Agenda and minutes

The Chairman welcomed everyone to the virtual meeting of the Police and Crime Panel and invited all in attendance to introduce themselves and identify the local authority they were representing.

Resolved - That it be noted that apologies for absence had been received from Councillors Rogers and Silvester (North East Lincolnshire Council).

There were no declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests and personal or personal and prejudicial interests.

There were no declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests and personal or personal and prejudicial interests.

Resolved - That the minutes of the proceedings of the panel held on 24 November 2020, having been printed and circulated amongst the members, be taken as read and correctly recorded and signed by the chairman.

The Chairman welcomed the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Humberside to the meeting.  Mr Hunter provided a comprehensive update on the following areas –

Ø  Number of abstractions.

Ø  Humberside Police response to the pandemic and ‘lockdown 3’.

Ø  Complaints following enforcement of Covid restrictions.

Ø  Crime and Justice Task Force and reduction in crime

Ø  Crime and Policing Board priorities

Ø  Strategic planning to meet national policing pressures.

Following the Police and Crime Commissioners comprehensive verbal update, the Chairman facilitated a discuss between the Panel and the PCC.

Resolved – That the verbal update be received with thanks.

The Chairman welcomed Paul Wainwright to the meeting, the  Assurance and Policy Manager at the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC).  Mr Wainwright updated the Panel on the following –

Ø  Staffing changes at the OPCC.

Ø  Covid update.

Ø  Scrutiny volunteers.

Ø  Funding for veteran support.

Ø  Public health approach

Ø  Not in our community.

Following the Assurance and Policy Managers comprehensive verbal update, the Chairman facilitated a discuss between the Panel and Mr Wainwright.

Resolved – (a) That Mr Wainwright be thanked for his attendance, verbal presentation and for answering members’ questions, and (b) that the verbal presentation be noted.

The Chairman welcomed Kevin Wilson, the Chief Finance Officer at the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner to the meeting.  Mr Hunter and Mr Wilson had been invited to the meeting to discuss with the Panel the Police Precept for 2021-22 and Medium Term Resource Strategy (MTRS) 2021-22 to 2025-26.

The Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) informed the meeting that the MTRS for 2021-22 to 2025-26 that weas attached to report as an appendix included the Commissioner’s income and expenditure plans for the next five years.

The MTRS had been updated to take account of budget pressures, savings proposals and the recent provisional Police Finance Settlement that was issued on 18 December 2020.  The capital programme and the projections for the Commissioner’s reserves were also included.

The MTRS sets out a sustainable financial position over the medium-term and included the following key elements:-

Ø  An underspend for the current financial year (2020/21) of £0.155M;

Ø  Financing included in the MTRS for a capital programme of circa £50.1M over the period 2021-22 to 2025-/26;

Ø  Impact of the 2021/22 Police Finance Settlement including funding for 95 additional officers as part of year 2 of the national Operation Uplift;

Ø  Savings requirement over the period 2021-22 to 2025-26 of circa £8.8M;

Ø  Total Reserves of £8.1M by 1 April 2026;

The PCC informed the meeting that the MTRS included a council tax precept increase of £14.99 a year on a Band D property for 2021/22.

The Police and Crime Commissioner informed the Panel that he had a duty to consult the public in regard to the intention to increase the policing precept.  The proposed rate should then be considered by the Police and Crime Panel.

The Commissioner issued a Funding Survey and Council Tax Police Precept consultation which asked for views on increasing the Council Tax Precept by £15 on a Band property in line with the Government’s recommended amount. The Survey ran from 23 December 2020 to 22 January 2021.

Due to the reach of social media and other platforms, the consultation attracteda total of 1,691 responses, the highest engagement to date.

The findings from the survey were as follows -

Agree with the Commissioner's proposal - 1,173 (69.4%)

Disagree with the Commissioner's proposal - 518 (30.6%)

In line with recommendations from the Police and Crime Panel made at the budget meeting on 6 February 2020, the PCC included more data collection to enable the OPCC to ensure it was engaging with a representative sample of the community.  A copy of the full analysis was included as appendix 1 to the report paper.

In addition, the OPCC conducted further analysis to heat map where it had respondents by first four digits of their postcode.  This demonstrated the following reach across the Humber area;

Ø  People responded from every Humberside postcode area

Ø  Neighbourhood Policy, 999 response patrol and Crime Investigation were the top areas of policing teams the public felt were most important to them

Ø  Roads Policing, Neighbourhood  ...  view the full minutes text for item 365.

The Secretary to the Police and Crime Panel circulated a report which provided the Panel with an update on complaints made against the Humberside Police and Crime Commissioner during the period 1 November 2020 to 31 January 2021.

As part of the complaints procedure it was agreed that the Police and Crime Panel would receive quarterly monitoring reports, at their formal meetings, on the number of complaints received.

There had been no new complaints received since the last update report was considered.

Resolved – That the report be noted.

The next meeting of thte Humberside Police and Crime Panel would be held on 17 March 2021 commencing at 10:00 am.

There were no urgent items for consideration at the meeting.