Agenda item

To consider a paper outlining the Police and Crime Commissioner’s proposed precept for 2018/19, and supporting financial information.

Members received an overview from the Commissioner of his budget report and supporting presentation on the proposed precept for the 2018/19 financial year (see Item 8 in the Minute Book). Also present to answer technical questions were the Chief Finance Officer to the Commissioner, and the Chief Finance Officer to the Chief Constable.

 

The Commissioner noted that the precept was a key item in the annual cycle of the Office, and he was pleased to have provided a detailed accompanying budget report to the Panel. The Commissioner was grateful for the scrutiny of the Finance Working Group (FWG) prior to this meeting, as well as for their report, which had been published prior to the meeting. The Commissioner spoke to the report and presentation, and highlighted salient points to the Panel.

 

The Commissioner noted that his aim was to keep you, your family, your community safer, and that the Hampshire policing area was in general a very safe area to live and work. The proposal to increase the precept by £12 for the average Band D property, or £1 per month, would enable the Constabulary to continue to protect the public from risk and harm.

 

The Home Office had confirmed that Hampshire Constabulary would receive the same settlement in 2018/19 as in 2017/18, but that Police and Crime Commissioners would all be given the increased flexibility to set council tax at a maximum of an additional £12 for a Band D property. This flexibility was progress, but funding remained challenging, and the issue of fairer funding had still not been tackled nationally. There remained many key hidden issues requiring innovative approaches to policing, such as modern slavery and trafficking, and Hampshire required the appropriate level of funding to ensure that the force had the technology and resources needed to be a modern and operationally effective Constabulary.

 

The precept proposal, if agreed, would see Hampshire Constabulary making a number of efficiencies and savings,. Hampshire would remain as having one of the lowest precepts nationally.

 

The Commissioner produced statistics to demonstrate that in the last year, the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire had the lowest cost per head of the population nationally, and this year it would be likely to continue to have one of the lowest. The additional funding being transferred into the Office’s costs was £440k, which included £280k to fund expenditure which in previous years had been funded through the allocation of funds from the Transformation Reserve. The allocation of the £440k to the revenue budget was  proposed for 2 reasons:

i)             Whilst a significant element of the £440k had in previous years been funded from the Transformation Reserve, the current reducing level of reserves meant that a continued draw from reserves is unlikely to be sustainable to support ongoing activity

ii)            to provide transparency of the total costs of the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner, and wanting to be honest about the costs of the Office,.

 

Most of the precept and national grant funding received by the Commissioner was transferred to the Constabulary, but some needed to be allocated to his Office to support the mandatory services he was required to commission and deliver, and activities around the Police and Crime Plan.

 

The Constabulary’s reduction in headcount related to the removal of vacant posts, or enabling technology which allowed services to be delivered with fewer people. The savings proposed to be made were in the Commissioner’s view those that had the lowest impact on the population and services provided. Without the increase in the precept, the Commissioner would have to work with the Constabulary to identify where to make further cuts. The increase in the precept would provide some breathing space, and would help to enable innovation which was proactive rather than reactive.

 

The online consultation undertaken on behalf of the Commissioner had shown that 70% of those completing the survey had been supportive of an increase in the precept. The Commissioner showed a short video on the precept consultation events, giving a sense of what those representatives from the community attending had heard at the sessions. The views from these events had helped to inform the final proposals. The Commissioner had noted to these members of the public that the proposal to increase the precept wasn’t just to plan for 2018/19, but also to secure longer term funding to sustain policing.  After the presentations had been heard, a majority of those present were willing to support the precept, and to contribute a greater amount to the policing budget.

 

The Chairman of the Panel provided a short summary of what had been heard and raised salient points from the report, noting the overall proposal to increase the precept by £12 for a Band D property. The Chairman noted that he had received correspondence from members of the public in relation to the precept proposal, as he suspected other members of the Panel had, and he would be asking questions that correlated with some of the concerns raised, particularly around the proposal to increase the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner’s budget by £0.44m, which the report set out would be used for essential staff within the Office, and for delivery of the Police and Crime Plan,. The Commissioner and his representatives noted that this was spending that already took place within the Office, but that this funding was currently transferred from reserves. The Commissioner needed to ensure that the budget existed to support, for example, the expanded complaints system powers, or salary costs if another Deputy were to be recruited. This additional funding was about greater transparency, which would no longer be taken from reserves as it amounted to a continuing liability, and should be included within the budget.

 

Councillor Jan Warwick joined the meeting.

 

The Chairman of the FWG noted that it had met just over a week prior to the Panel in order to review the precept and budget papers, and had been disappointed with the amount of time available between receiving the papers and reviewing them at the meeting. This wasn't a criticism of the officers and staff – as the Chairman of the FWG knew from experience that staff were under pressure to review the budget after the funding allocation was announced – but he would have preferred to have seen the papers for longer in advance of the meeting. The Chairman of the FWG wished to be assured that the Commissioner and Chief Constable had received adequate time to review the budget and draft precept, and were involved in the process of agreeing the budget papers and saving proposals. The Commissioner noted that the Constabulary had seen issues with an underfunded budget since day one of his term of office, and therefore the budget options had been discussed in detail over the previous year, and more intensely over the previous few months. The Commissioner and Chief Constable had reviewed all of the possibilities, including what the timescales would look like for each potential saving work-stream, and what impact each saving proposal would have. The Constabulary had undertaken months of detailed work on this, looking at the potential options before the government allocations were released, so that a plan was in place for all eventualities. The Commissioner expected the Chief Constable to notify him should she have any concerns about the operational delivery of the Force, and she had not done so in relation to the savings proposed. There had been some short-notice reworking of the budget after the government allocation had been released, but this had been for a positive reason. The Commissioner had also personally intervened in those areas where he felt savings were not appropriate, such as by ensuring that the Hampshire Marine Unit continued to be funded.

 

The Chairman of the FWG noted the report published for the Panel’s consideration from the group. In the most recent meeting, the FWG had discussed the additional funding for the Office of the Commissioner and a number of other issues, such as the savings proposals, the spending on innovation, IT replacement, and the commissioning budget. The overall FWG view was support for the precept in order to maintain policing, agreeing that the case had been made to raise the precept by £12 for a Band D property, which would enable an increase in the funding base for this year and in future. The FWG did however have continuing questions on the detail and choices being made within the budget. For example, the report set out savings of just under £7m, including officer reductions, and the FWG were keen to understand to what extent this information had been shared in the consultation event, questioning whether the public had been told the detail of the savings required. The Chief Financial Officer to the Chief Constable noted that the total number of officer post reductions were shared, as was a total breakdown of cash savings, with pie charts giving an overview of the current spend in order to give an idea of the savings as a proportion of this. The individual officer numbers under each heading in the report had not been shared at that stage.

 

The Chairman of the FWG spoke to the section of the report detailing investment in IT, and wished to be assured that the money being set aside for this was being well managed and spent on priority areas, and would not be replicating similar projects. The Commissioner noted that the Chief Constable had put forward the areas of suggested spending and efficiencies based on the options that had the most impact (in terms of reduced spend) and the least impact. The Commissioner was satisfied that there were no ‘easy’ savings options left; future budgets if underfunded would require the Constabulary to consider further cuts.

 

The Chairman moved to questions from the wider Panel. In response to questions, Members heard:

·      That the Commissioner had set out the costs of his Office in the presentation, which showed a historically low cost per head of the population, and was significantly less than the national average. The proposed increase in the cost of the Office to £2.57 per head of the population was still under the national average by £1.57 per person.

·      The Commissioner recognised and understood the reasons for the expressed public view that suggested support of the increased precept, but concern about additional funds for his Office. The Commissioner set out that in his opinion, the budget represented how to undertake policing in the best way by the Chief Constable. Secondly, the Commissioner understood that the public wanted visible policing, and needed the police to be better at showing what modern policing looks like, i.e that not all of it was visible or impacted on the Hampshire population directly. In the Commissioner’s view, there needed to be greater realisation that policing expertise was no longer limited to uniformed policing, but was also about specialists and police staff. The Commissioner was advised by the Chief Constable of the budgetary requirements of the Constabulary to be efficient and effective, but it was for her to determine was this looked like operationally, with appropriate challenge from the Commissioner.

·      The argument about the police funding settlement formula needing to change nationally had been won, but Hampshire couldn’t rely on this changing in the near future. The police funding settlement monies received from the Home Office were the Commissioners to allocate, with the majority forwarded to the Constabulary for operational policing. The Commissioner did however need to fund his Office appropriately, and some of the monies received were for funding the mandatory services the Commissioner must provide.

·      The value for money profiles published by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) of Police and Crime Commissioner costs did not previously include those monies spent under the transformation reserves. The 2018/19 figure did include this increased spend, which accounted for the rise in cost per head.

·      That the Commissioner was happy for his Office to be value for money, but recognised that the policing settlement and precept were both underfunded in comparison to other Forces, and this wasn’t fair. The Commissioner had considered other possible arrangements of his budget, but felt that this was the best one.

·      The Chief Constable endorsed the budget report and proposed precept fully.

·      That the Commissioner had asked the Chief Constable to protect rural specialist policing, as he understood the importance of this to communities. Hampshire Constabulary was nationally recognised as having a leading rural offer, and it was important to safeguard this.

·      The Artemis programme had been grant funded nationally by the Home Office. This project was not obsolete, and was in vehicles and ready to go, but required the roll-out of the emergency services mobile communication programme to for it to go live, which was a delayed nationally-led scheme.

·      The delayering of police management had taken place in 2015 through the operational change programme. There had been some restoration of necessary management following monitoring and evaluation, but the Constabulary had less senior roles as a result.

·      The Precept proposed would avoid significant cuts to policing in the short term, but it was important to remember that it only made up a third of the overall budget; two-thirds were still made up of the police funding settlement. By making sure that the precept was adequately funded, the Commissioner would have more breathing space to land the right longer-term funding solution by lobbying the Home Office.

·      The Commissioner was increasing his Office spend to match the work being undertaken, recognising that he needed to have the expertise to undertake reviews required, such as those for fire and complaints that had arisen from the Policing and Crime Act 2017, which could become very significant mandated services. The Commissioner understood the public need for rigorousness in relation to his Office spend, but he felt that the role of the Commissioner was added value, and there was a necessary cost and a need to be clear about this.

·      That currently the actual budget for the Office of the Commissioner was £1.524m, with some additional spending from reserves

·      The funding arrangement of servicing Office activity from the Transformation Reserve had been inherited from the previous Commissioner. The current Commissioner had taken the decision to be more transparent about the true costs of the Office.

 

Councillor Ken Muschamp left at this point in the meeting.

 

The Chairman of the FWG noted that it would be helpful for the Panel in future to be able to compare spend against what was budgeted for, in order to understand areas of under and overspend.

 

The Chairman moved to debate. The following was heard in discussion by the Panel:

·      That correspondence had been received by Members of the Panel which suggested that the public were supportive of the precept, but not of the proposal to allocate additional funds to the Office of the Commissioner. There had also been correspondence which queried whether the additional funding for the Office was appropriate in light of the proposal to reduce posts across the Constabulary.

·      That there seemed to be a suggestion that the public didn’t understand how the budget was organised from the Commissioner, but the feedback received and noted by members of the Panel suggested that they did understand, but didn’t agree with it.

·      The public saw the policing budget as being for integrated policing services and perhaps weren’t aware of, or didn’t understand, the mandatory services provided by the Commissioner and how these were funded. There was a potential to do more to communicate this to the public.

·      That there were concerns about whether those geographic areas that saw spikes in crime rates were being allocated an appropriate amount of the budget.

·      The Panel welcomed the transparency around the costs of the Office but had concerns about the use of the ‘value for money’ statistics if this didn’t previously include and wouldn’t include in future all spending from reserves.

 

The Chairman summed up following debate the concerns that he had heard from Members, and members of the public about the additional Office spending. He noted that the Panel had received correspondence, and individual members had also received feedback, but that it would be for the Panel to determine whether or not they supported the precept. To this end, the Chairman asked the legal advisor to speak to the Panel, who provided an overview of relevant parts of ‘The Police and Crime Panels (Precepts and Chief Constable Appointments) Regulations 2012’.

 

The Chairman moved to recommendations. Before moving to the recommendation in the paper, he invited any alternative recommendations from the Panel. An alternative recommendation was received, proposed by Bob Purkiss and seconded by Councillor Leah Turner. In proposing his recommendation, Mr Purkiss made it clear that the recommendation was not a veto of the precept proposal

 

‘That the Panel do not support the recommendation, as outlined in the paper before us, and ask [that] our concerns and those of the public are taken into account, and that any increase in funding is put directly and only into retaining and enhancing [the services provided by] police officers and staff.’

 

The Chairman inserted the context clarified by the Panel prior to the vote upon it and a vote was held:

 

For: 16

Against: 0

Abstained: 0

 

As the recommendation was passed, the Chairman noted that there was no need to vote on the recommendation within the report. The Chairman proposed a further recommendation based on the feedback received from Members during the meeting, which was seconded by Councillor Dave Shields:

 

‘That the Police and Crime Commissioner clarifies to the public what funding he receives, and what this is spent on, including the mandatory functions of the Police and Crime Commissioner.’

 

For: 16

Against: 0

Abstained: 0

 

RESOLVED

 

That:

 

1.  The Panel do not support the recommendation, as outlined in the paper before us, and ask [that] our concerns and those of the public are taken into account, and that any increase in funding is put directly and only into retaining and enhancing [the services provided by] police officers and staff.’

 

2.  The Police and Crime Commissioner clarifies to the public what funding he receives, and what this is spent on, including the mandatory functions of the Police and Crime Commissioner.

 

The Panel took a ten minute break before returning to proceedings.

 

After the break, the Chairman clarified that the recommendations the Panel had agreed were nota veto of the precept, and it would be for the Commissioner to determine how he wished to respond to the recommendations made.

 

In response to the recommendations, the Commissioner noted that he would take the Panel’s feedback on board and understood Members’ role to reflect on the range of views that had been made through both the consultation and directly to the Panel. The Commissioner was disappointed that his public service ethos hadn’t come across clearly enough to the Panel. The Commissioner promised to reflect on all he had heard and to respond to this. He was pleased that the Panel had not vetoed the precept and he was absolutely certain that the average £12 increase was necessary to keep the people of Hampshire safe.