of time potentially with the roads policing team and I know Lisa speaks to officers. So, it might stand perhaps how more informal concerns get flagged in the general word on the streets. The word on the streets of working. No, and it is very, very important and I think there has been a real change in the last couple of years. One of the things that bothered me under, call it the old regime of the previous Chief Constable, was that I saw a lot of posters around the place about well-being and, you know, talk to us and here's a phone number you can call. But I saw very little actual action. I don't think posters help any, you know, having a campaign day for something is all very well. But if officers don't feel that that's helping, and I don't think it was. So, that was one of the issues when I appointed the current Chief Constable that I said, I really want to do something about this. And it is something the Chief Constable feels very strongly about. Partly because he feels a moral duty, and some of you all have heard him talk about it, that when he shakes the hand of a parent at, you know, passing out parade, he's very, very conscious that he's, you know, he's taking their son or daughter and putting them into what is, let's be honest, it's a really stressful career. It's a very, very stressful choice, as those who have been officers in this room will know. There's always going to be an associated level of stress, I think, with any of the emergency services. But we do have a duty, we have a moral duty and a legal duty, quite rightly, to work with that. And it is something that the Chief Constable feels very strongly about, and so it's something we've been looking at very closely. When it comes to frontline officers, I think there is always a feeling. And you take any organisation of 4,000-plus people and smaller, and you're always going to have a situation where people who are more junior feel that those who sit at the top sort of sit slightly remotely. And that's one of the reasons why Ellie and I go out so much and speak to officers. And I will, and Ellie does the same, you know, you'll sit in a car for sort of, you know, six, eight hours on a shift with somebody driving around sort of very rural bits of Waverley overnight on a Sunday night. And that's when a lot of these things come out. And what that allows me to do is then talk to the police fed, which we meet with regularly, to say, you know, how much of these concerns are you hearing? Is this an anomaly? Is this actually a bit of a theme? And then how do we raise this with the Chief Constable if it hasn't already been raised? And actually what you find is more often than not, he is aware of it, and there is a plan in place. So I do think that there's an awful lot, and around health as well, I think, is a really, really, sorry, that's my watch. And that's really, really important to make sure that officers are getting that. The Chief Constable actually has recently put in place a programme of talks. One of the things, I think the one we've got coming up is Professor Steve Lockley, who some of you may know who splits his time between Guilford University and Harvard. He's a neuroscientist talking about the importance of sleep and rest, because we all know, everybody in this room knows, if you haven't slept properly, the following day, you don't feel great. I certainly feel as I get older, it gets worse and worse. So all of these things are really important. So what we're looking at and what the Chief is looking at is a sort of real holistic approach to this. So everything from, you know, do you know who to go and talk to, to get the right equipment? Do you know who your line manager is, and are we empowering line managers, which as Damien said, and that's a really, really important point. And are we as a force looking after you in the way that we have not just a legal duty to, but I believe, and the Chief believes, a moral duty to. But Ellie, you spend a lot of time as well speaking, particularly to younger officers. Yeah, so I think the most constant and consistent concern I hear at the moment is actually in relation to post-op uplift. We've had a lot of staff change. So lots of teams have either been mixed up to sort of allocate more senior officers into other teams as new officers come in, or teams are just full of brand new officers who, you know, experience is more limited. I think that is starting now to settle down, which in turn is having a positive impact on morale. I think, you know, there's nothing we can do about that. We got lots of new officers at once. They will bed in gradually. They are, you know, developing with their teams. But that is the thing I'm hearing consistently is that, you know, an awful lot of change and a lot of new people is putting different pressures, both on more experienced officers and the new officers themselves. Because they're in lots of teams, actually, new officers outnumber more experienced officers, which means, you know, there's a lack of that sort of mentorship. But there's also lots of additional pressure in the short term on those with more experience who are sort of helping coach and mentor those new officers. But as I said, that is starting to settle down. It's been well over a year now since the first wave of uplift sort of settled in. And so I hope that alongside the other things that have already been discussed, that's something that will naturally improve in terms of morale and well-being as well. And expectations, particularly some of our young officers, you know, it's really, really interesting. But it's difficult for them. They're trying to adjust for the first time post-university or school to a workplace, let alone a new workplace. I did an overnight shift recently where I asked the youngest officer there and the most recent recruit, what made you join policing? Because I'm fascinated about what makes young people today join policing. And he said, oh, I wanted to go into the army, but my mum wouldn't let me. Thank you for that, yes. From me. How is the recent clarity from the Home Office on the specifics required to deliver the government's neighbourhood policing guarantee, guaranteed patrols at specific times, named and contactable officers for community issues, thank you for mentioning John Savage-Hazeman, I do know him and he is, as you say, a very good officer, be expected to impact upon the workforce? Will these new requirements have any effects on other parts of the workforce? And how is the release of the interest in what you call a neighbourhood? I'm going to let Damien answer the more technical bits of this, but I did meet with the Home Office last week. They had a call for all PCCs and officers to talk about some of the specifics required. And we're still waiting for some more updates. And I'll be honest, and I'm very conscious that we've got the Home Office in the room. I think we were still left with some questions around it. I think guaranteed patrols at specific times and named, I'm slightly sceptical about named and contactable officers for community issues, if I'm honest, because of shift patterns and the expectations and changes. I'd much rather that if you were living in an area, as we all do, that, you know, you knew how to get hold of your local sort of policing force rather than a particular named officer. I think it's a bit gimmicky. I'm conscious that my party said it as well. So this is not a party political point. I just think it's a bit gimmicky. But, yeah, we do still have some questions, but we are meeting with the Home Office to talk about it. There is guidance coming out. They've, I should say, they have been clear that none of this is mandatable. There's no extra money coming with this. So we are all trying to figure out. I think the point you make, Councillor O'Brien, around rural communities is a really, really interesting one, because on that call they were highlighting a sort of summer programme of work around hotspots, and they very much saw hotspots as town centres. And I, you know, a number of people on that call made the point that actually, yeah, there's a real pushback to that and saying, actually, some of our more difficult areas, some of the areas where we need to put more officers and where we want to use the extra neighbourhoods money and all of that, actually, some of our rural areas or suburban areas, it's not necessarily town centres. It was a very town centre centric approach. There is a lot of pushback to that. But, yeah, so how neighbourhood is defined is, I think it should be up to forces. And, of course, chief constables are quite rightly operationally independent on this from the Home Office and certainly from their PCCs. And I think it's, you know, each force, and not just the chief constable, but borough commanders, they will know what their neighbourhood is. And I don't think they would want me or certainly the Home Office to try and tell them what that is. But, Damien, do you want to talk a little bit about the wider national, please? Yeah, I mean, it's probably not as technical as you may have set me up to try and explain. So, I mean, outside of the initial guidance we've had and obviously the meetings Lisa's been having with the Home Office, we've got a series of meetings set up in the diary with the chief to look at what this means in practice and the operational considerations. But I guess my technical summary is probably watch this space. And once we've had those meetings, we can start reporting back to the panel and the wider stakeholders around what this might look like in practice. I think it's worth saying, I think most chief constables probably look at the guarantee and think to themselves, well, this isn't sort of a bad thing. This is something I would like to do. But it's more a case of how do I get to that point? And that's the million dollar question, isn't it? So, yeah. I'd like a million dollars. Yeah, exactly. Probably wouldn't get you much a million dollars. But you get the drift. So, we'll come back with a bit more detail once we've had those initial discussions with the chief. If you could keep us updated, I'd be very pleased. Thank you very much. Steve is not here. So, we'll go on for Councillor Wilson. Thank you, Chair. The Government announced in March a funding increase for rural and wildlife crime units. Has any clarity been given on what funding will be awarded to Surrey or how this will be deployed? How will the force work with the National Rural Crime Unit and the National Wildlife Crime Units? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Wilson. As the rural lead, I'm going to take this one. Obviously, we really welcome the national investment. But we should clarify that Surrey and any other area has not been allocated a specific local share of the funding. That's actually support being directed at the National Rural Crime Unit and the National Wildlife Crime Unit. It's under a million pounds. But both of those units provide coordination, intelligence and support to all forces across England and Wales. So, whilst we're not getting any direct funding, we will be ensuring that Surrey Police remains closely linked to those national mechanisms, particularly when it comes to sort of joint operations, cross-border, intelligence sharing and access to that specialist advice and support that they're there to provide when we need it. I'll leave it there in the interests of time. But if you want to explore that more in the future, we can. Thank you. Councillor Jane? Okay, thank you. This one is, I think, more for information of other members, because, as the Commissioner knows, we've already gone down this road in my particular area. Is it the case that private security companies are used by Surrey Police to assist in the enforcement of public space protection orders, as previously been suggested? And, of interest to all of us, is how are these contracts awarded and how are they funded? I'm doing a bit more digging on this one for you. However, my understanding of public and space protection orders is that they're put in place by the councils. And the force will sometimes support enforcement through PCSOs and officers. I'd always thought that if there was any additional security put in place, such as a private contractor, that would be contracted through the council. But I'm just doing some digging just to make sure that is definitely the case. But as far as I'm aware, that's how it works. That's certainly my understanding as well. Where that's happened, and I've spoken to you, so it might be a business improvement district. So, for example, Staines, which has an excellent business improvement district, and they work really hard around the Two Rivers area, need it. But it's very, very separate from Surrey Police. I ask a question because I know, sort of in my area where this has gone on, that they have worked very much hand in glove, particularly with the PSBOs. But as we said, you need to get away. So, if we could have an update on that, please. Yeah, and I'll try and keep it relatively brief. So, earlier this month, I joined plainclothes operations in Guildford, in Farncombe, and Wider, as well in Waverley, working alongside officers there. Included uniform patrols, as well as behavioural detection officers, who are plainclothes officers, who are specially trained, essentially, to blend in with the public and spot suspicious behaviour. There was a particular week. It was a week-long operation. Officers and PCSOs, including myself and John Savage, dropped in on local shops. We spoke to staff. They offered advice and provided a bit of extra assurance, which I'm sure was appreciated. The aim, of course, was to prevent offences, support shop workers, and show the business community it's being taken seriously. Over the course of just that week, in those couple of boroughs, eight people were arrested for theft. Four of them charged and mounted to court. So, there are real consequences, and, of course, that's what we all want to show. As you'll appreciate, it fits very squarely with the back-to-basics approach that I've set out in my police and crime plan, and the aim being to make sure that we are dealing with those issues that really affect people day to day. We're seeing some really strong results across the board at the moment on shoplifting. Six offenders who'd stolen more than £130,000 worth of goods from supermarkets across the southeast, very much including Surrey, were sentenced. And that was thanks to a two-year investigation led by one of our officers, PC Ben Marshall, and some of you may have read the report in The Times about that. The targeted initiative in Red Hill has led to 155 arrests, including for shoplifting, and a prolific offender was caught in the north of the county earlier this year, also in Spellthorne. Saying that, retail crime is still a big concern, and I spend time speaking directly with shop staff, residents, and officers while I'm out on patrol, and it's very, very clear how damaging this kind of offending can be, not just financially, but also emotionally and even physically for those who are affected. And it leaves communities, of course, feeling less safe, and that's why operations like that matter. Our shoplifters should know that the person browsing on the shelf next to them may well be a plainclosed officer. So we're not just responding to the crimes, but the force is actively going out there and dealing with it. We just closed a survey a couple of weeks ago on retail crime, which we ran jointly with the force. Around 200 members of the business community took part, and we're now working on a report which will come out in the summer, and I'm sure the panel may want to look at that as well. It's worth saying there have been 876 more shoplifting offences charged in the last 12 months, so that's 876 over and above what was dealt with last year by the force. That's a fourfold increase, and I think is incredibly important. The force are actually carrying out a local media briefing tomorrow around this, so I'm sure look out for your local paper, hold off the press. And next week, the force are launching their new retail crime strategy, so I'm sure that when the chief constable comes to speak to you in the autumn, that may well be something you want to ask him about. On ASB, as this panel will know, it's one of the issues I hear most often about when I'm speaking to residents, and that's why it's a priority for both myself and the office to ensure that we're supporting the work that's being done by the force, but also by local authorities, of course, and reduce the impact and make sure people feel safer in their communities. So I've joined officers from the force on one of their targeted hotspot controls initiative. Of course, it was made possible by the million pounds that we received in funding last year from the Home Office. That funding is being used to increase police visibility in the areas that need it most, and that's based on the latest crime data, as you'd expect. Since last May, so over the last year, it's funded over 900 extra patrols in 15 hotspot locations across the county, 34 arrests for offences, including assault, drug possession, breaches of ASB legislation, and, of course, prevention. I think that's a really important one. It's very difficult to say how many crimes, but with 900 extra patrols, you've got to assume that there was a significant preventative measure there as well. Officers have engaged with more than 2,600 people, carried out 43 stops and searches, so very much a visible, proactive approach, and all based on the concerns that residents had raised with us. The funding is part of that wider package of work that my office is delivering with Surrey Police, with local councils, of course, other key agencies, as part of what is a very joined-up approach to antisocial behaviour, as the panel will appreciate, not all antisocial behaviour is criminal behaviour, and so sometimes it might be environmental officers from the council or other agencies that are best deal-to-place with it. And it does cover everything about antisocial driving, persistent nuisance behaviour, drug dealing and theft. Again, we're making sure that we're responding to what the communities are asking us for. As I've said before, I'm incredibly proud that we now have record office numbers. The investment's helping us, obviously, to put those resources where they make the biggest difference, and that is at the heart of our towns and our neighbourhoods. However we define neighbourhoods, I think we all understand what that means. And we were very pleased to secure just under £353,000 through the Safer Streets 5 fund, of course, last year. Now, Safer Streets is being discontinued by the Home Office, but in the last round of it, for the period 24-25, it was split between three key areas, as a lot of you will know, Guildford, Red Hill and Walton-Pontemps, each got just over £115,000 to deliver community safety projects. I have details about each of those. I know I've spoken about them before. I won't go into them in the interest of time. It is worth mentioning, and I would please urge councillors to share this with your residents as well. As the force is currently carrying out an ASB survey, please do share it. You can find all of that information on the force's social media updates as well. Yeah, I think I'll take any questions, Chairman, if there are any. Thank you for that. Councillor Chan. I have already discussed this with the Commissioner before, but I think, for the sake of other people, we did have a situation in Cobham, which got very badly reported by the press and by social media, and gave a totally wrong slant on it. I suppose there is an area there that needs to be addressed, but also where practices have changed to make sure that where we do have shoplifting and commercial offences, the premises are actually visited, rather than just a telephone call and a crime number, perhaps, as happened in this case. Yeah, thank you. And thank you for your interest in this particular one, and I know the borough commander was grateful for your support there as well. And this is exactly what the force are doing as part of their wider work into shoplifting that we're doing jointly with them is looking at this. But certainly, everything is assessed on a threat and harm basis, quite rightly. It won't always be appropriate. In that particular instance, and an officer did visit, that was absolutely an appropriate visit. It won't always be appropriate for an officer to visit because a Mars bar has been stolen. I think we appreciate that. I don't think anybody in this room would argue against that, but the chief constable is absolutely clear with his officers and with me that all reasonable lines of inquiry need to be pursued, and that includes getting that evidence at the earliest possible opportunity, and that will mean, usually, a visit. So I think that's a very important part of it. Thank you. Count for motion. Yeah, thank you. Just briefly, as you said, the chief constable said right before me that he was going to prioritise dealing with theft from shoplifting is theft. So I'll have you wait for the data to come out in the next few days, hopefully, that will demonstrate whether that's been successful. Well, I think the fourfold increase in the charging of shoplifting offences, in part, at least, goes to demonstrate that. Okay. Yeah. I just wanted to ask about the Crime and Policing Bill 2025 that's going through Parliament. The government's website says that this downgraded response is going to be repealed. And wouldn't you agree? I mean, I'm going to wait and see when the Act passes and we get the guidance around it. But I think, regardless of what the Act says, the chief constable and I have both been very clear that shoplifting has to be taken seriously and dealt with, and it will be on a case-by-case basis, regardless of what that legislation says. Councillor Smith. Thank you, Chair. Another question about wildlife crime, and I believe the Commissioner has been recently contacted by a charity called Swan Support that I have been talking to in relation to attacks on swan people with catapults and also by dogs not kept under a control. Could I ask whether you feel that PSPO, sorry, Mr. Anti-Jargon, is getting caught by the Public Space Protection Orders, such as the one recently implemented in Spellthorne, can work to prevent these kind of offensive offences, and how effectively does the force communicate with relevant partners, such as the RSPCA? Thank you, Councillor Smith. Again, as rural lead, I'm going to take this one. As I'm sure everyone here appreciates, PSPOs cover a broad range of issues, which are largely around ASB rather than animal cruelty, although there will, of course, be offences in that category that end up being picked up within the time space of the PSPO. Lots of work across the force goes on to prevent and disrupt animal cruelty and, indeed, prosecute it to the fullest extent possible where it occurs and where that is possible. Often, animal cruelty will happen behind closed doors. We get a lot of intelligence from neighbours, and I always encourage people to continue to report any concerns they have. In fact, one of the last times I was out with officers in North Surrey, our first visit of the day was to a house where a neighbourhood reported concerns for the welfare of a dog. So that does happen, and that works well. Some of it does happen in public. You may remember in September time last year, there was a man arrested who was seen throwing a puppy across a petrol station in the Woking area. So we do pick up on things both private and public. Where it's found, officers will work hard to obtain and secure convictions and inappropriate sentences to the extent that they can, obviously, control that. Last February, for example, a man from Stanwell was sentenced to 75 days in prison and given a 10-year ban on owning animals following the seizure of four dogs and excellent work by the policing team there. In terms of the wildlife crime element, we have for some time been working with the brilliant Shepparton Swan Sanctuary, so really aware of the incidents that they're facing in terms of wild birds. And actually, just last week, I wrote to the Home Secretary on behalf of one of the volunteers at the sanctuary regarding the law around catapults to try and help us better prevent some of the horrendous injuries that those volunteers are seeing in terms of injuries and deaths of wild birds and the work that the sanctuary do. So we are well aware of those issues. I have been past the contacts from the other organisation you mentioned. I've not yet gone back, but I am very much aware of that. In terms of the RSPCA and others, I'm not 100% sure on the RSPCA specifically, but there's good communications across the force and districts and boroughs with dog wardens. There's brilliant vets that the force works with, both in terms of treatment of those animals that are abused, but also in terms of evidence gathering. So when it comes to partners, I am confident that those communications are effective. I'm not going to take item nine because the police and crime plan is reasonably new, so if we leave that to next time, you might have a better history for that. And this one I look at the commissioner's question time. Councillor Wilson, please. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the answer to the question, which is really frequent, therefore maintain public safety and public order better in the early stages of something like this. I don't want to speak on bar for any of those bodies, but what I would say is that those rules around that, which are often the same ones affecting journalists, go to the very heart, I think, of our constitution, actually, and to the right to a fair trial. So I would be reluctant to wade into that space. I don't think five years studying law gave me nearly enough to sort of wade into that. I do think it's a really important point that you raise, though, and it's one that the force faces generally. Every time there's a Daily Mail article saying something happened, Councillor Chenier referred earlier to an issue of something where, again, that was the Daily Mail, I think, and the force feel very much that they're trying to do their jobs, often with one hand tied behind their back, because they can't say, actually, what this individual said happened isn't what happened because of that. And I see that. So I'd like to see a wider discussion happening nationally around this with police forces. I do think sometimes forces could be a bit more robust in pushing back, actually. I think we could all be a bit more robust in pushing back. But I do understand their reluctance to do so, because no police force wants to be told later on or find later on that they've jeopardised a court case. But just to acknowledge your point, Councillor Nelson, because I do think it's a serious issue, I also just wanted to link the question you asked earlier on with reserves to this, because your question around reserves, which was a good one, is really important in this wider context as well, around being prepared for major incidents that none of us can predict. And it's one of the reasons why we have to hold those reserves. Although there may be a situation where the Home Office is going to reimburse us afterwards, they certainly don't do so beforehand, and we can't rely on that. Yeah, normally it will come out of the general reserve. Thank you. Thank you, then. So I will go on to item 12, complaints received since the last meeting. Two complaints have been received. One will be considered an upcoming meeting to disapply the regulations. Can the members note that, please? Very good. Can I just very briefly, Chairman, just to this item, and I will be brief, I'm very conscious that over the last four years there have been 69 complaints to the panel accusing me of transphobia, including from a convicted paedophile and rapist, the ex-NP, Crispin Blunt, Hazel Dean of Surrey Pride, and many, many more, some of whose names are well known to this panel. In light of the Supreme Court's ruling on women's rights last week, I hope that the panel will now agree that insisting sex is the relevant consideration under the equalities legislation and that any attempt to deny or seek to remove someone from their job for saying so is legally incorrect, and I really hope that we can all move on from this. Yes, when we said we have asked and this applied anyway for the reasons you know. Thank you. Item 13, can we note that, please, members? Noted. Thank you very much. So it's just finally the date of the next meeting, which will be 10.30 on Thursday the 19th of June. We are finishing on time. Is there anything else you want to say in the remaining two minutes, anybody? No, just thank you very much. I think we all can agree that the absence of Councillor Paul Kennedy will mean that the panel is never the same again. I think our loss is almost certainly Cornwall's gain, and we will remember him fondly. That's very kind of you to say so, thank you. I'll pass those comments. Jake, it's your last meeting. And last day. Oh, yes. And last day. And this is how you're spending it. Lucky man. Momentous occasion, yes. And you had the Home Office come to see you all. We'll do that. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.