The Chair welcomed the new Borough Commander, Chief Superintendent Elisabeth Chapple, to the meeting.

The Borough Commander gave a brief introduction and responded to Panel Member questions, concerns and priorities as below: 

With regards to surge capability, we use a Cluster Strategy;

·         Dedicated Ward Officers are able to bid for extra resources to address priorities.

·         Clusters of wards/neighbouring wards work together – if staff member off sick or has adjusted duties.

In terms of proactivity, crime prevention and community engagement;

·         We currently have 23 vacancies for Dedicated Ward Officers and it’s important we bring that figure down and work on this has already begun..

·         The public attitude survey asks whether ‘local communities know who their local officers are’. The scores are always low at around 14-20%. Therefore we plan to increase marketing on who local officers are and how you can contact them, plus other avenues for contact if that officer is unavailable.

·         Have invested highly in the Violence Suppression Unit and the Burglary and Robbery teams.

·         This BCU isn’t making the best use of the resources available to it at present, particularly from a central perspective such as evidence based policing. I plan to strengthen those links more in the SW BCU.

·         We are putting into place a community engagement plan. Also we are trying to have Ward Panels virtually and working on different options to bring the panels back to physical meetings.

The Police are trying to address and tackle low level nuisance on a multi-agency basis, particularly with Councils. We know this issue greatly affects how safe residents feel in their homes and we are increasing our work with community protection warnings and notices as well as an ASBO early intervention scheme. Please ask residents to keep reporting these consistent issues so we can aim to have the resources required in the most affected areas.

Our long held ambition is that the Metropolitan Police should be representative of the community it serves which is 40% BAME and 50% women.

Looking at the stop and search statistics;

·         Although we stop a higher number of white children in comparison to black children, when you look at that in terms of the population, it is disproportionate. Since this issue has been highlighted, these disproportionate figures are slightly coming down.

·         Officers are better reflecting on the strength of the intelligence they are receiving. We also need to educate our communities on evidenced based policing - what did you see, distinguishing features etc.

·         There is still a KPI of volume on stop and searches. However that metric will be replaced by a different measure going forward. 

In lines with the Mayors strategy, we have been asked to set a 60% carbon reduction target. We are making a shift towards electric cars and when refurbishing buildings, we will look to install solar power, increase electric charging points in the yard.

Continuity of leadership is important to me. My personal intention is to remain in post for at least three years.

The Chair thanked the Borough Commander for a valuable session.