Police Reform and Community Safety

Tuesday 29 January 2013

Conference Chair

Cllr Michael Payne, Gedling Borough Council

Police Reform and Community Safety – an over view of police reforms

Mark Norris,

Senior Adviser,

Local Government Association

29/01/2013 www.local.gov.uk

What the presentation will cover

• Role of Police and Crime Commissioners

• Scrutiny of PCCs

• Links with community safety partnerships

Background to Police Reforms

• Lack of public confidence in the police and criminal justice system;

• Need to reconnect the public with the police;

• Replacing bureaucratic accountability with democratic accountability

Police and Crime Commissioners• Elected by supplementary vote for a four

year term on 15th Nov 2012. • The PCCs’ role is to:

– Secure an efficient and effective police for their area;

– Appoint the chief constable, hold them to account for running the force, and if necessary dismiss them;

– Set the police and crime objectives for their area through a 5 year Police and Crime Plan;

– Set the force budget and determine the precept;

PCCs continued

– Contribute to the national and international policing capabilities set out by the Home Secretary; and

– Have a duty to co-operate with community safety and criminal justice partners.

• The Policing Protocol sets out that PCCs will only have strategic oversight of forces. They will not be able to influence operational matters.

• The PCC must publish an annual report showing progress against their Police and Crime Plan.

• PCCs are under a general duty to consult and engage with the public.

PCCs

Police and Crime Panels

Police and Crime Panels

• Is one for each force area, established by the councils in that area; they are legally a Local Government Committee

• Role is to both review and scrutinise the PCC’s actions and decisions, and also to assist them in the effective exercise of their functions;

• They are not a police authority in another form; and

• Have a minimum of 12 members and a maximum of 20.

• A minimum of two members have to be independent, co-opted members.

2. Community Safety Partnerships

Police and Crime

Commissioner

Community Safety Partnerships

Duty to have regard to each other’s priorities1

Request merger Power to

approve4

Power to call CSP chairs to a meeting to discuss force-wide issues

2

Power to request a report3

Police and Crime Panel

Scrutinise

Grant making powers5

Local Government Association contact: Mark Norrismark.norris@local.gov.uk 020 7664 3241

Paddy TippingPolice and Crime Commissioner for Nottinghamshire

Workshops

Delegates attend one workshop, delegates to choose between;

Workshop 1 - Connecting with the communityMaxine Moar, Moar Communities

This workshop will take place in the Ferneley Room

Workshop 2 - Sorting out scrutiny boundaries Tim Young, Local Government Information Unit Associate

This workshop will take place in the main conference Room

Workshop 2:Sorting out scrutiny boundaries

Police Reform and Community Safety ConferenceTuesday, 29 January 2013

Tim YoungAssociate, Local Government Information Unit

Workshop 2 - Sorting out scrutiny boundaries

Purpose:This workshop will focus on the division of responsibilities between crime and disorder scrutiny committees (at the local level) and a police and crime panel (at force level) and what might be needed to make the relationships work well

A Police and Crime Commissioner’s role:

• Securing an efficient and effective police force for their area

• Producing and consulting on a five year Police and Crime Plan that sets out local policing priorities

• Setting the annual policing precept • Appointing the Chief Constable

(CC) and holding them to account • Co-operating with local community

safety partners and funding community safety activity to achieve the Police and Crime Plan’s objectives

PCCs and Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs)

• PCCs: not members of or responsible authorities on existing CSPs, but mutual duty to cooperate

• PCCs must have regard to the CSPs’ priorities when planning – and CSPs must have regard to a PCC’s Policing and Crime plan

• PCCs can require reports from CSPs on their work

• PCCs have powers to convene meetings with all CSPs in the force area to discuss strategic priorities

PCCs and community safety activity

• All funding which currently goes to CSPs will in the future go directly to the PCC

• In 2013-14, PCCs will receive funding from the new, non-ringfenced Community Safety Fund to commission services to support crime, drugs and community safety priorities

• PCCs will be able to make crime and disorder reduction grants to any organisation or person in their area

• CSPs will therefore not be automatic recipients of PCC funding

PCCs and Community Safety Fund allocations (in £millions)

The Police and Crime Panel (PCP)

• A new body with statutory functions

• Established to ensure some local accountability for the Police and Crime Commissioner

• The Act says the PCP must exercise its functions with a view to supporting the effective exercise of the PCC’s functions

• So ‘support and challenge’ - a scrutiny role

PCP responsibilities include:

• Contributing to the development of the PCC’s Police and Crime Plan

• Reviewing the PCC’s proposed precept

• Holding the PCC to account for their annual report at a public meeting

• Reviewing and scrutinising PCC decisions

So a PCP will be interested in:

a PCC’s strategy for community safety how and by how much it is funded

how it is to be commissioned and delivered how successfully it’s delivered

Local authority scrutiny of crime and disorder partnerships

• Each local authority is still required (by Police & Justice Act 2006) to scrutinise crime and disorder partnerships at least annually

• Demarcation becomes more complicated as a PCC takes over funding of community safety work

• Aim should be to avoid duplication and ensure a co-ordinated approach to scrutiny of community safety, at the strategic and local levels

Emerging lessons from PCPs’ work

• For a PCP, no matter what your ambitions, you cannot cover everything – less may be more

• Need to operate at a strategic level taking an overview of a PCC’s work, policing requirements and priorities

• Community safety: a PCP’s interest is in how strategic priorities translate into operational action at the local level

• Need to liaise with local OSCs for that information

Liaising and working with local OSCs

• Provides intelligence on local community safety/crime issues and concerns

• Enables a PCP to understand PCC’s strategic direction and how decisions are impacting locally

• Can help assess how the PCC is co-operating with local community safety partners and funding activity to achieve Police and Crime Plan objectives

• Enables local OSCs to escalate issues that cannot be solved by local action

• Can help PCP to aggregate issues that are common across the force area

How might this/is this being done?

• ‘Twin-hatted’ councillors, sitting on the PCP and their county and/or local crime and disorder scrutiny committee (eg Gloucestershire)

• Through scrutiny officers’ liaison• Sharing and co-ordinating work

programmes• Responding to requests for information• Passing on issues to where they can be dealt with

most appropriately• Flagging up issues of mutual interest• Formal protocols (e.g. Leics County Council OSC and

PCP; and North Yorks PCP and LA Scrutiny Committees with Community Safety remits)

Other scrutiny links to consider• Health scrutiny’s new relationships

with Health and Wellbeing Boards, Clinical Commissioning Groups, Healthwatch and Public Health

• Links between health issues, policing and crime and disorder, e.g. drug and alcohol abuse; domestic violence, safeguarding issues

• Issues that need more than a policing response (e.g. binge drinking, violence, and A & E admissions)

Resources

• Draft Protocol between the Police and Crime Panel and the Leicestershire County Council Scrutiny Commission at http://goo.gl/rQeii (pp23-27)

• North Yorkshire Police and Crime Panel, Links between Police and Crime Panel and Crime and Disorder Overview and Scrutiny Committees (25 October 2012) at http://goo.gl/R1mp0

• The LGA’s Police and Crime Panel Support and Wider Networking Group provides a network for all those involved with Police and Crime Panels or with a keen interest in this area. Members of panels including independent co-optees are encouraged to join and participate, at http://goo.gl/MTLmP

• Safer Future Communities, How the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Sector can help reduce crime and keep communities safe in your area http://goo.gl/x5LZx and see local network at http://www.oneeastmidlands.org.uk/sfc or at http://goo.gl/N9c0P

    

Contact details

Tim Young

Local Government Information Unit Associate

and

Lead on Policing and Crime,Frontline Consulting Associates

Email: timy@frontlineconsulting.co.ukTel: 020 8904 2815 & 07985 072979Web: www.frontlineconsulting.co.uk

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Feedback from Workshops

 

Police and Crime Commissioners and Community Safety

Partnerships

Andy Thomas

Head of Service

Partnerships and Communities

Police and Crime CommissionerPartnership Requirements

• Recognize partnership priorities and plans in developing the Police and Crime Plan

• Engaging with communities• Transfer of funding: Community Safety Fund, Drug

Intervention Programme and Young Persons Drug Prevention Grant

• Passporting and subsequent ‘commissioning’ of funds and interventions

• PCC involvement in local governance

Community Safety Partnerships

• Changing landscape of reduced requirements- ‘Localism’

• Significant reductions in local and national funding streams

• Reduced reporting and performance monitoring• Focus on doing rather than planning• Reduction in central Government policy and guidance• Majority of funding from local authority

Community Safety PartnershipsStatutory Requirements

• Executive meeting required: No guidance on who, what or frequency

• 3 year Crime and Disorder Plan• Annual Strategic Risk and Threat Assessment• Rolling Annual Plan

PCCs and CSPs: Relationship

• PCCs not a ‘responsible authority’ under the 1998 CDA

• Mutual duty to co-operate• Due regard: Police and Crime Plan/CSP Plan• Governance and strategy: Where does the PCC fit in• Local accountability: City/County/District• PCC to ‘sign off’ mergers of CSPs• PCCs change the landscape

Making it work locally

• PCCs will have a big impact on community safety• Commissioning could replace partnership working

with a free market based on competition• Local arrangements for ‘commissioning’• PCCs getting involved in local arrangements• Are local arrangements fit for purpose?

Risk/opportunity of CSP mergers• Engaging and agreeing priorities through SIA, plans

and CSF spend plans

PCCs and CSPs: The Derby Picture

• Developing effective relationships is key• Pre and Post election• Joined up Police and Crime Plan and city SIA

priorities• PCC and city council both Labour• Overview and Scrutiny Chair on Police and Crime

Panel• Agreement to passport funding in 2013-14• PCC to sit on CSP Executive Group

Cllr Joe OrsonChair of Police and Crime Panel for Leicestershire

The role of Police and Crime Panels

Mark Norris

Senior Adviser, LGA

29/01/13 www.local.gov.uk

The Panel’s key powers & responsibilities

Responsibilities Enabling PowersPowers of veto

Reviewing the draft Police and Crime Plan

Reviewing the PCCs Annual Report

Must hold confirmation hearings for CEO, CFO and

Deputy

Overseeing all complaints against the

PCC, informally resolving non-criminal

Can require the PCC to attend a public hearing

Can invite the CC to attend with the PCC

(cannot require)

Can ask HMIC for a professional view on

CC dismissals

Have access to papers (except those that are operationally sensitive)

Appointment of Chief Constable

Setting of the precept

Key issues for the panel

22nd November 2012 – PCC takes office

31st March 2013 – deadline for agreeing police and crime plan

Non-Criminal Complaints

Confirmation hearings for Deputy PCC

March 2013 - Potential confirmation hearing for chief constable

1st February – PCC’s precept to the PCP.

8th February deadline for PCP to review precept

panel exercises power of veto indicating in their associated report whether the

precept is too high or low

1st Feb - PCC must notify the panel of proposed precept

8th Feb - panel to review proposed precept by this date

proposed precept approved by default

No comment by 8th Feb deadline

Timetable for Veto and scrutiny of the precept

The PCC appoints

the reserve candidate

anyway

Fresh proposalfor

appointment New reserve

candidate nominated

The panel then has three 3 weeks to review

and make a report and recommendation on

the reserve candidate

The PCC nominates ‘a reserve candidate’

The PCC then decides whether to accept or

reject the panels recommendation

What happens if panel exercises its veto for a proposed Chief Constable appointment: -

Complaints against the PCC

44

All complaints received by the PCP

Criminal?

Referred to IPCCPCP responsible for informal

resolution

YES NO

NOTE: Initial handling can be

delegated to PCC monitoring officer

Mark Norris mark.norris@local.gov.uk

Support from the LGA: Guides on the LGA website on PCCs, Panels and CSPs: www.local.gov.uk/publications Hotline: 020 7664 3241Police and Crime Panel Support Group on the LGA’s Knowledge Hub

Conference Round up

Conference Close