March PAB Review

Knife crime, Right Care Right Person, speeding, and the PEEL report were the topics Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Mark Shelford questioned Chief Constable (CC) Sarah Crew about this month.

Every month, PCC Shelford holds CC Crew to account in a publicly broadcast live forum called the Performance and Accountability Board (PAB)

The PAB gives the PCC a chance to conduct one of his most important legal duties which is to hold the Chief Constable to account in delivering policing that is efficient, effective, and legitimate. 

The March meeting was broadcast live on Facebook, you can watch it here. 

PCC Mark Shelford started the meeting by raising section 60 stop and search with CC. CC explained that section 60 is a power that is not used often, and that these stop and search powers can only be authorised by an Inspector and only for up to 24 hours.

CC also revealed that when section 60 has been used, it has been shown to disproportionality affect young black men, and that is a subject they are very concerned about in Avon and Somerset Police for the reason of confidence.

Next, the PCC moved onto the topic of Right Care Right Person, an approach designed to ensure that incidents are responded to by the person with the right skills, training, and experience. It is supported by a national partnership agreement, including the Home Office, National Police Chief Council (NPCC), NHS England, College of Policing and the Association of the Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC).

CC said that 30% of the Police time is dealing with crime, and 70% dealing with things outside of that, such as safeguarding.

Mr Shelford then moved onto agenda item two, what the public have been contacting him about, which is road safety, specifically speeding. PCC asked CC: “What are you going to do to stop people speeding on our roads and to keep people safe?”

Deputy CC, Jon Reilly, answered this saying, speeding is one of the main factors of serious injury in collisions. Their collective approach to this sits under the umbrella of ‘Operation Tempo’. He stated they regularly look at their data from their intelligence-led speed enforcement to identify where their operational activity should take place.

Over the past year, Reilly assured the PCC that they have made significant investment in their equipment, fleet, and processes to tackle this issue. Riley highlighted 3 elements:

• Enforcement: the constabulary have 33 static cameras, 13 mobile speed enforcement vehicles.
• Community speed watch: Avon and Somerset have over 1700 volunteers who signed up and support them. They have carried out nearly 4700 roadside sessions, which has led to 55,000 educational warning letters to drivers.
• Education: Avon and Somerset Police attend events, with partners and communities to educate on speeding.

Finally, PCC Mark Shelford passed agenda item three onto Alice Ripley – Chief of Staff (CoS). This was about the Avon and Somerset PEEL report, carried out by the National Inspectorate. The specific area of improvement that CoS wanted to ask about is where it says:

“The Constabulary should ensure that its enforcement action against offenders accessing indecent images of children is robust and conducted in a timely manner.”

CoS then asked, “how have you improved your enforcement action in the last year, since that report came out?”

DCC Riley stated that it has improved in the recent months and will continue to do so over the next year. He stated the team that is dedicated to this business area is their internet child abuse team (ICAT), who are perpetrator focused and committed to taking enforcement action promptly on new referrals. They receive the referrals from the National Crime Agency.

They are continually looking into innovative approaches. They also have weekly focus groups and are looking across the organisation, using specialist search recourses to search suspects’ homes, where the ICAT team can use their specialist powers when it is really needed. PCC then closed the meeting:

“Thank you both for your answers today, and my Chief of Staff.

“This board will not be meeting again until May, and that date will be published in due course.

“To all of you out there, stay safe”