Agenda item

CRIME PERFORMANCE DASHBOARD: JANUARY 2023 UPDATE

Minutes:

Councillor David Cartwright commented that he could not read the size of the print and that the document should be provided on A3 in the future. He said that the document should be ‘RAG RATED’ with appropriate lettering used to aid anyone who was colour blind. It was noted that the MOPAC website was no longer producing the data which now  had to be sourced from the MET website. The data was the same, but the presentation of the data was different. There was no published pack containing the data for ease of access.

 

It was noted that the only area of crime that had decreased was burglary, most other areas had increased. This included sexual offences and domestic violence offences which were up nationally as were vehicle crimes. This may be the result of more confidence with respect to reporting.

 

The Board was informed that the Police Commissioner was intending to introduce new policing priorities as part of a revised policing framework; there would be a movement towards dealing with acquisitive crime as well as violent crime and more proactive policing and targeting of offenders. It was  acknowledged that too many abstractions had taken place previously which meant the Neighbourhood Officers were not able to carry out their day-to-day activities as well as they would have liked. Plans were in place to address this. Recruitment would be undertaken for more Neighbourhood Officers to replace any that had moved to Response Teams. The focus of the police would be on local and national priorities as well as Ward Panels.

 

It was noted that the police had forwarded a public attitude survey the day prior to the meeting and that this document would be disseminated with the minutes. The Chairman said that she was looking to draft a standard template going forward so that the police data could be provided in a uniform format. It was felt that when data was provided it should meet the following criteria:

 

·  Cover specific topics/areas

·  The data provided should serve a useful purpose.

·  The data should be useable

 

The Chairman of the Public Protection and Enforcement Committee reminded the police that the Council had a statutory duty to scrutinise the police and MOPAC. He expressed concern that there was not a readily available pack of data that could be used as a basis for scrutiny and asked that the police provide some useful data that could be used by the PP&E PDS Committee going forward. He pointed out that this was a matter that had been ongoing for 5 years. The Chairman of the Public Protection and Enforcement Committee referenced the public attitude survey document—he said that this was an important issue and that he hoped that the PP&E PDS Committee would look at this document at its next meeting. He commented that it was just not good enough for MOPAC to say that the data was there so go and find it. He expressed the view that MOPAC (in conjunction with the police) should produce a pack that would facilitate scrutiny.

 

The Assistant Director for Housing said that she just come away from a ‘MACE’ meeting which had been discussing the issue of crime and how it affected young people. She said that the Chairman of the Bromley Children’s Safeguarding  Board was keen for that Board to link up with the Safer Bromley Partnership Board. 

 

The NHS Adult Safeguarding Manager pointed out that the new Police Commissioner had made promises regarding neighbourhood policing and more visible policing and it would be interesting to see how those promises came to fruition. He commented that this was the poorest data that he had seen from the police for some time. He wondered if the provision of local data could be achieved outside of MOPAC.

 

Councillor Jeal highlighted that a recent report had noted that over the previous 3-4 years, 18% of police ‘hires’ had been questionable with individuals being allowed to join the police despite having committed serious offences. Another report had highlighted serious failures in police disciplinary procedures. He said  that currently 150 officers were on restricted duties as they were deemed to be a risk to the public. He said that the public should be informed of what was being done to resolve these matters and so provide some assurance.

 

The Chairman of the Public Protection and Enforcement Committee said that MOPAC should be held to account for the lack of information that was readily available concerning their performance and that a letter should be written to them to express this concern.

 

It was mentioned that previously a representative from MOPAC used to attend the meeting and so perhaps this was something that could be reinstated.

 

RESOLVED that the Crime Performance Dashboard update be noted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supporting documents: