Issue - meetings

The Chief Constable, Sara Thornton, will be attending the meeting to make a presentation and answer Members’ questions.

The Chief Constable, Sara Thornton, gave a presentation on significant policing issues across the Borough.

The Chief Constable emphasised the following points:

• Significant progress had been made on cutting bureaucracy by reducing the number of forms to be completed by officers;
• There was a commitment to a visible presence by police in the area and therefore this would not be reduced in the next four years;
• The reduction in serious acquisitive crime in Bracknell Forest was significant at 24%;
• Reducing violence against the person included domestic violence and had been reduced by 28%;
• It was recognised that antisocial behaviour undermines the quality of life and 11% of people surveyed perceived that there was a high level of antisocial behaviour in their area. This was below half the perception in other areas and Operation Lion Club was successfully helping to reduce this further;
• Satisfaction levels of victims surveyed continued to improve, particularly with victims of vehicle crime;
• The identified funding shortfall of £52 million over four years had been resolved.
• As part of the productivity strategy specialist units had been combined with Hampshire and further options were being considered. It was explained that changes to the Local Policing Model had meant a reduction in the middle level of management and therefore associated costs. Non staffing costs were also being reviewed to ensure value for money on building and fleet costs for example.

The Chief Constable then responded to questions from the Council on her presentation.

In response to a question from Councillor Angell concerns that people were losing faith in reporting certain crimes the Chief Constable confirmed that survey results demonstrated a reduction in crime reporting across both actual reports and those within the victim survey, suggesting that the level of reporting was consistent and not falling. She explained that there were diverse reasons for this. Targeted campaigns were used to encourage reporting by certain victims for example domestic violence and encouraging third person reporting was appropriate in other areas such as hate crime.

A concern was raised by Councillor Dr Barnard that the reduced summary of the DASH form used for domestic abuse incidents being provided to Children’s Services did not include vital information. In response it was explained that the new process was to support shared services across 6 authority areas, to ensure that only relevant information was being shared and that the particular issue was incomplete forms resulting in missing data rather than the forms themselves.

In response to a query by Councillor Brossard regarding whether the Police would continue to participate in Neighbourhood Action Groups following the change in structure and loss of support from April next year the Chief Constable assured Members that they would not see any difference in support. The Chief Constable was asked by Councillor Kensall what the advantages were of a review of neighbourhood areas to reduce from 14 to six areas. The Chief Constable responded that this which would strengthen operational resilience in smaller neighbourhood policing teams and provide better supervision  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28