To sign and confirm as a correct record the minutes of the meeting adjourned on the 16 September and reconvened on the 21 September 2022.

The minutes from 21 September 2022 were agreed as a true and accurate record.

Members will be asked to make any declaration of interest in respect of items on this agenda.

There were no declarations of interest.

To receive questions from (and provide answers to) members of the public that are relevant to the panel’s functions.

Questions should be no longer than 100 words and sent to Democratic Support, Plymouth City Council, Floor 3, Ballard House, West Hoe Road, Plymouth, PL1 3BJ or democratic.support@plymouth.gov.uk

Questions must be received at least 5 complete working days before the meeting.

There were no public questions submitted for the Panel. 

Alison Hernandez, Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Commissioner introduced David Ford, Regional Director for the South West IOPC who delivered the item to the Panel and highlighted the following key points:

The IOPC came into existence in 2013 and aimed to provide public reassurance in Policing in ensuring that the Police were accountable for their actions and lessons were learned when things went wrong;

Hundreds of investigations were carried out every year by the IOPC;

Work had been carried out with police forces nationally to improve complaint handling

Stakeholder teams built positive relationships with diverse communities, organisations and groups

The Policy team helped to shaper legislation both internally and within the wider policing landscape

Police forces by law must report incidences of complaints of seruious allegations or serious assault, Police misconduct and where the public have had a serious injury or death as a result of police intervention to the IOPC for investigation;

If the IOPC agreed to undertake an investigation there would be three main phases to the investigation and included; initial notification and setting up of the case, phase 2, the IOPC would conduct the investigation those investigators would have the powers of a Police constable during the investigations, phase 3 would see a lead investigator producing a report summarising the evidence and handed over to IOPC decision maker to determine additional matters which could include CPS referral, misconduct referral and best practice. The IOPC would continue to support the investigations at trial, at miusconduict hearings or at inquests where there had been a death;

The IOPC would deal with 5,000 referrals every year and would independently investigate between 400-500 of those referrals. The casework teams reviewed 2-3000 cases each year ensuring outcomes were reasonable and proportionate;

The IOPC, as a result of investigations would embed a learning culture to enable best practice across police forces;

The IOPC had been trying to reach those communities that were harder to reach to make them aware of the IOPC and its aims to instil public confidence in the police force;

When high profile and serius incidents take place – the iopc would engage community at the earlisest pout to explain the process of an investigation – This had been done within the Keyham tradegdy, the community were engaged with early and their voice was heard which was reflected in the press release at the time;

Police legitimacy had been affected greatly due to high profile incidences which did not reflect what the vast majority of police officers do on a daily basis. To respond to the concerns of the public the IOPC had been developing a sector wide programme to restore public confidence to policing;

In response to questions raised it was reported that:

The IOPC broke down the national statistics, regionally, on a quarterly basis and reported them on their website. The IOPC published the number of complaints received, categories of complaints and would also report on the IOPC’s performance in the region;

The IOPC  ...  view the full minutes text for item 105.

Alison Hernandez, Police and Crime Commissioner presented this item to the Panel and highlighted the following key points:

Devon and Cornwall Police have gone into engage mode with HMICFRS with issues around public contact amongst two other issues;

Increase in the need for 999 calls and how that increase hadf provided challenges in the contact centre;

The introduction of voice recognition in July 2019 had one year of improving call time for those that had been receiving crimes such as domestic or sexual violence or hate but had got worse after that year;

The Police and Crime Commissioner conducted a public scrutiny review of 101 in 2020/21 which resulted in 12 recommendation made to the Chief Constable;

In response to questions raised it was reported:

Jim Colwille (Temporary Chief Constable) had been holding corporate responsibility which previously been delegated down, this had in a short space of time had a positive impact in attempting to tackle the issues that had been common for the contact centre over a number of years. Jim had brought in Humberside Police who had scored outstanding on inspections and had the best contact centre in the country to assist Devon and Cornwall Police in bringing about positive change. Jim had also brought in consultancy services to map processes of the contact centre which were found to be cumbersome;

Technology had negatively impacted the contact centre and it was acknowledged to be far behind local authorities and their systems;

The Police contact service had been dealing in greater numbers with calls that were non-crime related however wouldn’t be picked up by other agencies. The Police had also been dealing with incidences of mental health in greater numbers which should be dealt with by health services;

The removal of an email address for contacting the police had been due to many submissions being too vague resulting in extra work trying to clarify the requests. The Web form had aimed to rectify the issue in getting the member of the public to produce detail in their submissions;

The force had begun to implement a new system called NICHE which would enable better integration. The Commissioner highlighted to the Panel that performance cou;d dip when reporting at the next Police and Crime Panel due to the implementation of the software;

The Commissioner had requested that the wait time for 999 calls to be answered to reduce to 10 seconds by the end of the calendar year/ The Commissioner had also pushed for p2 calls to be triaged by the end of the calendar year which was accepted by the temporary Chief Constable;

There had been an Improvement plan developed for the contact centre and on receipt of the HMICFRS report, the Commissioner would share the improvement plan with the Panel;

On receipt of the HMICFRS report the Commissioner would circulate this to the Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Panel members for their consideration of an Extraordinary General Meeting;

The Contact centre would remain a standing item on the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 106.

Nicola Allen, Treasurer provided an update to the Panel on the Autumn statement and highlighted the following key points:

The Chancellor confirmed commitment to the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) published in 2021 which covered; Increase in police office uplift programme, with a £10 council tax cap;

The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner had been expecting the provisional settlement on 12 September. There were existing concerns of inflation and base rate and the need to consume inflation;

In response to questions it was reported that:

The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner would have discussions with Torridge Council in respect of bidding for CSP funding;

The Panel agreed to note the report.

This item was taken as read and in response to questions raised it was reported:

The Commissioner would be undertaking scrutiny of hate crime which would be brought back to the Panel. The scrutiny would focus on serious hate involving violence instead of online hate in order to understand what the force had been doing to respond. The Commissioner would work with Councillors Atiya-Alla and Penberthy and involve them in the scrutiny process;

The Commissioner would be involved in Plymouth City Council’s Performance, Customer Focus and Finance Overview Scrutiny Committee where they would be scrutinising hate crime;

Future violent crime profile reports would include data that could break down the statistics by gender;

Members of the Panel commended Operation Scorpion and the forces involvement in disrupting the drug supply in the region;

The Panel agreed to note the report.

The Panel agreed to note the report. 

Frances Hughes, Chief Executive for the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner advised the Panel that there had been no new complaints to report. 

The Panel agreed to note the report.

Members agreed to add the following to the work programme:

·         Contact Centre (Standing item)

·         Vision zero (How its funded)

·         Commissioners Hate Crime Scrutiny and the Chief Constable’s response

·         Recruitment and Retention of staff