Agenda item

The Commissioner presented his report setting out the quarterly performance data – Quarter Two 2019-20 (1 July to 30 September 2019) contained in the agenda pack.

Points made included:

·       In early October the Home Office announced the Police Uplift Programme and the officer recruitment targets for every police force in England, in a drive to increase police by 20,000 over the next 3 years. This announcement was supported via an additional £750 million the government pledged to support up to 6,000 additional officers by the end of 2021.

·       The additional allocation for Wiltshire Police was 49 additional officers for year one (2020/21) and this was in addition to the additional 41 police officers being recruited for 2019/20, as a result of the police precept increase.

·       Despite the positive news regarding the Police Uplift Programme the announcement of the General Election on 12 December and the dissolution of Parliament has meant that, unlike in previous years, it would not be possible to announce a provisional settlement in December. This caused some consequential uncertainties around budget setting for the next financial year and the Commissioner awaited the outcome of the settlement figure and the potential effect on the Uplift and the additional 49 police officers pledged.

·       Post-election Ministers would be required to make decisions on both the size of the settlement (including on reallocations and precept levels) and the timing of any provisional and the final settlement.

·       That the Chief Constable had advised the Commissioner that a number of changes would be applied to CPT through a phased approach. In the New Year, you would see the CPT model move from seven to eight teams with the amalgamation of Swindon into one policing team, the division of the current Wiltshire North CPT into two teams and the Wiltshire West CPT division into two teams.

·       All CPTs would see the introduction of a dedicated neighbourhood team working alongside colleagues performing a response role. The neighbourhood team, led by a neighbourhood inspector would strengthen community policing, focusing directly on working within the community, offering greater contact with the public and a problem solving approach.

·       The neighbourhood inspectors were now in post and would develop their teams over the coming months.

·       That there were 11,856 crimes recorded during quarter two and 44,340 in the 12 months to September 2019.

That this represented 1,258 more recorded crimes (2.9 per cent) compared to the previous 12 months.

That the recorded crime rate per 1,000 population for Wiltshire in the year to June 2019 was 61.2 crimes. This was significantly below the most similar group (MSG) average of 73.0 crimes per 1,000 population.

Action points

·        That the OPCC would supply statistics re Special Constables hours deployed – number of hours spent on independent patrols carried out by Special Constables.

·       That a meeting would be arranged between PCP and OPCC to discuss Police sickness, with a written report coming to the March PCP meeting.

Deep Dive – Service Delivery Plan 2019 – Quarter 2 Report – Priority 2: Protect the most vulnerable in society

The report was noted by the panel

Risk Register

Concerns were raised by the panel re IT requirements due to the un-coupling of the Wiltshire Police IT system from The Wiltshire Council one.

It was agreed that a written report comes to the 19 March 2020 PCP meeting covering Wiltshire Police IT systems – what systems were shared currently with Wiltshire Council and a time line of when these systems would go back in house with Wiltshire Police together with an indication of what and when nationally-developed systems would be implemented.

The report was noted by the panel