Decision details

The committee considered the report in the agenda (copy attached to the official minutes).

Mr Cullen (Chairman of the Task and Finish Group) presented the report. Unfortunately Mr Connor, the elected Chairman of the group, had been unwell during this time and therefore Mr Cullen had been elected by the group as Chairman. 

Mrs Lintill stated that the Police and Crime Commissioner had maintained her financial support to Community Safety Partnerships at the same level since she had been in post. Mrs Lintill had spent a Friday night out with Sussex Police to see the kinds of incidents they were dealing with and was going to repeat this shortly.

The committee made the following comments, which were answered by Mr Hansford and Mrs Lintill:

·             The annual consultation on the priorities of the Community Safety Partnership seemed meaningless as there had been so little response - Mr Hansford advised that for over ten years he had tried to get a better level of response to this consultation. His team had tried promoting the survey in supermarkets and had sent the survey out to a number of different organisations, parish councils, individuals, partnership organisations, and put it on the front of the council’s website. He had lost resources over the years and there was only so much the team could do to resource this consultation.

·             PCSOs in rural areas and the effectiveness of Neighbourhood Watch – Mr Hansford drew members’ attention to recommendation 6.3 which encourages members to promote community safety within their wards. Neighbourhood Watch was still in place in some areas but the police had discontinued their dedicated support officer for this initiative. We are moving to borderless policing so that any resource can be used across borders. PCSOs are part of a larger team across Chichester and Arun. Sussex Police had introduced ‘community messaging’ which targets messages to get a response rather than put articles in local magazines; they still had intelligence officers and we received daily feedback from the police where one of our networks or community wardens were able to do something. The police suggest that the community forums are a mechanism for the community to meet and discuss local issues, not necessarily with the police. Neighbourhood Watch was something for the community to take forward and the council would support this where it could.

·             The current position with PCSOs – Mr Hansford advised that when the new job description was issued PCSOs were given the option of taking voluntary redundancy. Some considered that they wanted to join the police as a full officer. We now have 27 PCSOs across Arun and Chichester which is the full complement.

·             Wildlife crime issues – Mr Hansford advised that there were various watches e.g. horse watch, farm watch etc. There was a dedicated wildlife officer at police headquarters who liaised with the RSPCA to support investigations. This area does get occasional issues with sheep rustling, ‘lamping’ and horse tack theft.

RESOLVED

1)    That it be noted that the required level of scrutiny of the Community Safety Partnership had been achieved.

2)    That members would receive brief case studies highlighting key areas of the Community Safety Partnership’s (CSP) achievement in the district via the Members’ Bulletin.

3)    Notes that members should be encouraged to promote community safety and crime prevention messages within their wards.