Agenda and minutes

Councillor Ryall declared a personal interest as her wife was a police officer.

Councillor Dee declared a personal interest as he was on the Police and Crime panel

Councillor Finnegan declared a personal interest as she was on the Police and Crime panel.

To receive a verbal update from the Community Safety Partnership and the Superintendent for Local Policing regarding their strategy to reduce crime in the City and the deployment of police and PCSO’s in Gloucester.

*Please note that Any Public Questions, Petitions and Deputations must relate to the business for which the Special Meeting has been called.*

The Chair welcomed Superintendent Richard Cooper, Head of local policing (Urban), Councillor Jennie Watkins, Head of the Community Safety Partnership, Gill Ragon, Head of Public Protectionand Anne Brinkhoff, Corporate Director to share a verbal update on the deployment of resources and an update on the crime prevention strategy for Gloucester.

Superintendent Cooper provided an overview of the current deployment levels of police in Gloucester. He explained that 59 constables are specifically labelled as local police for Gloucester and this included 5 constables who were in training but not yet deployed. He said there were 27 PCSOs, whose duties were exclusively concerned with Gloucester and that 4 of these were working as part of the Community Builder team with leadership and oversight through Barnwood Trust. He explained there were 105 constables, with 10 vacancies being carried, whose role was to attend and resolve incidents in Gloucester and Cheltenham. He said there were 16 special constables in Gloucester and 29 attached to the urban incident resolution team and they had contributed 6500 hours on duty over the previous 6 months. He explained that the most recent change in deployment figures had been the transfer of 4 PCSOs from Cheltenham to Gloucester in October 2016. He stated that policing in Gloucester had become stronger over the previous 12 months but understood there were concerns regarding the visibility of policing in the City.

Councillor Watkins highlighted the joint responsibility for crime prevention and stated Safer Gloucester was working well through successful initiatives and events. She said this allowed a sharing of information. She said she was pleased that Members were using the Members Allocation Project to fund initiatives which promoted community safety.

Anne Brinkhoff presented a PowerPoint which outlined potential changes in how community safety would be maintained as there had been a County wide review commissioned by Leadership Gloucestershire; she said the review had focused on:

·         How could there be effective and strategic governance?

·         What scope was there to deliver a co-ordinated response whilst maintaining local variation where required?

·         Recommendations of how community safety would be subject to oversight and scrutiny.

·         Recommendations for potential opportunities for multi-agency commissioning.

The Chair stated that he would allow questions from Members of the Council, who did not usually sit on the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, but were in attendance on this occasion in the public gallery.

Councillor Hampson asked Superintendent Cooper if there were enough officers to police the City effectively. Superintendent Cooper stated there were enough officers available to respond to emergencies and reports of crime. He stated that current levels of staffing were at a sustainable level but he would aspire to a higher level of staffing if possible, as the nature of the work was such that it would always be beneficial to have more staff. He emphasised that the force was not at a point of crisis and did not see this as changing in the near future.

Councillor Hyman said that he had brought the motion to the December  ...  view the full minutes text for item 95.

Monday 12 June 2017 at 6.30pm

 12 June 2017 6.30pm