a)        

The Commissioner would share any open letters with councillors in the future;

b)       

The Commissioner would amend the annual report to include the national government priority of the neighbourhood policing guarantee;

c)        

The night bus initiative wouldn’t feature in the 2024/25 annual report as it was largely funded in that financial year and would therefore be reported in the 2025/26 annual report;

d)       

A plan was being developed for custody suites and the OPCC were doing some scrutiny around the safety of detainees and their rights and welfare being met. The OPCC was also reviewing what the independent custody visitors were saying about the suites, also how often appropriate adults were available. There was a longer term plan that was looking at the costs and facilities;

e)       

The Commissioner advised that there were no savings in a custody suite as they were expensive to run and expensive both physically and with resources of staff. The Commissioner advised that if the Panel agreed, custody suites could be brought back to the Panel following her scrutiny activity;

f)         

Anti-social behaviour (ASB) was difficult as some areas of ASB were police led whilst others were the responsibility of the local authority and despite working hard to bring together those two partners, ASB was still on the streets and not working well enough;

g)        

The Police did not received a capital budget from national government for firing ranges. The current firing ranges were at the end of their life stage and the Police were exploring regionally and nationally what the plan in the future would be. The Commissioner advised the panel that she wanted to avoid officers travelling large distances to train at alternative fire range facilities;

h)       

The Commissioners Accountability Board published an assurance statement which reviewed the operational activity in relation to performance and whether the Commissioner was assured or not of the plan for improvement;

i)         

The safe bus in Torbay would close as Health partners would be ceasing their activity in the space. Plymouth’s safe bus would be the only one to continue in the region;

j)         

The Commissioner advised that in relation to a police enquiry office in Exeter the Police were unable to guarantee that members of the public wouldn’t bring in weapons and was the reason why the enquiry office would not open;

k)        

The Commissioner reiterated that the police and their estates team worked closely with the military to find sites in the region where firearm police officers could train, but there were issues around availability of those sites as they were heavily use for their own purposes throughout the year. The Panel were advised that there was no capacity at indoor firing ranges;

l)         

Since the introduction of the AI camera which was used to detect people using mobile phones at the wheel and/or not wearing their seatbelts, there has been an increase in the number of people using their seatbelts over a three year period. The Commissioner advised the Panel that she was hoping to go to Westminster with the camera to make it really visible with politicians;

m)     

The Commissioner advised the Panel that the complaints process was laid out by government and the Commissioners role was to be the appeals body for the complaints against the Police. The OPCC could only investigate the process of the complaint. The Commissioner had made available £500,000 into the complaints department, they’ve recruited a new heads of complaints and a team within the professional standards department that only dealt with complaints from the public and not police misconduct;

n)       

There had been a backlog in dealing with the complaints and the commissioner apologies to any resident that had not heard back from in any sort of timely manner. The Commissioner expressed dissatisfaction at the backlog being up to a year which is why the extra resources had been provided and why she had given direction to the Chief Constable to attempt to resolve. The Commissioner advised that as a result of those actions the backlog had almost ceased to exist.