Archived decisions

AT A MEETING of the HAMPSHIRE POLICE AUTHORITY held at The Castle, Winchester on Tuesday 21 January, 2003

PRESENT:

Councillor S.A. Hayes (Chairman); Mrs. R. Atkinson; Mr. M.J. Attenborough-Cox; Mrs. C. Barratt; Mrs. L. Cawsey JP; Councillor J. Fazackarley; Councillor D. Gillett; Mrs. J. Griffin JP; Councillor P.A. Heath; Mr. G.M. King JP; Councillor P. Mason; Mr. R. Palmer; Councillor Mrs. J. Rayment; Councillor Mrs. M. Snaith.

Also present: Mr. P.C.B. Robertson (Clerk); Mr. P.R. Kernaghan (Chief Constable); Mr. I.R. Readhead (Deputy Chief Constable); Mr. J. Pittam (Treasurer); Mr. M. Coombes (Director of Finance); Chief Supt. G. Stogdon; Inspector D. Hardcastle; Mrs. J. Simms (Corporate Services); Ms. S. Jackson; Mrs. M. Boyes; Ms. C. Vagg (Clerk's office).

660 APOLOGIES

Apologies were received from Councillor A. Collett; Mr. R.J. Gully and Councillor D. Knowles.

661 MINUTES

The Minutes of the meeting of the Authority held on 26 November, 2002 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

Matters arising:-

Minute 639 - Appointment of Independent Members

The Clerk confirmed that 25 applications had been received from persons wishing to be considered as independent members of the Authority.

Minute 647 - Hampshire Constabulary Race Equality Scheme Update

The Authority agreed that the name of Mrs. L. Cawsey JP should be added to that of Mrs. R. Atkinson as the nominated Members to provide oversight of the Force Consultation Panel.

662 CHAIRMAN'S REPORT

The Chairman informed the Authority that he had not felt able to support a proposed increase of 45% in the annual subscription to the Association of Police Authorities (APA) which would take Hampshire's subscription to nearly £35,000 from £24,000. Members supported this approach and the Chairman undertook to write to the APA expressing the concern of the Authority at the level of the increase at a time of tight financial constraints and reserving the Authority's position pending the receipt of further information with regard to the level of service and protection of its interests being offered to the Authority by the Association

663 2003/04 PROVISIONAL POLICE FUNDING SETTLEMENT

The Authority considered a report of the Treasurer (Item 4 in the Minute Book) which had been considered by the Financial Affairs Panel at its meeting on 17 January, 2003 following the Government's announcement on the provisional funding settlement to the Police Authority.

The matters contained in the report had also been covered at a special briefing for Members held on 17 January and the Authority thanked the Treasurer for a clear and concise presentation on that day.

RESOLVED:

That the recommendations as set out in the report be endorsed.

664 FORWARD REVENUE BUDGET 2003/04 - CURRENT POLICIES ONLY

The Authority considered a report of the Chief Constable and the Treasurer (Item 5 in the Minute Book) which had been considered by the Financial Affairs Panel at its meeting on 17 January, 2003 on the forward budget for 2003/04 in respect of current policies and providing a preliminary assessment of the likely council tax precept.

The contents of the report had also been considered at the special briefing for Members held on 17 January.

RESOLVED:

That the recommendation contained in the report be endorsed.

665 FORWARD REVENUE BUDGET 2003/04 - PROPOSALS FOR ADDITIONAL EXPENDITURE

The Authority considered a report of the Chief Constable and the Treasurer (Item 6 in the Minute Book) which had been considered by the Financial Affairs Panel at its meeting held on 17 January, 2003 on the proposals for additional resources required for investment in policing in the year ahead.

A revised version of the report was also circulated for the information of Members which contained, at the request of the Financial Affairs Panel, further information relating to the consequences of not approving the additional expenditure. In addition, the Treasurer also provided Members with bar charts indicating Hampshire's position in relation to other police authorities in respect of provisional budget and council tax increases for 2003/04. These showed Hampshire to be in the middle as far as budget increases were concerned and towards the lower end of provisional council tax increases.

Members then considered each proposal for additional net expenditure set out in paragraphs 3.7.1 to 3.7.21 and agreed each item in turn.

In respect of 3.7.13 (Force Intelligence Bureau) Members expressed concern at the significant charges made to the police by mobile phone companies for the provision of data for evidence. Members noted that the Association of Chief Police Officers were continuing to lobby actively to address this issue and it was felt that a letter from the Authority to all other police authorities on this issue might be helpful. In this respect, the Deputy Chief Constable undertook to prepare a briefing paper for circulation by the Authority.

In respect of items 3.7.18 (Corporate Services) and 3.7.20 (Business and Property Services), Members asked that in view of the significant expenditure surrounding the implementation of the best value regime, consideration should be given to revisiting the best value programme with a view to reducing the number of reviews conducted and targeting specific areas instead. At the same time, the expenditure highlighted in 3.7.18 (the input of external challengers to the best value review process) could also be reviewed. The Deputy Chief Constable confirmed that a paper reviewing the best value process would be presented to a future meeting of the Best Value and Performance Management Panel.

The Authority then endorsed paragraphs 4 (Compensatory Grant), and paragraph 5 (Reserves) of the report.

In respect of paragraph 6 (Impact on Council Tax Precept), Members noted that the additional funding approved for 2003/04 would provide approximately 34 additional support staff and only 2 police staff and were mindful of the public perception of this fact at a time when the Authority was in the position of having to impose a significant increase in the council tax. Members had regard, however, to the comments of the Chief Constable that the additional support staff posts would enable the Force to meet its obligations and maximise the policing effort.

In the course of debate on this issue, Members had regard to the expected volume of council tax enquiries which were likely to be received in the Authority's office when the precept notices were issued and the effect of this increase in workload on the Authority's staff. Members asked that consideration be given to providing an appropriate level of support to the office during this period including the provision of an easily understood fact sheet explaining the background to the increase in the council tax which could be provided to members of the public on request.

RESOLVED:

That, subject to the final decisions of the Authority at its February meeting:-

(a) the growth proposals as set out in Paragraph 3 be endorsed and the overall strategy in respect of growth for the 2003/04 revenue budget be
approved.

(b) the Pensions Reserve be increased by a minimum of £0.4m.

(d) at this stage no further provision, beyond that contained in recommendation (b) above, be made for the increase in the level of reserves.

(e) That the officers be asked to identify an appropriate system for handling council tax enquiries received in the Authority's office.

666 POLICE AND SUPPORT STAFF STRENGTH

The Authority considered a report of the Chief Constable (Item 7 in the Minute Book) showing police and support staff strength and availability against budgeted strength as at 31 December, 2002.

The Chief Constable updated the information contained in the Appendices to the report and indicated that, in Appendix 1, the number of Chief Superintendents had decreased by one following the successful appointment of Chief Supt. A. Whiting as Assistant Chief Constable with Dorset police. He also reported that there had been 175 more police officers employed at the end of December, 2002 than for the previous year which was a significant achievement. In response to questions from the Authority he also clarified that in Column 6 of Appendix 2, there were zero figures inserted against the months of February and October as there were no intakes of new recruits in those months.

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted.

667 CALL MANAGEMENT PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

The Authority considered a report of the Chief Constable (Item 8 in the Minute Book) which provided further call management performance information as requested previously by the Authority.

The report set out details of 999 calls not answered within 10 seconds, gave totals for the switchboard and the Force Enquiry Centre (FEC), and set out performance indicators for 2001/02 in order to provide an insight into the effect of the FEC in redistributing the work load.

The Deputy Chief Constable referred to the steady improvement in the performance of the service since April, 2001, when 55% of calls had been answered in under 11 seconds, to a position in November, 2002 when 93% of 999 calls were answered in that time. He also referred to the reduction in the number of 999 calls from over 331,000 in 2001/02 to approximately 260,000 in the current year which he believed could be attributed to greater public awareness and use of the Force 0845 number.

Members thanked the Chief Constable and his staff for providing the additional information and congratulated the Force for achieving such improvements in a short space of time. Members were particularly pleased that the Force Enquiry Centre was regarded by other Forces as an excellent example of best practice.

Whilst acknowledging the achievement in call management performance, Members agreed that attention should also be given to calls being dealt with to the satisfaction of the caller and that, therefore, feedback to customers was an important area where improvements could be made. The Deputy Chief Constable indicated that it was intended that work would be carried out in the areas of call fulfilment, service delivery and customer satisfaction with a view to identifying any delays in the system.

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted.

668 POLICING PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK

The Authority considered a report of the Chief Constable (Item 9 in the Minute Book) on the current position in respect of the Police Performance Assessment Framework (PPAF).

The Chief Constable indicated that this was a developing format created by the Home Office in order to improve its ability to compare performance between individual police forces within England and Wales. The framework was based on domains which were intended to represent clusters or groupings of policing responsibilities which could be considered together for the purposes of comparing performance and allocating resources between individual police authorities. The information was produced in the form of diagrams known as "radars" and it was expected that the first tranche of data would be published in late January/early February, 2003.

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted.

669 SPECIAL PRIORITY POSTS PAYMENTS

The Authority considered a report of the Chief Constable (Item 10 in the Minute Book) which outlined the recommended approach to be taken in respect of the Special Priority Posts Payments (SPP) scheme introduced as part of the Police Negotiating Board Agreement of May, 2002.

The Chief Constable outlined the necessary actions to progress this matter which included consulting the staff associations, collaborating with other Forces in an attempt to ensure consistency, and seeking the agreement of the Authority to the final list of posts eligible for SPP payments. He indicated that the timescale was tight with work needing to be completed by not later than end January, 2003 in order to allow time for the Force Scheme to be presented to the Home Secretary for his approval. In view of the time constraints, it was proposed that authority to approve the Hampshire Scheme should be delegated to the Personnel Panel.

The Chairman of the Personnel Panel referred to a previous undertaking of the Director of Personnel that the Authority would be involved as part of the consultation phase through a small Panel of Members. The Chief Constable confirmed the intention to consult with the Chairman of the Personnel Panel prior to the Scheme being presented to the Panel. He also outlined the budgetary implications of introducing the new Scheme.

RESOLVED:

That, following consultation with the Chairman of the Personnel Panel, the responsibility for agreeing the Hampshire Scheme for Special Priority Posts Payments be delegated to the Personnel Panel.

670 FURTHER OPTIONS FOR CIVILIANISATION

The Authority considered a report of the Chief Constable (Item 11 in the Minute Book) which set out further options for civilianisation.

Members noted that there was budget provision of £500,000 in the 2002/03 budget for further civilianisations which would provide upto 25 new support staff posts, releasing the same number of police officers for front line duty. In addition, funding had been approved at the last meeting of the Financial Affairs Panel for high priority staffing proposals which would civilianise 16 controller posts to release the same number of police officers to a frontline role. Members noted that, even with this action, and given that up to about 80 posts could be civilianised in the next two to three years, there was further potential to release even more officers to an operational role.

The report recommended that the funding for 17 posts originally agreed by the Authority to "top-up" the Crime Fighting Fund allocated by the Government, was now converted into funding for civilianisation.

RESOLVED:

That funding for the 17 additional police posts be converted into a fund for civilianisations.

671 MINUTES OF THE JOINT MEETING OF THE COMMUNITY AFFAIRS STEERING GROUP AND BEST VALUE AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT PANEL

That the Minutes of the joint meeting of the Community Affairs Steering Group and the Best Value and Performance Management Panel held on 5 December, 2002 be received (Item 12 in the Minute Book).

672 EXCLUSION OF THE PRESS AND PUBLIC

RESOLVED:

That, by virtue of Paragraphs 7, 8 and 9 of Part I of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting.

673 FAILURE OF BT SYSTEM ON 25 APRIL, 2002

The Authority considered a confidential report of the Chief Constable (Item 14 in the Minute Book) on the investigation undertaken by OFTEL, the regulatory authority for the telecommunications industry, into the failure of the BT system in the Southampton area on 25 April, 2002 resulting in the loss of service to over 400,000 BT customers and to the police command and control centre at Netley.

The Chairman welcomed Mr. David Heath of OFTEL and Mr. John Medland of BT to the meeting in order to present the report to Members and to take any questions raised.

Mr. Heath set the failure into context and indicated that BT's network hosted approximately 28 million telephone lines and handled approximately 40 million 999 calls per annum of which BT answered 80%. He added that 999 calls were answered at many sites in the United Kingdom and were always treated as priority. He confirmed that approximately 432,000 customers had been affected mostly within Hampshire, but also in parts of South Wiltshire for varying periods between 6.30 p.m and 3.55 a.m. Of these, 80% had been restored by midnight with the remaining customers being restored to service over the next 4 hours.

Mr. Heath then referred to the cause of the failure which had occurred to equipment in a Southampton building at approximately 5.30 p.m. and how the failure had then been managed. He stressed that the core 999 service had continued to function with calls being diverted to Dorset police once it was realised that calls to the Hampshire police control room could not be connected. He was satisfied that BT had managed the situation professionally as soon as the failure had been detected and had attached a high priority to restoring the system. The network had been monitored closely to ensure stability and replacement equipment had been brought in. In addition, the capacity of the power supply equipment had been increased for added resilience. Following restoration the causes of the failure and consequential impact and issues had been thoroughly investigated with areas for improvement and actions to be taken identified. Mr. Heath confirmed that OFTEL was kept fully informed during this process.

He then referred to the actions taken and lessons learnt from the failure in order to reduce the likelihood of a similar event in the future. He informed the Authority that, as a result of the failure in April, 2002, BT had reviewed its top 250 sites to ensure that the appropriate equipment was functioning correctly, including the Southampton site. In addition, a further 1,300 sites had been checked and where appropriate, routine surveillance upgraded. At the same time, all 300 emergency control rooms were being reviewed for resilience with Hampshire having already been completed. Additional staff had been trained within BT to identify issues associated with the delivery of resilience to emergency control rooms but Mr. Heath stressed that it was important that both customer and supplier understood the requirements and limitations.

He concluded by assuring the Authority that both the regulator (OFTEL) and the major operators treated the 999 service as the highest priority. He stressed that the industry and OFTEL were working with the emergency authorities to improve all aspects of the service and that Hampshire was fortunate to have its Deputy Chief Constable, Mr. Readhead and Inspector Hardcastle, working at a national level to implement change. It was the aim of OFTEL to continuously improve the 999 service and he referred to changes expected within the next 12 months that would improve efficiency of mobile phone location which now accounted for more than 50% of 999 calls. He also indicated that Hampshire had a state of the art control room at Netley which was equipped with all the technology that would enable the Force to take advantage of these advances with minimal change which would lead to reduced response time and greater efficiency.

Finally, Mr. Heath stressed that, despite this very large failure, he believed that the UK 999 telephone emergency service was the leader in the field and that, without becoming complacent, there were many initiatives to improve the service in the pipeline.

Members then asked questions of both Mr. Heath and Mr. Medland who responded accordingly. In particular, Members were concerned at the length of time it had taken for the OFTEL report to be available which they noted had been due to lengthy legal scrutiny of the report's contents. Mr. Heath informed the Authority that a shortened version of the report for public consumption would be placed on OFTEL's website in the near future and that a press release was being prepared following the meeting. Mr. Medland assured the Authority that, BT had not been inactive pending the availability of the OFTEL report and that several meetings had been held with the Force in order to overcome any problems.

In response to a question about the 8 sites which had still to be reviewed by BT, Mr. Medland undertook to inform the Authority if any of these were in the Hampshire and Isle of Wight area although he confirmed that the Southampton site had been reviewed in October, 2002.

Mr. Heath referred to the ongoing review of the emergency control rooms which would be completed in March, 2004 following which a report would be submitted to the emergency services concerned on the outcomes.

Mr. Medland confirmed that the knowledge about this incident would be shared with other operators and that lessons learned would also be passed on to the National 999 Liaison Committee which was chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister in order that they could be enshrined in the Code of Practice for the 999 service. Mr. Medland added that, at the time of the failure, the Hampshire Force had been provided with a measure of separacy and resilience but that, following the incident, an additional layer of resilience had been provided to give added protection to the system. Charges associated with the provision of this extra protection had been waived in this case.

Members, mindful of the damage which had occurred to the efforts made by both the Authority and the Constabulary to increase public confidence in policing, asked that any press releases issued locally following this meeting should be agreed by the Constabulary and concentrate on reassurance rather than technical matters. Mr. Heath indicated that OFTEL staff were prepared to deal with press enquiries and would contact the police press office as requested. Mr. Heath also referred to the confidential nature of OFTEL's full report which contained sensitive issues relating to telecommunications as part of the national infrastructure and that, therefore, it would not be available in that form to the general public.

The Chief Constable added that, in the immediate aftermath of the failure when public reassurance was essential, both BT and OFTEL had been unwilling to provide a spokesperson for at least 72 hours. He considered that this was unacceptable and should be addressed by both organisations and commented upon by OFTEL. He stressed that this situation had not been helpful and would not be tolerated by the public if the police chose to take a similar approach following a major incident.

Mr. Heath then referred to OFTEL's monitoring arrangements of BT's action plan and indicated that, ultimately, any failure to comply would be notified to OFTEL's compliance directorate who would take any necessary action although he did not anticipate that matters would get to that stage. Indeed, he added that continuous improvement was part of BT's asset management process.

The Chairman thanked Mr. Heath and Mr. Medland for attending the meeting and for presenting the OFTEL report to the Authority.

RESOLVED:

That the report and findings of OFTEL into the remedial action undertaken by BT be noted.

4fM530103

This content is archived