Alison Hernandez (Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Commissioner) introduced the item and highlighted the following points:

a)     After the election of a Police and Crime Commissioner, they had 12 months to produce a Police and Crime Plan;

b)    The Plan should set out the priorities for policing;

c)     The Plan was set out for five years, enabling the next Police and Crime Commissioner a 12 month period in which they could produce their own plan;

d)    The information in the Plan was evidential and included information from the Peninsula Strategic Assessment, Strategic Policing Requirements and the Government priorities as well as a focus on the challenges laid out by His Majesty’s Inspectorate for Fire and Rescue Services;

e)     A survey had been carried out regarding the Plan which had unusually highlighted the carrying of weapons and child abuse as two of the top five priorities;

f)      Road Safety had been removed as a priority as the ‘business as usual’ road safety strategy was working well;

g)     Road Safety had been replaced by theft as a priority in the Plan due to high levels of theft on the high streets and domestic burglary;
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h)    National policing promised to visit every burglary victim and that was not happening in Devon and Cornwall;

i)      Alcohol had been added as a key driver for crime;

j)      Anti-social behaviour (ASB) continued to be a challenge across Devon and Cornwall and due to this there had been high levels of partnership work with local authorities;

k)     There was a particular concern about Wildlife Crime and ASB in rural communities as it was often seen as less severe than urban areas, and this was not the case;

l)      Performance measures in the performance report had indicated there had been an increase of young people who were victims of crime;

m)   There had been a focus on tackling drink and drug driving;

n)    Drug challenges in coastal towns had become more visible within communities;

o)    The plan was to establish an economic model whereby the income gained from tackling drug dealers would be used to create funding to help with drug related treatments;

p)    Violent crime had been increasing as a rate higher than any other crimes in the community;

q)    Radical ideas and partnership working with local authorities were needed to intervene in violent crime;

r)     The Commissioner was the national lead and Co-Chair for Serious and Organised Crime for Police and Crime Commissioners;

s)     A major challenge was lack of intelligence and structure when tackling serious and organised crime, particularly in rural areas and there was a focus on building confidence in rural communities and ensure they were reporting crimes;

t)     Performance management measures would be put in place to help support police force performance;

u)    The Plan was focussed on tackling crime to help the police force pursue criminals and to help reduce criminal activity.

In response to questions, it was explained:

v)     The Commissioner was responsible for the police estate and the land owned by her office;

w)   The money from speeding fines was sent to Government, and the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) had launched a road safety lobby at Westminster to ask for the money to be returned to the force to tackle road safety;

x)    Most of the money from speeding fines which resulted in a speed awareness courses was directed back to Devon and Cornwall to be reinvested into road safety;

y)     Once the Plan was finalised, an action plan would be put in place with the Chief Constable and partners which would highlight whether the OPCC could deliver on the actions;

z)     The Devon and Cornwall Police force risk register was used when creating the priorities within the Plan;

aa)  A key focus of the Plan was performance within the police force, including improvement in public contact;

bb)Crime Stoppers was funded and supported by the OPCC to help the public anonymously report crimes both online and over the phone;

cc)  Following a death during a police response to a member of the public on an e-scooter, the police could not pursue anybody on them due to health and safety risks;

dd)Additional legal support had been funded through the OPCC to aid respect orders to tackle ASB;

ee)  Government were keen to invest in policing, including the increase of PCSOs;

ff)    The information that criminals stealing anything under £200 would not be arrested was a myth;

gg)  The Commissioner had received feedback from young people in Devon and Cornwall regarding specific geographies in which they felt unsafe;

hh)The priorities reflected what young people want, but the challenge was how to engage young people in helping with the delivery of them;

ii)     The Commissioner was on the Criminal Justice Board for Devon and Cornwall and had worked to set youth justice and putting children first as the priority for the courts, the probation service, the young offending service, the crown court prosecution service and the police to better enable support for young people;

jj)     Due to where funding was directed, the Commissioner was influencing partners who were able to focus on prevention and creating safe spaces for young people;

kk)   Academic research had shown that once a young person was in the criminal justice system, they would continue to be in the system which meant that it was unlikely for a young person to be taken through the criminal justice system initially. This meant there was a lack of justice to victims where young people had committed offences;

ll)     There had been nine phases of Operation Scorpion over two and a half years, and although the main focus had been arresting street level drug dealers, there had also been a focus on county lines and outsiders coming in to sell drugs to communities in Devon and Cornwall;

mm)                The Commissioner urged the public to report to Crime Stoppers when they saw drugs being sold as that intelligence was used for Operation Scorpion;

nn)The Commissioner invited new panel members to her office for an induction to better understand the systems in place;

oo)Although there were issues with ‘back office’ performance measures, there were investigations in place to ensure back office functions were happening as they should;

pp)The Commissioner was unsure if Project Synergy would deliver improvement;

qq)There was a high satisfaction rate for people who were victims of hate crime in Devon and Cornwall.

The Panel agreed to the Draft Police and Crime Plan 2025 – 2029 and to the following recommendations:

1. The Commissioner lobby for changes in regulations on electric bikes and scooters;

2. The Commissioner included information regarding summer challenges in Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly into the Police and Crime Plan 2025 to 2029.