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A Police and Crime Commissioner’s role:

Workshop 2: Sorting out scrutiny boundaries Police Reform and Community Safety Conference Tuesday, 29 January 2013 Tim Young Associate, Local Government Information Unit.

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A Police and Crime Commissioner’s role:

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  1. Workshop 2:Sorting out scrutiny boundariesPolice Reform and Community Safety ConferenceTuesday, 29 January 2013 Tim YoungAssociate, Local Government Information Unit

  2. Workshop 2 - Sorting out scrutiny boundaries Purpose:This workshop will focus on the division of responsibilities between crime and disorder scrutiny committees (at the local level) and a police and crime panel (at force level) and what might be needed to make the relationships work well

  3. A Police and Crime Commissioner’s role: • Securing an efficient and effective police force for their area • Producing and consulting on a five year Police and Crime Plan that sets out local policing priorities • Setting the annual policing precept • Appointing the Chief Constable (CC) and holding them to account • Co-operating with local community safety partners and funding community safety activity to achieve the Police and Crime Plan’s objectives

  4. PCCs and Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) • PCCs: not members of or responsible authorities on existing CSPs, but mutual duty to cooperate • PCCs must have regard to the CSPs’ priorities when planning – and CSPs must have regard to a PCC’s Policing and Crime plan • PCCs can require reports from CSPs on their work • PCCs have powers to convene meetings with all CSPs in the force area to discuss strategic priorities

  5. PCCs and community safety activity • All funding which currently goes to CSPs will in the future go directly to the PCC • In 2013-14, PCCs will receive funding from the new, non-ringfenced Community Safety Fund to commission services to support crime, drugs and community safety priorities • PCCs will be able to make crime and disorder reduction grants to any organisation or person in their area • CSPs will therefore not be automatic recipients of PCC funding

  6. PCCs and Community Safety Fund allocations (in £millions)

  7. The Police and Crime Panel (PCP) • A new body with statutory functions • Established to ensure some local accountability for the Police and Crime Commissioner • The Act says the PCP must exercise its functions with a view to supporting the effective exercise of the PCC’s functions • So ‘support and challenge’ - a scrutiny role

  8. PCP responsibilities include: • Contributing to the development of the PCC’s Police and Crime Plan • Reviewing the PCC’s proposed precept • Holding the PCC to account for their annual report at a public meeting • Reviewing and scrutinising PCC decisions • So a PCP will be interested in: • a PCC’s strategy for community safety • how and by how much it is funded • how it is to be commissioned and delivered • how successfully it’s delivered

  9. Local authority scrutiny of crime and disorder partnerships • Each local authority is still required (by Police & Justice Act 2006) to scrutinise crime and disorder partnerships at least annually • Demarcation becomes more complicated as a PCC takes over funding of community safety work • Aim should be to avoid duplication and ensure a co-ordinated approach to scrutiny of community safety, at the strategic and local levels

  10. Emerging lessons from PCPs’ work • For a PCP, no matter what your ambitions, you cannot cover everything – less may be more • Need to operate at a strategic level taking an overviewof a PCC’s work, policing requirements and priorities • Community safety: a PCP’s interest is in how strategic priorities translate into operational action at the local level • Need to liaise with local OSCs for that information

  11. Liaising and working with local OSCs • Provides intelligence on local community safety/crime issues and concerns • Enables a PCP to understand PCC’s strategic direction and how decisions are impacting locally • Can help assess how the PCC is co-operating with local community safety partners and funding activity to achieve Police and Crime Plan objectives • Enables local OSCs to escalate issues that cannot be solved by local action • Can help PCP to aggregate issues that are common across the force area

  12. How might this/is this being done? • ‘Twin-hatted’ councillors, sitting on the PCP and their county and/or local crime and disorder scrutiny committee (eg Gloucestershire) • Through scrutiny officers’ liaison • Sharing and co-ordinating work programmes • Responding to requests for information • Passing on issues to where they can be dealt with most appropriately • Flagging up issues of mutual interest • Formal protocols (e.g. Leics County Council OSC and PCP; and North Yorks PCP and LA Scrutiny Committees with Community Safety remits)

  13. Other scrutiny links to consider • Health scrutiny’s new relationships with Health and Wellbeing Boards, Clinical Commissioning Groups, Healthwatch and Public Health • Links between health issues, policing and crime and disorder, e.g. drug and alcohol abuse; domestic violence, safeguarding issues • Issues that need more than a policing response (e.g. binge drinking, violence, and A & E admissions)

  14. Resources • Draft Protocol between the Police and Crime Panel and the Leicestershire County Council Scrutiny Commission at http://goo.gl/rQeii (pp23-27) • North Yorkshire Police and Crime Panel, Links between Police and Crime Panel and Crime and Disorder Overview and Scrutiny Committees (25 October 2012) at http://goo.gl/R1mp0 • The LGA’s Police and Crime Panel Support and Wider Networking Group provides a network for all those involved with Police and Crime Panels or with a keen interest in this area. Members of panels including independent co-optees are encouraged to join and participate, at http://goo.gl/MTLmP • Safer Future Communities, How the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Sector can help reduce crime and keep communities safe in your area http://goo.gl/x5LZx and see local network at http://www.oneeastmidlands.org.uk/sfc or at http://goo.gl/N9c0P

  15. Contact details Tim Young Local Government Information Unit Associate and Lead on Policing and Crime, Frontline Consulting Associates Email: timy@frontlineconsulting.co.uk Tel: 020 8904 2815 & 07985 072979 Web: www.frontlineconsulting.co.uk

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