Agenda item

To receive an update from Wiltshire Police Chief Constable Catherine Roper and Wiltshire Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Philip Wilkinson.

The Area Board received an update from Wiltshire Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), Philip Wilkinson. The update covered the following matters:

·       Work had been done to improve the service provided to residents of Wiltshire, with progress made with residents having reported seeing more officers and Police interaction.

·       The Police operational model had been improved with more officers now on the frontline to improve outreach as well as that two mobile Police stations had been funded.

·       It was highlighted that for high harm violence crimes, Wiltshire had previously been one of the lowest performing forces with a 2% success rate, however this had now risen to 11% with the Chief Constable focused on driving performance.

·       Regarding drugs and County Lines, collaborative work had taken place with all five Police forces across the Southwest, with all five of the forces now within the top ten performing forces nationally for County line disruption.

·       It was outlined that the speed watch teams had been reorganised, with better use of data from SIDs now taking place, with 85 SIDs in 20 parishes, which allows for hotspots to be targeted. It was outlined that in 2021 Wiltshire Police had issued 192 speeding tickets, compared to this year where over 4,400 tickets had already been issued.

·       The rural crime team had now been expanded to be double the size, with a piece of collaborative work with the other Southwest forces set to follow.

·       More work was being done towards victim support, with the force looking to better engage with victims as well as preventative action.

The Area Board received an update from Wiltshire Police Chief Constable, Catherine Roper. The update covered the following matters:

·       The responsibility of the Chief Constable was to deliver against the PCC plan, with Wiltshire Police placed into special measures “engage” in summer 2022.

·       As part of being placed into “engage”, it was highlighted that Wiltshire Police had an insufficient strategic framework, they weren’t investigating to an effective standard and were not providing effective support for victims.

·       As part of the work to rectify these issues, business as usual work was separated from the response to “engage”, as though the Police were busy, they had not driven things in the right way, with a need to get the fundamentals right and improve public trust, visibility and transparency.

·       Business as usual prioritised to support to the PCC, working towards safer public spaces as well as violence and burglaries.

·       Organisational priorities are now reviewed regularly as well as each Chief Officer having a performance improvement plan which is publicly available.

·       To improve transparency the Chief also produces an open letter to the PCC to provide an update of what work has been completed.

·       A recruitment campaign recently took place and uplift figures were met.

·       Regarding “engage”, work has been completed to improve the processes in place as well as a review of the operating model to ensure that there is a focus on frontline workers, with employee feedback driving change.

·       An improved audit and inspection routine is now in place for the police to test against improvements and respond to feedback; with call centres identified as an area that the force wants to improve.

·       The Chief Constable attends a performance oversight group in London every 6 months, where she presents to the HMI and Home Office. The next meeting is next week and the update from this will be publicly available.

After the verbal update, there was time for the following questions and points to be made:

·       Thanks were provided to the PCC and Chief Constable for their efforts towards speeding, particularly in rural parishes.

·       It was further emphasised that the process of setting up a Community Speed watch Team was long, and it would be appreciated if this process could be simplified.

·       Some parishes had encountered issues in downloading data from their SIDs, to which the PCC noted that he had created a video covering how to download data from SIDs, which could be found on the PCC website.

·       It was clarified that it was unlikely that the fixed safety cameras in Devizes would be switched on again due to being too predictable.