Agenda item

(Director of Communities) to consider the attached report.

Caroline Wiggins, the Safer Communities Manager, introduced the report on the recently proposed Policing cuts and their implications on the Council’s Community Safety Service.

This originated from November 2015, when the PCC, Nick Alston and the Chief Constable of Essex Police announced proposals to make significant changes to local Policing across Essex, in a move to ensure that Essex Police was fit for purpose, in the future.

This report was aimed at starting a discussion with members on the implications of the reduction in police resources and the impact it would have on the Council’s Community Safety service.

The PCC and Chief Constable announced the funding challenges facing Essex Police over the next four years, which would see a reduction of £63 million in the Police budget by 2019/20. This was presented as the driver for making changes to the way that Essex Police operates in future and the need to significantly reduce community policing as from April 2016.

The Safer Communities Officer, Paul Gardener, added that the problem council officers faced were that they were best guessing what was going to happen in the district. They were looking at potential reductions in policing, such as triaging calls into High, Medium or Low risks and then only reacting high risk cases and fielding the other calls to other relevant authorities. He was mindful that the Council would pick up more work and there would be more disgruntled members of the public not having the Police act on their problems.

Anti-social Behaviour powers were given to us by the Government and they would use them. But it would raise the officer’s workload, especially as the Police would not act. This may also result in more problems at the reception desks from disgruntled members of the public. Therefore, it was likely that customer facing staff would need additional training as more diverse enquiries were received from the public.

The Council only had two ASB officers to deal with the Epping Forest District. They were seeing a rise in cases from 192 to 331 cases. The public would make their feelings known to Members who will then let the officers know, increasing their caseload as they try and resolve complaints on behalf of Members and this would be very time consuming.

Ms Wiggins added that officers needed to know what Members wanted to take as priorities in referred cases. They needed to know how to balance their resources.

Councillor Sartin said that it may be useful if members could have a training course on this. Ms Wiggins replied that until the plans were made know in April, they needed guidance on how Members would like officers to handle this.

Councillor Surtees noted that all the problems seemed to be coming our way as a local authority. For example, the PSOs provided good intelligence but they were now getting rid of them. Ms Wiggins added that they were also looking to the voluntary sector to pick up some of the slack. The Police would not have a customer facing counter in our area. We were looking to provide an office for them to share with us.

Councillor Sartin noted that a training session may come out of this as we were just beginning to get to grips the implications. This was just a start.

Councillor Patel suggested that the Town and Parish Clerks be used if they could be trained.

Councillor Brady noted that if a lot of people did not use Police Stations, why should we get a lot coming to us. Ms Wiggins said that they had about 6 people an hour attend police stations. They are now asked to use the Police website to report incidents (see attached information sheet).

RESOLVED:

That the Committee noted the implications of the recently proposed Policing Cuts and the resulting possible implications to the Council’s Community Safety Service.