Meeting documents

To receive an update of progress against the Police and Crime Plan Q1 2017/18 from the Police and Crime Commissioner. 

 

Members of the Panel are asked to review the performance of the Police and Crime Commissioner against those objectives contained in the Police and Crime Plan.

The Panel considered a report by the PCC which informed members of the progress against the Police and Crime Plan and Priorities 2017-21 in order to enable members to scrutinise activity and the achievement of outcomes. The report included changes in the reporting framework to better reflect the performance of the PCC and OPCC against the new plan priorities and commitments, using a new ‘dashboard’ style of narrative. 

 

The Chairman announced that to assist in the active liaison, monitoring and scrutiny of the Police and Crime Plan, the Panel had appointed ‘Leads/Champions’ for each of the four ‘Pillar Themes’ in the Plan as follows:

 

i)       Protecting People at Risk and Harm – Cllr Andrew Kerby / Cllr Byron Quale

ii)     Working with our Communities – Cllr Bernie Davis / Cllr Mohan Iyengar

iii)    Supporting Victims, Witnesses and reducing Reoffending – Cllr Barbara Manuel / Cllr Bill Pipe

iv)    Transforming for the Future – Iain McVie (supported by Mike Short in respect of Finance and Cllr John Russell regarding Customer Service)

 

The Pillar leads would meet with the PCC prior to the next meeting of the Panel in order to discuss the detail on how this initiative would be progressed.

 

The Chief Executive of the OPCC expressed thanks to members and officers for their assistance in developing the performance monitoring report into a document which would better report on the activity of the PCC and his office, and could be used internally to reflect back and externally to report on the delivery of Plan.

 

The PCC provided commentary for members on the performance against each of the Pillars in the Plan.  He also clarified that the forecast outturn for Transforming for the Future was an overspend of £885k, not £858k as shown in the report.  The Panel discussed the following updates from the PCC:

 

·        Digital Dogs – Dorset was the first Police force in Europe to have two dogs with the capability to ‘sniff out’ digital items.  Members were briefed on the role of these dogs in the use of locating mobile devices, USB sticks, SD cards, hard drives, computers and computer chips.  The PCC outlined the recent successful use of these dogs in over 50 warrants executed across the UK, including Hampshire, Essex, South Wales and North Yorkshire.

·        101 Service – The development of a 6 month pilot on an ‘Expressions of Dissatisfaction’ initiative to better understand and deal with long term complaints with the aim of recovering service failure early and avoid them turning into long running complaints was noted.  The pilot would include 6 existing staff from across the Strategic Alliance.

·        Problem Solving Forum – The forum would consider societal issues where there was no single owner, such as homelessness, which whilst not inherently a policing issue did impact on Police activity. The forum would consist of two areas serving the ‘voluntary/third sector’ and ‘statutory agencies and partners’, with the aim of bringing all information together to find solutions in a multi-agency style.  The Panel was encouraged to suggest areas of interest to add to the areas already identified of homelessness and fly tipping.  A concern was raised about the potential of diverting attention from low level crime when focussing resources on higher priority areas. A further concern was expressed that there was a need to avoid duplication of effort by other partners such as the Community Safety Partnership and Criminal Justice Board. The PCC clarified that there had to be an understanding about the size and scope of what the Police were able to do to meet community needs, but within that there was a lot that could be achieved by partners working together as part of the Problem Solving Forum.  Updates would be provided by the OPCC on the PCC Public Solving Forums when they had met. It was recommended by members that Domestic Violence could be one area for this initiative to scrutinise.

·        Mental health performance – It was recognised that this area of performance would always remain ‘amber’ and would be unlikely to get to ‘green’.

·        Road Safety – Performance in this area took account of ambitious plans which would not all come to fruition yet as there were too many to achieve in a single year. The PCC agreed to discuss his initiatives to improve cycling safety at the 10 November 2017 meeting.

·        Financial Performance Information – It was suggested that more financial context should be included in future reports.

·        Benchmarking – It was recommended by members that the new report format would benefit from a benchmarking process based on ratios and percentages plus HMIC/other publications.

 

The finance questions below were asked by Panel members to which the PCC responded:-

 

Question 1 - Can the Commissioner explain the rationale and consequences of the extra £1.258m now being drawn down from revenue reserves to support the in-year operating position?

Answer - Dorset Police faces an overspend in the current financial year, for which there are three main underlying reasons. 

 

-        The number of police officers currently employed is higher than budgeted due primarily to lower than forecast number of leavers, and also the desire to maximise operational capability during a time of significant change.

-        Officer overtime has risen significantly in the year to date due to a Category A murder in the county, and a number of terror attacks nationally which have placed the country in an unprecedented state of Critical on 2 occasions in 6 months.

-        The cost of forensic services to support the significant operations mentioned above.

 

To mitigate the above, the Force has taken the following action:

 

-        The recruitment programme for police officers has been reduced during the remainder of the year, with the potential for further reductions if required. The Chairman requested that the OPCC did not endorse a ‘turning off of the tap’ for recruiting as this might lead to a bow wave of enrolling issues in the future.

-        Vacancies on many staff areas have been held open for longer than usually anticipated, including in forensics.

-        The forecast assumes that PCSO recruitment is reduced, reflecting the operational requirements of the Operational Business Design (OBD) work and PRISM.  Members of the Panel voiced their concern regarding the possibility of PCSO numbers falling, but were assured by the PCC that this would be closely monitored.  Members requested an update on Operational Business Design (OBD) to be included in the updates on 10 November 2017.

-        £300k has been transferred from the Major Operations Reserve towards the additional costs incurred on the murder investigation and response to the terror attacks.

-        £958k has been transferred from the capital reserve to further support the cost of change.  This funding had been earmarked for this purpose. 

 

The last two items are taken from sources of funding that are available for the purpose of supporting revenue.  Consideration will be given to the sufficiency of funding within the Major Operations Reserve as part of the annual refresh of the medium term financial strategy.

 

The Panel discussed the reporting of reserves and the recognition of planned and unplanned use of reserves in budget planning.  It was noted that the reserves detailed mitigating actions, but also referred to some that were not included as assumptions in the tables within the report. 

 

In relation to an aim within the PCC’s Plan to increase staffing numbers, it was noted that it was hoped to reach Police Officer numbers of 1250 eventually, but this might not be possible at present due to pressures on the budget including unplanned changes such as the Government’s decision to apply an additional in year pay bonus.

 

Question 2 - Further to question (1) can the Commissioner explain how the total forecast in-year use of revenue reserves of £2.503m is shown in the table presented at section 7.1 of the PCCs report.

Answer – The expenditure that relates to the draw down from reserves is being incurred in police officer pay and overtime, and police staff pay.  The full £2.503m is

 

£0.9m funding the Alliance programme team

£0.345m funding the change team working on Smarter Systems delivery

£0.3m Major Operations

£0.958m further funding of the wider change programme

 

Given the additional comments made under question 1 above, officers undertook to look at the information provided in future reports in order to show greater clarity on reserves.

 

Question 3 - As the forecast is now that an unbudgeted amount of £2.143m (£1.258m plus £0.885m forecast overspend) could need to be drawn from reserves this year, can the Commissioner explain the level of risk this presents to the services provided by Dorset Police.

Answer - The drawdown of Major Operations funding and support to the change programme shown at question 1 relate to funds available for that purpose and do not in themselves create longer term risk.  The residual £885k forecast overspend will continue to be monitored and addressed during the year, with the continued application of relevant expenditure controls.  

 

In the event that an overspend remains at the year end, it will be funded from General Balances, which currently stand at £7.4m and are available for general financial risk faced by the Force, such as in year variances.  The adequacy of the level of balances, and potential repayment of any significant draw on balances will be considered as part of the Medium Term Financial Strategy refresh.

 

The 2018/19 Medium Term Financial Strategy will consider the longer term financing issues facing the Force, including reserves and capital financing, as well as plans to ensure a balanced budget is achieved in each subsequent year.

 

A further question was asked regarding the long term impact of using reserves to fund the current financial position, and what mitigating action would be taken to return reserves to the same level.  The PCC highlighted some mitigating action including a reduction in the intake of new PCs and PCSOs, a change of roles such as the introduction of marine PCSOs, the introduction of Diary Cards, as well as other mitigations.  It was noted that an update would be provided to the meeting on 10 November 2017.

 

Question 4 - Can the Commissioner clarify for the panel the recent announcements on Police pay and the associated funding strategy? It would be particularly helpful to understand if there could be a potential impact on the outputs of Dorset Police.  

Answer - The police officer pay settlement for 2017/18 has been agreed.  It consists of a 1% permanent increase to basic pay for officers with effect from 01/09/17, and a bonus payment, equivalent to a further 1% increase, payable monthly – but only until 01/09/18, i.e. a one off bonus.  This bonus payment is not pensionable and does not affect overtime.  The estimated cost of the bonus will be £0.4m this year, and £0.3m next year.  The Home Office is clear that Forces are to cover the cost themselves, which puts another pressure on the Force.  It is expected that reserves will be used to cover this additional cost, and consideration is currently being given to how this will best be achieved and the impact of any such funding.

 

The result of the police staff pay negotiations has not yet been announced.  However, there is significant risk that the pay award may exceed the budgeted 1%.  Negotiations are ongoing, with the staff side seeking 5%.  Every additional 1% agreed will cost the force £0.2m in the current year, with the potential for an ongoing £0.3m in each future year.

 

Question 5 - Can the Panel request further detail on the £1m slippage in the capital programme on the "Other ICT" programme?

Answer - The identified capital slippage at this stage relates to the anticipated delays in the roll out of the national Emergency Services Network (ESN) programme.  Funding has been put aside for this significant programme over the last couple of years, and will continue to be put aside to fund the capital implementation costs, although the date at which the hardware and other costs will be incurred is currently expected to be later than originally planned.

 

It was suggested that the wording be clarified in future reports to make it clear that the slippage related to a National ICT system implementation.  Concern was also expressed that although funding had been put aside the costs could increase due to the delay in implementation.

 

In relation to projected overspend on ‘suppliers and services’ of almost £1m, clarification was sought about how this amount could be so large as this area should be relatively straight forward to plan for and to deal with.  It was confirmed that the issue had been identified as an area for management action, and that controls were in place to monitor the spend to bring down to an acceptable level.The next financial update report would provide more detail on the most significant variances to budget in this area. 

 

It was also noted that following a question about the possibility of increasing income, further information would be provided in the next report to the Panel.  The PCC welcomed any ideas that the Panel would have in relation to income generation (including what did other Forces do that members should recommend that the OPCC considered).

 

Resolved

1. That the report be welcomed, including the new reporting method for performance monitoring, including the focus on the pillar themes.

2. That future performance reports make greater reference to financial information.

3. That information on the following areas be included in the next report on 10 November 2017

·        Financial mitigation measures undertaken in the current year, particularly in relation to staffing levels and diary cards

·        Income generation

·        Benchmarking processes based on metrics, ratios and percentages plus HMIC/other publications.