Thames Valley Police and Crime Panel - Friday 23 January 2026, 10:30am - Buckinghamshire Council Webcasting

Thames Valley Police and Crime Panel
Friday, 23rd January 2026 at 10:30am 

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  1. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  2. Khalid Ahmed - TVP Crime Panel Scrutiny and Support Officer
  3. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
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  1. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  2. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  3. Matthew Barber - PCC
  4. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  5. Cllr Karen Rowland - Reading Borough Council
  6. Matthew Barber - PCC
  7. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  8. Cllr Karen Rowland - Reading Borough Council
  9. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  10. Cllr Neil Fawcett - Vale of White Horse District Council
  11. Matthew Barber - PCC
  12. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  13. Cllr Susan Morgan
  14. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  15. Cllr Susan Morgan
  16. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  17. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  18. Cllr Mark Howard - Windsor and Maidenhead Council
  19. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  20. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  21. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  22. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  23. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  24. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  25. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  26. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  27. Cllr Geoff Saul - West Oxfordshire District Council
  28. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  29. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  30. Cll E Ahmed - Slough borough Council
  31. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  32. Cllr Geoff Saul - West Oxfordshire District Council
  33. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  34. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  35. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  36. Cllr Susan Morgan
  37. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  38. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  39. Cllr Lubna Arshad - Oxford City Council
  40. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  41. Cllr Lubna Arshad - Oxford City Council
  42. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  43. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  44. Cllr Mark Howard - Windsor and Maidenhead Council
  45. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  46. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  47. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  48. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  49. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  50. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
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  1. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  2. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  3. Cllr Helen Purnell - Bracknell Forest Council
  4. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  5. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  6. Cllr Susan Morgan
  7. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  8. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
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  1. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  2. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  3. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  4. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  5. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  6. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  7. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  8. Cllr Karen Rowland - Reading Borough Council
  9. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  10. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  11. Cllr Karen Rowland - Reading Borough Council
  12. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  13. Cll Ejaz Ahmed - Slough borough Council
  14. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  15. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  16. Cllr Helen Purnell - Bracknell Forest Council
  17. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  18. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  19. Cllr Mark Howard - Windsor and Maidenhead Council
  20. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  21. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
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  1. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  2. Khalid Ahmed - TVP Crime Panel Scrutiny and Support Officer
  3. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  4. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  5. Khalid Ahmed - TVP Crime Panel Scrutiny and Support Officer
  6. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  7. Cllr Susan Morgan
  8. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  9. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
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  1. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  2. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  3. Cllr Neil Fawcett - Vale of White Horse District Council
  4. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  5. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  6. Cllr Lubna Arshad - Oxford City Council
  7. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  8. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  9. Cllr Neil Fawcett - Vale of White Horse District Council
  10. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  11. Cllr Neil Fawcett - Vale of White Horse District Council
  12. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  13. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  14. Cllr Ed Hume - Milton Keynes City Council
  15. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  16. Cllr Susan Morgan
  17. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  18. Cllr Susan Morgan
  19. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  20. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
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  1. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  2. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  3. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  4. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
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  1. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  2. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  3. Cllr Karen Rowland - Reading Borough Council
  4. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  5. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  6. Cllr Karen Rowland - Reading Borough Council
  7. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  8. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
Share this agenda point
  1. Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner
  2. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  3. Cllr Karen Rowland - Reading Borough Council
  4. Khalid Ahmed - TVP Crime Panel Scrutiny and Support Officer
  5. Cllr Karen Rowland - Reading Borough Council
  6. Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council
  7. Webcast Finished

Due to the unavailability today of the chair and vice chair we need to nominate a chair for today's panel meeting only.
Do I have any nominations please?
I would like to nominate Councillor Epps.
I would like to second.
Thank you. Is any other nominations or is that agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you.
Councillor Epps is now in the chair.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 0:00:36
Thank you. Please bear with me. Welcome, Mr. Barber. Welcome members of the committee.
We have a number of apologies for absence. Can we join in?
Yes, we do. I'll get through these quickly. We have apologies from the chair, Peter Gamond,
Khalid Ahmed - TVP Crime Panel Scrutiny and Support Officer - 0:00:51
the vice chair, Councillor Steven Newton, Pamela McKenzie Riley, independent member,
Councillor Trendall, Milton Keynes but we do have the substitute member
Councillor Exxon the other side of the room so and Ashley Waite as well may or
may not turn up later on but he submits his apologies just in case.
Councillor Wilson.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 0:01:13
Thank you Chair. I have to give my apologies. I have to leave at 12 .30.
Okay and we will try and get through as much of the agenda as we can by then.

2 Declarations of Interest

Any declarations of interest from anyone? No. Not seeing any. Thank you very much.
In that case, the minutes of the meeting on the 7th of November. There are 15 pages of

3 Minutes

these. I don't propose to go through them page by page. But are there any comments or
can we agree those as a true record? Agreed. Thank you very much.

4 Public Question Time

We have no public questions for this meeting. So that brings us to the substantive item

5 Report of the Panel's Budget Task and Finish Group

here which is the budget task and finish groups report and the scrutiny of the proposed police
preset. And the task and finish group submitted a
report I think they only met yesterday. So what I would like to do to start off I
is just to ask the task and finish group to to give us an oral update on the
report or a summary for those who haven't had a chance to read it and then
I'll bring this to Barbara in so Councillor Wilson can I ask you to thank
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:02:33
you chairman I'm doing this obviously on behalf of the members of the finished
group including Mr Gammond, Councillor Hume, myself, Councillor Sore. We did have two meetings
on the 15th of December and then on the 19th of January, so earlier this week. So you are
right in saying that the most recent meeting was very recent indeed. So the report has
necessarily been pulled together following the conclusion of that and we're very grateful for Mr Ahmed's support in doing that very promptly for the benefit of this meeting.
We had meetings with the Director of Finance at Tender Valley Police and the Chief Finance Officer of the PCC who took us through the latest positions on the draught proposals on each occasions.
It is important to note that between the first meeting and the second meeting, the Force
received its government funding settlement and details, and that was £8 .8 million lower
than expected. And clearly that had some implications in terms of the difference between the numbers
we were first reviewing and the numbers we were subsequently reviewing on Monday.
And the actions taken by the force to ensure that the budget could still be balanced.
And albeit the out years are presently not balanced because that is subject to the financial, the final settlement as I understand it to be the case.
but it will be balanced once they know the final numbers.
So the conclusions of the report and the draught budget are that the position remains sustainable in the short term,
but clearly it does have some impact in the longer term in terms of financial pressures.
And the PCC was also told in the draught settlement that it could apply for a precept flexibility.
£2 .15 but could go above by request if you put in a request, although the PCC has chosen not to do that.
We did have some discussion, we had a number of questions. I don't propose to go through all of the questions through both of the sessions.
and then we had the opportunity to put some written questions together which have been
submitted and answers are provided to those. So I don't plan to go through all of those
but I understand that members of the panel may wish to ask some of those questions.
Obviously a number of those questions we asked were directed specifically against the budget
but also against the future implications of what is happening in a changing landscape
with the proposal to abolish PCC.
Further news last night that there will be super forces potentially that will be announced.
And I think also in the context of our partnership working with the forces as local authorities and other agencies
in terms of the uncertainty that creates for us as local authorities in terms of future funding.
Whilst that is secured for 26 -27, there are some issues and questions in terms of how that community safety partnerships and other aspects may be funded going forwards.
Because clearly that has an impact on all of us. So we may wish to come back to that.
I think the matter in hand here is obviously the panel's view on the
proposed precepts increase of £15 and we did have some discussion after the
meetings in terms of what we considered to be reasonable in the light of the
position of local authorities and there were some differing views it's fair to
say. I think it is my own position on this was whilst authorities are capped
before referendum at 4 .99 % there is a different approach put in place for
other precepting authorities which is a cash value rather than a percentage
increase and I think after some discussion and debate and certainly my
own position on this is I do not see an alternative for the preset
recommendation given the additional financing pressures that have been put
on the police crime commissioner and the authority but to take it that does
therefore present a percentage increase over and above the local authority pre
referendum limit but that is partly driven by or even wholly driven by the
fact that they operate with different threshold requirements as a cash
requirement as opposed to a percentage requirement. So ultimately our
recommendation in all of this is as a task and finish group is to agree to
recommend that the police and crime panel accept the proposed police
precept increase of 15 pounds in Band D due to the financial pressures and
limited alternatives available in this instance. Thank you very much Councillor
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 0:08:17
Wilson and the there's a very very helpful summary on pages 12 and 13 of
the Tusk and Finish Group papers there which is nice and clear. We also have the
full budget papers. We will come to the recommendation in due course but I think
the right thing to do now is to hand over to Mr. Barber just to present and then there
will be some questions and then we will come to recommendations.
Matthew Barber - PCC - 0:08:42
Thank you very much Chairman and thank you very much to the Tasking Finish Group for
their time. I know that process that we go through in Thames Valley is not something
that is repeated by all police and crime panels across the country and I think it does work
effectively to allow a smaller group of members to delve into the detail and ask some of those
questions outside of this meeting to aid members discussions today.
Already been mentioned, the abolition of all of us.
It's not often, since the last couple of months when I talk about abolition, I feel alone,
but police and crime panels are being abolished as well, so we're all being abolished in this
room.
We'll come to that later.
And I'm sure we will come on to some of these issues possibly under the topical discussions
if we've got time, around the white paper, around forced mergers, around abolition.
However, I mention them now because, as I will come on to explain some of the financial
context, I think they are very relevant to the Budget this year.
So the headlines for the Budget in terms of, if you like, the public consumption are probably
that the force is having to make around £60 million worth of savings.
That's slightly higher than what was in the original published papers because of some of the changes that we've talked about over the last week.
We intend to deliver an additional 53 neighbourhood police officers.
I will come on to that in a little bit more detail as we go through.
And I'm proposing a precept of £15 in order to pay for all of that.
As has been said, the original budget settlement just before Christmas was around £9 million
short of where we'd expected.
And I'm really clear, and it's helpful to use this public forum to be clear about this,
that it's not less than I would like as Police and Crime Commissioner, that it's not a political
aspiration of less than I would have hoped for, that it's less than my Chief Finance
Officer, the Force Chief Finance Officer expected based on what we were told by the Home Office
from the Comprehensive Spending Review.
So these were not political aspirations, we didn't get what we hoped for.
This was working on what the Home Office has told us earlier in the year, the assumptions
made by Forces across the country.
And what seems clear is there's about £100 million less that has gone to territorial
police forces than was originally in the Comprehensive Spending Review.
The Home Office identified an amount of money for policing within their budget, running
into the low billions and there's a decimal of that which being 100 million
which is not in it doesn't add up to the total of what they allowed in the
settlement. Now they've given some of that back to policing so there's around
50 million being offered up for neighbourhood police officers that
suggests that they have taken around 50 million which is being kept and retained
so where every other police force in the country that I've looked at has had a
reduction in what they're expecting. The Metropolitan Police have got more than they
were originally expecting and the Home Office appears to be retaining somewhere around £50
million. That's my supposition for that and it's no more at the moment, is that that will
be some of the costs of the changes that they're talking about. There is clearly going to be
some significant short -term costs to abolition, establishing new governance arrangements,
potential for force mergers, establishing the NCOP, the National Centre for Policing,
those will come at a cost and it appears that that cost is being sliced off of the budgets
of territorial police forces.
So that is some of the thing that adds to the pressure.
In addition to that, at the same time, the report from the Task and Finish Group references
the opportunity, if one can call it that, of applying for additional preset flexibility
to go above £15. That was actually a two -step process. Again, what had been previously indicated
was a precept of £14. That was the maximum that the force were planning to. I always
remind the force that they need to convince me that it's justified to tax people by an
additional sum. But £14 was the assessment that had been made across the country from
what had been planned. When the settlement came in and it was less than expected, the
also allowed police and crime commissioners to go £15. That's without having to go
and ask for special treatment. Now when I say allowed and I think this goes back
to the point and I'm sure MHCLD do similar for local authorities but
this is really key to the way in which Home Office budget. When the Home Office
announced the amount of funding that is available to Thames Valley Police £622
million that includes an assumption that the Police and Crime
Commissioner takes the £15. Therefore if I were to take less if I was to not
increase council tax that equates to about £15 million worth of income so
our budget would be reduced to £607 million.
So it wouldn't be a case of not doing additional things it's actually
reduction in the announced budget envelope. So they pushed another million
pounds worth of cost onto local taxpayers which now puts us at about
sort of 47 -53 percent split between local government and central
government. £50 million that is potentially coming back into police
forces across the countries through the neighbourhood policing guarantee funding.
Now there is a huge amount of uncertainty in this and to give you an
idea of how chaotic the funding settlement seems to be, it was Friday of
last week, so seven days ago, early afternoon, the Police and Crime
Commission has received a letter from the Home Secretary saying we would like
to allocate some more funding, we're going to scrap the previous uplift
funding arrangements, we're going to introduce a new arrangement, your
allocation is going to be this, we want you to recruit this number of officers
and we'd like you to respond within two working days to your response to the
So, I wrote back to the Home Secretary on Tuesday morning as requested.
We've asked a series of questions, so it is not clear what the conditionality is around
this funding.
What appears to be the case is they're asking Thames Valley Police to recruit 53, well,
sorry, they're asking Thames Valley Police to deploy an additional 53 police officers
in neighbourhood teams.
That's very specific.
That's all laudable and we would all want that, wouldn't we?
That's great.
However, Home Office are only funding 40 % of that cost.
So they will provide £1 .5 million and expect Terence Valley Police to provide another £2 million.
So go back to where we were just over a week ago, we were £9 million short,
we were increasing council tax by an extra pound, we were struggling to make the book's balance.
We've now effectively been hit with another bill for £2 million.
pounds. So some people could say well don't do it, just live without the
the extra officers, you balanced your budget that's fine. What appears to be
implied by the letter, but again we don't know the answers, is there will be
conditionality on those 53 officers. Not only would we not get the one and a
half million pounds offered for those, but forces will be penalised if they
don't deliver their allocation of 53 additional officers. So we sort of, it's
not really an ask, it's an instruction from the Home Office. However they will
allow police forces to redeploy. So if the Chief Constable, and this is
ultimately an operational decision for the Chief, if the Chief Constable were to
take 53 officers out of roads policing or firearms or our domestic abuse
investigation unit or major crime or CID and put them into uniform in
neighbourhoods, then Tanninsbury Police would be able to claim the one and a half
million pounds. You could actually be quids in. You could make money by playing
the system and I fear that some forces may be in a place where they need to do that,
where you could just redeploy people to a different job, claim a government grant of
£1 .5 million and it would come at no extra actual cost. But I think we all know that
would have a huge impact on our ability to police the roads, deal with high risk incidents,
keep women safe from domestic abuse and all those other important jobs that police officers
do. I'm a huge advocate for neighbourhood policing as members of this panel will know
and I want us to maximise our neighbourhood policing.
But that's not at the detriment of everything else that the force does.
So the situation we're faced with this week with a lot of uncertainty is we have the budget.
I don't propose seeking, we've missed the deadline,
but I never propose seeking additional grant through through council tax,
increasing council tax further.
I don't think we would have met criteria from the Home Office.
I don't think we can plead property to that extent.
And I don't think it would be fair on taxpayers either.
but we have balanced a budget and we've got an additional pressure of two
million pounds with this need to deploy 53 additional officers. Having spoken to
the Chief Constable yesterday there was a lot of uncertainty around this and I do not
expect and to be clear I will I will not allow 53 officers just to be redeployed
from other places in order to get the cash and when I say I will not allow it
is an operational decision but I've been really clear that I will not tax people
Thames Valley the additional £15 if that does not deliver an additional £15 worth of benefit.
If we were to get another million and a half in from Thames Valley I would be setting a
counter -tax preset that was £13 .50 because that's about the equivalent of it. That would not be
justified. So and the Chief Constable has no intention of doing that but it you know we will
we are having to look at how possible it will be to actually recruit new officers
into those roles. So the 53 will be deployed and I am more confident from
year two onwards that we'll be able to make additional savings. Reference has
been made to the Crime Prevention Partnership Fund that I provide to local
authorities. We've written to local authorities that were aware of this
before Christmas when we'd seen some of the initial changes. I've asked local
authorities to get all of their bids in to us for all three years of that
programme by the end of February for us to look at those. The likelihood, and we've
written to local authorities this morning, the likelihood is we would need to make a
cut of around 13 % in the overall funding for the partnership fund in order to put money
directly into funding neighbourhood police officers under the neighbourhood policing
guarantee. That's not something anybody will welcome, but I think hopefully our local authority
partners and communities will understand that actually getting neighbourhood officers out
there doing the job of policing is a really important one, particularly where we are,
financially. So there is a lot of uncertainty still in terms of this budget. There is enough
certainty to set this because the question for you today is around the £15 in terms of preset.
Nobody's suggesting I go lower in the financial circumstances, I can't go higher. It seems a bit
of a no -brainer in terms of the blank question you're faced with, but in terms of justifying
and understanding that, hopefully it gives you the context. I would make one final comment while we
about comparative council tax. I don't celebrate in the slightest
being able to put up council tax. I've always wanted to avoid doing it
where we can and the fact that our council tax is
relatively low is of no great comfort to people who are
going to be faced with a slightly higher bill in the coming
months. However, across our neighbouring forces,
Thames Valley Police is surrounded by nine other police forces.
If you look at that we sit pretty much in the middle, slightly below the average
for those forces. One of the big implications that hasn't really been
discussed much yet of force mergers is the need to equalise council tax.
It appears to be one of the reasons to get rid of police and crime
commissioners because that political block of a person who's responsible
policing in an area makes it difficult to merge things together. If you
If you want to merge forces, if you look at any arrangement of our neighbouring forces,
council tax equalisation almost certainly means that council tax goes up. Our nearest
neighbour with the highest level is Surrey with £352 for council tax to our 298. So
there's a real risk for future in terms of that. But sorry, I will end there. Happy to
take questions if they come up later. Thanks. And I just want to, there are any
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 0:21:11
number of avenues that we can go down in terms of the future however may look. We'll come
to that later if we have time, I think. We've got the task and finish group report in front
of us. We've also got the budget papers. We'll come to the recommendation in a minute and
thank you for that setting out the uncertainty. We face similar challenges but there's probably
not quite the same degree of uncertainty in terms of local government world. Could I take
any questions please because I know that members of the panel have got a number
Councillor Rowland sorry. Thank you chair and thank you for stepping in chair today
Cllr Karen Rowland - Reading Borough Council - 0:21:56
appreciated and thank you to Mr. Barber for presenting the picture that we have
in front of us. I know that others are going to touch on other questions I think
I'm going to talk about what really hits kind of close to home as chair of certainly Redding's
community safety partnership and the obvious letters that have gone out to our CSPs in
relation to the crime prevention fund asking them to get the bids in earlier and to scrutinise
indeed what they have already put in and what has already been approved.
You've gone a long way actually in answering that and saying that you're not willing to take these compromises here.
But, you know, and actually you did in part answer my questions, but I know that we're grappling with having to dig back in
or officers are grappling with having to dig back in and look through those funds that have already been approved to verify them.
And I feel like we're pulling up a lot of angst there.
I understand the situation here, but CSPs and the Crime Prevention Fund are set out
for very, very specific initiatives improving all kinds of things across all kinds of issues.
Violence against women and girls, domestic abuse, on and on.
And those funds really go to beat those things down, to really make a difference in our communities.
Is it fair that we're scrutinising these things that have already been kind of like signed off, that have already been signed off?
I understand the push for the February kind of thing, but is that actually a fair thing, or can we maybe even look a little more narrowly about how that's going to be allocated?
I'm sorry that you're feeling that that might have to take a hit in future years
and I'm really kind of concerned to understand whether those funds are going to be in for
future years or not or if you think they're at risk.
Sorry that was a little bit rambling.
I think you understand my anxiety there but thank you.
And obviously members come to this panel as members of the police and crime panel rather
Matthew Barber - PCC - 0:24:10
than representatives of their local council fighting for their corner.
I appreciate it will still nevertheless be in the wider context.
I'm sure you asked the question, Councillor Rowland, of the future of the Partnership
Fund.
I agree that that fund absolutely has value.
If it didn't have value, I wouldn't allocate the money in the first place.
We could do something else with it.
However, there are competing demands, and the challenges we've got to at the moment
with already circa £16 million being identified in savings, on top of the savings that many
of us on this panel who've sat in on these budget meetings year on year know we will
have.
The funding from the Home Office barely covers our inflationary increases and the pay rise.
And you'll recall from earlier in the year when we talked about the pay rise,
the little bit that we get for the police pay rise over and above what we have to still pay ourselves
is never quite right because they allocate it on a slightly odd formula
which doesn't compare to the exact number of offices.
So we have all these pressures building.
The partnership fund is not statutory, so it's a statutory requirement for us to cooperate
through the community safety partnerships, but it's not statutory for me to provide
£3 million to local authorities, which we don't in terms of I do it because I do value
those partnerships.
And so we're not saying, great, we're going to pull up the drawbridge.
The reason that we are asking local authorities to put in their bids, if you like, is so that
we can properly assess them.
We're not saying there's a cut off, you can't have any money.
what we're saying is, okay, let's have a look at what we've already committed.
I think in, with the exception of one local authority, this is unlikely to affect,
and I say this in my assessment at the moment, so don't take me as gospel for this,
but looking from what I've seen, I think there's only one, maybe two local authorities,
who've actually already got plans that were approved, that might have to be pulled back as a result,
given the level of funding we're looking at.
There will be other authorities who would like to do more,
who might not be able to, because we might have the future,
but that's the projects that haven't yet been committed.
But I do think, I'm afraid that this is a necessary evil,
because it is the trade -off between delivering those
offices which we're going to have to,
if all appears to be as we expect.
And I think the public would want us to.
I don't think it's a bad thing that we provide
another 53 neighbourhood offices.
I trumpet that as a great success,
and we're in a position in terms of only where we can
recruit those officers. However, it would just be nice if they were actually paid
for by central government who is promising and wanting to take the credit
for it. Whereas actually the bulk is being borne by local council taxpayers.
So we absolutely need to do that and there is that trade -off. So we are doing
it in a considered fashion and there is still some uncertainty. As I say, we don't
know. I said at the start I'm expecting this is not an ask from the Home Office,
this is a requirement. That's exactly how the letter reads to me but the Chief
Councilman and I have asked some questions of the Home Office. We haven't got any
answers back to those yet, despite the fact they acknowledge that legally I
have to set my preset by the 1st of February. So of course we don't know,
that's why we said the end of next month to get those bids in to be reviewed, but
I wanted to be really clear and open with people about what the context is
and what the like, you know, where we're working to now and that's why we've
written to the CSPs today so that they know what they're working to as well.
This is very open in what the pressures are, what the intention is and
obviously we'll see once we've had all the bids in and we've got some answers from the
end of it.
Do you want to come back, Councillor Rowland?
Actually just to thank you for that clarity and also thank you for understanding I'm not
doing ward work.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 0:27:46
I am asking in the wider context.
Cllr Karen Rowland - Reading Borough Council - 0:27:48
Thank you very much for that clarity.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 0:27:52
Councillor Fawcett, please.
I was going to ask something about some of the resilience in light of other headwinds
that might be faced and what capacity there is to respond to that.
but I think Councillor Fawcett is going to ask something along those lines.
Cllr Neil Fawcett - Vale of White Horse District Council - 0:28:08
Yeah, thanks. I think you've probably started to answer the question, but obviously the
budget is now under pressure and you've identified the need for further savings. Can you say
a little bit about what you anticipate some of those savings are likely to be in the next
Matthew Barber - PCC - 0:28:28
two or three years? Thank you. So in terms of what, not formally
identified because it's not in the budget papers, but the obvious thing that I talked
about is a 13 % reduction in the partnership fund.
That's one saving that is not identified formally for consideration, but I'm telling everybody
about it.
That will raise about 1 .2 million, which would contribute to go some way towards that particular
pressure around the neighbourhood officers.
And as I say, it would be a 13 % reduction.
The partnership fund was increased by 15 % the last financial year.
So it sort of puts us back to the place we were a little bit earlier.
There will be additional pressures coming down the road though.
And one of the issues which I think is, I'm just trying to find the right page in the
papers, page 46 I think of the bundle, one of the particular issues is about the drawdown
of reserves.
So clearly I don't know what those savings will be, they are by nature
they're unidentified savings. There are areas for us to look at. One of the
things we can't, there are some big projects that we're embarking on, an
enabling services review, which is looking at reworking a lot of the back
office systems that the force uses. Frankly they're out of date, licences cost a lot
of money, lots of people employ doing manual processes. So there is a saving to
achieved there but it takes investment now. We can't not do that investment just because
it's expedient to save a bit of money now. We have to spend to save for the future.
Those savings that are in the budget are, and I was discussing this with the Chief Constable
and his team the day before yesterday, are considered to be conservative estimates. So
there are areas where we have budget savings for particular areas and we expect, for example,
in some areas a sort of three quarters of a million pounds saving year on year.
An optimistic view is that that is between one and one and a half million
pounds saving year on year. So there are places where savings may well
materialise further. There are, I mean the the stark warning if you like, which is
not a place where we are, really clear this is not the intention, this is not
what we're looking at, but it it would be possible for the Chief Constable in the
future to say well we are going to have to move people from other roles. If the
office keep doing this year on year so you've got to put more and more into
neighbourhood, you would have to move people from other roles. The easiest
thing to do is to move staff out of posts and to make some redundancies. We
are not, just be really clear because staff may be picking up on some of this,
we are not planning vast ways of redundancies. We will need to make some
headcount reductions in terms of some of that automation process. The savings come
by getting rid of some people, undoubtedly true, but we are we are
looking at as a savings programme to make the organisation more efficient rather than at the moment just saying we're going to stop doing this function.
But there are areas where you could reduce headcount, particularly of staff, which would have an impact on performance.
So, for example, contact management. The vast majority of people in contact management are police staff.
Our contact management performance is really good at the moment.
It was saying that a couple of years ago this panel was looking at, because people were waiting a long time on 101,
I think in November the wait time for 101 was 40 seconds,
a little bit in the new year,
but well below the target of two minute that was set
and consistent gains for the last 12 months,
really good performance.
Some of that's been because of systems and technology,
but we can take some people out of there,
we can save some money if we need to,
and people's wait times to get through on 101 will be longer.
Now, I wouldn't welcome that,
but it is the sort of thing that it could be seen as non -critical.
I think it damages confidence in policing personally,
but nobody's going to die.
It's a non -emergency number.
You take a little bit longer to get through,
your performance falls, you save some money.
But it's not where I want the force to be.
So at the moment, we will resist those changes,
but that's, if you like, the risk of where we could be
in the future savings,
if we don't make the decisions we're making today.
I've seen a number of hands spring up.
I saw Councillor Morgan first, please.
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 0:32:38
Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:32:43
Thank you. Sorry, I've got a frog in my throat.
The MTFP states that the force expects to end the year with circa 80 officers above
its current target establishment, including the additional 68 NHP funded posts.
And then you're talking about the Home Office having this requirement for additional officers.
Do we not already have additional officers?
Well, very possibly, and this goes back to some of the questions about how they're being
counted.
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 0:33:13
So under the previous regime, so the new regime that's being talked about is only announced
on Friday, what happened previously was an extension of the police uplift programme,
where the home office would specify you have to have X number of officers recruited additionally
in your force.
Thames Valley has performed well on recruitment.
We've got an issue on retention later on and retention has thankfully improved a bit as well.
But actually TVP is one of those forces that has recruited well.
What's happened in the past is that we have over -recruited and we've managed to secure additional Home Office funding.
Yet other forces, previously certainly often the Met, have underperformed and effectively the Home Office have got a pot of money.
This is the number of thousands of officers we're going to recruit across the country and we've got some money attached to each of them.
I don't know, West Midlands have failed to recruit enough,
their money's unspent, we'll give it to Thames Valley,
they can have it then for the officers they've got.
So that's the approach that has benefited Thames Valley
in the past and more, we've actually recruited
over and above our allocation.
We bid again for that programme just around Christmas,
we bid for 40 officers and we were allocated funding
for four.
That would have then managed some of that cost, if you like, of the over -recruitment.
Over -recruitment is not an issue because it just means we cancel courses later in the year.
It means effectively officers are front -loaded.
You always need to recruit officers because there's always a turnover anyway.
So it's not that we're 80 over -establishment and we've got a huge cost that we can't accommodate
because it simply means that at some point in the year you'll have less courses and you'll recruit fewer,
but you get a benefit of having those people there earlier in the year rather than recruiting them in September or October.
But in an ideal world, I had hoped, we had planned, that actually there would be additional cash available
to fund some of those and keep them on the books.
So that would be great if they were fully funded officers as they have been in the past, or largely fully funded officers.
But at 40%, we can't afford to keep those people for future years.
Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:35:17
And just on that 40%, the Home Office haven't actually publicly publicised anything.
and so it would have been nice, I think, Chair, for the panel to have had a copy of that letter
prior to this meeting, but can I ask that you...
Very happy to share that and my reply.
Thank you, that would be very good.
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 0:35:36
I will also share, if it's helpful, a response from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners
from the Cross -Party Joint Leads on Finance, which helpfully breaks the figures down into
a per officer figure of about 67 ,000 it actually costs about 25 ,000 that they are offering.
Just makes it a little bit more stark but I will happily share those letters with the
panel after this. Thank you. In terms of context of where we
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 0:36:04
are at the moment that would be very very helpful. Councillor Howard please.
Cllr Mark Howard - Windsor and Maidenhead Council - 0:36:11
How would you counter the opinion that is shared with me by several residents in the
to find it very easy to change its structure at the bottom and to get rid of, shall we
say, the lower paying, lower value police, rather than looking at its senior structure
where there may be far greater uncertainty and far greater cost with employing somebody
as a, for instance, a chief constable or an assistant chief constable or something like
this. How would you counter that and say that the structure is relevant, it's been checked,
it's up to date and it's cost effective. Thank you, I would say it was wrong. I would point to
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 0:36:56
the most recent restructure that we did which actually had the biggest change in management
roles. If you look at the LCU changes, there were changes in officer numbers per area because people
moved around but actually that didn't impact significantly on the number of response officers.
during that restructure we have increased almost, well certainly about two
and a half, two and three -quarter times as many police officers in neighbourhood
than there were at the start of that. So during the restructure period we've
actually got more boots on the ground if you like, but the structure has changed
to mean that there are actually across the area less superintendents,
less chief inspectors in that sort of middle ranking bit. As far as the
very senior ranks are concerned you have to have a Chief Constable. They come at a
price though, they're not cheap. Assistant Chief Constables, so one of, well actually
two of the Assistant Chief Constables in Thames Valley Police are shared. So one
is responsible for counter -terrorism and serious organised crime because Thames
Valley Police is the lead force for those regional units. So they sit as a,
If you look at the Chief Officer team, they count amongst that number.
The vast majority of their cost is borne by separate budgets.
There is a Joint Assistant Chief Constable for the Joint Operations Unit.
That is currently a Hampshire officer, but again would show in a listing of joint officers.
But again, so cost of that is split.
I would argue that's quite a cost effective way of having a senior management team.
and if you look across the senior management team overall,
certainly last time I looked at it, and I confess I haven't looked at it for about a year or so,
but we haven't made massive changes in that time,
actually for a force of this size, we have quite a slim senior team of assistant chief constables.
There are other forces out there, if you look at the likes of the West Midlands, the West Yorkshire's,
who are of a similar size, who I think you will find have a larger management team,
certainly if you take out the shared posts.
And we'll be returning to those themes if we are looking at super police forces and
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 0:39:08
all the rest of it. If I can bring in Councillor Wilson please and then Councillor Sowell's
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:39:15
next. Thank you, Chairman. Mr Bower, I think one
of the significant developments in the budget and MTFP is the switch of reserves from the
and certainly looking at this programme,
I think you referred to it in your introduction,
there are only so many incremental changes you can make
that effectively end up robbing Peter to pay Paul,
if that's not an inappropriate thing
to use in a police setting.
But it is kind of what the step change activities are
that are going to secure the service
and financial future of the police force.
So whilst the reserve will be reallocated entering into this new budget year of £5 million,
there is currently no planned drawdown of that, presumably because there is a work programme that needs to go behind that.
But can you give us a... and therefore we don't have the benefits necessarily baked into the numbers.
but can you give us a sense of what that might look like in terms of what the step change
transformation look like as opposed to what we've seen previously, which is perhaps the
incremental plans, because I think that's fundamental to providing confidence for the
longer term. Obviously, the short term is balanced, but longer term it clearly is going
to have to – we're going to have to be doing things differently. So perhaps you could
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 0:40:57
I mean, the reserves do concern me, and I touched on this at the performance and accountability
meeting yesterday.
If you look at our sort of year -end reserves at the end of this financial year, we've got
£50 million.
Now, if you say to a lot of members of the board, and local authorities would be in the
same situation, of course, you say, well, I've got £50 million in reserves.
And a lot of people say, well, it would be great to have that money in the bank, wouldn't
it?
What are you complaining about?
That's brilliant.
Once you take out the fact that 15, 16 million of that is, if you like,
your almost statutory minimum that you need to keep to be a resilient organisation,
that gives you about £34 million.
So, on the basis that we are between £9 and £11 million short
on where we were expecting to be, that would last us about three and a half years
if we just drew down on resilience.
I know we're not suggesting that, but I just want to emphasise that to give context.
So I am concerned about our reserves position, not to the stage where section 151, who is
sitting right next to me, my target is always to get through these meetings without needing
to ask any technical questions.
So if he manages to stay silent, I'm happy.
So not to the stage where section 151 either of the four, sort of my office, is raising
the alarm bells, but we should all be concerned about that going forward, because the 34 million
proportion of it is identified for a significant number of things. It's been
touched on in the past that we don't get capital funding in policing so the
biggest bulk of that is estates. So one of the things that we will be
doing or are doing which will ease our financial pressure now is slipping some
of the estates programme. Now some of that stuff might have slipped anyway because of
delays and sadly we know big estates programmes can slip but some of that is
is essential maintenance that frankly if we don't do it is going to cost us more in the long term
because we're not maintaining our property. Some of it will have an operational benefit which won't
be realised. But it's a thing we can do at the moment is to slip that but there comes a point
beyond which you cannot slip it. I would say some of the changes that have been made in the past
have been more than incremental. So if you look at the restructure which has already been touched on
that's actually seen performance improve and that they are long -term structural changes to the force.
I think the biggest one which I've talked about already
is the enabling services review.
Significant amount of investment that will be part of that.
That's the use of these reserves over time.
That's some of the stuff that is still gonna continue.
And that should deliver us, as I say,
three quarters of a million pound savings
every year at least.
So those are big changes
and really should move the force forward,
not just in financial savings,
but the benefits of those are,
extracting management data for senior officers and senior staff and my office
can be a real pain. We have several systems which will give you conflicting
bits of data about the same thing and therefore someone has to manually
reconcile some of that data. Actually having a modern system which is up to
date which has data that we can rely on not only allows us to take some cost out
of the system but also just makes you better and more efficient and allows the
organisation to make better decisions. So I think that will be the big step
change in the short term is delivering that programme will save some cash and it will
make the organisation much more efficient for the future. So the financial decisions
we have to take in years three and four will be based on even better evidence so that actually
we can be really confident those are the right decisions.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 0:44:28
Thank you. It's a very good answer but it's not the answer to my question. Which is, so
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:44:32
So the back office improvements that you talked about are already funded, presumably.
My question was around the five million pounds that's been reallocated from the IMP reserve
to the strategic efficiency reserve, which is...
So the money's been moved, but it's not under this MTFP being deployed as yet.
So my question was, what sort of initiatives are going to provide that kind of step change
improvement beyond the back office which you've already mentioned but is not funded by this
reserve allocation? So they are by definition and I apologise I didn't answer that as directly as I
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 0:45:12
thought I had. So with regard that we don't know what they will be yet to some extent that's why
they're not allocated. I think there will be some operational changes which will require investment.
So the sorts of things that I can envisage and this is just me envisaging now if you want me
to speculate, we pay a significant fee each year
to NPAAS, the National Police Air Service.
The renegotiation with NPAAS has been ongoing
for many, many years.
Now, there is an argument there will always be the need
for some proper aircraft in policing,
but more and more, that work can be done by drones.
Now, we have a limited drone fleet, quite substantial,
but there is, when I say limited, limited in some of its capabilities.
There is work going on at the moment in other police forces
who are trialling on behalf of policing nationally.
Excuse me.
Some drones with greater levels of automation
that will work in more urban areas,
that will deploy from rooftops to respond to jobs.
Those are the things that will require some investment,
undoubtedly in training and infrastructure,
but potentially come not just with an operational benefit,
but actually with not paying millions of pounds each year to to empaths that
would be a significant change and that would be a very very operational one
going forward. So I think that plus and this goes a little bit to back
office about use of technology again looking at the digital strategy which we
examined at the performance and accountability meeting yesterday some
significant step forward in in technology partly through the use of AI
which I know scares some people, but actually just about how we're accessing some of the
information and using it within the organisation and how we are keeping up to date with the
devices that we need. For example, we know that our devices are going to be renewed,
police officers have all got laptops, do we need to get rid of laptops, do we need to
give them tablet devices which could actually be cheaper per unit, etc. But they will need
a capital investment at the time and that's not just about the point of the digital strategy,
is not just about the bit of kit, it's about looking at how is that device used within
the infrastructure we've got. So there's a wider digital strategy, the £5 million is
not allocated to doing that, but that will be part of it. There are unfunded projects
or unfunded ideas within the digital strategy that we would potentially look to use that
reserve for, which would generate savings.
Thank you. Councillor Sowell, please, and then Councillor Arnott.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 0:47:45
Yeah, thank you, Chair. I was interested to look at the public consultation responses
Cllr Geoff Saul - West Oxfordshire District Council - 0:47:51
and they showed strong demand for neighbourhood policing, crime prevention, road safety and
improved response times.
Notwithstanding the tight budget settlement, are there, it's a very good news storey that,
to put out there basically, are there visible improvements that communities can expect to
see in these priority areas?
I think there are.
And yeah, I think there is a balance to be struck here.
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 0:48:17
I think there is some good news if we can deliver 53 more neighbourhood officers, that
that is in line with what I think the public would want. It is what I would want.
I want it to come as a net gain rather than simply moving the
pieces around the board. But there is a gain within that and I think that
does address what is almost always the top concern. Next month the force will be
launching a roads policing tasking team which I think I've alluded to in
previous meetings which will look at some of the more proactive road safety
work as well as some of the things that we do in partnership with local
authorities. So there is something that addresses that. In response times, there
is actually, there is some good news actually, again it's in the papers for
our performance and accountability meeting yesterday. The
attendance at grade one times were, there's a target of 70 % for grade one
calls to be on time. That was sitting for the year at 69 % which was high in the
previous year, just short of target.
December, the last complete month, hit 70%,
so there is definitely an improvement
in performance on attendance.
We also looked at things like attendance for burglary,
which is one of the key issues for the public.
Actually, attendance at burglaries is significantly higher
than the general attendance,
and a really good response to those,
because it's one of the issues that people are very fearful
of, will anybody attend my burglary?
I can't say universally, but I get a surprising number
of people who actually contact me, even victims of burglary, are really impressed with the
response they get. So there is good news, but thankfully not many people actually have
to experience it themselves. I think there was another interesting nuance in there, and
this wasn't about attendance per se, but it's one of the things that's been raised, we might
want to look at it another time. One of the issues that can pull down the grade one and
grade two attendance is around domestic abuse cases because of the level of assessment that
made. So a call may well come in to the police control room. The call handle will immediately
allocate that as a Grade 1. The clock has started ticking from the moment that call came in.
However, there may well be a need to complete a DARA, a domestic abuse risk assessment.
That might be questions to someone over the phone, that might be a little bit of research about what
before an officer is allocated. And that is eating into the time of the attendance. Someone
may still get an urgent attendance,
but actually understanding the case
is part of what happens.
You also get some slight anomalies
because there's some nationally recorded figures.
If, so around burglary, for example,
and I've been on some of these jobs,
sometimes you will have some mental health issues involved
where someone will be a regular caller to the police.
They'll ring up, they'll say there's someone in their house.
It's recorded as grade one, it's a burglary.
The clock is ticking.
Actually, it's soon recognised
that this is a repeat caller who might have some mental health problems and
actually there's no point intending because nobody's been to property there
might be a health cheque the following day to make sure that person's okay.
That's still recorded as burglary grade one it doesn't get taken off the figures
if you like so that can that can impact the statistics but in answer to your
more tight question yes I think what we're doing through this budget will
maintain response times it will improve road safety responses and it will put
more offices in tomato.
So there is good stuff out there for the public,
but undeniably it comes at a cost of 15 pounds.
Thank you.
Councillor Ahmed, please, and then I've got a question.
Thank you, Shay.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 0:51:47
Thank you, Mr. Robert.
My question is around,
and thank you for providing additional context
Cll E Ahmed - Slough borough Council - 0:51:54
in terms of around the future of the partnership funding.
My only request will be
having a lot of uncertainty and concerns around
that we're facing budget pressures, et cetera. So we also know that a lot of authorities
have already planned for three years. So it would be great if there's a timeline set in terms of
having more clarity as by when we should know what will happen to some of these programmes of which
are already running and what the impact is in terms of future funding.
Yeah, certainly, as I say, and again, I appreciate that members are, I'm sure,
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 0:52:29
raising general points rather than on behalf of their individual authorities.
My hope is that as far as possible we don't have to cut into programmes we're already committed to.
That's not a guarantee but I think actually very few local authorities are in that position.
In terms of clarity, what I've reported to you verbally today from yesterday's meeting,
a letter has gone out to local authority partners today, so they've got as much clarity as that.
We've set out roughly where we think the funding envelope is without taking a final decision yet.
They already know and have known for a month or so a deadline of the end of February to
get those bids in.
We will turn that around as quickly as we can.
What we've still got a gap in, and why I can't find any more certainty than that at the moment,
I don't know from the Home Office the result of all their grant funding.
This is, frankly, a ridiculous position.
The Home Office acknowledged in their last letter that the 1st of February is the day
by which I statutory have to set this budget.
All right, we're a week ahead.
But not only have we got this, we don't know yet if we're getting funding for our violence reduction unit, for example.
That's over a million pounds worth of funding that we had last year.
We've had it in different levels for probably about the last six years now.
All the mood music is VRUs will continue in some form. I don't know.
So that might be an additional pressure that comes down to both the OPCC, Policing and Local Authorities who are partners within those violence reduction units.
We simply don't know. So I give you as much clarity and openness as I can.
You've got the figures here. I've updated on what's happened in the last week and
there's a letter going out to local authorities on that basis.
Thank you and following on from that, there's clearly considerable uncertainty
Cllr Geoff Saul - West Oxfordshire District Council - 0:54:13
in various aspects of this budget and you've set out helpfully the reserves
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 0:54:17
position. I wanted to just ask about the headroom and the resilience
that's contained in here.
So if for example, pay inflation were to go above
the assumption that's been made of 3%,
or something else comes in that's unforeseen at the moment,
how is that going to be funded and how close are we
to keep leasing priorities or statutory responsibilities
or other important programmes being put at risk?
So we're as comfortable as I can be.
It's not quite keeping me awake at night.
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 0:54:54
Future years probably are, if that's fair.
So if we look at the next financial year, which is what we're formally looking at today,
I'm comfortable that we will deal with whatever hits Terence Valley Police.
We have those reserves, £50 million at the end of this financial year that I talked about.
We'll be drawing down on those as planned during the year.
But we will still have tens of millions of earmarked reserves,
which we could utilise.
That comes at a cost, however.
There are programmes that we won't be able to do that will put additional costs to future
years, but we could do it.
We have our, if you like, our statutory minimum reserves, which exist for exactly that reason.
I mean, nobody ever wants to touch them, but the whole point of having them is that you
have some resilience and you have some headroom.
And there are operational decisions that can be made by the Chief Constable.
As I say, he could, I would strongly resist it, move officers to other roles to tick a box for the Home Office,
but it would have an impact on frontline policing.
Policing has to respond by necessity.
What I would not want us to get to a situation, I think we've all seen it in West Midlands, for example, of late,
have the risk of a major public order operation and the Chief Constable says,
well we can't do that because we can't afford it, we think it would be too
costly or too disruptive. No, the police have to police. It's my job to make
sure they've got the resources. So I'm comfortable for this year, we're okay.
There are risks around police pay. In recent years we have eventually got
funding from the Home Office for above expected pay rises. I always make the
point that often leaves us several hundred thousand pounds short, but it is
several hundred thousand pounds rather than several million pounds short.
So the next year or so is fine but not without concern.
What really worries me is if the trend continues.
So if next year were to be, we had, we didn't get a formal three -year settlement of how much Terence Valley Police had,
but one of the benefits that was touted about the Comprehensive Spending Review was that we knew what the amount going into UK policing was.
Given that year one of that has been nine million pounds short of where we're expecting,
I put very little reliance on what we think we know about years two and three, to be perfectly honest.
So there are real concerns about what happens in the future.
Yes, thank you, and whereas local government has certainty about some of the future pain,
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 0:57:22
there is clearly not that in this respect.
Councillor Morgan please, and then I want to come towards the recommendation.
Cllr Susan Morgan - 0:57:31
Yeah, I just wanted to ask completely separate to what we've been talking about, which is
the consultation responses to the budget. I don't know how we benchmark or how you benchmark
with other forced areas, but 4 ,800 responses does seem particularly low for Thames Valley.
So I just wondered in terms of comms, whether or not you think that that needs to be improved
going forward?
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 0:58:00
I'm always interested in getting as much as we can,
and perhaps then an ask through the panel to local authorities
is to encourage local authorities to share what we put out
through their channels as well.
Also, I'm always really clear that there's a statutory consultation
I have to do around the budget, and that's what we do,
and obviously we want to maximise what we get,
but it is not the be -all, nend -all, and I think this is probably fair
when local authorities are setting their budgets as well.
This is not a, you know, it's not a referendum
on policing budgets.
I have to set the level, yeah, the discussion we've had,
I feel I have really no option
other than setting a budget of £15.
How popular that is is neither here nor there.
What's helpful about it is that nuance
of where we should be putting our resources.
But that is also covered in so many other things.
So we have a year -round survey that we do,
it's available on our website.
We're starting on some public sentiment research,
along with a force on trust and confidence.
That generates some results for us.
Yeah, I speak to members of the public.
We look at the case work we get in.
It's about knowing Thames Valley,
and about understanding what people's concerns are.
So, neighbourhood policing, response times,
and roads policing being top,
I don't think are a surprise to everybody.
That's not to ignore that, it's to say,
it shouldn't be, nothing in this should be a surprise to us. So 4 ,000 or so people
responded to this, if we can increase that, that's great. But I think if it was
telling us that we didn't already know I'd be more concerned. I think Councillor
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 0:59:36
Arshad wanted to ask something also on the subject of consultation. Yes, thank
Cllr Lubna Arshad - Oxford City Council - 0:59:43
you chair. On section 10 of our paper here, it says that public consultation shows
strong demand for neighbourhood policing. I've had a question, is it possible you can answer
about neighbourhood policing and resourcing local teams in our built -up areas to tackle local issues
around drug dealing and ASP which is what the heart of our communities want ideally,
so that people are made to feel like safe and so they don't feel uncomfortable
walking around their areas. Can you give me a good answer to that please?
I'm not quite sure what the question is in there.
So the question is, what are we going to put in extra to help eradicate that fear so people
have less crime and less drugs in our areas?
Like you said about extra officers, for example.
So I'm thinking in terms of that or what...
So the short answer from the budget is there are 57 additional neighbourhood officers.
we need to there's a bit of a question mark over exactly where they come from
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:00:49
how many are new but in terms of the public want more neighbourhood officers to
deal with exactly those things that you mentioned this budget we expect to
deliver another 57 neighbourhood officers. Over the last three years we've
delivered about another 210 so I said back in 2003 with the Chief Constable
we've doubled the number of neighbourhood officers we've now certainly with this
increase will pretty much trebled neighbourhood officer numbers over a
year period so what we're doing about it in pure numbers is there but I think there are also some
other changes that we could touch about if we've got more time perhaps about the way neighbourhood
is structured within Thames Valley that neighbourhood officers will carry more of a
caseload now. They're not just there to do community engagement they are an integral part of the crime
fighting team. It sounds quite glib but when I talk to local sergeants and this probably particularly
applies in our market towns because it's easier to envisage but it applies
whether it's in an urban area or a very rural one. I would always as far as I
not being operational I would always encourage our sergeants to feel like
sheriff of their town that actually they take some real ownership of their
locality and professionally will not tolerate the criminality, the
anti -social behaviour that they know is a problem for residents. So what we will do
through the budget is increase those numbers of officers but I think there's a
to contribute to what neighbourhood policing is and actually TVP have helped to develop some of the
some of the training and some of the templates which are now being rolled out by the College
of Policing nationally. Councillor Arshad you wanted to come come back on that? Yeah just to
Cllr Lubna Arshad - Oxford City Council - 1:02:27
make this stronger what visible improvements can communities expect to see in the next year
with these priorities? 57 additional neighbourhood police officers. How many would that be if that's okay
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:02:40
in Oxford? I can't give that number because I that's a very operational
decision about how they go so I could give a number it would be you you would
probably should probably be telling me off for interfering in operational
policing if I were to do that so I wouldn't want to be back in front of you
for having done the wrong thing however there are five local command units
they're not all of equal size but if you take five local command units and you
divide 53 by five you get a rough idea of how many you might get.
Okay we might want to come back to that when we look at our work programme. Councillor
Howard please and then I'll move on to a recommendation.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:03:14
It was really just building on the point made by Councillor Arshad. Is neighbourhood policing
Cllr Mark Howard - Windsor and Maidenhead Council - 1:03:22
in the way that you're talking about as, shall we say, being the sheriff of the village or
the county town the right way to go. I mean we're finding that in our sheriffdom that
we're getting a lot of drive -through drug dealers, we're getting a lot of drive -through
people coming down the motorway, coming through even on the Olympic train which is very ecological
of them. But what we are finding is that these people are not local. They are passing through
and they're going to another place.
we may be we may be straying into straying into another topic. I don't think your neighbourhood plan is necessarily going to deliver that and how are we going to have confidence that these people will be able to address the problem.
Mark can I ask can I ask that we come back to that when we look at our work
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:04:08
programme please because there's clearly an appetite to look at some neighbourhood
related issues but we are trying to just focus on the budget for the next
financial year I think unless Mr. Barber you would like to come back with
of 30 seconds on that. I'll do my best for 30 seconds. I wouldn't disagree with the problem.
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:04:27
I still think actually having a locally empowered neighbourhood team who feel they have pride
in the area they work is part of the solution. However, I wouldn't expect them to do it on
their own. That's why we have serious organised crime teams, we have priority crime teams
in each area. Those drug gangs, whether it's drugs, acquisitive crime, those criminals
who operate beyond their area, you don't expect the neighbourhood team to do that. So it's
not a neighbourhood problem. They've got to enforce on the ground, but actually it's about
the wider network. That's why I'm concerned about the Home Office putting pressure on
other bits of the force, because whilst front and centre is neighbourhood that people will
see, the risk is that in order to backfill that, you take people out of priority crime
teams or somewhere similar, who will be doing exactly that bit to work in partnership with
the neighbourhood teams. Sorry, it was about 40 seconds.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:05:16
Thank you. Well, that was indeed about 40 seconds. Thank you ever so much for that.
We have had an extensive discussion on the challenges that are faced.
We have a recommendation from the task and finish panel here.
We can choose to accept that recommendation and support the precepts.
We can choose to make additional recommendations should we wish or we could choose to veto
it by two -thirds.
Clearly that would have consequences.
We have a recommendation in front of us.
Does anyone wish to move that?
Councillor Wilson.
Do we have a seconder for that?
Councillor Sowell I saw first.
Do we have anyone wishing to amend that recommendation?
I see no hands.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:06:17
Unless anyone has a burning desire to speak on it, can I just ask then for those in favour
of that recommendation which is that we are asked to support the police and crime commissioners
precept 42627 to increase the council tax precept by 15 pounds for band D which is a
5 .3 % increase as set out in the OPCC report about the fouryear medium term financial plan.
Can I see all those in favour please?
Yes, that's unanimous.
Thank you very much.
That's been accepted.
May I raise one slightly technical point?
Whilst you've recorded that, and thank you very much for your cross -party support,
I believe that normally, to make it a bit, we would normally have a letter, even with
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:07:01
no recommendations from the chairman, in the absence of the actual chairman whilst he's
I wonder if it could be arranged for a letter from the Chairman, because I think if we don't
hear anything in seven days it's by default, but it will just allow my CFO to confirm that
with local authorities for your billing meetings.
In between us we'll manage that.
Thank you very much indeed.
Thank you.

7 Evidence Handling and Case Collapses in Serious Offences

Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:07:22
We now move on to agenda item seven, and this was a report that came out of the discussion
we had in September around the issue of lost and missing evidence in rape and serious sexual
offence cases. And there's a summary and an attached report. There are a number of acronyms
in the attached report which hopefully we will have all had a chance to look at and
find out for ourselves. I'm always slightly wary of too many acronyms. But Mr Barber would
you just like to speak to the report briefly and then we'll take some questions.
Yes, certainly. Thank you to members of the panel for raising this. You know, clearly
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:08:08
a very serious issue if someone's been a victim of crime they expect their case to be dealt
with carefully and appropriately and for appropriate evidence to be properly looked after through
the evidential chain. I'll have to try and address some of the acronyms. There's always
a risk someone tries to catch me out on one of them. But I guess there's two things I
would say about maybe three things I would say about this report. One is I
don't intend to go into sort of individual case of what went wrong here
etc because that's an operational issue and my role is to make sure the force
are doing their bit but I think it provides some useful context. I think
firstly I would say there is I don't say good news because the report makes it
clear that there were three cases where police failures led to loss of
evidence that is three too many. However I do I do want to put that in context of
of what the panel was looking at
when this was raised as an issue,
that this was a widespread problem.
I think actually at the meeting it was sort of suggested
the case is ran into the hundreds.
The report identifies a significant number
in the sort of low tens, sort of tens of twenties.
Actually, the number that relate to policing are three.
So I just give that as context
into where the scale of the problem is.
I make no attempt to answer for the CPS or the courts
or any of the bit of the system about their issues.
What I think is really important is making sure that where cases such as that are identified,
that there is a proper internal investigation to understand what has happened and to make sure
those things don't happen again. Hopefully what you get from the paper is the flavour
there is a fair amount of rigour in terms of identifying cases and understanding what's happened.
I guess my final point would be, and I don't think this is a reason not to do anything
in these cases, is potentially a word of caution with anybody looking at these problems about
solving things that have gone wrong.
We should absolutely look at them and where there are systemic changes we should look
to address them.
However, there is always a danger that you take a bad case and make a new rule out of
it and create a new bureaucracy.
And there are lots of bits of bureaucracy and policing that will have come about because
some things went wrong at some point in the past.
And we just need to be careful when we impose a new rule
or a new regime that it is proportionate and justified.
A more current example, if you think of national government,
might well be where the Ministry of Justice
introduced some new rules for prison officers
after some unlawful releases
and it just added a load of extra forms
and the next week people are still being released
because people are busy filling in forms.
It's not always the bureaucracy that fixes it,
about making sure people are doing the right thing. So we need to look at has
there been a systemic failure, is there something sensible and proportionate we can do
to fix them and in those cases we absolutely should and the report says
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:11:03
the rest hopefully. Thank you very much for that. Can I take any questions please?
Councillor Pinnell. Thank you chair and thank you Matthew and I'm pleased to
Cllr Helen Purnell - Bracknell Forest Council - 1:11:11
hear that there are only three cases of which it was the police act. Three too many.
A few too few, of course, three too many. What can you do to reassure the public that
victims are not going to lose access to justice because of this evidence problem? It's three
cases, but what assurance can you give that that's going to improve?
So I think without wishing to sound like empty words, what hopefully the paper shows from
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:11:47
from John Capps is the process that's in there
about reviewing those cases.
So what I would want to be the case,
what I think is evidence is the case
and what I will ensure remains to be the case
is if you've got this.
RASO is a particular issue that was being looked at,
but clearly it doesn't actually matter
whether it's your stolen bike or your RASO case.
Clearly one case is much more serious,
but if you're a victim of crime,
you want the police to deal with that.
So making sure that the lessons are learned from that
is really key.
So in terms of this sets out a process.
I mean, another area that we look at regularly
is through cases that go to PSD.
And a number of these cases may well end up,
the professional, sorry,
another acronym, the Professional Standards Department.
And we do, through my office, do several things.
So we spot cheque PSD cases,
as well as dealing with reviews of those cases,
when appropriate, when a victim,
when a complainant wants that,
and sometimes they are often victims.
but we also look at, if you like, the learning logs.
So there are patterns that come out of the complaints
and then there are also specific learning points.
Some of them will be completely unrelated to this world,
but you can't sort of say, well, we're only going to look at those.
Within that is one of the areas in which we will pick up
some of that learning to make sure it is actually done.
We also have, so the Deputy Chief Constable has an improvement board
which will look at recommendations from HMRC, from the IPC, from PSD, etc.
All of those external scrutiny bodies which will pick things up,
as well as internal recommendations will come through, as well as internal audit.
My office have a seat at the table around that, so we scrutinise that very long list of recommendations
and help with the prioritisation of those, because there will be some things,
you get a list of hundreds of recommendations.
Some things frankly will be really low priority and will cost a lot of money to
deal with and I will quite happily say as police and crime commissioners you know what
I've got the forces back if we don't do that thing now because it really doesn't
matter it's window dressing. What we need to do is this stuff that will actually
affect victims of crime. So probably all I can do to reassure people is
outline that process and the points at which we've got some oversight.
Thank you. Anyone else? Councillor Morgan.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:14:04
Cllr Susan Morgan - 1:14:08
Delays in digital forensics and difficulties securing expert witnesses contributed to some
of the cases collapsing. What improvements are being made to strengthen these areas and
avoid future disruptions?
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:14:25
The expert witnesses one, again ultimately it will be an operational matter depending
on what the case is and what the subject matter is, the expertise, but there is a bit of a
supply and demand problem about the availability of individuals and I have
certainly come across cases where part of the challenge might be you've got a
very limited field of experts and you might have an expert that's already been
engaged by the defence and therefore isn't available. Now usually those expert
witnesses are being procured by the CPS. It's not something that's come up at our
local criminal justice board meetings in terms of an issue as a system we need
to look at, a bit larger one for the prosecution.
Digital forensics, we have had over the years
some significant investments there.
We've obviously, in terms of a big capital expenditure,
we've got the new forensic centre being built over at Bicester
which we'll own from nature this year.
That's only the building, but it does allow something
of an increase in capacity.
There's also some work that's being done by the region.
Again, the region sort of sits under Thames Valley Police,
but we put more resource from the
South East Regional Organised Crime budget.
They have some, not just some capacity,
but some capabilities, there's some real experts
that are in that team.
So we are able to use SirocQ to do some of that
digital forensics examination.
There is however, there's no point pretending,
there is a massive demand for digital forensics,
one that is really difficult for us to keep up with.
Just the volume of data that's one of these things
then everybody's got one and I've got two.
So, you know, it's huge.
Part of the challenge in that comes with disclosure.
There's the bit that the police might need
for the investigation and then there's the amount
that needs to be supplied to defence through disclosure.
Not a solution to this,
and doesn't necessarily answer this point.
I have to say, I do have a quite strong view,
particularly on redaction,
but also to some extent on the disclosure.
of course Defence should have disclosure that they need, but I think there is
definitely some mischievous disclosure requests that I think would be there.
That and the redaction process, which is another really intensive part of
disclosure, because if someone's asking for disclosure a lot of stuff you've got
to go through and redact it. My view is that actually the law needs to change to
allow freer transfer information at least between the police and the CPS so
that we take the burden of redaction away from the police. We've solved that
problem in some ways, we've got technology in there that does it and so
it's fallen off everybody's agenda but it's something I've spoken to
ministers and shadow ministers about, to say actually if you want to save some
money in policing my best guess may be 50 to 100 million pounds. We don't have
police officers doing as much manual redaction as we did five, ten years ago
because we've got some software so everybody thinks it's fixed but we're
paying loads of money for software licences and it still takes them some
time to put that stuff into the software. It's a nonsense for most people they can't
freely share information. In terms of, I can't say it's specific to these three cases, but
in terms of increasing a risk of lost evidence, part of that is going to be the more you fiddle
around with stuff in the middle. The easier you make it for the police to transfer evidence
to the CPS, that's got to be better for everybody.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:17:41
Thank you. Anyone else wishing to ask a question on this or are we happy to note the, the,

8 Recruitment & Retention - Update

Okay. Thank you very much. Agenda item 8 is an update on recruitment
and retention. This was requested a year ago. And I can see looking at the data why it was
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:18:03
requested a year ago. And it's an interesting and helpful report.
It gives us some useful stats. Perhaps, Mr. Barbour, you can just talk us
through the underlying storey here.
I'm trying to give a long introduction,
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:18:19
but I think, have we solved the problems?
No, look at the data.
Are things improving in a significantly better way
than they were a year ago when we were looking at this?
Absolutely.
I mean, talking to the Chief Constable,
he always said when he was first appointed,
one of the things that would keep him awake at night,
if he was asked that question, would be retention.
That would not be the case now.
There is still work to do.
In terms of what's changed
and where I still think there are reasons for optimism,
and this came up again at our performance and accountability meeting yesterday.
There have been some changes to the entry routes into Thames Valley Police.
I hesitate to make it say harder to get into Thames Valley Police
because it's not as if standards were ever dropped, but the routes in.
So, applicants are now encouraged to go on a ride -along before they apply.
and an enhancement of the interview process.
So, reintroduction from the days of the police uplift programme
of upfront face -to -face interviews,
often with much more senior PPI.
Friends of mine who I knew were looking to join Thames Valley Police
who would have an interview with the Chief Superintendent
or on one occasion the Chief Constable.
So, this is not just about putting people through on volume.
Why does that matter to retention?
Well, it's actually about putting people off who will say,
the job isn't for me.
That's not, and I'm really careful when I say this before,
I don't mean that as a criticism of them as individuals.
Policing is a really hard job.
Anybody who wants to do it, fair play.
Some have already done it.
But it is a difficult job and it's not for everybody.
And if you look at the volumes of voluntary resignations
that we were having early on,
and you look at some of the data around
why people were leaving,
and we've discussed this many times,
there isn't much evidence to say people thought that
Thames Valley Police was a horrible place to work or they were being bullied by their line managers or
all those sorts of things that we would all be really concerned about in the culture of an organisation.
What was making people leave was it was a really tough job and it was the workload.
There's a little bit that can be done about workload but we've talked about some of the resourcing issues we've got.
So what we've seen are some significant improvements and yesterday I was looking at the data around
the timing of the resignation, slightly different data set to what we've got here.
but those people who are still in their probationary period,
so the two years, many of those,
if you're still in your probation period now,
you started two years ago,
and you've got quite a long lead up
by the time you actually get into Salemstead
for you to start your training
in terms of your application process.
So probably they're people who were contacting the police
two and a half years ago to say,
I want to be a police officer.
So they're sort of still under the old regime,
if that makes some sense.
Now that's not to say, well, it's not a problem,
it was a different time,
but I think we have seen an improvement.
I don't think we're at the end of that improvement.
I don't think we've plateaued yet.
I think we should still see, continue to see that.
The other point which is,
and there's some reference in there
in terms of some of the stats,
is around the dismissals for either Reg 13
or misconduct, et cetera.
Again, I, a much smaller proportion of those,
voluntary resignations was the main bit. But I make no apology for the fact, and
I've said this before in different forums, that Thames Valley Police will
dismiss people in their probation if they are not the people we want in Thames
Valley Police. Of course it would be great if we could stop everybody getting
in and wasting our time and resource on training, that's part of that entry
route. But these are not people who failed vetting. You know, some of the
headlines you saw from the Met a couple of weeks ago, you know, this is
not where Thames Valley Police hasn't done vetting on people. They're all vetted,
they've come in, we found behaviours we think are unsuitable, I would rather have an organisation
with a strong culture that says no, you're off, than we say do you know what, we need the numbers,
hang around for a bit and we'll see if you get any better. I say that a bit glibly but I think
it's really important that we uphold those standards, I think the data supports that.
Thank you for that. I've got a number of questioners down here, I'm going to come
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:22:26
first to Councillor Wilson if I may because I know he's got to leave.
Thank you Chairman. I suppose I'm trying to understand why policing is a very hard
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 1:22:41
job but why in Thames Valley is it regarded as a disproportionately harder
one and you picked up some of the points one might point to so the report
says it's not pay. You talked about the fact that it's not down to culture and
And I suppose reading the report I'm struggling a little bit to see why the matter, you know,
why the difference between Thames Valley and the National Picture, and I understand the
National Picture isn't average, and they'll be higher and lower than that, but I'm trying
to understand the systemic issue that we're trying to address here.
if it's not culture and it's not pay, and I'm not...
Policing may or may not be the same across the country, but, you know,
what is the fundamental difference?
So, I think there's two things I would say and answer that.
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:23:41
One, I don't think I did say in that last answer it wasn't about pay.
I don't think pay is the big thing, but if I...
I'll come back to the pay in a moment, because I think it is a bit of a factor.
I think the thing I would point to is that entry route.
That is the big thing that I would say is,
again, not a lowering of standards,
but the volumes we've had through.
And although these are about percentages,
Thames Valley has probably had more people going through,
not just percentage -wise, but numerically,
were a large force, with the exception of the MET,
although their proportional increases were lower.
We probably had the top or the second top, I would think,
in the amount of recruitment
over the last three or four years.
because, and it was alluded to earlier,
we have at times over -recruited and then secured funding
from other forces who couldn't recruit to top them up.
So we've done our allocations and some,
which is what leaves us in a very good place, to be fair.
So I think there's a little bit in volumes,
and I do go back to that, the entry route issue,
people coming into the organisation,
perhaps being oversold what the job was going to be.
A few too many episodes of the bill
and not necessarily getting the really difficult stuff.
You know, the dead bodies, the delivering the death message,
you know, this is not fun stuff.
The long hours, and added to that,
although I think our resilience is much better,
if you go back to some of the conversations we've had,
so this was, again, a wider problem in the past,
but I think it's related still to the entry route
and the expectations.
We had the conversation about neighbourhood officers
being abstracted to do response work
about two, three years ago.
It was a really significant issue
because response teams were really overstretched.
If you're coming at a time
when the organisation is overstretched,
by the law of averages,
you're gonna end up doing more unwanted overtime.
You're gonna be later off shift.
You're gonna be more to all those pressures are greater
because of the volumes.
Now, is that specific terms of value?
Of course, policing is under pressure across the place,
but so I can't speak for them necessarily,
but that was a particular point in time we had
where we know response,
which is where most of those recruits were going,
were really under pressure.
Now, I do no disservice to any response officers
out there at the moment, it's still hard work,
but when I went into, I gave this example,
I went into Reading Police Station two and a half years ago
and joined a shift briefing,
and there were about five officers
who were giving me a really hard time
about how difficult it was
and how it was never that good in the old,
it was much better in the old days
and there weren't enough of them.
and I went to Reading Police Station about a year ago,
and as I walked past the briefing room,
it was standing room only for the briefing
because there were more officers in there.
Now, it doesn't mean that everybody's overwhelmed
in Reading and they don't feel under pressure,
but I do think if you come in,
it was particularly difficult in that period of time.
I think the other thing about pay though,
which does relate, is we have the south -east allowance,
which allows us to pay, I think it's 3 ,000,
we've gone up to the maximum now, a little bit more.
But the problem with the pay structure is it's fixed.
So if you look at the chart on page 117, for example,
and there are exceptions
because Cumbria is slightly worse than us.
But if you look at Thames Valley,
and the best is Northumbria,
well, you only get 3 ,000 pounds more
for working in Thames Valley and Northumbria,
and the cost of living difference is massive.
So are you willing to stay in that job
under the pressures you've got?
when we've also, in Thames Valley, got a pretty buoyant job market.
I make no comment on what the employment market is in Northumber, I genuinely don't know,
but actually there's a pretty good job market in Thames Valley.
And if you look at some of our rather sort of neighbouring forces, but in different regions,
and I'm trying to find one that's appropriate, yeah, Northamptonshire,
not massively, but a little bit better than us, just over the border, it's a slightly different
you're outside of that sort of London centric bit.
So I think pay is an issue,
because with the exception of the South East waiting,
it's fixed across the country.
And that does mean that effectively it feels much better.
You feel much better paid as a police officer in Northumbria
than you do in Aylesbury probably.
So I don't think it's the biggest deciding factor
because ultimately at that probationary period,
most people know what they're getting in for.
But still our problem has been, if you look through it,
The reason I focus on that entry period is our biggest problem with retention has been
those in the early years. Once you've got people for five years, then they're in for
life. I exaggerate. I bet you do get some anomalies. But broadly speaking, once you've
captured people, they fall in love with policing.
Just to, I think I...
Oh, don't tell me I didn't answer it again.
No, no, no, no.
I tried.
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 1:28:23
I think I read in the report that it was rather than you saying it was not clearly pay -related
So, but like you, I did look at those,
that dispersion of the different forces
in the different areas, and I saw Northumbria
at one end and Cumbria the other end,
and I kind of, okay, I can't see an obvious pattern
in terms of regionality here
that would necessarily support the pay piece.
But just to be clear, I believe I read it in the report
rather than your.
I don't think it's an overriding factor.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
And apologies for needing to leave, thank you.
Thank you very much, Councillor Wilson.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:28:57
I've got a number of other people who've indicated, I mean I'd be interested in following that up potentially if we've got time.
Councillor Rowland please.
Cllr Karen Rowland - Reading Borough Council - 1:29:10
Thank you. I'm conscious of time but I do want to bring up a point that has always been discussed in relation to this.
And this is especially around ethnic minority recruits and then also female recruits, ethnic minority women.
and page 124 in your pack kind of outlines this.
Now it looks like, and we're given a graph,
that it looks like ethnic minorities took kind of a blip up
as proportion of the overall recruits in 21 -22,
but as proportion of the recruits,
it looks like they've gone down to November 25.
We also have a student officer recruit graph up above that,
which shows things are coming up a little bit more
with ethnic minorities.
But my question is,
if we were on some kind of path in 21 -22,
which showed that that was actually becoming more positive,
where have we kind of stepped off the mark?
Was that COVID -related, those numbers for 21 -22 recruits,
or where have we kind of gone off mark?
I'm not doing ward work again, but we do know that Redding and other urban areas
across Timms Valley are extremely diverse, and that diverse connexion within our police,
especially our neighbourhood policing population, is so, so critical.
I think about domestic violence, domestic abuse situations.
If I don't have a female, perhaps, ethnic minority,
we just simply may not be able to capture that case.
So that's my concern and that's my question.
Is there something we can go back to and try harder?
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:31:00
So I might just challenge on that last point a little,
but I'll come on to that perhaps.
So we want to have a workforce which represents
the the community that turns by police I think everybody would would agree with
that that certainly be the intention of the force I haven't done my maths quick
enough to look at actually how in terms of the proportions if I look at the bar
chart for the year 22 23 and look at how it goes down yes the the numbers go down
but the overall numbers are going down as well so apologies I haven't got my
calculator out quick enough to look at I think it's a slightly disproportionate
reduction but we're talking really small numbers here that maybe we're talking about the difference
between 32 officers to keep it in proportion, maybe it should have been about 38 officers,
something like that. So I think when we get into those really small numbers it's hard to say
there's a really clear difference. There has been an awful lot of very specific engagement so I
think one of the differences has probably been the volumes of recruitment effort if you like. So
So back in 22, 23, we had a significant number of new recruits, and you had a whole host
of routes for recruitment.
So we did some specific ethnic minority events to try and get people in.
We did the job shows, we joined other people's job shows, etc.
Now our recruitment profile looks a lot more like the sort of standard we
sort of settled down not because we didn't want to do particular things but
actually found what works we've got a much steadier stream of recruitment so
you have Thames Valley Police job shows that will go around Thames Valley they
are pretty regular events now we often use the same venue we produce less in
other job shows that happen to be there because we found that at the Thames
Valley Police only ones work quite well because it gives you the opportunity to
dogs in and all those sorts of things that make it a bit more exciting for people. They've
worked well. So I wouldn't say it's a step away from a deliberate strategy to do it.
I think we've perhaps reduced the number of ways we're going out and reaching to people.
I would genuinely want to have a proper look at the numbers to say if we think we've got
a problem there, because we still see a gradual move towards a much more representative number
over time. And I think it's difficult when you're talking about numbers as sort of 2025
to be prescriptive about it because you risk then getting into the point of
saying well we want new individuals and that's where we lower bars to let people
through and I think that's where forces have got into problems. We
shouldn't lower the bar for people whatever the colour of their skin because we're
aiming at a particular target, we want the best people and if your applicants
are at the level of sort of 2025 then you're talking about really
marginal numbers when you talk about human beings and their qualifications
and abilities. I wouldn't want to read too much into that. I will happily take that way and look
at the proportions a bit more and have a conversation with recruitment. I think it may
well be we just ran some very specific events in the past that aren't necessarily being done at the
moment, not for a want of doing it, doing them per se, but because of the effectiveness of recruiting
people. If you look at the number, you run an event, how many people you get from it, and you run another
event. We've just streamlined the system a lot more. Just to challenge slightly on your last
point, I can absolutely appreciate on a human level having people who can relate to victims of
crime, which I think is what you're alluding to. You've got a female victim of domestic abuse from
an ethnic minority and you're saying, well, if you actually you've got someone from that
same ethnic minority, you might get better engagement.
That sounds perfectly reasonable
until you get the white woman
who's a victim of domestic abuse,
who says, I'm not speaking to that black officer,
because she's not from my ethnic group.
And I think we would all agree
that would be really problematic.
So I think what we want to achieve,
what we should be wanting to achieve,
is a police force that broadly, across the board,
looks like the people they serve, rather than the risk of,
because it was a point that was made by,
I forget exactly who, by members at the last panel meeting,
where we had a recruitment picture,
we were talking about recruitment again,
and we had a recruitment picture of a female officer
with a child, and I was criticised for saying
well I was stereotyping, but actually panel members said,
but actually we'd quite like female officers
from ethnic minorities to go and speak to female victims
of domestic abuse from ethnic minorities.
I think that's the same risk.
So I'm not saying we shouldn't,
I'm not saying there's not some human benefit to that.
You find someone who's got a language barrier,
if you've got an officer who speaks that language,
obviously you match those people up.
But I want the public to have trust and confidence
in anybody who attends their crime.
So I would be really worried if a police officer
of any gender or ethnicity turned up at a crime
and we took a decision of saying,
well, the member of the public doesn't want to speak to you
because of the way you look or appear,
and we'll say we'll send someone else.
that would not be a great place to be.
// I can see a number of hands. Karen, do you want to come back very, very quickly, please.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:36:16
Cllr Karen Rowland - Reading Borough Council - 1:36:19
// Thank you. I would appreciate a report on that. I agree that it does look very marginal
but it's really a number to watch. So I would appreciate any kind of feedback on that.
And speaking further about some of these individual events that we might go to. Thank you.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:36:35
// Thank you if we can capture that in the minutes. There's clearly an interest in the
Cll Ejaz Ahmed - Slough borough Council - 1:36:41
I think that was a very interesting example in terms of comparing that with North Cumbria
with 3K difference from here.
So very interesting.
I'm not sure how many roads they have for offices to move over there.
But my question was around just looking at the stats in terms of the considering you've
been in the office for about four years at least now and people resigning within
the first five years that number in the last report if I'm not wrong was around
67 percent and now he's going to 72 .8 percent so isn't that isn't that not
cause of a concern for you and you know like what steps you have taken in your
first and second term to try improve the retention I mean it seems like we be
able to recruit a lot more people, but we are unable to retain people. And I understand
and appreciate where the challenges are, but I was hoping that we would have seen a better
trend going upwards in terms of retaining more people, but that clearly not seems to
be the case. Can I just ask which set of data you're looking
at? I didn't quite capture which graph you're looking at.
I'm looking at the, yeah, more specific around
the number of people to be able to return.
I'll just quickly open up my notes again.
Officers with under five years service
make up 72 .8 % of all resignations.
That's mentioned in the report.
But that figure was 67 % in the previous report.
Yeah, okay, sorry.
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:38:24
Yes, so firstly, I'm going to sound quite pleased with that,
because that's, without having quite found the page,
so that's a percentage of the total number of people
leaving Thames Valley Police,
at what stage in their career are they?
It's not about total volumes,
the overall retention has improved,
and we're seeing less people leaving from all areas,
but what it's saying is, of those people who are leaving,
it is generally those people who are new in service.
The alternative would be that you've got more,
if that percentage went the other way, if that percentage had gone down in the last few years,
and it's very kind of you to connect it with my term in office, I don't think I'm either that
horrible to individual police officers, they're resigning or that nice, they desperately want to
stay. But I think if it had gone the other way and that number was going down, what that would mean is
more police officers who would serve more than five years were deciding to leave policing.
And I think that would be more concerning. There are obviously reasons why people leave policing,
personal reasons and they've just had enough and it is again a
difficult job however long you've served and personal circumstances etc. But I
think the general view would be that we don't want people leaving at all unless
they're dismissed for doing bad things but it's much easier for the
organisation to bear and much more understandable that you lose people
early on because they're those people who however hard you try will find the
job isn't for them. People leaving after five years, I said to the Councillor you
know once you've got them for five years you've got them for life broadly
speaking. That's much more of a worry to me. Those are people who might be leaving because
they don't find that they're supported through their promotion aspirations, for example,
or they're not happy with where they're being posted in the force and that causes problems
with their family. Or it might be that families develop and people have different career
aspirations and they move on. But I'm much more concerned, and actually if you go back a few years,
we did have a bigger cohort of people leaving. Now I said at the time, I thought that was a
a delay from COVID because you had people during COVID who either felt, now is not the time to leave
my moderately well -paid public sector job with a pension and go off and do something different
that I was going to do when everybody's unemployed. And there was also a lot of mentality of,
we're in a crisis, police love a crisis, I'm going to stay and help out. And there were both of those,
which meant there were a number of people who would have retired, probably retired, or resigned
for set up a business, do whatever they want during those COVID years who didn't and then
we got a glut of them. So my short answer, that was a long version, but my short answer
is I'm actually quite happy that that proportion has changed in that direction because it means
we're seeing less people leaving the organisation after five years.
And I think just following up on that briefly, the looking at the table which is in there
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:41:04
and the reasons for leaving, there's quite a lot in there around impact of job on personal
life, work stress, burnout and so on but particularly for probationers the impact
of the job on the personal life. Now that could that could mean one of any number
of things and perhaps when when we get get a report on this again we can have a
little bit more clarity on what's being said in those in those exit interviews
to understand the reason for leaving because it's something about the
people's expectations when they sign up not be not being met that is something
which is but there is potential to to look at I've seen council so council
Arshad but she's just stepped out of the room and council Pinnell thank you chair
Cllr Helen Purnell - Bracknell Forest Council - 1:41:55
and so burnout workload and work -life balance are still accounted in 28 % of
why people are leaving and that is affecting both probationers and
non -probation as experienced officers.
What steps will be taken to ensure
that frontline capacity improves
so that workload pressures reduce
and retention strengthens?
Yeah, so it's an area I think we should be concerned about
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:42:21
and I won't offer a panacea to this,
but I'll look at things that have changed
in the last couple of years,
which may lead to some of the improvements that we've seen,
even though those are current stats you've got.
We've seen an increase in the number of officers in response teams,
that's arguably the highest pressure in terms of workload.
Well, those teams are up to strength and that is a very different position
to where we were when we were having this conversation two or three years ago.
They were under strength even after you brought neighbourhood teams in on Suconman.
You've also got neighbourhood teams up to strength, so some of those,
we think the response is absolutely the high pressure of it,
but someone who is normally a neighbourhood officer,
who is either A, not able to do what they consider to be their day job, and B, is being
asked to go and do the response stuff, is also going to suffer burnout. They won't feature
in a figure about response because they're in a different team nominally. So having those
additional officers, having grown the force, is absolutely stuff that will have made a
difference and will have helped. There's also been a shift in what jobs are allocated. So,
for example the the allocation of grade ones and I won't quote this off the top
of my head so I will get it wrong but the number of jobs which are allocated
as grade one for that immediate attendance has been changed so there are
that so the volume of grade ones has continued to rise because we've had an
increase in demand but the if you like the proportion of jobs shifts a little
bit so there is a that's it that was intended partly to make sure that
officers could attend that you keep the performance figures up so you attend the
most important jobs as grade ones. But actually that shift is also should take
a little bit pressure off. Now it's a little bit, this is incremental.
Neighbourhood officers carrying their own workload will take a little bit of
off of response. The creation of the Assessment Investigation Unit, so that
takes, so the volume of shoplifting jobs for example, will be carried by AIU. It
will still be a response officer who's dealing with the 999 call, it might be a
the neighbourhood officer who's going to do some of the enforcement stuff.
But there's a lot of volume work which has been taken up by AIU.
Now they are still often police officers, they will still be having stressful jobs,
but it is much more office -based role than the frontline.
So has that solved the problems?
No, it absolutely hasn't, it's still a really difficult job.
But those are probably three things that I would point to that would say we have sought
to take the pressure off.
Now, if you found an officer who had been serving for the last six or seven years, and
if they were charitable and not using rose tinted glasses, I hope, and I may be proved
wrong, but I hope they would recognise there have been some changes which whilst volumes
of work coming into policing may have increased, the way things are balanced has been in the
right direction. However, of course, if you're a new recruit who joins now, you haven't seen
it, it might have been worse two years ago, but that's still the volume of work you've
got. So improvements only go so far. Yeah, does that help?
Yes, it does.
Sorry, there was another point, which was the future, just looking at that. I am still
concerned. We talked about those numbers. One solution, which I think other forces will
do is just reduce resource elsewhere. I want to resist us doing that too much, but that
just puts pressure on a small number of people, doesn't it?
Yeah, and clearly this is a subject which I think there's an appetite to return to probably
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:45:46
on broadly an annual basis and Carlin's already made some notes in terms of the
work programme. I've seen Councillor Arshad indicated earlier and then...
Yeah, I'm going to reserve my right for later.
Thank you. Anyone else want to come in on this briefly, conscious of time?
Councillor Harold.
Two very brief questions. What's the cost of training a junior officer for a year?
Cllr Mark Howard - Windsor and Maidenhead Council - 1:46:11
and the second one is are we doing a follow -up call
possibly a year later to find out where they've gone
and what they're doing and therefore we can identify
if they've all gone to work in Cumbria,
then maybe there might be something we can do
to address that by building a lake or something.
Given somebody lives just down the road
from where Thames Water are planning on building
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:46:37
a massive reservoir, which is a hugely unpopular proposal,
I'm not sure that building a lake is going to be the solution to our recruitment problems.
Not one that I would recommend.
In terms of the figures that I'm just double checking something for a moment, if you will bear with me.
The headline figure for recruiting, paying and equipping a new officer is £67 ,000.
That's their pay, their own costs, their uniform, a proportional cost of a car.
they don't want to do a car each, but the more officers you've got, the more cars you need,
that sort of stuff, lockers, things like that.
That's the headline figure.
Now, police officers, even at PC rank, for time served, will get increments in pay.
So that's a sort of initial year cost.
It does grow.
If I say quickly, that does a disservice to those people who think their pay doesn't grow quickly enough.
But, you know, over five years, you will be, maybe five or six years,
you'll probably be at the top of the pay scale for some of those roles.
So that figure grows as the salary grows and the on -costs grow.
That compares with the, going back to the 40 % that we're getting from the Home Office,
so £29 ,000 compared to a 67 is what we're being offered at the moment.
So that's your cost of a new one.
You don't want to lose them because they're costing you a lot of money.
I know you were asking about training, I'm afraid I don't have that broken down.
I don't think we do a follow -up per se with individuals.
However, there are efforts within recruitment to recruit former police officers.
They're still going through training because things will change.
So, if people around the room, whatever, fancy rejoining, always keen to take them.
And so, in terms of whether people are moving to Cumbria,
we would know, so the statistics would show transferees.
You don't know if someone's resigned from policing and then gone back in,
but you would know if someone's transferred between police forces.
we used to see a reasonably significant shift to the Met because they would pay
more. I think we break even at the moment because they pay a little bit
more, nobody wants to work at the Met to cancel each other out. Particularly
things like firearms. So firearms officers, as you know, very controversial
some of the issues in the Met at the moment about firearms and how well
they're supported. But equally, certainly if you're in protection, Thames Valley
has the largest number of protected people,
certainly over the terms of
the joint operations unit,
we have the largest number of
protected people outside London.
So if you're in protection,
and you want to progress your career,
you want to go to the Met,
Royal and Diplomatic Protection,
that's the only place to go.
So there's sort of a bit of one way traffic,
but we do monitor that.
We're about even with the Met on transfers,
but we would know those if they've moved elsewhere,
and if there were particular patterns.
Thank you.
I think we're gonna have to move on,
because we did start a little bit late,
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:49:27
So if we are happy to note this report and then come back to the subject bearing in mind
some of the points that have been made I think that will be very helpful.

9 Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (DVDS) Clare's Law - Progress Report

Gender item 9 is a progress report on domestic violence disclosure service and Claire's law.
I'm just going to bring Khalid in just briefly because I think there was something he needed
to add here.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:49:52
this came as a result of interest from the committee.
Khalid Ahmed - TVP Crime Panel Scrutiny and Support Officer - 1:49:58
Yes, as members are aware we have this at every meeting I think we've had it for the
last 12 months or so and the reason why it's come back is because we have asked for it
at every meeting and I think there's a lack of communication after our last panel meeting
it looked like we were not going to get one so that's probably why the report is in a
different formats but I think the information is all there for members to discuss.
And I think if we can just give a steer on the right format for next time that would
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:50:30
be useful. I mean on the face of it this seems to show that figures are getting better although
there is a bit of a disparity between some of the command units. Mr Barber do you want
to just briefly comment on the changes since the last time we saw this?
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:50:48
Yeah, only on the perhaps the formatting in the report, so apologies through my office,
I think it was requested late of the force and someone different prepared the report.
I think frankly given the structures in the team, that's probably the person who would
produce the next report if you do want another one.
I think progress has certainly been made, it's been highlighted by this panel, we've
discussed a lot, we've talked about the changes to systems and process that have led to some
improvements and about a year ago I sat here and I talked to you about what was
going to be done in February or March and said I promise it'll make it better
and thankfully the force haven't let me down, things have got better as a result.
I'm happy that we present this report as often as anybody wishes, frankly
because it's no skin off my nose, I don't have to write the thing. However I do make
a slight question about, you know, there are lots of things that we scrutinise and
lots of things you want to come back and is it something the panel actually want
have at every meeting to look at the same data set or is it saying that perhaps you
want to look at more annually or in the future given that improvements seem to be sustained
for now? Let me take that back Matthew to Peter Gammond,
his insistence that it came to this meeting so I'll consult with the chair and get back
Khalid Ahmed - TVP Crime Panel Scrutiny and Support Officer - 1:52:05
to your offices if that's okay. Yeah I think that's fair enough. There are
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:52:18
are some positives in here and we should acknowledge that. Would anyone like to ask any questions
on this? Castle Morgan please. Thank you, yeah, there are some really positive changes
Cllr Susan Morgan - 1:52:26
on here and really well done to them for that. They have to be recognised but there's been
a huge focus on the delivery recently and so I just wanted to know your opinion on how
sustainable that is going forward so that we keep up these numbers.
So I believe it is sustainable because of the things we talked about before.
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:52:48
So this has had some at least different if not extra resource go into it.
So to recap the sort of changes that were made were some technical ones around the use
of robotic automation to pull some of the reports and also the reports being done by
different people in the harm reduction teams which are newly established teams.
Neither of those have any immediate prospect of changing.
We've got the technology embedded, we've got those teams.
So all should be well.
There's no reason to think
that there should be any problems.
The volumes have increased
and yet performance has been maintained.
I think it was a good thing.
What could risk it in the future?
A further significant increase in volumes
beyond the sorts of levels we see now
could obviously impact performance.
The automation element might help to deal with that
because actually to some extent the automation should deal with any volume
that can stretch at relatively small cost. The human element is finite.
The other thing that could change is just the uncertainty that we've talked about
through the whole meeting of pressures on resources elsewhere.
That said, I don't think that's likely to change in those areas,
so it's not something I'm concerned about. I think these should be sustained changes
and no reason to think not.
Thank you. Any other questions on this report or any comments
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:54:04
on whether we want to keep this on the agenda effectively as a standing item.
Don't see anyone at the moment. So if we're happy to note that and we'll liaise with the
chair bearing in mind the discussion we just had.

10 Thames Valley CCTV Partnership

Thank you very much. Agenda item 10. This is an oral update from
the PVCC on a statement made in relation to the Thames Valley CCTV partnership.
Mr Barber over to you.
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:54:40
Oh yes, so I was looking through the reports and so I missed that item.
So we are, well I might even get an update today, so we've got an agreement from all
local authorities, final legal agreement was being shared last week, taking into account
changes that had been made and I'm fully expecting every to sign up as planned.
The intended go live date is the 1st of April subject to any issues around
GP of staff. I think is probably the biggest risk on that.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:55:19
Thank you. There are representatives from some of the districts here and I
can see Councillor Fawcett's hand first. Welcome to him.
Cllr Neil Fawcett - Vale of White Horse District Council - 1:55:30
The statement you issued about this in late November, I think it was, where you appeared
to be blaming the district council, accusing the district councils of not agreeing to sign
up to the scheme, I think it's fair to say was pretty inaccurate.
If technically correct, in that at that point they had not signed on the dotted line, but
that's because the officers of those councils were in negotiations with
officers of Thames Valley Police around the detail of the agreement at a point
when certainly in the case of of some of those councils including the Vale they
had already made a very clear commitment in principle to support the the scheme
I guess I'm interested to know when you made that statement were you aware that
there were ongoing exchanges of emails going on between Thames Valley officers
and the relevant council offices,
and that quite a bit of the detail
had still not been ironed out,
and I'm absolutely delighted to hear
that it sounds like it now has been.
Having seen some of that correspondence,
the points that were being raised by the councils
were perfectly reasonable questions
around the detail of the agreement,
and effectively the councils were in a position
where they'd agreed in principle,
but they didn't want to sign up to an agreement
without knowing all the implications of that agreement,
which seems pretty reasonable to me.
So we could just stop at your first statement, Councillor Fawcett,
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 1:56:59
which I was technically correct, I agree, and leave it at that.
However, to expand a bit more, we had a deadline of the 21st of November.
I was certainly aware that talks were still continuing between those parties.
They had continued for about 18 months.
One local authority in Oxfordshire had already signed,
and they were quite happy with the detail.
Many of the points raised by your own council were I think it's very fair to say repetitive.
I met with council officers back in the late summer I think it was before the previous
iteration was shared and the November 21st deadline was set.
The issues that were being raised was whether or not the partnership was a Thames Valley
wide partnership or whether it would be a bespoke Oxfordshire only partnership. I
said I was really clear the whole point of doing this was added resilience for
being Thames Valley wide. I was a Thames Valley Police and Crime
Commissioner and there were some operational benefits to including Milton
Keynes and Slough within that same partnership set up. I was really clear on
that and it was one of the points that we weren't budging on. Yet the post the
deadline on the 21st of November one of the sticking points from South and Vale
was still or we don't want to do it and if we're part of a partnership with Milton Keynes and Slough.
My position hadn't changed so yes conversation continued, they weren't productive conversations.
So we set a deadline of the 21st of November and I'd say there's some money on the table for the
21st of November. If you sign up by then you get the money and if you don't then the money's off
the table. We need to allocate it for other things. I've talked about our budget pressures,
that money has already been allocated within year.
One council signed up to that deal, good as my word,
very happy to go to the West Oxfordshire Council,
very happy to part with the money for that
because we're able to deliver the partnership.
Those that didn't get the money.
So yes, conversation continued.
One of the points that local authorities seem to hang off
is after the 21st of November deadline,
the day before they received a letter from me,
they had a, officers had an email from a Ternesbury police officer with a another
deadline which was still post 21st of November so that changes nothing actually.
So I that was in conversation was actually my suggestion that was email
was sent I might have sent it a day later if it were me but the point was
that was a an opportunity for people to get any last technical issues in so that
we could get to the point of agreement proper agreement in principle by by the
18th of December I think the deadline just pause you I'm councillor Arshad I
know needs to go to another meeting but I think she just wants to what wants to
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 1:59:42
want wants to come in on on this I'll let you come but come back of course
sir Arshad do you want to just say something at this point sorry che was
Cllr Lubna Arshad - Oxford City Council - 1:59:51
actually on the other item it's just because I have to go for
prayers is that okay for the team or not yeah I beg your pardon sorry mr. Baba
back back to you I think I've concluded my part I'm happy to stick with
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 2:00:07
councillor Fawcett's I was technically right that's fine by me okay council can
I just clarify that what I said was you were technically correct that the
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 2:00:14
council's have not at that point signed the agreement yeah that but your
Cllr Neil Fawcett - Vale of White Horse District Council - 2:00:20
suggestion that councils were in some way sort of giving up the opportunity to be part of a CCTD partnership?
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 2:00:35
What I think you'll find I said was that councils hadn't taken up the opportunity for the additional funding.
The email that had gone out from Tansway Police Officers had said that additional funding was available to local authorities
if they sign the agreement by the 21st of November.
They could obviously continue to negotiate after that,
but the money was conditional on the 21st of November.
I think that's pretty clear in the email.
They didn't, with the exception of one council,
they didn't sign up by the 21st of November.
Therefore, by default, they had declined
to accept that offer of funding,
because they hadn't met the requirements of that deadline.
As you say, technically correct.
Of course, conversations could continue after that,
and they have done and I'm really glad that we're in a place that we are where hopefully we can
launch it. And of course we've been able to redeploy that funding to other good uses within
Oxfordshire to support the police. So, and follow this, so can I ask what was the purpose of putting
Cllr Neil Fawcett - Vale of White Horse District Council - 2:01:32
out that statement at that time? In what way was it helpful to the partnership between Thames
Valley Police and the County? I think we're about to get it signed now, so it moved things forward
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 2:01:44
for a start, but what was really clear was there had been a deadline with some money.
So the money was gone. That was the point of that. The money had been missed. I wanted
to move negotiations on. They hadn't been moved on despite many deadlines having passed.
And it's perfectly reasonable, the points that councils make about wanting to go through
a proper process and to properly understand things, I completely agree. However, in the
for example, of your council, say some of those points were what I would call repetitive.
There's an in principle objection from them, in principle objection from me.
We need to know where people stand on that. Now it appears they were happy in the end to enter
into agreement which includes Slough and Milton Keynes, which is good. But West Oxfordshire were
able to sign back in the summer. Now I don't think it would be fair to suggest that West Oxford
District Council acted somehow improperly in their due diligence. Now of course it's perfectly
reasonable for different councils to have different positions but I think the
fact that West Oxfordshire council signed rather goes to prove that this
wasn't an outrageous agreement that I was asking because someone was just
thoroughly half -baked and it was outrageous. One authority was happy to do
it, other people had different concerns that was fine. If we could have got those
results resolved by the 21st of November which was a deadline the money was on
the table. It didn't happen. I put the money on the table to try and accelerate
things to get things moving forward. It hadn't happened. I took the money away.
But as you say I was technically correct.
I'm not a district council I'm slightly struck here by the juxtaposition of the word partnership
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 2:03:12
and the word refuse. But this is also a force wide issue.
Councillor Hume I think you wanted to come in on this.
I don't particularly believe you.
I don't really want to get too much involved in this debate because it's one for Oxfordshire
Cllr Ed Hume - Milton Keynes City Council - 2:03:30
councils involved in that but I've just loaded up the statement and it clearly says
police crime commission Matthew Barber warned that the plans to improve CCTV in
Oxfordshire are at risk as local councils refuse to join the new partnership and
that's on your website and it clearly states that they want to refuse but it
sounds like actually we're still in discussions and I think that's where the
frustration comes. I just want to just add that line into the debate.
Okay entirely fair however you know we're still going to struggle to make
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 2:03:58
the first of April deadline we've talked about this for 18 months I want to move
things forward. We can argue over the niceties between local authorities and
OPC. I don't think people really care about that. What I want to do is get CCDV
working in our communities. In Milton Keynes we've had that partnership up and
running now. Actually works really well. Significant financial contribution from
Milton Keynes Council in terms of capital, thank you very much. And ongoing
financial contribution if you like in kind through the community safety
arrangements. No different from the financial arrangements being proposed in
in Oxfordshire, frankly, and the importance of doing them together, which does really
technically matter, is the resilience of the organisation.
So actually, once we've got the new control room up and running in Oxfordshire and Abingdon
Police Station, if the control room in Milton Keynes falls over for some technical reason,
it can all be turned on in Milton Keynes and vice versa.
and that resilience across the patch is one of the key issues about making sure it is Tenant Valley Y.
Councillor Morgan please.
Thank you. What parts of Buckinghamshire Council play in this project? Because I'm just not clear on that.
Cllr Susan Morgan - 2:05:09
None directly at the moment. I have had the conversation with the Council.
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 2:05:12
I would be delighted if Buckinghamshire or any other Berkshire authorities, with the
exception of Slough, that aren't currently in the partnership, would wish to join.
I think there are genuine benefits financially and operationally.
Buckinghamshire have relatively recently invested in some new CCTV equipment themselves, so
there's not a burning platform for them.
Some of the authorities in Oxfordshire, Cherwell, for example, a couple of years ago just said,
we can't afford to do this, we want to turn it off, similar to the position that Slough
were in a couple of years ago.
So it's not a burning bridge for Buckinghamshire.
What I have suggested to Buckinghamshire is once we've got the Abidun control room up
and running, actually much more technically complicated because it's bringing currently
three control rooms, four control rooms into one, three control rooms, four, sorry, four
control rooms into one, technically much more challenging.
Once that's up and running, I've suggested that Buckinghamshire come over, have a look,
we'll have a much more developed model about what the financial implications are
and talk to Buckinghamshire then. So I think it would be a rush now to say
everybody must join but let's get this bit done. It's always been intended to be
Thames Valley wide with willing partners.
Thank you. I don't know about it not being burning. I mean
Cllr Susan Morgan - 2:06:25
what they've done is replace all the existing cameras
but we haven't installed any new cameras
and I think there are definitely parishes within Bucks
where those additional cameras would be really useful,
especially in those deprived wards
that have some high -risk behaviour
that would really help Thames Valley Police?
I'm sure.
So to be clear, the initial partnership programme
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 2:06:48
is not in and of itself to do the whole load more cameras.
It's about transferring what we got
and adding more resilience.
But the operational benefits are, for example,
although at the moment,
no discredit to the operators who are there,
they will have lots of conversations with the police.
but in Milton Keynes for example, the operators can join, because they're police staff,
they can join the shift briefing with police officers in Milton Keynes.
So when officers are being told to go out and say,
well, look for this individual who's wanted,
they're having the same briefing at the same time, they know who to look for.
The links into operational policing are much closer now, and that's brought real benefits.
Thank you.
I think in the interest of harmony over the force area,
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 2:07:27
but also to be fair to all areas that are represented here,
I think it may be useful just to have a written report
summarising where this is.
I think the discussion we've just had
is probably quite a good argument
for just having a factual statement
on where this is force -wide.
I'm happy just to leave it there.
I can understand why there are
some strong feelings involved.
I don't think there's anything more to be said on this item.
So can we move on to item 11, please, which is the restart scheme?

11 RESTART - Evaluation of the scheme

Thank you, Chairman.
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 2:08:07
Given the time you may want to note this report, I don't think it was something that the panel
were particularly interested in other than we said we would report at some point in the
future.
I appreciate it's a very high level report.
Restart was a project we did a couple of years ago now.
It's been closed for at least a year.
This was just to give a very rough update.
There's no additional funding for it.
It's very worthwhile, but sadly we can't continue.
I think the challenge is that you've set out the nature of the funding and it's no longer
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 2:08:30
there, but there were effective parts of the programme here and I think the broad question
that we were looking to ask was how can you ensure that parts of the programme that were
effective can be carried forward and built in where they can be until long -term offender
management arrangements.
So that work is largely carried on by the subgroups
of the local criminal justice board.
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 2:08:58
So although we did it for a while,
have a separate standalone board,
effectively they're all people who were on the
local criminal justice board, prison governors, et cetera.
So it's effectively continued into that work.
We have work streams around reducing reoffending,
in particular also dealing with persistent offenders.
So the learning is within that, within those work streams,
because they're the same people around the table.
and some of the work that was still ongoing,
for example in Bullingdon Prison,
which wasn't particularly restart work,
but carries on some of the same sort of
in principle processes.
There is a particular programme,
which I forget the name of,
run by Bullingdon with some external funding,
uses some of the same principles.
So we would seek to get the benefits from it,
at least in thinking,
even if we don't have the money to roll out on a wide scale.
Thank you.
And there are clearly a number,
I mean remember our last Youth Justice report
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 2:09:47
for Oxfordshire there are clearly a number of these things that are subject to short
term funding where the question is what now and there's clearly benefits to them and I
think we're all just keen to see those benefits captured and embedded where they can be. Does
anyone else want to ask anything on this? No. I'm conscious that we are getting slightly
thin on the ground. In that case we note that report. Agenda item 12 is the report of the

12 Report of the Complaints Sub-Committee

disciplinary complaints subcommittee, which is a very short and straightforward report.
Is there anything to say on that? Not from me.
No, thank you. In that case we can note that and move on to the updates and topical issues
report. Now this is one we could easily take all day given some of the natures of the things
that are said. But let's try and just keep this focus on the things that are genuinely

13 Chairman/PCC Updates and Topical Issues Report

topical rather than getting our crystal balls out. I guess the question that we all are
thinking about is clearly the government has made a statement about the abolition of the
PCC role and is then making further statements. But for the purposes of this panel, how can
we ensure that we have continuity and focus here over the remaining years of our respective
existence in order to do the best for the people we all represent.
Is that question for me or the panel?
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 2:11:22
It's possibly me thinking aloud but I think it's something that we should
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 2:11:25
that we should we should consider at some point but I'll ask members of the
panel if they want to ask any questions first.
Councillor Rowland.
Cllr Karen Rowland - Reading Borough Council - 2:11:45
Chair, just to follow up on that, I think that that is kind of an existential question,
I guess one could say in many regards, but I think it might be helpful to hear from you.
I think we all have our own situations we bring, you know, with us on and on. I think
we'd like to hear from you because I think that despite the fact that this is a scrutiny,
we're here to scrutinise you,
that, that, that, that's kind of the structure of this.
We do still work together.
And we do still, I think, you know, have a...
Many things that we come together on and are successful on.
So I think I would like to hear it a bit from you
as to what your thoughts are.
We're a little ways out from D -Day on this, but...
Yes? I'm interested.
Over time, and I've got a long drive this afternoon, so I won't try and keep every
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 2:12:40
for too long. If we park the police, the forced mergers thing, but I think our argument is
much more, is even more important. Firstly, look at what we think might come after PCC.
What might it look like? We don't know. There's allegedly a white paper next week that might
give us some clarity. But from what we've heard so far, it looks like a policing board.
We're not an area that is going to be coterminous with a Mayor, so that seems pretty clear.
It seems unlikely we're going to be an area that's got any Mayors in it by 2028 at least.
If you're in an area that's got a Mayor for part of your force, the Mayor is just part
of the Policing Board as set out. They're not responsible for policing, they're just
another person around the table. So at the moment you would have a Policing
Board which is allegedly going to be leaders of local authorities. My reading of that,
it is leaders, it's not a delegation, so it's not like an old police authority, it's not like this
panel, it is the leader of your council has to attend. They have, and they would not be you doing
the scrutiny, they would be the legal entity. Now there's a bit of a question about whether that
sits with a host authority or whether that becomes a separate legal entity in itself.
My personal view is it will probably have to be for ease and legality a separate legal entity. So
the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner will become the Office of the Police and Crime
Board and the members of that board will be the leaders of local authorities. That seems
to be the sensible and neatest thing. Otherwise, all of the staff that work for me, that despite
the fact that some people think I have this massive entourage who waste loads of time
and money, my victims first staff. Who are they going to work for? Are they going to
work for a host authority? When Bucks Council took on hosting these meetings, which is literally
just employing Khalid and hosting the meetings, even that was a bit of a row over who wanted
that liability of one person. Who wants to take on the liability of running an entire
victim service? Unlikely. Internal audit. Who's going to be responsible for that? Is
one council. So I think, separate legal entity, with currently, depending on what happens
to local government reform in Oxfordshire, 14 members plus two independents. So you've
16 -member committee. I don't know whether they get paid any allowances on top of their leadership
allowances for doing it. I mean that's a genuine question because people will say, oh that's going
to save loads of money. They will then appoint a police and crime lead. Might look similar to me,
definitely won't be me. Frankly our current local authority leaders wouldn't appoint me would they?
But someone looks like me, does my job. In the day -to -day interaction with the chief
The difference being the legal powers to set the preset,
appoint and fire a Chief Constable,
would be held by the board,
and then this person would carry out those duties on a day -to -day basis.
Now, if that is a political appointment,
that would be quite interesting to see how local authorities of different colours across Thames Valley agree a political appointment.
Therefore, assuming it is an employed role.
One of my predictions, given that everybody thinks it's going to save money,
is that if you employ someone to do my job,
either on a local government pay scale,
because it was local government leaders,
or a police pay scale, that's gonna cost you more.
I get paid a bit less than,
a bit more than a Chief Superintendent,
a little bit less than a Chief Superintendent.
I don't think you'll get many people who would be employed
to oversee the working of the Chief Constable
or employed by a local government
to do that role who would be paid well.
I'm not complaining, it's just a prediction about the costs.
So you go from having one person to 17 people who do the role of that job.
The police and crime panel goes.
Now arguably that gives you enough scrutiny within there because you've got the police
and crime lead holding the Chief Counsel to account, you've got the board holding that
lead to account, that should be enough.
But of course you're in local government, there's scrutiny panels.
In theory, scrutiny committees could hold any one of those leaders to account for what's going on on the board,
because they're doing their job as leader.
There is talk about having some sort of central scrutiny committee, so it might create you lot.
Again, I'm not sure where these savings are coming, where you've then got, you replace one person with 17 people,
and potentially still recreate something that looks a little bit like you. Who knows?
So I don't think that's going to help us, but I think that's what it's potentially going to look like.
The best, yes.
And we remain to have a job to do here, of course, that goes without saying.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 2:17:17
Councillor Rowland, did you have another question to ask on another matter?
Cllr Karen Rowland - Reading Borough Council - 2:17:22
I did. Thank you, Chair.
This is a question regarding, because I am trying to stick to the topical information solely that was provided for us,
the winter of action to crack down on town centre crime.
This is following on from your Safer Street Summer Initiative
and I will not in deference to time regale any of my ward work.
Let's just put it this way, the Christmas season, you know, is very busy in a lot of town centres
and you know within 30 minutes experienced a few issues that is causing
me to ask this right for directly before the winter directly before Christmas I
experienced two issues right the town centre how is this actually going to
work how are you going to prove to us that it works or is this just a campaign
to raise a little bit of excitement how is Chief Constable putting this into
action. I think it's a home office initiative, so was the summer one. This is business as usual. Now
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 2:18:30
to say things aren't happening that's not true. There's a lot of things that will happen, so in
the summer it was particularly around our town centres, more visible patrols looking at, you know
we know you get issues around social behaviour around school holidays etc. In the winter period
it was particularly around again town centres, some extent around shopping centres because we
we see a rise in retail crime around the Christmas period, but we also see a rise in burglaries
because of the darker nights, so burglary patrols. So what was being done was great police work,
and there's some really good statistics that come out of it about really good performance.
However, if I'm really honest, both of those things, the Summer of Action and the Winter of
Action are bits of branding work by the Home Office, where they've asked for lots of additional
reporting, some of which I've refused to give, quite frankly, because it's a load of extra work
filling in spreadsheets, of recording what the police are already doing in any given
year in summer or winter. They were doing it last winter and the summer before that.
It might not have been recorded in quite the same way to satisfy some Home Office reporting,
so that the Home Office, who want more and more centralised control over policing, can say,
all these forces have done what we've asked them to and look how many people were arrested over it.
It's a massive, or the beginning at least,
of a massive encroachment onto operational policing
by effectively trying to direct Chief Conspols
to do particular things at particular times.
Now, there's nothing wrong with doing lots of action
in the summer or the winter on those particular things,
but I would argue it is business as usual,
and it's the sort of thing that I should be challenging
the Chief Constable to make sure he's doing
and be accountable to me.
It's not the job of the Home Office to do that, in my view.
We will see that creep even more,
I've taught you, directing chief constables where they put their officers.
How many times have I sat in front of this panel and said,
you quite rightly would be dealing with complaints against me if I said to the chief constable,
you have to put officers into these roles.
I can encourage it, I can direct the budget in a certain way,
but if I said you have to, that would be wrong.
That's exactly what the Home Office is doing.
They're telling the chief constables what structures they have to have around rape and
sexual assaults in terms of their investigation teams.
Very much direction from the centre.
this is just window dressing. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else wishing
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 2:20:50
to come in on any of these things? There is clearly a discussion that could be
infinite but we our time isn't. Thank you very much for that and thank you very
much Mr. Barber for answering the questions that we've had. That brings us
to the work programme and there were one or two things that were that were

14 Work Programme

brought up in our pre -meet we've got a reasonably full agenda at the next
meeting. The point that was brought up earlier that I think we do need to have
a look at and come back and I'll speak on behalf of the members who made it was
I think there is a desire to look at the effectiveness of operation forward I
think there have been issues over the last month that weren't on today's
agenda but I think we need to look at the effectiveness of Operation
Ford in what happens when a report is made and what reassurance can be given
to people and I'd like it to go a little bit beyond the narrow definition
of Operation Ford because I was on a training session yesterday which and the
training session was very very good but one of the issues that came out for
example which is directly relevant to things that happened in the force over
the last month is it doesn't cover town councillors for example so those people
at local level who may unfortunately because they've stepped forward and
decided they want to represent their community come under yeah come subject
to unacceptable behaviour and worse I think it'd be very helpful to have a
at that I think there is a specific angle in terms of some of the extreme
right behaviour that is being that we are unfortunately some of us seeing and that
can be down to just incidents of completely unacceptable racist abuse
that some elected members are getting on the doorstep but I think it would be
helpful to cover that cover that in the round I'll talk to the chair and just
we'll frame that. We touched on neighbourhood policing and its possible
future earlier. I don't know if there's an appetite to have a future item
probably further down the line around what may happen to neighbourhood policing
and other things that the Home Office may be throwing our way. Is there
anything else that we should look to do? We do have a relatively full work
programme but is there anything other? Just to respond on those and give chance to people think
Matthew Barber - Police and Crime Commissioner - 2:23:29
about the more things. Firstly yes the programme is very full I'll happily try and deal with whatever
you cram in but I'm conscious of members time. Members seem to lose interest before I do at some
of these panel meetings. What you've suggested around Operation Forward perfectly reasonable.
I think by all means expand the scope a little bit but Operation Forward is an operation that
that force are funded for which has a remit
and we might all have concerns of other things outside that,
but yeah, that's fine.
What might be helpful if we want to do that
is those will be around some very specific,
small volume, but very specific instance
that people can think of.
Now, they're probably not the things
we want to discuss in an open forum,
but if people have examples of things
that they wanted to share through Khaled first,
then, because there's no point in me saying,
yes, the performance around this is great
and someone says, well, yeah,
but it didn't happen in my patch.
Well I can't answer that if I don't know about it.
Now if we can find a way of talking about some individual cases without going into them
in a public forum that might be helpful.
Neighbourhood very happy to do, that's a big issue so you might want a more specific question
on it.
And the other thought is whether or not, and we could do it from the next meeting, we haven't
got onto force mergers.
We don't know until we've got the white paper.
I expect they'll just say it's a consultation but that is a massive issue and I definitely
think it's something that the panel would be interested in looking at.
So, yeah, any time from March onwards, I think that's a really big one that needs a proper
think about.
And I think we note that one down without necessarily putting a date on it at the moment
because we're in the hands of third parties.
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 2:25:02
But I think that probably gives us enough to be going with for the moment.
Unless anyone else has got anything to say, Councillor Rowland.
Cllr Karen Rowland - Reading Borough Council - 2:25:17
Just concerns, and Khalid might be able to answer this as well as anyone, as to whether
the cybercrime online gaming task and finish group is actually I mean I do I
don't get every email but I am on that group and I haven't heard of another
meeting is that actually going to happen by March or no I was hoping no questions
would be asked on that I knew it right it's talking but it's probably best
Khalid Ahmed - TVP Crime Panel Scrutiny and Support Officer - 2:25:35
having discussions outside of this meeting but basically we've not had the
cooperation we would have hoped for from the police crime commissioners office
trying to commission expertise from TEN's Valley Police. I'll leave it at that.
We're still working on it so I think before Christmas we tried to get a
meeting and it didn't happen and obviously New Year came it still not
happened. It's absolutely nothing to do with Matthew's office and officers. I'll
perhaps provide an update outside the meeting if that's alright Karen.
Cllr Karen Rowland - Reading Borough Council - 2:26:16
Yeah, that, through you Chair, I mean that's perfectly fine. I just think that there might,
you know, the Chair, I assume once a regular Chair is back in action, may want to make
a call, I would say, and the Vice Chair is actually Chair of that subgroup, about actually
pulling that and even moving that. Let's refer that to Caleed and the Chair and
Cllr Gareth Epps - Oxfordshire County Council - 2:26:36
chair I think that makes that makes sense. Anyone else? If not thank you very
much meeting closed.