Information

Welcome and introductions

 

Attendees:

PFCC Stephen Mold (SM)

Louise Sheridan (LS)

Paul Fell (PF)

Nicci Marzec (NM)

CC Nick Adderley (NA)

D/C Supt Paul Rymarz (PR)

D/Supt Steve Watkins (SW)

Colleen Rattigan (CR)

Sarah Crampton (SA)

 

SM welcomed everyone to the meeting.

 

Previous minutes and action log

• Minutes of previous meeting were circulated with the meeting papers. No changes have been requested.

Outstanding actions from the Action Log have been updated.

 

Integrated Offender Management

 

During 2022, the Commissioner received two accountability board reports relating to IOM in Northamptonshire and the Northamptonshire Police approach to it. On the second occasion and following discussions after this update it was agreed that the Force would ensure that an evaluation took place of this approach ahead of March 2023.

 

The Commissioner now requires a further report on IOM in the County. This paper should briefly outline the approach again, along with any changes implemented since the last report. It should also provide full details of the evaluation, as measured against the agreed business benefits of the IOM programme. The report should make clear how offending patterns of those forming part of the IOM cohort have changed since the inception of the programme.

 

• D/Supt Steve Watkins provided an overview and an outline of the IOM set up.
• The IOM is a collaboration between Northants Police and Probation to tackle the volume of Neighbourhood crime and recidivism.
• Northants IOM sits in the Eastern Probation region and have a really good working relationship.
• There are 113 current offenders in the cohorts (46 Fixed, 53 Flex and 14 Free) but have worked with 155 so far.
• An explanation of the different cohorts was provided with Fixed having a higher risk score than Flexed.
• The Free cohort contains individuals subject to serious crime prevention orders and modern slavery trafficking prevention orders
• The IOM also works with other violent MAPPA offenders and reactive sex offenders.
• MOSOVO deal with medium and high-risk sex offenders.
• There was a discussion about why people commit SAC offences.
• Around 50% will have drug dependency issues – crime of desperation.
• Since the previous report was commissioned a number of changes have now been implemented which include the creation of the Offender management Intervention Hub and a Qlik app which is being used to track offending history.
• There was a discussion about a drug crime prevention partnership which should make a big difference in terms of intervention.
• Further development of the Qlik app to accept probation data and track outcomes is underway.
• The Commissioner offered additional investment in Qlik if there is a desire to speed up this work.
• There was a discussion on current cohort demographics – most offenders in the Fixed cohort are aged 30 – 39 but there is more intervention work to be done in 18 – 25 cohort to prevent escalating risk with the Flex cohort.
• In terms of success rate, 88% of all offenders who have exited the IOM scheme this year have not been charged/ cautioned with any of further SAC offences and 74% have not been charged or cautioned of any offence at all.
• There was a further discussion on what is going well and what could be done better which included more emphasis on early intervention, more flexibility in the IOM and a holistic approach to the offender (looking at the family, not just the individual).
• There was a discussion on the cost of the IOM on a per person basis. This would be useful to know, accepting that it is less than incarceration and the cost of committing further offences.
• PR advised that he could provide an indicative cost bit this will form part of the longer-term evaluation of the programme.
• The Commissioner asked if there was capacity to increase the cohort from 155.
• PR advised that understanding the 30 – 39 age group who commit the most offences need more analysis of the types of interventions required to target them specifically.
• Also, looking at the younger cohort and not on periphery would be of more benefit.
• The Commissioner commended the work and progress of the IOM and looks forward to receiving another update once a full calendar year of data is available.

Assurance statement:

 The Commissioner was pleased to receive this report and was confident that IOM was developing under the revised management and governance structures put into place by the Chief Constable.

 He was assured to see that the scheme was developing to include some IOM activity in relation to a cohort of lower risk registered sex offenders, aimed at robust management and behavioural change. He was similarly assured with the ongoing work relating to Domestic Abuse and MAPPA offenders.

 The IOM work is showing early indications that offending behaviour of IOM cohort members reduces both during and after engagement with the scheme.

 The Commissioner welcomed the report, was assured that positive progress had and was being made and looked forward to the full evaluation once completed.

 

 

Force matters of priority performance update

 

The Chief Constable has adopted a suite of performance measures and targets relating to Force matters of priority for 2022/2023

The Commissioner requests a presentation/report that shows performance against these measures and targets as of the end of the financial year 2022/2023

As well as providing any desired narrative from the Chief Constable it should be clear about which targets have been achieved and which have not.

• Sarah Crampton provided an overview of the demand and crime headlines.
• iQuanta data should show further improvement in relation to the Force’s comparative position with others who display more evidence of yo-yoing.
• Northants crime recording is more stable, evidenced by HMICFRS inspections and grades.
• From 1^st May, counting rules for notifiable offences and notifiable reported incidents 2023 to 2024′ has been updated; there have been some additions and one offence removed following the Home Office Counting Rules review.
• SR confirmed the force will look at levels of those offences in previous financial years to be able to make comparisons and re-baseline.

Activity

• 999 calls were consistently above forecasted levels. One call every 3.5 minutes
• A high number of these (almost 80,000) are public concern for welfare.
• The Commissioner asked for a breakdown of the incidents relating to public safety and welfare. It was also suggested that a deeper dive on these incidents would be useful. This was agreed by the Chief Constable.

• There was a discussion about ‘Right care, right person’ and the impact this will have.

Action – SC to provide a breakdown of demand relating to public safety and welfare for SM.

Action – NA to arrange for a deep dive analysis of PSAW incidents into the Force and provide a timeline for this.

Safeguarding

• The force is identifying at risk individuals and signposting them to agencies to offer further support.
• They are also taking positive action to protect victims of crime using the powers that are available.
• There was a discussion about feedback from Voice on IDVA and ISVA Services and victim satisfaction rates.
• Work is underway to resolve why auto-referrals from Niche to VOICE are not taking place.
• It was agreed that the starting position is that everything should be referred to Voice and then triaged somehow.

ACTION – SM to send the Voice feedback to SC to review

 

Outcomes

• The force has maintained or improved investigative outcomes.
• Now ranked 8^th highest nationally for successful outcomes. (14.1%)
• Top forces are Norfolk at 15.6% and Durham at 15.5%.
• Some forces really struggling at 6%

Drug harm

• ASB demand is reducing, satisfaction levels remain the same.
• Neighbourhood crime volumes are increasing albeit in line with national levels.
• The Commissioner acknowledged that whilst there were some encouraging signs, overall, the KPI assessment showed a mixed performance.
• Given that drugs as such a driver on all types of crime, there was a discussion with the Chief Constable as to whether we are doing all that we can, both from a policing perspective and with other agencies.
• The Chief constable is satisfied that he has the right resources in the right places, and it is appropriate now to challenge partners in their response to drug harm.

SOC

 

• Improving intelligence picture on OCG involvement will further aid the force’s ability to combat these criminal organisations.
• The force is proactively tackling the threat of increased firearms crime, gathering actionable intelligence to better identify SOC criminals.
• The Chief Constable reiterated that the OCGs who present a firearms risk are well understood, actively managed and firearms discharge rates are very low.

VAWG

• The force has continued to provide strong action in tackling VAWG and safeguarding victims with high successes in this area and they are outperforming many of their peers
• DA arrests rates higher.
• The Commissioner said he was keen to understand what has happened as a consequence of the increased DA arrest rates and how this might be linked to reduced offending

ACTION – Force to provide an update on the outcomes achieved from increased DA arrests and whether this has reduced repeat victimisation or recidivism as a result.

Serious violence

• Knife crime at lowest rate for 3 years but the Force remains an outlier despite improving its position from 38^th to 34^th.
• Notable increases in the involvement of U-18s both for knife crime and most serious violence
• Repeat U-18 perpetrators remain the highest risk.
• Robbery levels have risen, most notably business robbery.

Response times

• Increased and sustained incident demand has had an effect on response times.
• There was a discussion on response times and vehicle repairs.
• The Commissioner commented that further deterioration will be a worry.
• Overall, the Commissioner was pleased with the amount of positive work going on.
• He thanked Sarah and her team for the analysis but encouraged her and her team to visit another force to make sure they are utilising QLIK t and data visualisation as effectively as possible.
• He also encouraged them to look at other visualisation tools, robotic automation and AI to further improve the quality of data adding that if this can be interrogated more quickly it will super charge the forces response to everything else.

Assurance statement:

The Commissioner welcomed the report received from the Chief Constable.

 He was assured to see a number improvements in performance but he challenged a number of areas where more work needs to be done; specifically the impacts of drugs on communities and the need for a holistic partnership approach; also in Neighbourhood Crime and further action relating to serious violence, with the latter needing the most work in the forthcoming year.

 

HMICFRS Value for money profiles

 

The Commissioner requires a presentation from the Chief Constable of the latest version of the HMICFRS value for money profiles. He requests that this includes an overview of these, describes where Northamptonshire appears to be an outlier and allows for an informed discussion in relation to those areas.

 

• Postponed to the June meeting; to include how using those profiles.

 

A.O.B

 

• No further business was raised.