To receive a presentation from the Chief Constable and the Police & Crime Commissioner.

The Chairman began by informing the panel that he had decided to change the order of the agenda items, where the Thames Valley Police would give their presentation first, followed by the Youth Council.

AGREED: That the order of the agenda be altered as per the above.

The panel considered a verbal presentation from members of the Thames Valley Police that was provided by John Campbell, Chief Constable, John Groenen, Detective Chief Inspector, Clare Knibbs, LPA Commander & also Matthew Barber, Police & Crime Commissioner.

John Campbell began by providing the panel with a brief overview of the Thames Valley Police in numbers. He stated that they were the largest non-metropolitan force in England and Wales, which covered 2,200 square miles over 3 different counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire. This area had a population of 2.5 million, with in excess of 6 million annual visitors. He then outlined key members of his management team within Thames Valley.

John Campbell said that within Thames Valley, there were 4861 Police Officers, 3384 Police staff, 288 PCSO’s, 229 Special Constables, plus many volunteers, cadets, and even mini police. This data was correct as of October 2022 and included regional units of counter terrorism policing in the South East. He said that as part of an uplift programme, they were working hard towards building a workforce that reflected its communities. They received more than 1,600 police officer applications in 2022. 147 of recruits were from a Black, Asian, Mixed or Other ethnic background and 594 of the recruits were also female.

John Campbell then noted that a lot of what people heard about the police were the negative things and the things that they did not do. He however wanted to share with the panel, all of the things which the police had done. From 1 April 2022 to 30 September 2022 there were 497,857 contacts made by the public. Of which, 90,339 incidents were attended too with 15,099 arrests being made. 2,400 drug dealing and possession crimes were recorded, with 1844 drug possession arrests being made.

John Campbell made note that domestic abuse formal action was up 44%, which although it was negative thing, the statistic was positive as it showed that more people were being encouraged to actually report this. Rape, sexual offences, stalking & harassment, and the number of crimes resulting in formal action being taken were all also up from the same point last year. 4,205 road collisions were attended, 3.319 missing persons were found, and 319 different events were policed by Thames Valley Police. Mental health distress was also a major thing that was impacting modern society too, and 810 people who were experiencing this were attended too.

People could also now be arrested under the Mental Health Act if they proved a danger to themselves or others. Unfortunately, 800 sudden deaths were also attended too by Thames Valley Police, which in turn meant officers had to deliver news to families of the deceased. 658 reported crimes of assault against officers also occurred in that period alone.

John Campbell then outlined a few other highlights of Thames Valley Police. These were as followed:

·       National rollout of Project Vigilant.

·       Accredited organisation of White Ribbon.

·       Menopause Friendly Accreditation.

·       Awarded Trailblazer Status.

·       DBS – Outstanding Status.

·       Top 5 forces for Firearms Licensing.

John Campbell then discussed Operation London Bridge. He said that he had to draft in police from other areas such as Milton Keynes, as the events in Windsor were unique ones, and ones in which Thames Valley Police were very proud to police.

John Groenen then outlined some key statistics within Windsor & Maidenhead specifically in the last 9 months. These were as followed:

·       7,892 reports of crime – 3% increase.

·       1,254 reports of domestic abuse – 5.2% increase.

·       858 reports of vehicle crime – 39% increase.

·       781 reports of violence with injury – 2% decrease.

·       28 knife enable crimes – 15% decrease.

·       211 sexual offences – 27% increase.

·       26 rapes – 18% increase.

The LPA’s key priorities were to prevent violence against women & girls, violence against the person and victim engagement and satisfaction. The challenges were to increase community engagement. These included things such as Thames Valley Alerts, the strategic leaders monthly meeting, a review and refresh of neighbourhood engagement plans and a focus on events with the greatest possible engagement opportunities.

John Groenen then discussed knife crime, and specifically the week between 11 and 18 November 2022. Four knife amnesty bins were put out in Windsor & Maidenhead, where 118 knives were recovered overall. 134 were recovered across the whole of Berkshire including that 118. There were 6 different stop checks of habitual knife carriers and 3 arrests were made for aggravated burglary. Numerous knife crime inputs to schools were made and information was provided to children, who in turn would have distributed this to parents.

Councillor Greg Jones said that one of his residents was mugged last Saturday night. He asked if it would not be beneficial for more foot patrols to be seen at both day and night to prevent this happening. John Groenen said that a meeting was held every 2 weeks where all intelligence was fed into, and if it was apparent that Maidenhead was a constant issue for crime, then this is where they would task their officers. They would follow the data.

Councillor Greg Jones said that a lot of shops in the town centre would perhaps not report the crimes, and therefore it would not be brought up within the fortnightly meeting. John Campbell said that shoplifting levels had increased, and he also stated that he was a big advocate for the physical presence of officers on the street. However, there was a fine balance between doing this and having officers at the ready on call in vehicles. Clare Knibbs added that they had just set up an assessment and investigative unit in Berkshire, where the CCTV could be livestreamed straight to the office. The implications may not be visibly seen; however, patterns of offending were occurring in the background leading to a better service overall.

Councillor Walters said that the issue of travellers had been omitted from the presentation. He said that he had seen a decrease of their presence in the last year and wondered why this could perhaps be. John Campbell said that the local community often did not like the traveller community entering into their own communities, however sometimes people did not even raise an eyebrow to it. He added that there had now been a change in legislation, which gave the police more power to intervene in significant issues. These new powers had been used on a number of occasions. Resources across the force could then be used to enforce both the old and new legislation. Transit sites could be used to move the travelling community on from one location to the site, however local authorities were not too keen on the ideas of these transit sites.

Councillor Brar asked what the outcome was of the street light survey from around a year ago and how they were liaising with the Council on it. John Campbell said that they would look into this and provide a written response to Councillor Brar offline.

ACTION: TVP to provide Councillor Brar with a written response to her question on the results of the street lighting survey offline.

Councillor Davey said that he had an idea for the Council, the police, and the community wardens. He said that he believed that the Council currently collected the funds for the police to the tune of around £17 million per year. He said that if the police gave some of that money back to the Council and ring-fenced it to police activities, £3 million could fund 60 new community wardens and PCSO’s. He said that this would provide a very safe environment to the community. John Campbell agreed with the principle of increasing police presence, however said that the money was used for many officers who were investigating offences behind closed doors such as online crimes.

Councillor Del Campo said that she had cause to use the 101 service recently and it had taken her around 30 minutes. She compared it to the current struggles of the NHS. She said that some communication around how to get people to the right place could be beneficial to aid waiting times. John Campbell agreed and said that the current average waiting time for 101 was around 4 minutes. Averages did change and one day it was 1 minute 20 seconds and 1 was just 50 seconds, so it varied. He admitted that they were not currently getting it right for some people, however for some people it was working fine. They wished for non-emergency situations to be filtered through the online website, if possible, but work needed to be done on this.

Councillor Singh said that officer numbers were comparatively very low to other authorities. He said that the stalking and harassment figures appeared to him as being a concern and asked why this had increased by 55%. He then spoke about bike thefts in Maidenhead town centre and if the cost-of-living crisis had seen any effects on petty thefts, and it leading onto more serious thefts due to the current economic state.

John Campbell said that compared to 3 years ago, the stats for burglaries were down 21%. With people working from home, this decreased the opportunities for burglaries to be committed. He added that a lot of harassment occurred online. A spike in vehicle thefts had also been seen in recent times and he said that he would not be surprised if the cost-of-living crisis had seen an effect on this.

Councillor Singh then asked about crimes committed as a result of the night time economy and wished for police to be seen more often patrolling the town centre. He then mentioned about his concerns around a new car park opening at Stafferton Way, which could be accessed through dark narrow alley ways only accessible to the police on foot. John Campbell said that unfortunately poorly lit areas laid with the local authority and not with the police.

Councillor Shelim thanked the police for their presentation and asked what the main reasons were for the police being stationed in certain places in Windsor to deal with the night time economy and if the weather affected crimes. John Campbell admitted that the police loved rain and agreed that the weather did indeed have an effect on policing. John Groenen said that he would feed back the comments to the night time economy group.

Matthew Barber said that he was looking to fund 80 additional officers and have them on the books by the end of the current financial year and additionally, that they would exceed their home office target. He admitted that there were lots of challenges that faced the police, which were not affected by visible foot patrols such as domestic violence and online sexual abuse. However, he also admitted that some indeed were affected by this. Now was the time to invest in community policing teams. He said that it was not all bad, but the bad things were what people would focus on. With regards to the discussions on the 101 service, £6 million extra would be needed to man phones, which would decrease waiting times, however this would be beyond the limits of Council tax levels.

Matthew Barber wished to enhance digital contact between the public and the police. He said that the modern day with online shopping showed that this worked and over the next 12 to 18 months, a new online system would hopefully be implemented to aid this 101 service. He thanked John Campbell for maintaining a good service during his time as the Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police.

Councillor Davey asked if Matthew Barber was looking to take over the Council’s CCTV system and if this would be purchased or merely handed over. Matthew Barber said that he proposed a Thames Valley wide network be created and be maintained and operated by Thames Valley Police. He wished to seek a contribution from local authorities moving forward, however noted that not all local authorities would want to sign up to this voluntary network. RBWM already had a good network of CCTV compared to some neighbouring authorities and therefore authorities such as Slough and Milton Keynes were being focussed on first.

Councillor Singh said that Maidenhead had struggled with community policing for some time and thanked Matthew Barber for his recruitment drive. He asked if officers had been poached by other police networks with an increase in pay being used as an incentive, as it was with the Metropolitan police. Matthew Barber said that thankfully it had not had the effect that was first feared but admitted that he could not ignore it. The South East allowance was increased to the maximum, but this did still not exceed the £5,000 offered by the Metropolitan police.

Councillor Brar asked about community policing and why the presence of officers in rural settings was practically non-existent. Matthew Barber said that there was rural crime task force, which was active in these areas. His desire was to see all local communities be adequately represented by officers.

The Chairman thanked all of the representatives from Thames valley Police for their presentation and their attendance.