Chief Superintendent Sally Benatar, the Basic Command Unit Borough Commander, introduced the report and provided an overview of changes since she last attended the Commission at its meeting on 24 April 2019. Sally Benatar said that this had been a stable period operationally and had seen a reduction in key areas of crime. She said that the Met was hoping to be allocated 6,000 of the 20,000 new officers promised nationally by the government, and was unsure how many of these would come to Merton but that the uplift would be very welcome.

Sally Benatar added that although Merton is the fourth safest borough in London in terms of the total number of notifiable offences, with no homicides for 16 months, the police are not complacent and are working hard in partnership with Safer Merton to address crime and anti-social behaviour. She anticipated that the deployment of officers to Westminster for public order policing would continue for some time and assured the Commission that she was doing what she could to manage this and minimise the impact on local policing.

Commission members asked a number of detailed questions on  police resourcing, police estate, the Eastern Electrics festival and knife crime as planned. Sally Benatar’s responses are summarised below.

Police resourcing

Currently there are 1,462 officer and staff posts across the BCU, with 95 vacancies (including 46 officers at training college). The 20,000 promised new officers nationally will be in addition to the existing establishment. There will be a level of flexibility in the allocation of additional staff locally, balanced with a requirement for consistency across the BCUs. The 2+1 allocation to wards is fixed – there is scope to expand this for “enhanced wards”, of which there is currently 1 in Kingston and 2 in Wandsworth.

The boroughs in the BCU have not used the MOPAC scheme to provide council funded police officers and Sally Benatar would not advise this as an option until vacancies have been filled as it would be counterproductive due to the need to take the funded officers from other areas of policing.

Members of the Commission reaffirmed their commitment to visible policing in wards and for proactive as well as reactive activities. Sally Benatar  said that she had recently established a proactive tasking team comprising 3 sergeants and 24 constables to work across the BCU, to focus on preventative and proactive policing and violence suppression work.

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

The five KPIs (set out in response to question 8) were chosen because they could be achieved through better supervision and leadership. There are a wider range of operational performance indicators as well as the three operating principles for the BCU which are to focus on prevention of crime and harm, to work as a team and to put victims first.

Police estate

Sally Benatar said that she has no update on these matters as there is an ongoing review of the estates strategy as a result of the anticipated growth in officer numbers. In the meantime, Wimbledon Police Station will remain open 24/7 and Mitcham Police Station 9-5 Monday to Friday. The response team for Merton Borough continues to operate from Wimbledon Police Station. Sally Benatar undertook to provide an update to the Leader and Chief Executive when an update was available and to ask for this to be shared with the Commission.

Eastern Electrics festival

Sally Benatar provided a detailed breakdown of offences committed at the festival (published alongside these minutes).

Members commented on the increased number of offences this year and asked what more could be done to make the event a success or whether it was not a suitable event for the venue.

Sally Benatar said that the police had worked closely with the council and the event organisers to make sure the event would be safe and secure. She said that she was concerned about the level of offences but stressed that the plan put in place ahead of the event had been robust and proportionate and that a similar process would be followed for any similar event applications in future. She declined to comment on what further conditions could be attached to the licence or whether the police would support a future event of this nature.

Sally Benatar confirmed that all four stabbings occurred inside the event and the police hadn’t charged anyone, one of the reasons being that none of the victims wanted to co-operate with these investigations. The investigations remain ongoing. The level of policing had been increased on the Sunday, in response to the stabbings on Saturday, with central resources being allocated to Merton Borough in order to prevent further incidents, and this had resulted in a higher number of stop and search and arrests for possession of drugs.

Policing costs in 2018 were about £50k and in 2019 were about £100k. Costs are borne by the BCU. In response to a question about exactly how policing costs for such events are calculated, Sally Benatar undertook to find out and provide details. ACTION: BCU Commander

Knife crime

Merton is the 5^th safest London borough in terms of knife crime. There has been an increase but numbers are still low. The police are working hard to address knife crime and this is a priority for the Community Safety partnership.

Neil Thurlow, Community Safety Manager, added that this was a complex area and posed difficulties for the police when victims wouldn’t engage in their investigations. CCTV footage is used to assist where possible.

Sally Benatar said that people who carry knives are more likely to become a victim of a stabbing. She stressed the role of parents and families in taking responsibility for the prevention of knife crime.

Stop and search

In response to questions about why increasing the number of stop and searches was a KPI rather than using a measure of the success of stop and search, Sally Benatar said that she wanted her officers to carry out more stop and searches as a preventative power to suppress violence and knife crime, whilst also doing these in a proportionate and appropriate way. She said that the outcome rate was one of the highest in London but overall numbers had been lower across the South West BCU. She confirmed in response to a specific question that stop and search could be used to detect and prevent  moped crime if there were grounds to do so. She undertook to take the concerns expressed on board and to provide data on stop and search in a future report and suggested that the Commission could also seek data from the Stop and Search Monitoring Group.

ACTION: BCU Commander and Head of Democracy Services

The Chair thanked Sally Benatar for her helpful responses to the Commission’s questions.