The meeting will commence with a presentation by the Chief Constable.

Any questions by Panel Members that have been submitted in advance of the meeting will then be considered and answered.

The Police and Crime Commissioner introduced himself and gave his last presentation to the Panel as he was retiring at the end of the municipal year. Anthony Stansfeld informed the Panel of his role and responsibilities including holding the Chief Constable to account for policing, developing and publishing a police and crime plan and explained scrutinising, supporting and challenging performance, were just a few of his duties. Anthony Stansfeld informed the Panel that Thames Valley Police were the largest non-metropolitan police force covering three major counties serving 2.3-2.4 million people, being the fourth largest police force. The presentation covered strategic priorities from the Thames Valley Police and Crime Plan 2017-2021 such as prevention and early intervention, vulnerability, police ethics and reform, serious organised crime and terrorism and reducing re-offending.

Anthony Stansfeld highlighted that £2.7 million was spent on the community safety fund providing councils to help deliver crime reduction, prevention and support services, nearly £3 million supporting victims of crime across the Thames Valley and £199K awarded from the Police Property Act Fund in 2018/19 to charities and community groups who assist in reducing crime and reoffending.

Anthony Stansfeld went through the 2018/19 crime performance headlines and the call response performance.

Questions asked by the Panel included the following:

Parish Councillor Pat McDonald asked how many officers had been lost since 2010? Anthony Stansfeld responded that 690 officers had been lost. Councillor Price asked about the 101 response time and the aim being to respond within two minutes. Anthony Stansfeld responded that the shorter the response time, the better it was.

Councillor Bowden commented that no fraud figures had been included in the presentation, were these recorded? Anthony Stansfeld confirmed that the figures had not been reported in the figures shown. The Serious Fraud Office was seriously underfunded. However £16 million had been spent with Action Fraud. All monies went back to the Treasury and not to the force. Councillor Bowden asked if the figures could be extracted from Action Fraud and feed back into TVP. Parish Councillor Margaret Lenton asked what was being done about the elderly losing smaller amounts of money and was advised that a large amount of preventative education was being done to seek to reduce the number of incidents.

The Chief Constable, John Campbell, QPM, gave a presentation to the Panel. John Campbell reported that TVP had maintained neighbourhood forces and then went through the priority outcomes 2019/20, call volumes, it was reported that as of 10 July 2019, the average time to answer 101 calls was two minutes and 45.6 seconds. John Campbell reported that 23 officers had been assaulted during use of force incident in the borough. Six officers had been spat at in the borough and two officers had been exposed to blood borne virus risk in the borough. John Campbell explained the key crime areas in detail and went through the reasons for the change.

The LPA Commander Superintendent Colin Hudson went through the ‘local issues’ slides explaining that many burglaries were cross border and TVP were increasingly working with other police forces. There was an increase in theft from motor vehicles, TVP were working to educate the public to reduce the numbers of cases where valuables were left in the vehicles, and explained that knife crime was decreasing in this area since May 2019. There were many positive initiatives taking place. The force were facing many challenges.

Parish Councillor Malcolm Beer asked if the community wardens were involved in any community liaison groups which did exist especially at the site in Old Windsor for people that had just come out of prison. Colin Hudson informed the Panel that the Integrated Offender Management and probation teams both worked closely together. Colin Hudson would look into the Community Liaison Group. Parish Councillor Margaret Lenton asked about what is being done about the increase in drugs in Horton, Wraysbury and Datchet. Colin Hudson informed the Panel that they were aware of the incidents and a patrol plan had been put into place with the neighbourhood team. There would be further operations in the next six months. The individuals had not yet been identified.

Members asked the submitted questions to the Chief Constable.

Councillor Helen Price asked question 3, 4 and 5 as below,

I understand that you are taking a different approach to how you intend to deploy

resources - one based on evidence. What changes do you anticipate as a result of

this approach?

How will you strike the balance between informing the public of what is happening in

their community and enabling them to feel safe?

How do you intend to encourage the public to play their part in reducing crime?

The Chief Constable informed the Panel that it was important to inform people through communications, by finding the right balance and sharing as much information as possible with the community. It was very important to encourage the community to take responsibility. It had come to light that there were examples where the community had been sharing information with everyone except the police.

Councillor John Bowden asked question 1 as below,

How have Thames Valley Police managed to maintain levels of recruitment and

retention given the close proximity to the Metropolitan Police area and the high cost

of housing in the region?

The Police and Crime Commissioner’ and the Chief Constable informed the Panel that this was a concern that other forces were taking trained staff, the reasons being that this was an expensive area and for the same pay, staff could get more in other areas. This was a challenge that was being considered.

ACTION: Circulate presentations to the Panel