Archived decisions

POLICE REFORM WHITE PAPER - "BUILDING COMMUNITIES, BEATING CRIME"

1. The Authority has submitted its response to the Government's White Paper on Police Reform "Building Communities, Beating Crime" which was published on 9 November 2004. The consultation period expired on 1 February 2005.

2. The White Paper has three main objectives:-

· Spreading neighbourhood policing to every community and embedding a genuinely responsive customer service culture.


· Work force modernisation to ensure the service is fully equipped to deliver these changes.


· Greater involvement of the community and citizens in determining how their communities are policed.

3. The Paper also set out plans for a new neighbourhood policing fund to support the development of dedicated neighbourhood policing teams across the country. These community-focused teams of police officers, backed up by Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) and police staff are intended to use community-based intelligence to tackle local crime. They will be embedded in their local community, tackling the issues of concern to local people and being held to account by those local people, with the community getting powers to "trigger" action where their police force, local authority or other community safety partners are not delivering.

4. The Paper also stresses the crucial importance to public confidence of the police service getting contact with the public right. It introduces 10 key commitments to ensure high standards of customer service, and sets out a number of measures to sharpen the customer focus of the police service, including a new national three-digit non-emergency telephone number to be in place by the end of 2006, national minimum standards for call handling and more information for victims and the wider community.

5. Of particular concern to the Authority are the proposals contained in Chapter Five of the White Paper which affect police authority membership, its role and powers, and propose inspection and intervention measures.

6. On the whole, the Authority has welcomed the Government's confidence in police authorities, and the recognition that it is important to build on the considerable progress that police authorities have achieved over the past 10 years, rather than, as proposed in the Green Paper institute change for change's sake. The Authority was particularly pleased to note that there is no longer any intention to have wholly or partially directly elected policing boards.

7. Members have expressed strong concern over aspects of the proposals set out in Chapter Five including the application of a competency based framework to Police Authority Chairmen, the automatic appointment of the community safety portfolio holder to police authorities, and the loss of Magistrate members as a separate group on police authorities.

8. The Authority now awaits the outcome of the consultation process.

COUNCILLOR SIMON HAYES

CHAIRMAN

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