Agenda item

RESOLVED:

1.    That Superintendent Andy Carter be thanked for attending and presenting to the Committee and Martin Corbett, Borough Commander for London Fire Brigade be thanked for his report.

2.    That Superintendent Carter provide additional information on the unconscious bias training undertaken by the Police.

3.    That the report from the Borough Commander for Lewisham, London Fire Brigade, be forwarded to Cllr Muldoon as Chair of Healthier Communities Select Committee and Councillor Bernard as Chair of Housing Select Committee.

4.    The self-neglect and hoarding policy should be provided to the Committee once it has been published.

5.    That the results of the HMICFRS inspection of Lewisham Fire Brigade be shared with the Committee once they have been published.

6.    For the next report from London Fire Brigade it would be useful to include details of non-fire related work such as support given in road traffic accidents in the borough. It would also be useful to have details of the long term trends rather than just the 12-month rolling trend. This could be compared to National figures where possible.

5.1       Superintendent Andy Carter gave a presentation to the Committee, a copy of which will be included in the agenda documentation. During the discussion that followed, the following key points were raised:

·         Members of the Committee were invited to take part in community ride with the Police should they be interested.

·         Catford and Catford Hill Police Stations would be closed within the next 12-24 months to make way for new Police “hubs”. The Police were in the process of identifying a new site for the Catford hub. 

·         600 arrests had been reported in the National media around County line activity. This was not linked to Lewisham.

·         The Police had a notification protocol around significant incidents. There was not capacity to notify everybody about everything and at times, incidents may appear on social media but would not meet the notification criteria. The protocol involved the Police advising the Head of Public Protection and Safety who would then informs stakeholders. Councillors could contact the Head of Public Protection and Safety if they had a particular concern.

·         Superintendent Carter highlighted that the process should be two-way and he would be really keen to hear back from community leaders on what was happening in the area, whether there were community concerns around a particular incident or event for example.

·         Capacity within the Council may be considered further with future restructuring.

·         There was no knowledge of a Lewisham connection to the 600 county lines arrests which had recently been publicised in the national media. However the Committee heard that an investigation commenced in 2013 in Lewisham on County Lines had recently resulted in successful prosecution under the modern day slavery legislation.

·         The complaints data for stop and search was available on the Metropolitan Police publication scheme website. A Committee member felt it would be helpful if it was more transparent and available so people could easily have access to, and understand, the data. The Scrutiny Manager would send the link to members of the Committee.

·         There were vacancies in key roles within the BCU which had an impact on performance. They were working hard to minimise this and there were new staff coming in as well. The change to the BCU from the previous 3 borough format had reduced the number of posts by approximately 100.  There is now approximately 1460 posts in the BCU.

·         Members of the Committee requested additional details on the unconscious bias training delivered by the Police. They felt this would be useful to assess standard and quality. Superintendent Carter would look into this and provide more details to the committee.

·         The commitment to the new model was 2 dedicated ward officers, and a PCSO in each ward. There were times when they may briefly help out on a neighbouring ward which was practical policing and not seen as a problem. There were times when they may be called away from their ward. This had previously been limited to the Notting Hill Carnival and New Year’s Eve, or any exceptional circumstance. The Police had not foreseen the huge resource need for Extinction Rebellion protests and this had had an impact. The Police tried as far as possible to take the ward officers last and for as little time as possible to minimise any impact. The data on how often this happened was available on the MOPAC website. 

·         The complaints data is analysed within the Head Quarters strand of the BCU. They looked for trends or anomalies. For example if an officer was subject to three or more complaints within 12 months they would become part of the complaints intervention scheme.

·         Sometimes simple home security prevention measures could be improved to reduce burglary. It could be useful to do publicity such as at a session at a local assembly.

5.2       The Chair requested that written questions for the Borough Commander for the London Fire Brigade be agreed by the Committee and the Scrutiny Manager would seek a response and update the Committee.

5.3       RESOLVED:

1.    That Superintendent Andy Carter be thanked for attending and presenting to the Committee and Martin Corbett, Borough Commander for London Fire Brigade be thanked for his report.

2.    That Superintendent Carter provide additional information on the unconscious bias training undertaken by the Police.

3.    That the report from the Borough Commander for Lewisham, London Fire Brigade, be forwarded to Cllr Muldoon as Chair of Healthier Communities Select Committee and Councillor Bernard as Chair of Housing Select Committee.

4.    That the self-neglect and hoarding policy be provided to the Committee once it has been published.

5.    That the results of the HMICFRS inspection of Lewisham Fire Brigade be shared with the Committee once they have been published.

6.    For the next report from the London Fire Brigade it would be useful to include details of non-fire related work such as support given in road traffic accidents in the borough. It would also be useful to have details of the long term trends rather than just the 12-month rolling trend. This could be compared to national figures where possible.