Agenda item
Debate - Crime and community safety
To debate a key issue affecting the Borough. The theme for this meeting to be crime and community safety.
Minutes:
The Chief Executive introduced Matt Gardner, the Borough Commander, to the meeting. He thanked councillors for inviting him to speak and introduced Superintendent Alisdair Ferguson who had accompanied him to the meeting.
Matt Gardner reported on the position in the borough with regard to the main areas of crime that were of concern to people. The incidence of robbery was up on the previous year and he outlined why he thought this might be. There had been a good reduction in the number of burglaries but he warned that the winter months usually saw an increase. A lot of work had gone into reducing the amount of violent crime and in the last two months 20 firearms had been taken off the streets. He referred to three recent murders in the borough and that all suspects had been arrested and charged.
The Commander referred to the anticipated cuts in public expenditure and that he and his colleagues were concerned that this would lead to a cut in the number of police on the streets. The police worked very much in partnership with local councils and this was shown in the council's contribution of 16 police community safety officers. The two organisations were having a healthy debate over how performance could be maintained and any overlaps eliminated. It was clear that the Metropolitan Police would need to be a leaner and more effective organisation and any under performers would have to leave the service.
Matt Gardner sought councillors support and input to organising the safer neighbourhood teams which would need to work more across boundaries. Any proposed rationalisation of police stations would need to be supported. The choice would be maintaining levels of police on the streets or keeping open front offices that attracted only a small footfall. He had attended a meeting of the Brent Youth Parliament that had presented a good opportunity to work with young people on stop and search. There were challenges to deal with on sickness levels although he pointed out this had been wrongly reported in the local newspaper.
In summary, the Borough Commander stated that there were 700 police officers and 270 support staff under his command all of which need to do their jobs to the best of their ability with a smile on their faces.
Councillor Beswick, Lead Member for Crime and Community Safety, thanked the Borough Commander for his contribution. He condemned the talk of cuts to the police service. He acknowledged that all areas of public service would have to find savings and the challenge was how to do this in the most effective way. He was keen to find an effective way of alerting ward councillors to issues within their areas. Things would need to be done differently and it would take leadership and the involvement of all to achieve this.
Councillors made individual contributions to the debate and asked questions of the Borough Commander. Issues raised covered stop and search, the value of the safer neighbourhood teams, the effects of drug related crime, how to raise the confidence that local residents had in the police, the effect cuts in public expenditure might have, views on the effectiveness of anti social behaviour orders and the role of police community safety officers in dealing with enviro-crime.
In response the Borough Commander confirmed his position on making data available relating to stop and search and would welcome direct approaches on this. Cross borough working was proving effective in tackling gang crime. He emphasised that he was not proposing to cut the safer neighbourhood teams but they would be asked to work more flexibly so that they could be more easily moved to where the crime was happening. A lot of work had been undertaken by the drug squad over the last 18 months but this was very resource intensive. Matt Gardner acknowledged that drugs were often the root of evil and that suppliers needed to be targeted. The issue of raising the public's confidence in the work of the police was under active consideration by Superintendent Ferguson. The Borough Commander felt that anti social behaviour orders had their place but they were not an answer on their own. The police community safety officers did not have the powers to deal with enviro-crime but they could apprehend culprits and hold them until the police arrived. Matt Gardner again thanked the meeting for the opportunity to speak and stated that he saw his job as taking the bureaucracy away from police officers so they could concentrate on working the streets.
The Mayor thanked the Borough Commander for his contribution and also Superintendent Ferguson for his attendance.