Agenda item

6.1       Geeta Subramaniam, Head of Crime Reduction and Supporting People introduced the report to the Committee. Chief Inspector Andy Carter was also in attendance for this item. During the presentation to the Committee, the following key points were highlighted:

·         The Mayor’s Office for Police and Crime (MOPAC) had launched their consultation on the Police and Crime Plan 2017-2021.

·         Key priorities included: focusing on reducing the inequalities in terms of the impact of crime affecting some groups/areas disproportionately; challenges to the criminal justice system such as budget reductions and increased complexity of cases; and pressure on the budgets across the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS).

·         Themes of the plan included: keeping children and young people safe; a knife crime strategy for London; tackling violence against women and girls; education; and tackling extremism.

·         The Safer Stronger Community Select Committee was invited to feed in their views as part of the consultation either in combination with the views of the Safer Lewisham Partnership or as a separate response from the Committee.

6.2       In response to questions from members of the Committee, the following key points were highlighted:

·         Discussions regarding the London Crime Prevention Fund top slice of 30% would take place from 2018. These would include the principals for bidding/commissioning with this money and how it could be reinvested into local areas.

·         The Council would continue to work in collaboration with other boroughs. The merges that form the BCU were not necessarily the same as other collaborations such as the NHS and CCG clusters. The Council would proactively work with all partners to ensure the best results for their residents.

·         Regional commissioning would be studied closely to ensure it was always in the best interests of the borough. Sometimes London-wide purchasing would be advantageous but there would be incidences where individualised contracts could be better.

·         There would be an extra 400 firearms officers across the MPS. They would be a central resource but delivered locally as and when a need was identified.

·         The first part of budget savings that the MPS had faced had been addressed through their estate strategy – with some buildings being sold. Future savings could come from personnel or through improvements to IT provision.

·         Cllr Daby Executive Member for Community Safety would circulate copies of the Casey Review to members of the Committee.

6.3       Members of the Safer Stronger Select Committee highlighted the following:

·         The importance of engaging with parents, families and schools should be highlighted as it helped parents and families to feel safe and secure and have trust in the Police.

·         There should be a focus on recruiting and retaining police officers from the BAME community and women so the police force reflected the population of London.

·         The importance of the uniform youth group should be stressed. This was positive for building connections to the Police and strengthening community links.

·         Encouraging victims of violence against women and girls to come forward was important but there needed to also be a focus on assuring continuity of officers supporting them. Lack of support through the process was felt to be a major barrier to women coming forward and pursuing cases.

·         The Committee were concerned regarding the cuts to the Police budget overall and also the 30% cut of the London Crime Prevention Fund to local areas. Members of the Committee stressed it was important to ensure that money was fed back in to supporting the local community.

RESOLVED:

That the following views of the Committee be submitted as part of the submission with the response from the Safer Lewisham Partnership:

That the importance of engaging with parents, families and schools should be highlighted; helping parents and families to feel safe and secure and have trust in the Police.

There should be a focus on recruiting and retaining police officers from the BAME community and women so the police force reflected the population of London.

The importance of the uniform youth group should be stressed. This was felt by the Committee to be very positive for building connections to the Police and strengthening community links.

Encouraging victims of violence against women and girls to come forward was important but there needed to also be a focus on assuring continuity of officers supporting them. Lack of support through the process was a major barrier to women coming forward and pursuing cases.

The Committee were concerned regarding the cuts to the Police budget overall and also the 30% cut of the London Crime Prevention Fund to local areas. It was important to ensure that money was fed back in to supporting the local community.