Information

Decision taken
The Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner funded an 18-month pilot programme in October 2021 to provide funding to the Northamptonshire Business Crime Partnership (NBCP) to employ a Retail Crime Evidence Gatherer post on part time hours. This pilot would allow provision of this post to be employed by NBCP to work alongside Northamptonshire Police colleagues on the North Local Policing Area. They would support retailers, whether registered with NBCP or not in cases where there were instances of reported shop theft, involving an offender who was a persistent offender or where they had offered violence to staff members employed by that retailer.

This pilot has been subjected to an evaluation and the results of this have been presented Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner.
Following this evaluation and discussion the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner has made a decision to continue to fund this scheme for a period of 2 years and also to extend the scheme to replicate it on the West Local Policing Area.

The financial commitment to this decision is of three parts:

1. Retention of £4000 residual sum from initial pilot funding to support the development
   of role to West LPA reduce retail crime and assaults on retail worklers.
2. Provision of £41,500 in 2023/24 for two part time roles.
3. Provision of £45,000 in 2024/25 for two part time roles allowing scope for inflationary
   increase

Decision Record 336 Retail Crime Evidence Gatherer 23-24 and 24-25