Agenda item

Report of the Commissioner of Police.

Members considered an update report of the Commissioner of Police regarding Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) Inspection and the following points were made.

·         The Assistant Commissioner reported that the City Police had made progress in reducing the number of outstanding recommendations from the recent HMICFRS Inspection from 34 down to 23.

·         In response to a question from the Chairman, the Commissioner of Police noted that the HMICFRS had not yet released the result of their national thematic fraud inspection report.

·         In response to a question, the Assistant Commissioner replied that the HMICFRS Inspectors had provided some initial feedback on their findings as a ‘hot debrief’. Overall the City Police had been graded Good with some areas where there was room for improvement.

·         A Member who chaired the Police Committee’s Economic Crime Board commented that the initial feedback on the City Police’s response to economic crime was that there was a good Force culture, and that there was room for improvement in the level of detail that was included in record keeping.

·         In response to a question from the Chairman regarding the recommendation regarding the flagging of hate crime, the Commissioner noted that there had been some slippage in addressing how hate crimes were flagged appropriately. The Commissioner agreed to provide a further update on how this recommendation was being addressed at the February 2019 meeting.

·         The Chairman noted that the Inspection had noted there was a similar issue in how consistently the City Police utilised the Home Office cyber-enabled flag.

·         In response to a comment from the Chairman, the Assistant Commissioner confirmed that the City Police was responding to the HMICFRS recommendation regarding responses to drug dealing networks using ‘county lines’ by adopting a risk reduction strategy that would target drug supply in early 2019.

·         In response to a question from the Chairman regarding the HMICFRS recommendation regarding stop and search powers, the Commissioner of Police updated Members that the status of this recommendation had improved from Red to Green. The Stop and Search dashboard would be made public shortly and would cover all areas outlined in the HMICFRS recommendation. The Commissioner agreed to provide a further update at the December 2018 Police Committee.

·         In response to a question from a Member regarding stop and search training made available to City Police officers, the Commissioner of Police replied that all City Police officers had been graded for training as either Priority 1 or Priority 2. A total of 175 officers remained to be trained and this would reduce to 58 by the end of December 2018. A further four training dates had been scheduled for January 2019 and officers had been informed attendance was compulsory. Training would be delivered to all officers by the end of January 2019. The Commissioner agreed to confirm to the Members of the Sub-Committee by email when training had been delivered to all officers.

·         The Chairman concluded discussion by noting that the Best Use of Stop and Search Scheme revisit 2016 had been covered by the earlier discussion regarding the new Stop and Search dashboard.

RESOLVED, that the report be received.