Martyn Underhill – Police & Crime Commissioner for Dorset COMMENTS OF PCC FOR DORSET MARTYN UNDERHILL AT WALLISDOWN, WINTON WEST AND ENSBURY PARK AREA FORUM MEETING OF 25TH JANUARY 2014. THIS DOCUMENT IS PUBLISHED FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PUBLIC IN ASSOCIATION WITH BOURNEMOUTH LIBERAL DEMOCRATS. THE FOLLOWING IS NOT AN EXACT TRANSCRIPT AND WAS WRITTEN INDEPENDENTLY BY MICHAEL CHIZLETT (ATTENDING). THIS DOCUMENT WAS NOT PRODUCED IN AFFLIATION WITH EITHER THE AREA FORUM OR MR UNDERHILL. THIS DOCUMENT HAS SUBSEQUENTLY BEEN APPROVED BY MR UNDERHILL FOR RELEASE
Contents Martyn Underhill – Police & Crime Commissioner for Dorset ..................................... 1 The ‘P’ in PCC ............................................................................................................ 4 Reviews into Policing .............................................................................................. 4 A New Case Management System ......................................................................... 5 Body-Worn Cameras .............................................................................................. 5 Crime.......................................................................................................................... 6 Early Intervention .................................................................................................... 6 Mental Health ......................................................................................................... 7 Wet Tents & Safe buses ......................................................................................... 7 Neighbourhood Justice Panels ............................................................................... 7 CCTV ...................................................................................................................... 8 Data Sharing ........................................................................................................... 8 Bluelight .................................................................................................................. 8 Human Trafficking................................................................................................... 8 Bournemouth University ......................................................................................... 9 Being a Commissioner ............................................................................................. 10 Community Safety Fund ....................................................................................... 10
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Michael Chizlett
Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014 Victim Support ...................................................................................................... 10 Youth Offending Team.......................................................................................... 11 Restorative Justice ............................................................................................... 11 What I Do Nationally................................................................................................. 12 Mental Health Working Group .............................................................................. 12 Negotiating Bodies of Police Officers & Staff ........................................................ 12 Voluntary, Community & Social Enterprise Group & Transforming Rehabilitation Working Group ..................................................................................................... 13 Association of Chief Police Officers Review Working Group ................................ 13 Future Chair of the Independent Custody Visiting Association ............................. 13 What I Do Locally ..................................................................................................... 14 Our 8 MPs ............................................................................................................ 14 Councillors ............................................................................................................ 15 Agency / Charity Meetings .................................................................................... 15 Meeting the Youth & Older Population.................................................................. 15 Some Successes ..................................................................................................... 16 Positive Outcomes ................................................................................................ 16 Recruiting ............................................................................................................. 17 Retention of Marine Section ................................................................................. 17 Police Helicopters ................................................................................................. 17 101 Non-Emergency Number ............................................................................... 17 Operation Wave .................................................................................................... 18 Increased Volunteer Capacity ............................................................................... 18 Quick Wins ............................................................................................................... 19 PCSOs Retained .................................................................................................. 19 Community Engagement ...................................................................................... 19 Neighbourhood Watch & Community Messaging ................................................. 20 Community Speed Watch ..................................................................................... 20 Challenges ............................................................................................................... 21 The Cuts ............................................................................................................... 21 Licensing – Late Night Levy and EMROs ............................................................. 21 Road Safety .......................................................................................................... 22 Police Complaints ................................................................................................. 22 Public Satisfaction & Criminal Justice System ...................................................... 22 Page 2 of 23
Michael Chizlett
Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014 Thank You ................................................................................................................ 23
Thank you for inviting me this is my second time here, I came here during my election campaign and I remember coming here with fondness. I’m back in Bournemouth in February doing the PCC forum so if you’re around on that day it is at the Bournemouth Life Centre. I’ll just give you a quick overview of what I do and what we’re trying to do to make our communities safer. What I always do is briefly explain my role because there was confusion and I still think there is confusion about what Police & Crime Commissioners do. I think the key is in the title: ‘Police and Crime Commissioner’. Each of those words represents a completely different element of my job, the first being the police.
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014
The ‘P’ in PCC
I was created to be the voice of the people in scrutinising the police and making sure the police listen to the views of the public and represent them in what they do. I’m also responsible for reviewing what they do if the public come to me with concerns. I’ve done two reviews in the year since I was elected.
Reviews into Policing One is the review of rural policing. There was a rural postcode lottery with how Dorset would police rural areas, for example a lady in Upton would get a different service to a lady in Sherborne. That became very apparent to me very quickly so I ordered a review of rural policing which has led to a standardisation of what the police do and some more training for rural officers.
The other review was on speeding. Speeding is a contentious issue. Dorset Police have speed cameras whilst Wiltshire, Somerset and Devon & Cornwall don’t. There is a real perception among the public that the police are using speed cameras as a cash cow; that they are putting cameras where people speed rather than where they keep people safe. So I’ve asked Hampshire Police to review the speeding policy in
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014 Dorset and I’m waiting for a report on that review. I’m also responsible for ensuring that Dorset Police are match fit; that it keeps up with technology. That’s a real challenge with the budget cuts that we face at the moment.
A New Case Management System We’re changing the software system within Dorset Police to a new system which will enable mobile data. That means that in November this year the police will have tablets which will reduce the amount of times they need to go back to the police station. They’ll be able get their emails on there and they will be tasked on there. As they walk down a street the tablet will tell them that, for example, there has been a burglary at no. 33 and will tell them to go and see the lady there and make sure she’s ok. It’s an intelligent bit of kit which actually means that with a shrinking police force the officers, PCSOs and staff are actually on the street and not logging on to a computer at the police station.
Body-Worn Cameras The other thing we’re doing with new technology is body-worn videos. Body-worn videos have really hit the headlines in the last couple of weeks due to various cases including the shooting of Mark Dugan, but we’ve been on this case for around 6 months. We are trialling body worn cameras in Bournemouth at the moment but I’ve made a commitment to give every officer in Dorset a mobile camera this year. There are two or three reasons we’re looking to use them. Firstly it increases police accountability. If you look at America or Canada complaints against the police decreased by about 40% after the introduction of the cameras. That’s because the officers are on film too, you can’t dispute what was said because it was filmed. We all know that there are quite a few vexatious complaints made against the police and so this will protect them against malicious complainants and make the officers more accountable. The main reason I want them is for domestic violence. In various pilots, including in Bournemouth, we’re finding we are getting more evidence of domestic abuse with cameras. They are really good evidential tools for juries to watch. You can’t capture the atmosphere of an officer walking into a house where there is blood on the floor, a smashed crockery set, and three kids crying. You can’t write that into a police statement but you can show it in a film. So that’s why I firmly believe that body-worn cameras will help us fight domestic abuse. So that’s the police element of my job.
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014
Crime
The crime element of the PCC role is what takes most of my time.
Early Intervention Going down the slide, I’m passionate about early intervention. I firmly believe that if you change the outcomes of 5 year olds then you change a generation. If every 5 year old went to school could read, write and talk properly they’d have a fair chance in the education system. We know that in Bournemouth and across the country kids go into school at 5 and they can’t read, write or talk properly. Once there they stay at the lower quartile throughout their education. When they come out at 15, 16, 17 or 18 they have low self-esteem and no qualifications. They become the next generation of victims and offenders. So I’m really committed to early intervention and some of the Police budget is being put into early intervention. Bournemouth is doing a really good initiative I have to say. Bournemouth has an early intervention pilot funded by J.P. Morgan in West Howe and Boscombe which are two very complex communities. In Dorset-shire and Poole I’m doing a joint early intervention pilot. We bid nationally for early intervention pilots, 20 were awarded nationally 2 of which were in Dorset. I am jointly funding those pilots and working with the local authorities.
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014
Mental Health Mental health is something that I’m very passionate about. I lead nationally among Police and Crime Commissioners on mental health. Mental health provision nationally and locally is poor. The reason that I got so involved in mental health is that it takes about 20% of Police time. If you can remove that 20% then we can have more visibility and more police staff keeping us safe. Dorset is one of the few places in the country that still puts people into police custody blocks if they are sectioned because they are in a crisis in a public place. So nationally I’m working with the government to change the Mental Health Act - s135 & 136 both need changing, our mental health law is nearly 40 years old and is not fit for purpose. But what are we doing in Dorset? Well the big issue in Dorset is dual diagnosis. We need to wake up to dual diagnosis, if someone has an addiction problem then they may have a mental health problem too. What we’re doing at the moment is putting people in boxes; we’re saying that if a person has a heroin addiction then we’re just going to deal with the heroin. But they may have a mental health issue too and until we accept dual diagnosis we’re not going to start making a difference. The other issue for me is the 24 hour provision of out of hours mental health care. At the moment the out of hours provision is dire. So we’ve started funding a street triage pilot. The idea is to pair police officers with mental health professionals so that they can diagnose people with mental health issues.
Wet Tents & Safe buses Street drinkers are a big problem in Weymouth and in Bournemouth. I’ve just come from the CRI project in Bournemouth and we were just discussing the wet tent issue. A wet tent is somewhere where street drinkers can go. It is warm and dry and it removes them from the street. The benefit of wet tents is that it reduces the number of street drinkers and thereby reduces the fear of crime. People who are walking through the town centre of Bournemouth or walking through the centre of Winton are seeing street drinkers and it increases their fear of crime. So I’m looking at this as a possibility. Safe buses, Bournemouth leads the way in safe buses which is fabulous but we need one in Weymouth. I’m working with West Dorset Council and Dorset County Council to bring in a safe bus on the Bournemouth model which does a fantastic job.
Neighbourhood Justice Panels Neighbourhood Justice Panels is where the public sit on panels and judge offenders, it increases victim satisfaction tremendously and reduces reoffending. We have a pilot in Bridport which is working really well and a pilot in Bournemouth which isn’t working very well. I’m trying to bring it in across the county. I’ve just got funding from
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014 the government to do that so I’m in negotiations with Poole Council and Poole Housing Partnership to bring a pilot into Poole.
CCTV There are 14 CCTV systems in Dorset. They are all different, some of them are operated by volunteers some of them by paid staff. Bournemouth has one of the best CCTV systems in the country but it’s very expensive. There are now new guidelines which CCTV systems have to comply with and only 3 of the 14 systems comply. Trying to standardize CCTV across the county is not easy and it means getting a lot of people around the table to discuss what we can do to make our CCTV comply with the guidelines and save money. In Weymouth Council, for example, have is a £1 million bill for their CCTV which they can’t pay because of the budget cuts. So the issue at hand is really how we preserve CCTV and still save money.
Data Sharing Data sharing is all about the case management system which every professional person in Dorset uses to talk to each other. The good news is that I’ve applied and have been awarded Government funding so I now have a considerable amount of money, nearly £½ a million, to bring in a pan-Dorset case management system. If you look at all the cases where there have been tragic deaths, for example Victoria Climbié, it was because professionals weren’t talking to each other. If we all use the same computer system we will remove a lot of blockages. There are currently 3 different computer systems in use in Dorset. We’ve gotten everyone round the table twice and we need to decide which computer system to use. So if you have someone at risk from safeguarding issues, whether they are a child or an adult, let’s all be talking on the same computer program.
Bluelight Bluelights have had a lot of publicity. Obviously with the budget cuts there has been a drive to share buildings, and I’m very involved with that with the Fire Service in particular. It’s more difficult with the Ambulance Service because they are a huge South West trust and cover 5 counties whereas the fire service covers the same area as Dorset Police. In various different locations we are looking a ditching one building and sharing another together. Some of the buildings being lost are fire buildings and some of them are police buildings.
Human Trafficking There’s just started to be an awareness of human trafficking in this country. It’s quite frustrating for me because one of the strands of human trafficking is child sexual
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014 exploitation and everybody knows about that, there’s been a really good campaign to raise awareness about children being abused, but it’s actually only one of six strands. There are a lot of other people being abused and trafficked inside Dorset, particularly wage slaves, people coming from Eastern Europe and being used as slaves. We’ve got to deal with it. So I do a lot of work to raise awareness. I recently had a joint conference with Purple Teardrop who are a charity trying to raise awareness of human trafficking.
Bournemouth University In times of cuts there is one organisation that isn’t cutting and it is the university. Tertiary education is a growth industry. I identified that quickly and so I’ve made a conscious effort to work with the universities because they’ve got fantastic resources and they’re growing all the time. You only have to look at all the building work going on in Bournemouth at the moment to see that Bournemouth University has money. So we’ve already brought 3 interns from Bournemouth University into Dorset Police. It brings expertise at quite a reduced rate and helps us police our issues. One of the interns works in the counter-terrorism wing and another works in the probation wing. We’ve started swapping staff and they do a lot of evaluation for us. I’ve just approached them actually to evaluate the neighbourhood justice panel we’re setting up in Poole. So I have a lot to do with the University because they’re really good, they’re a good university and they have resources that agencies can use.
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Michael Chizlett
Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014
Being a Commissioner
The last bit of my title is commissioning. I am a commissioner and I am funded by the government.
Community Safety Fund When I got elected I was given the Community Safety Fund which was £258,000 to fund CSPs (Community Safety Partnerships) who work with you to keep communities safe. The funding streams have kept coming and I now have 5 funding streams.
Victim Support In October this year I take over funding for all victims in Dorset. So if you’re a victim of crime in Dorset at the moment Victim Support, who are a national charity funded by the government, will provide the support. From October that will be someone, it might be Victim Support we don’t know yet, funded by and responsible to me. As part of that journey we opened our Victims Bureau in Bournemouth Police Station in November. The idea behind it is that you have one point of contact telling you what is happening throughout your journey.
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014
Youth Offending Team The Youth Offending Team is excellent in Dorset. Currently there are two teams who may be merging into one. They are very good at restorative justice and reducing youth offending and some of their funding comes from me.
Restorative Justice The funding for restorative justice offending has recently been moved to me. Restorative Justice confuses people, it confuses me! There are several different systems in place, if I just briefly explain what they are:
If you are a victim and the person who assaults you or burgles your house goes to prison you are allowed to go to prison and discuss it with him or with her. I’ve recently received the funding for that and we’re trying to make that happen at the moment. It’s complicated however because of the prison landscape. Then there is youth offending restorative justice which is working very well There is the adult restorative justice, that isn’t working well and we need to get better at it and I’m getting the funding to do that. Finally you’ve got the neighbourhood justice panels which are restorative justice as well.
So there is quite a lot going on in the commissioning world in my life.
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014
What I Do Nationally
Mental Health Working Group As I’ve said I’m the chairman of the PCC mental health working group. One of the things that I’ve been doing is working on the new concordat, which is an agreement, between Police & Crime Commissioners, police officers, National Health England and the ambulance trusts to reduce the number of people taken to police custody when they have a mental health issue. I always use the example of a broken arm, if you have a broken arm you are taken to the hospital. If you’ve got a broken mind in Dorset at the moment you get taken to the police station, and we have to stop that.
Negotiating Bodies of Police Officers & Staff I’m the vice chair of the Office Side of the Police Negotiating Board, and I sit on the Police Advisory Board and the Police Staff Council. They are all negotiating bodies for pay and conditions for police officers and police staff. I’m very involved in one element of that at the moment. The government wants to bring in a threshold test for police officers - this is all linked to the integrity debate going on at the moment. I want police officers when they go through their threshold test to be tested by the public. We’ve done it with nurses; I want to do it with police officers. So after 4 years’
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014 service if you want to get a pay rise we will write to ten members of the public who they’ve met in their service, ten victims, and ask them if they agree that that police officer is reaching that threshold. You can imagine it’s quite contentious with the Police Federation, we’re having some trouble with it at the moment, but I’m here to represent the public and I think the public should have a say in how good a police officer is. And if you can do it with a nurse then you can do it with a police officer.
Voluntary, Community & Social Enterprise Group & Transforming Rehabilitation Working Group I am a member of the PCC Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Group and I work on the PCC Transforming Rehabilitation Working Group which is all about changing how we work in our prisons and reducing reoffending. Just as I was elected the prison estate changed. When I was elected we had four prisons in Dorset, now we have two. The two that we have, Guys Marsh and Portland, we’re not allowed to use; they’ve been given to Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Avon & Somerset. Our prison is now in Devon - which is just ridiculous. I’ve had regular dialogue or meetings with Chris Grayling and the Police Minister to say: “Why have we gone from four prisons to none?” and “how can I provide services to break the cycle of offending if we’re driving 3 hours to Devon?” We wait to see what happens.
Association of Chief Police Officers Review Working Group I’m also one of the three PCCs that looked at the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). ACPO were obviously gods three years ago; they were the only voice of policing. Now there are four voices, one of which is PCCs. I and two other PCCs had to explore how to break up a very big multi-million pound organisation so that they can adjust to the new landscape, a new landscape in which they receive much smaller funding. Now instead of just one voice there are now four: The National College of Policing, The National Crime Agency, Police and Crime Commissioners, and The Association of Chief Police Officers.
Future Chair of the Independent Custody Visiting Association I’m just about to take over the chair of the Custody Visiting Association. The Custody Visiting Scheme in Dorset consists of 18 trained volunteers who go into cells at Weymouth and Bournemouth and make sure that people are being looked after under the United Nations Charter. We’re about to be inspected by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and these 18 volunteers are there to make sure people have heat, access to toilets, they have drink and they have food. They’re not involved in the legal process; it’s just making sure they’re treated like human beings. I think it’s a Page 13 of 23
Michael Chizlett
Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014 really important thing to do and that’s why I’ve stood up to take over the chair nationally to make sure that appropriate adults and services for appropriate adults and services for people in police custody suites are match fit for 2014.
What I Do Locally
Our 8 MPs I meet local MPs. Conor Burns is your local MP, he’s also my local MP too. I was with Conor a week last Friday. I always meet the 8 MPs. I have to get on with them because although I can be very influential. I’ve told you about how I’m helping to rewrite the Mental Health Act, I can’t change the law, only MPs can do that, so I lobby the MPs a lot.I have fantastic relationships with all of them. Oliver Letwin is particularly instrumental in what I do, not because I get on better with him but because he is arguably the 4th most important person in government. People listen when Oliver speaks. I was in Parliament with Oliver last week and the week before. I meet Oliver because I don’t have all the power and he can make things happen. I can make suggestions but to change the law I need an MP. So I get on very well with your MP and I meet with all of them on a regular basis.
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014
Councillors There are 485 councillors in Dorset and I am, embarrassingly, still meeting councillors who I don’t know. That’s because there are so many of them. We have town councils, parish councils, district councils, and we have unitary authorities. 485 people are a lot of people. I try to meet all of them but it is a struggle and there are still some councillors which I haven’t met.
Agency / Charity Meetings I get very involved in organisations like the National Farmers Union, Countryside Alliance, Country Land & Business Association, the RSPCA, and the RNLI. All of these groups shape how our society looks and when it gets to the contentious issues such as fracking and badgers I have to meet the parties involved. So I do a lot of that and Mind is also on there as well with my interest in mental health. I also come to forums such as this to talk to people.
Meeting the Youth & Older Population The biggest challenge for me is meeting the older population.1 in 3 in Dorset are older people, I’m older, that’s a huge swaithe of people, it’s nearly 300,000 people. The older population is the hardest to reach. The young population is very into social media and you know they go to school, you catch the kids but you can’t catch the older population. So if you ask me what is my biggest challenge it is engaging with the older population.
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014
Some Successes
Some successes, crime is down 8%. I don’t take credit for that; that is the police’s work. I just make sure they go in the right direction and they are. The reality is that crime is not going to keep going down. We’ve had a 16 year crime reduction in Dorset. If you look at the figures nationally we’re grinding to a halt. That is not a result of politics or policy it’s just that you cannot keep reducing something and go into minus figures. A 16 year reduction in Dorset is amazing. This is one of the safest places in the country to live and I’m very proud to stand here and say that; but we’re not going to keep seeing crime going down. I’ve always said that in my term as a PCC I fully expect crime to level out. If crime starts going up I’ll have a big problem, you’ll have a big problem, and it’ll probably get me unelected but it’s got to slow down it can’t keep going down.
Positive Outcomes One thing I have had a big influence on is positive outcomes and what that means is catching criminals. August 14-15 months ago there was a big headline on the front of the Echo: ‘Dorset Police clear-up rate one of worst in UK’ it went on to say that only 1 in 5 crimes were detected or ‘cleared up’. That is not a good front page headline. Dorset Police was one of the worst forces in the country for catching criminals. I
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014 stood on an election platform and said that I would change that, and I have. The chief constable has brought in a new process of investigating crime and in the last year we’re now catching 1 in 4 criminals. We need that to go to 1 in 3, that’s one of the few targets I’ve set the Police. I don’t believe in targets, but I have set the target to catch 1 in 3 criminals by 2016, and we’re well on track to do that. I think that that is a basic thing, you expect the Police to prevent crime and you expect your police to detect crime.
Recruiting I’ve reversed the decision not to recruit. We’re recruiting within Dorset Police at the same time as losing 500 staff and there is a reason for that. You have to have a balanced workforce. I have a responsibility to hand over to the next PCC a force which is efficient and effective. That means having more new people coming in into the organization even though we’re losing staff at the other end. By the time my term is finished we will have lost 500 police officers and staff but we have to have new ones coming in the other end.
Retention of Marine Section I said that I would reverse the decision to abolish the marine section which I have. We now have a marine section that works in partnership with Poole Harbour Authority.
Police Helicopters The helicopter, I won’t take any credit for, but just to give you an update on it because it’s really exciting. The government has taken over all the helicopters. When I was elected we had a helicopter that was costing us millions of pounds to run each year. That’s now gone to the National Police Air Service, but because of the amalgamation we now have two helicopters in Dorset. We could actually have two helicopters turn up if a really big incident occurs in Bournemouth. One helicopter is based in the West of the county and the other is in the East.
101 Non-Emergency Number The 101 number was my biggest intervention with the police. The 101 is the nonemergency number and it wasn’t working. I was being told that loud and clear. Bournemouth Councillors was very vocal about the fact that the emergency number wasn’t working and their constituents were very unhappy. I started looking at it and it wasn’t working. The amount of time people were being made to wait on the phone was 12-15-17 minutes. It was like phoning BT to be quite frank. We were having something like 40% of callers abandoning their calls because they couldn’t get an
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014 answer. It was the first real head-to-head that I’d had with the Chief Constable. I served him with a letter saying that this was unacceptable, that the public aren’t happy, councillors are not happy, I’m not happy, make it change. And it has. Now our performance is much, much better. About 80% of calls are now answered within 30 seconds. We’ve recruited more staff and we’ve put new software in there to improve it. That is what Police and Crime Commissioners are there to do: the public aren’t happy, they come to me, I tackle the chief constable and things change.
Operation Wave When I was elected the police didn’t attend vehicle crime, they took it on the phone. One of the things I do is hold victim forums. Yesterday I held a victim’s forum and a lady came in to tell us a story. Her husband had had his van broken into. He had lost his tools and his business and was now suffering from severe depression all because someone broke into his van. Before my election, the police were dealing with it on the phone. We’ve changed that. Now police officers will, whenever operationally possible, attend vehicle crime. Why? (1) You can catch criminals by knocking on doors and looking for physical evidence, and (2) the public expect the police to turn up; because some vehicle crimes really do change people’s lives.
Increased Volunteer Capacity The last thing is volunteers. I’ve doubled the amount of volunteers in Dorset Police and I’ve doubled the recruitment of special constables.
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014
Quick Wins
PCSOs Retained The retention of PCSOs has been quite contentious. We’re losing police officers and staff and yet I have ring-fenced our PCSOs. There were 155 PCSOs when I was elected and there are still 155. The reason I’ve done that is because you’ve told me that that is what you want. PCSOs are the public’s neighbourhood policing team and they interact with the public all the time. So we’ve retained the PCSOs.
Community Engagement The biggest issue for me in community engagement is meeting 750,000 people. I am one person; I am one of the few PCCs nationally who doesn’t have a deputy or an assistant, and I’ve always said that I wouldn’t have one. So how do I meet the public: 750,000 people spread across 1,000 sq miles? I have various ways of doing it. I have forums. I’ve told you I’m coming back to Bournemouth in a couple of weeks to do a forum. I also have PCC advocates. These are members of the public and volunteers, they’re not paid. They are my eyes and ears in the community. We have one in
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014 Boscombe, Helene’s been there for about nine months for me now and she goes to all the public meetings. She feeds to me all the issues going on in Boscombe. I’m just about to advertise for an advocate in West Howe which is another complex community I’m very involved with. We’re looking for one in Littlemoor and Underhill in Weymouth. We’ve just appointed 2 polish advocates in November; one in Bournemouth one in Poole. The polish community is a huge community in both towns but it is very insular and very complex so we need Polish advocates. I’ve also appointed 6 older advocates across Dorset-shire and will shortly be coming to Bournemouth and Poole to do the same.
Neighbourhood Watch & Community Messaging Neighbourhood Watch is a big thing for me. It’s all about the community and helping the police keep the community safe. Neighbourhood watch is very good in some parts of Dorset and some parts of Bournemouth, but not all over, especially in West Dorset. So we’re trying to kick-start and enable communities to join neighbourhood watch. Some of you may also be aware of Ringmaster. We’re just about to replace that with a new system which will be social media friendly so we can Facebook, tweet or text something that the community might want to know.
Community Speed Watch I noticed from the minutes of your last meeting that Community Speed Watch has recently come to Winton, and I’m sure Steve will talk about that. I’m a big fan of Community Speed Watch because it keeps people safe on the roads.
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014
Challenges
The Cuts The cuts are a huge challenge. Dorset is the worst funded police service in the country. I have lost track of how many times I have written to the Chancellor, the Policing Minister, and the Home Secretary, to say please give us more money. In my term we’re going to lose about £15 million from the budget. When 82% of the budget is people that means we are going to lose police officers and police staff. It’s a big challenge, very topical at the moment, I was just talking to a councillor and we’re all going through the budget bit at the moment. My website has a consultation address for your views on the budget cuts. I’ve just checked we’ve had 500 members of the public have given us their views on precept. Nothing is written in stone until the 6 th of February so please consult with us if you can.
Licensing – Late Night Levy and EMROs Licensing, the late night levy and the Early Morning Restriction Orders (EMROs), this is quite a contentious issue. The government brought in the late night levy so that clubs that stay open until 6am have to pay for the policing and for the local authority to clean up for the mess afterwards. It’s brought in by the local authorities not by me
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Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014 but I’m very keen to bring in late night levies. There is a debate going on within various local authorities at the moment. Weymouth is piloting a voluntary Early Morning Restriction Order and that well help fund the safe bus that I’ve already spoken about. So bringing in late night levies is a challenge for me, because its not my decision.
Road Safety Road safety I could spend 20 minutes talking about this but I’m just going to say that I’m very involved with the road safety debate and a lot of communities come to me to help to sway local authorities, particularly Dorset County Council, to help them with speed limits or speed bumps.
Police Complaints Just as an aside, I do not believe and I have never believed that the police should investigate themselves. I am very involved nationally in efforts to change that. The IPCC only investigate 8% of Police complaints, they should be investigating all of them.
Public Satisfaction & Criminal Justice System I get very frustrated because, frankly, the police get surveyed to death. We have 4 different surveys we send to members of the public, I’m sure some of you must have had some, and we’re judged on everything. The court system, however, and the Crown Prosecution Service aren’t surveyed at all. It’s something that I feel very strongly about. I think the public should have a say in how the court system and the Crown Prosecution Service works. So I’m lobbying nationally to make them have surveys too. I think that those systems would have to face some stark realities if they were to ask the public how they think they’re doing. The good news is we asked the public about policing and actually we’re doing ok which is good.
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Michael Chizlett
Martyn Underhill – 25th January 2014
Thank You
Ladies and gentlemen thank you for listening I know that I’ve talked for over half an hour, I do apologise. Hopefully you’ve seen that there is quite a lot on and it’s an exciting role and I am honoured to have been elected to do it.
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Michael Chizlett