I wrote the below to Kevin Wilkins (County Councillor and Police Authority member with a specialisation in Cambridge City) and Olive Main, Independent Member of the Police Authority in October 2007.

I have not found it easy to find out about appropriate ways to raise my concerns with the police. I looked for community meetings / consultations / panels etc. on the Police and Police Authority websites and found nothing relevant to my area. Slowly over the last year I have discovered a number of routes for making suggestions to the Police. I would like to suggest that the Police and Police Authority publicise these more effectively. I have been as exhaustive as I can as I thought perhaps you might be interested in attending some of these. I have made suggestions and comments on each of the routes I have found:

1. Cambridge City Council Area Committees.

During election campaigning my local councillor mentioned the fact that the police had started to attend council area committee meetings.

The Police currently attend every other North Area committee meeting, and are about to start doing the same for the West/Central Area of Cambridge.

Councillors are given the opportunity to vote to agree the policing priorities for their areas.

Members of the public can speak, if they request to before hand.

I think these have the potential to be a very effective route for exercising democratic control / influence over the police. At the first such meeting I attended in May I was disappointed to see councillors enthusiastically support various suggestions for amending the police priorities but then voting to pass the police’s suggestions without amending them themselves. The second time I saw such a meeting in September at least one councillor appeared to be getting to grips with the opportunity afforded to them and they actually added a priority (though it was on dealing with fly-tipping and the police sergeant present tried to argue it the police weren’t the appropriate agency to deal with it).

Local resident Peter Hase, wrote a letter to the Cambridge Evening news on the 10th of April 2007 expressing a similar frustration:

“Tonight I went to the Southern Area Committee meeting where I discussed Police priorities and for the first time I met the local Police team. These are dedicated and professional people but are clearly in real need of direction and leadership – which is lacking from the local Councillors.”

I agree the Councillors are primarily at fault, but I think the police could make it easier for councillors to do their job, they could present them with the decisions which have to be made, and make it clear what the choices are.

I have made some suggestions to council officers and the committee chair for improving the way the Police element of the meeting is handled.

Currently the Agenda for the North Area committee is unclear on how/if the public can question/respond to the Police report. It is clear that members of the public can participate in the Open Forum, and respond to: “Committee reports by Council officers”, but what about the Police? I know having attended that questions/comments from the police are invited but don’t think it is made clear.

I have not been able to tell from the agenda if the sector inspector is expected to attend the meeting. There is an agenda item titled. “North Area Neighbourhood Policing”, “Contact Community Safety Strategy Officer ”
Why not include a sentence about what this section of the meeting will involve on the agenda?

The meetings I attended were very long, boring and drawn out. I have asked if the council have considered perhaps doing the various sections separately – eg. The open forum between certain published times, then the police at another published time then the rest of the meeting.

If setting police priorities at local area committees or their equivalents was to become more widespread (and it is spreading through Cambridge). I think it would be useful to consider improving them. I feel few people will have the patience to sit through four hour meeting in the evening for their chance to raise things with the police. The Police are also left sitting around for hours listening to the often inane ramblings of local councillors and members of the public.

On occasion area committees have been mentioned after the event, or even advertised before it on ecops and on the police website. It would be great if the police could promote them as a matter of routine. The police appear to prefer to advertise more local and exclusive meetings, rather than the one with the ability to really influence their priorities.

Update I spoke to the March 2008 North Area meeting asking for clarification of the role of the meeting and have been promised action.

2. Michalehouse Café meetings.

When commenting on Cambridge policing at the central area committee meeting a county councillor told the meeting that the police hold public meetings at Michalehouse Café which is related to Great St. Mary’s Church in the City Centre. The Church’s term card is the only place I can find this mentioned online:

“First Wednesdays Community Police Surgery Talk to local police about crime prevention and other issues”.

It looks like a great idea, but where is it advertised?

UpdateI attended one of these meetings but found no-one there. I wrote to the councillor (Joye Rosenstiel) who told me about them to let her know they didn’t really exist:

At the West/Central Area committee on the 5th of July 2007, in response my questions on the running of stop and account / all stops / bike stop checks in Cambridge city center, you are minuted as having said::

” there was a police
surgery once a month on the first Wednesday of the
month from 11-12noon at the Michaelhouse Centre.
Members of the public could raise issues there. ”

While I have tried to ask my questions in many other forums between then and now, I have not had even the simplest elements of my questions answered. I attended Michalehouse this morning, at about 11:30 (it is the first Wednesday of the Month), there was no Police surgery, and the staff had no knowledge of such an event.

Can I suggest you verify this opportunity to influence the police has been lost, and report this fact to tomorrow’s West/Central area committee meeting.

Richard Taylor
Cambridge.

3. Ecops email system.

I was asked by a Policeman, who admitted he’d never used the public side of the system himself, to sign up to Ecops to report dangerous scoter and moped riding on my street.

Making comments via this was very slow and frustrating, as you have to first sign-up but don’t get given the email address to send comments to until the police send a message to Ecops subscribers, in my case this represented a delay of a couple of weeks between signing up and being able to make comments via the system.

Giving out the direct email addresses eg.
ecops.arbury at cambs.pnn.police.uk
in the initial welcome message would be a significant improvement.

I have asked a number of times if reporting things such as anti-social behaviour via Ecops is as effective as making a report by phone. Are reports made via ecops included in statistics for identifying hot spot areas for example?

I have asked about the use of Ecops and have had replies felt were inconsistent with what I had heard previously from police officers; at an anti-social behaviour meeting a PCSO, Claire Dunkley, has stated that it was no use reporting dangerous scooter and motorbike use by Ecops, saying: “We need incidents to be created, don’t use Ecops … Ecops is no good for creating an incident”. I think there needs to be more consistency in the advice given as to when using the ecops system is appropriate.

I think Ecops is excellent, and realise it is a ground up development started by a local officer in Cambridge, however similar systems are now becoming common place nationwide and I don’t think the system’s humble roots in Cambridge are a good reason for not developing it and using it to its full potential.

Update: I have since discovered that it is only in the North Area that the Police refuse to “raise incidents” based on Ecops reports, in the East of Cambridge items reported by Ecops are used to raise incidents and so are recorded on police statistics.

4. “Anti-Social Behaviour Meetings”

I saw one of these Anti-Social Behaviour Meetings for Chesterton advertised in the Cambridge Crier (a local freesheet). While there another attendee told me they held them in other areas, I have asked the council’s anti-social behaviour team who were also present at the meeting but they refuse to confirm meetings in other areas take place.

There are posters up in my area from a meeting which took place in 2004, this was apparently run by Cambridge City Council’s housing department. I am concerned that there might be a two-tier system in operation where council-tenants in an area get given one route through which to lobby/influence/ make suggestions to the police but others do not.

I attended another such meeting which in Kings Hedges which was publicised on Ecops to those in the very local area, the council’s housing department sent a representative but had not said the meeting was happening when I asked directly a few days before.

5. Safer Neighbourhood Panels

These are often publicised on the police website. I have not yet seen one in Cambridge City.
Perhaps these would be more focused than a Council Area committee, and more inclusive than an “Anti-Social Behaviour Meeting”? I would like to see one tried in the City of Cambridge.

6. Cambridgeshire Police Authority

http://www.cambs-pa.gov.uk/consultation.cfm
For more than a year now there have been no public forums, and over the past year an empty events list has been replaced by :

“Cambridgeshire Police Authority is currently reviewing the way in which it carries out consultation with its communities, with the aim of ensuring the most effective use of the public forums as a means of gathering feedback on the service.”

On writing to a member of the Police Authority previously my comments were dismissed – he said I had to complain to the Police, despite my making general comments.

7. Web forms

Police Authority:
http://www.cambs-pa.gov.uk/consultFeedback.cfm
Cambridgeshire Police:
https://www.cambs-police.co.uk/contacthelp/contact/general.asp
I have made some comments via the Cambridgeshire police form, giving my full contact details, but have not received a reply.

8. Local Radio

BBC Radio Cambridgeshire’s Andy Harper Show, weekdays 10am-13.00 has the Chief Constable and other members of the police on the show every couple of months. I think this is excellent.

I have spoken on the show about the lack of clarity in the system whereby the Area Committees are involved in setting police priorities and have had questions put to the Chief Constable. I received a commitment from the Chief Constable to publicise the powers of PCSOs in Cambridgeshire (They are given on a force by force basis, and vary even accross the region) I do not believe she has done what she promised.

9. Resident’s supergroups

My local councillor has mentioned the existence of the Kings Hgedges [Resident’s] supergroup. They have reported ASB to the police and this has been noted in the Police Report to an area committee (http://www.cambridge.gov.uk/public/councillors/agenda/2006/0817arean/06.pdf)

10. Problem Solving Groups

An Arbury, Cambridge, problem solving group meeting has been advertised via ecops, when trying to find out what this was I found that a city multi agency problem solving group meets monthly to discuss individuals engaged in ASB and progress action plan to resolve the problems they may be creating in the area. The latest advert has dropped the “multi-agency” and has been described on Ecops: “This is a meeting we have every 3 months to discuss the area, share information and generally get together. Please do come.”