Agenda item

Gloucestershire Health and Care O&S Committee (15 November) – update from Councillor Harvey

Police and Crime Panel (7 November)   - verbal update from Councillor Helena McCloskey

The Gloucestershire Economic Growth O&S Committee has not met since the last meeting of this committee.

Councillor Harvey had produced a written update on the recent meeting (15 November) of the Gloucestershire Health and Care O&S Committee.  This had been circulated with the agenda and was taken as read.  As a County representative on this committee, the Chairman advised that a special meeting had been arranged for the 15 December 2016 to discuss some of the issues raised in this update. 

Councillor H McCloskey provided a verbal update on the recent meeting of the Police and Crime Panel.  The Panel received a presentation on the new Operating Model. These changes were implemented in anticipation of further financial cuts in the coming years and to address the increase in computer enabled crime.  As a result of the changes the organisation had become more resilient and flexible and had seen improvements in performance. National statistics showed that Gloucestershire now had the fourth lowest crime rate in the country, the lowest rate for violent crime and a significant increase in customer satisfaction. Further work was required on the Neighbourhood Policing model. PCSOs would still be assigned to particular communities but would be called out to other areas and would attend less community group and Parish Council meetings.  The Panel recommended that local policing should be stabilised as a priority. 

Discussions at Government level were on-going regarding possible changes to the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) role. These included the overseeing of fire services and certain aspects of the criminal justice system and could have a major impact on the PCC workload and potential revision of the Police and Crime Plan.

The Panel considered performance statistics for the 101 non-emergency number in comparison with other similar forces. Concern was expressed that only data up to March 2015 was available on the national website. Further data, although submitted, had not been audited and was therefore not available, which the panel found disappointing.  However, the User Satisfaction Survey for the 12 months ending September 2016 showed 97.2% satisfaction rate with ease of contact with the Gloucestershire 101 service.

Councillor H McCloskey gave the following responses to member questions;

·         The proposal that the PCC should oversee fire services had come from Government and the PCC for Gloucestershire was of the opinion that this should remain separate.

·         Gloucestershire was ahead of the game somewhat and had identified Cyber Crime as a priority for the force 18 months to 2 years ago.  A special unit was established, which employed computer experts and officers were given basic training, as the first point of contact for cyber crime. 

Some members felt that it was self-defeating for Neighbourhood Policing teams not to attend community or Parish Council meetings as these were often effective an means of building relationships and trust or simply learning about local issues. 

The Chairman reminded members that the PCC had attended a meeting earlier in the year and the committee agreed that another invitation should be extended to him, for 2017.

The Gloucestershire Economic Growth O&S Committee had not met since the last meeting of this committee, but were scheduled to meet on Wednesday (30 November) and an update would be provided at the January meeting of this committee.