Agenda item

An update from the police is provided at every meeting.

The police update was provided in a new simplified format and the update was provided by Chief Inspector Craig Knight. He expressed his appreciation for the work that had been undertaken by the Task and Finish Group which had looked at how the police and other SBP Board members should be scrutinised. In the light of the news that the Assistant Director for Public Protection and Enforcement was moving to a new role—he expressed his personal thanks to Joanne Stowell and said that it had been an honour and a privilege to work with her.

The revised police briefing document explained the priorities that the police were working to in Bromley; there were two main areas, one was crime and ASB and the other one was satisfaction and perception. The police had plans in place to improve public engagement and awareness. The police were also looking to improve their attendance at SNB (Safer Neighbourhood Board) meetings. If sergeants were not able to attend, then the Chief Inspector said that PCSO’s needed to be appropriately briefed. 

The document submitted by the police detailed incidents of reported crime over a quarter and was colour ragged. ‘Red’ meant that the number of reported incidents had gone up and ‘green’ meant that the number of reported incidents had decreased.

The details were as follows:

·  Fall in the number of reported domestic abuse cases

·  Total number of sexual offences was broadly the same

·  Fall in knife crime offences

·  Fall in gun crime offences

·  Increase in race hate crime offences

·  Non domestic abuse with injury had remained broadly the same

·  Total burglary offences had fallen

·  Small increase in the theft of motor vehicles

·  ASB offences had decreased.

It was noted that ‘gun crimes’ could include a pepper spray or an imitation firearm.

It was felt that ‘race hate crime’ needed to be monitored. Chief Inspector Knight had raised this matter with Gill Baker (Borough Inspector) and with CID to see if there was an emerging pattern.

In terms of public satisfaction and perception there were small downward percentages in most areas which seemed to be part of a current nation-wide trend. This had been the result of the actions of a very small number of officers that had lowered confidence in the MET. Another area of concern was the fact that only 28% of respondents knew how to contact Ward Officers. Measures were being planned by the police to address this which included community contact sessions. A Member stressed the importance of residents being aware of and being able to contact their  Ward Officers. The Chairman made the point that as team members may change, it was important that details were available for the public to contact the police Safer Neighbourhood Team as a collective. Chief Inspector Knight agreed with this.

A Member said that in her Ward, most of the general public were members of community groups on Facebook which were well followed. However, this seemed not to be the case for the police who were using the ‘Next Door’ app instead of Facebook. She wondered why this was the case. Chief Inspector Craig Knight explained that the police had to remove most of their Facebook accounts because of the costs involved. This was because Facebook was asking public sector organisations to purchase commercial licences costing the police hundreds of thousands of pounds. Chief Inspector Knight expressed the view that this was a sad indictment upon Facebook. This was an issue that not only affected the Met Police, but it was a national problem. Resultantly, the police were just using one Facebook account per borough and these were limited in terms of usage. 

The Chairman of the SNB explained that there were reviews being undertaken by the police and MOPAC in terms of engagement and communication. The ‘Ward Panel Framework’ was being delivered by the police. This would set out who should be attending the Ward Panels from the police in terms of seniority and also it would be looking at how frequently officers should attend. It was also the case that MOPAC was undertaking a pan London review of communications. The issue with platforms such as ‘Next Door’ was that it was not monitored and could be subject to disinformation. It was important that information on public platforms was clear, consistent and correct.

Chief Inspector Knight briefed the Committee regarding the Met Police’s VAWG Action Plan and stated that this would be disseminated in due course by the Committee Clerk. There was a page at the end of the document to provide feedback which would be welcome. 

Post Meeting Note---this was disseminated by the Committee Clerk on 23^rd November 2021. 

The Chairman mentioned that due to the revised scrutiny arrangements that had evolved out of the work of the Task and Finish Group, the police would next be attending the PP&E PDS Committee in March 2022. 

RESOLVED that the police update be noted.