Agenda item

John Campbell QPM, Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, was in attendance to present to members on the work of TVP in Buckinghamshire over the last year. The Chief Constable was accompanied by three Local Police Area Commanders, Chief Superintendent Michael Loebenbery (Aylesbury Vale area), Superintendent Amy Clements (Chiltern and South Bucks area) and Superintendent Emma Burroughs (Wycombe area). The following key points were highlighted:

·       Over the past year, TVP had welcomed a new Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) in May 2021, and there had been a number of changes to roles and responsibilities within the Force.

·       The Chief Constable gave an overview of the work of TVP over the past year, which included but was not limited to, responding to major incidents, supporting local and national distribution of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), supporting a number of high profile events, and lawful business and peaceful protests. Further, responding to high volumes of covid-19 calls and issuing Fixed Penalty Notices in relation to crime and covid-19.

·       Over the past 12 months, there had been a reduction in residential burglary (46%), knife crime (18%), robbery (21%) and serious violence (18%), and an increase in positive outcomes (7%).

·       A number of operation and projects were happening to support crime prevention and disruption in Buckinghamshire. This included but was not limited to, fraud in the digital environment, speed enforcement, anti-social behaviour, preventing sexual violence and cross border crime, and disrupting illegal activity.

·       The team were looking at how to tackle open space drug dealing.

·       101 call wait times for October 2021 had been longer than the year average, and was something that the Chief Constable was looking at improving. Over the year to date, the average time to answer a 101 call was 1 minute 48 seconds.

·       Recruitment work to increase diversity in the Force was ongoing. The Force had doubled the number of recruits from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds over the past year.

·       Members were given an overview of the work of teams, operations and projects in the Aylesbury and Wycombe areas specifically.

·       It was noted that the Chiltern and South Bucks and Wycombe Local Policing Area’s (LPAs) were due to be merged in April 2022 to make efficiencies and maximise opportunities. This would also enable the Force to work more consistently with the council.

A question and answer session followed the presentation. Thanks were expressed by members for the hard work of officers and all that they did to protect the public.

(i)                  Protecting the public at Halloween and Bonfire Night – members were advised that a focus on education prior to these events was important in preventing incidents of anti-social behaviour, as well as the monitoring of the sale of fireworks. 

(ii)                Taxi services – TVP recognised that taxi drivers and services were a key part of the community providing a service that many people relied on.

(iii)              Time taken to answer 101 calls – it was noted that reference numbers were given to some callers depending on the nature of their call. The year average time taken to answer a 101 call was 1 minute 30 seconds, but there were peaks and troughs, including some unacceptable delays. The Chief Constable was paying close attention to time taken to answer 101 calls and improving these times. It was noted that the Force had made considerable progress on improving time taken to answer calls.

(iv)              Mental health – members were advised that some work had been done by the Force to support those with mental health problems but more work needed to be done. A triage pathway was in place, and mental health nurses accompany officers when called out to avoid people with mental health problems going into custody.

(v)                Hare coursing in rural areas – it was noted that a rural crime taskforce would be put in place in 2022 to tackle rural crimes. It was noted that neighbourhood teams dealt with crime in specific areas, and the rural crime taskforce would supplement neighbourhood teams to enable more focus on rural crimes including targeting hare coursing. There had been some recent successes with hare coursing where individuals had also been charged with money laundering as part of the criminal activities that they had been involved in.

(vi)              Enforcing speed limits – on average 200,000 tickets were issued across Thames Valley per year, where 2.4 million people live. On average, there were 75 – 80 road deaths per year in Thames Valley. The Force had a Road Policing Unit to tackle serious road offences, as well as mobile cameras. Tickets relate to not only speeding, but mobile phone use, drink driving and no seatbelts.

(vii)            Neighbourhood policing and action groups in High Wycombe – members were informed that neighbourhood action groups were in existence in Wycombe and Superintendent Emma Burroughs had recently attended the Wooburn group. The Force were keen to be involved in groups and officers also attended Community Board meetings. Supt Burrows encouraged the member to contact her with details on his particular meeting, so that officers could arrange to attend.

(viii)          The role of Independent Advisory Groups (IAGs) – IAGs, which were made up of members of the public, check and challenge, as well as support the Force. Community Scrutiny Boards have recently been established to also check and challenge the Force on specific topics.

(ix)              Improving communications to councillors following an incident – TVP wanted to use councillor’s voices to support police response to incidents. Communication strategies were in place for when incidents occur, which include communications to members. With regards to the specific incident the member was referring to, unfortunately officer’s had not been correctly briefed on councillor communications on this particular occasion; this was a one-off and would not happen again. 

(x)                20mph speed limits – members were advised that if 20mph speed limits were enshrined in law, then the Force would play a role in enforcing any breaches of that law. The Chief Constable could not guarantee an officer patrolling areas in the event that 20mph speed limits were introduced. It was also advised that there were complexities around introducing 20mph limits. By way of example, a 20mph limit had been introduced outside of a school and, consequently, speeding had increased in the area as 20mph was seen as an upper limit.The Chief Constable spoke of a number of effective road traffic management measures, and would encourage any local authority to look at the consequences of the impact of introducing a 20mph speed limit.

(xi)              Merging Chiltern and South Bucks and Wycombe LPAs – Supt Burrows welcomed the invitation to meet with Chesham, Chess Valley and Chiltern Ridges councillors to discuss the merger in further detail and future approaches to consultations.

(xii)            Tackling night racing – members were informed that TVP have operations tackling this issue. Neighbourhood teams regularly work to disrupt this activity, as well as the Road Policing Team. Supt Burrows would look into the issues specifically relating to Stoke Poges and Wexham.

The Chairman expressed thanks to the Chief Constable and Superintendents for their presentation. The Chief Constable thanked members for their continued support for the work of officers.