Report

of the

Hampshire Police Authority

Appointment of Chief Constable

The Authority is very pleased to report the appointment of Alex Marshall as Chief Constable with effect from 16 October 2008. Mr Marshall was previously Deputy Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police. He succeeds Paul Kernaghan who retired on 15 October after 9 years service as Hampshire's Chief Constable.

Home Office Green Paper: `From the Neighbourhood to the National: Policing our communities together.'

The much anticipated policing Green Paper: `From the Neighbourhood to the National: Policing our Communities Together'¹ (subsequently referred to as the Green Paper) was published by the Home Office on17 July 2008. It has three key themes:

· Empowering Citizens: Improving the connection between the public and Police

· Professionalising and Freeing Up the Police : Reducing bureaucracy and developing technology; defining roles and leadership in the Police service; and, focusing on development and deployment

· Strategic Role for Government : Co-ordinating change in policing; reinforcing collaboration between forces; and, improving performance in policing

Many of the proposals within the Green Paper are not new. Several relate directly to previous reviews of policing. The following proposals in the Green Paper have the potential to impact significantly on the Authority:

· Directly elected representatives onto the Authority. Constituencies would probably be based upon CDRP areas; they would be known as Crime and Policing Representatives and would chair the CDRP within their constituency.

· A proportion of police authority members will represent local councils; this would be at the upper tier but might also include districts within two tier areas.

· Elected representatives to continue to have a majority (50% + 1)

· CDRP boundaries may be subject to change to ensure rough parity between constituency sizes; or will have more than one person elected'

· Powers of intervention will be extended to address persistent underperformance by a Police Authority.

· Crime and Policing representatives will have a newly created Community Safety Fund financed out of existing resources.

· One top down performance target: `Improving Public Confidence in whether local crime and community safety priorities are being identified and addressed'.

· Greater emphasis on local priorities and Public Service Agreements together with Local Area Agreements.

· Assessment of Policing and Community Safety will remain (currently 34 targets) but the Home Office will no longer make graded assessments under it.

· Policing pledge to contain performance measures such as response time to emergency and non emergency calls.

· Home Office Permanent Secretary will review the amount of data collected from forces with the aim of reducing by 50%.

· To integrate neighbourhood policing with other neighbourhood services.

There would be no forced mergers but voluntary collaboration and mergers would be supported. There would be coordination of UK and International policing through a new international policing board and consultation is expected on border policing structure. Parents and schools will be able to trigger a review of whether a Safer Schools Partnership would be appropriate for their school.

There is no new money to implement the proposals albeit that costs would be associated with their introduction. There would be an increase in costs with respect to Member allowances if the Authority was to more than double in size, for example, and consideration would need to be given to finding suitable accommodation for the Authority and any increase in staff support required to deliver the proposals. It is unclear how the elections would be supported by Police Authority staff at this time but the Home Office has indicated that approximately £20 million would be made available for direct elections in the first instance.

To assist the Authority to submit a comprehensive, evidence based response to the Home Office consultation; it undertook a variety of activities including:

· Commissioning IPSOS MORI to conduct a survey of 1,000 residents from across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight;

· Holding a stakeholder conference on Thursday 25 September - attended by 100 key partners and stakeholders who had the opportunity to inform the debate;

· Creating a dedicated website section with feedback form;

· Press releases to inform local media;

· Members and officers were interviewed by a variety of local radio stations, including the dedicated minority radio station Unity 101 as part of the exploring democracy series;

· Providing briefings for CDRPs;

Using the feedback received from IPSOS MORI, and the stakeholder conference and work done by Members of the Authority on the Green Paper, the Authority has considered all the issues and made a full response to the Home Office. It is fair to say that the majority of the proposals have been welcomed, with the notable exception being that relating to the directly elected representatives. The feedback from partner organisations and the view of Police Authority members is that the current arrangements work well and have delivered significant benefits and that there is no evidence to show that the proposal here will produce any better outcomes. A copy of the Authority's full response is in the Members Room and can be found on the Authority's website at: www.hantspa.org

General Aviation - Charges for use of Daedalus Airfield

The Authority has approved a charging regime which will cover all of the marginal costs associated with permitting General Aviation to use this facility yet also make a reasonable contribution towards the Authority's overheads. 

A charge of £550 will be made for each aircraft for the year commencing 1 September 2008.  A charge of half of this amount (£275) will be made for microlights. The proposed charge of £550 is broadly equivalent to the original charge of £481.75 (last applied in 2006/07) uplifted for inflation.  

Under the new arrangements users would be required to enter into a licence on detailed terms to be agreed. General Aviation users will have to make separate arrangements with South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) for the parking or hangarage of aircraft on adjacent SEEDA land.


This arrangement resolves the matter up to September 2009 and negotiations about the future use of the airfield by the Constabulary have now resumed. 

Jacqui Rayment

Chair