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Policing Plan 2009-12Version 10 (final)

27/03/2009

Policing Northumbria

2009 – 2012

Joint Policing Plan of



Contents

Page
Joint Foreword / 3
Introduction / 4
Our Vision and Values / 6
Our Objectives / 7
Managing our Performance / 17
Managing our Finances and Resources / 17
Appendix 1 – Policing Pledge
Appendix 2 – Summary of performance
Appendix 3 – Targets for next three years / 20
21
23
How to Contact Us / Facing rear cover

Joint Foreword

Welcome to the joint Northumbria Police and Northumbria Police Authority Policing Plan for 2009-12.

For many years Northumbria Police has been consistently one of the top performing police forces in the country, based on a firm foundation of listening tothe people we serve and working closely with our partners in public service.

The close relationship of the force and Authority has meant we have been well placed to achieve our vision to 'Build trust and confidence in the community and reduce crime and disorder' – achieving a 17% reduction in crime and a 13% reduction in disorder over the last two years.

Despite the current economic downturn, we are determined to continue to achieve withthe energy and confidenceour communities deserve, providing one of the country's best policing services.

This plan sets out our priorities for the next three years, reflecting the main issues raised by communities, in order to offer you the best possible policing in your area.

We will focus more than everon supporting the frontline officers and staff who serve you. We have already added 160 extrapolice officers to our neighbourhood policing teams and plan to increase our workforce by another 220 staff by April 2009, improving our service to you and providing career opportunities for local people during difficult times.

National developments over the last 12 monthshave included publication of the Government’s vision for policing in the 21st century, allowing us to reduce bureaucracy, moving to a single Home Office target of improving public confidence and the introduction of a Policing Pledge.

This will help us to improve further the quality of our service to local people, using our neighbourhood officers to engage with and empower you to have a real say in how your police force works.

Our approach is already receiving public approval – a recent letter from a victim of crime commented that “every officer … has been totally supportive and above all, caring. Without their help, we as a family, would either have to move away or would now be living in an unbearable environment”.

This is the spirit of policing which will, more than anything else, shape our services for the coming 12months.

Mike Craik / Mick Henry
Chief Constable, Northumbria Police / Chair,Northumbria Police Authority

Northumbria Police Authority

Northumbria Police Authority is made up of 17 people - nine local councillors and eightindependent members– whose role is to hold the police to account on behalf of local communities.

The Authority does this by

  • Listening to local people, finding out their concerns about crime and disorder and using these views when setting priorities
  • Meeting regularly to carry out its business
  • Setting and monitoring the police budget, consulting local people to ensure you get value for money
  • Making sure that the service provided is efficient and effective
  • Ensuring the Chief Constable delivers a high performing police service, balancing national priorities and the concerns of local people
  • Appointing the Chief Constable and the chief officer team

Plans for 2009/10

Over the next year, the Authority will focus on:

  • Ensuring that local people are aware of the Authority’s role and building trust and confidence throughthe ‘Trust Us’ campaign
  • Talking and listening to local people about policing and working with local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships
  • Holding its meetings ‘on the road’ across Northumberland and Tyne and Wear
  • Hosting a second Annual Conference to explore innovative ways of working in partnership across Northumbria
  • Including young people in the work of the Authority with a Young Peoples’ Police Authority and Policing Plan

Further information about the members and work of the Authority can be found on the website


Northumbria Police

Northumbria Police is one of the largest forces in England and Wales.We serveover 1.4 million people within the 2,150 square miles of Northumberland and Tyne and Wear, including the cities of Newcastle and Sunderland, other heavily populated urban areas and large rural areas. The force has six area commands, supported by ten specialist departments.

The force hasover 4,000 police officers -with an increase of 74 officers in the last 12months - and over 2,500 members of police staff, including more than 200 Community Support Officers. We also benefit from the support of Special Constables. At present, 1.38% of our police officers are from minority ethnic communities and almost a quarter are women.

Northumbria Police’s chief officer team is:

Mike Craik - Chief Constable

Sue Sim -Deputy Chief Constable

Steve Culkin -Assistant Chief Officer - Finance and Resources

Bernie McCardle - Assistant Chief Officer - Human Resources

Jim Campbell - Temporary Assistant Chief Constable

Paul Beasley -Temporary Assistant Chief Constable

(Vacancy - Assistant Chief Constable)

The Chief Constable is responsible for all policing services. With his team, he manages the operational service, monitors performance, engages with local communities and partners and manages our budget to provide the best possible service.


Further information about the force, our work, staff and performance can be found on the website

Policing Plan v 11 (final)Page 1 of 27

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Policing Plan 2009-12Version 10 (final)

27/03/2009

Our Vision and Values

Our Vision

To build trust and confidence in the community and reduce crime and disorder

Our Values

In all of our work, our officers and staff are attentive, responsive, reliable, skilled, polite and fair

Effective leadership and communication at all levels ensure we deliver effective, efficient and professional service, taking pride in all we do, putting the needs of those we serve first so Northumbria Police will remain one of the highest-performing police forces in the UK.

Strategic Aims

The force’s strategic aims will help to deliver the Vision and the more tactical Force Objectives.

People: creating a culture which promotes empowerment, innovation and personal development to ensure we maintain a diverse, responsive and flexible workforce.

Communities: working with individuals and communities to deliver accessible local policing services, which identify and respond to local policing priorities and provide support during major incidents.

Information and Intelligence: using intelligence to focus on the activities of criminals and develop our capacity and capability to deal with major incidents, serious and organised crime and terrorism.

Justice: working quickly and effectively to prevent and detect crime, bring offenders to justice and protect and support victims, witnesses and the public.

Partnerships: working with partners to ensure effective, joined-up service delivery and shared accountability.

Innovation and Technology: ensuring that the force can exploit opportunities in science and technology and perform as part of a modern and respected Criminal Justice System.

Sustainable Development: integrating environmental management and sustainable development into our strategic planning and day-to-day activities.

Value for Money: providing maximum value for money to the public.

Our Objectives

These are the key areas we intend to address over 2009-12:

  • Improve performance in acquisitive and volume crime
  • Address alcohol and youth related crime and disorder
  • Provide effective local policing to address neighbourhood concerns and improve the quality of service delivery
  • Reduce the harm caused by serious and organised crime
  • Provide effective protective services
  • Work in partnership to deliver a more effective, transparent and responsive Criminal justice system for victims and the public
  • Make best use of resources to maintain operational performance whilst delivering the Value for Money Strategy.

We decided on these areas after considering:

Strategic Assessment

Our Strategic Assessment considers the threats and risks facing the community and the force and involves a review of national priorities, force performance and intelligence, alongside consideration of likelyfuture trends and the views of local people.
National Priorities

Public Service Agreements set out the Government’s priorities and how they will measure success. The key 2008–11 PSAs for police forces are:

  • Make communities safer (including reducing the most serious violence and sexual offences, tackling serious acquisitive crime, reducing re-offending and tackling the crime and anti-social behaviour issues of greatest importance locally, increasing public confidence in the agencies dealing with these issues) (PSA23)
  • Deliver a more effective, transparent and responsive Criminal justice system for victims and the public (PSA24)
  • Reduce the harm caused by alcohol and drugs(PSA25)
  • Reduce the risk to the UK and its interests overseas from international terrorism.(PSA26)

In support of the PSA targets, the Home Secretary has provided four Strategic Policing Priorities,which are in essence:

  1. Continue to increase public confidence in the police by tackling the PSAs
  2. Work jointly with other forces and agencies to deliver effective protective services, including tackling serious and organised crime
  3. Work with and through partners and local communities to tackle terrorism and
  4. Ensure the best use of all resources.

The Force Objectives have been selected to reflect these priorities whilst also allowing the force to deliver local priorities.

The Policing Pledge

To increase emphasis on ‘customerfocus’, the Home Office has introduced a Policing Pledge. Within a national framework, the Pledge gives each force the opportunity to create a service based on local concerns. It sets out standards the public can expect, including monthly updates on progress in local crime and policing issues and improved services for witnesses and victims.

Our Policing Pledge can be found at Appendix 1.

Local Priorities

By talking and listening to the people of our area, the force and Police Authority can focus on their needs and priorities. We have undertaken extensive consultation with the public and our partners, using a variety of methods including Quality of Service Surveys,Neighbourhood Meetings andResidents’ Surveys(with responses from almost 14,000 people) and Police and Community Forums arranged by the Police Authority – open public meetings throughout the areagiving people the chance to ask senior local police officers about the policing of their area and have their say on its effectiveness. Issues raised at these meetings have included how to access services, fear of retribution, response times and how incidents are prioritised,concerns or questions about sentencing in courts, accessibility and how to contact local officers including the role of Community Support Officers.

Public priorities are often issues we would tackle with our partners - such as the local councils - rather than alone.

The top public priority was, again, teenagers hanging around on the street. The next priorities were litter and rubbish, inconsiderate parking and motoring offences, followed by vandalism, graffiti and other deliberate damage to property orvehicles.

We will work closely with partners to tackle these issues.

PartnershipPriorities
Working together, partners have a greater impact on crime, disorder, drugs, alcohol and anti-social behaviour.

Eachlocal authority area has a Local Strategic Partnership - who work together to tackle community safety issues and improve the quality of life for everyone. The Partnership encourages different parts of the public sector - as well as the business, voluntary and community sectors and government agencies - to work together and become involved in identifying issues and making strategic decisions affecting people within their area. It drives delivery of local services, to achieve more than one organisationcould by itself. Through a Local Area Agreement it sets targets for key areas of performance.

Following this strategic direction, in each area a Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership decides how partners will work togetherto reduce crime and disorder and achieve the Community Safety elements of the Local Area Agreement. We work with the Local Authority, the local Fire and Rescue Services, the NHS Primary Care Trust and other partners.

Northumbria Local Criminal Justice Board

The Board is responsible for the local delivery of national criminal justice systemtargets and priorities. Northumbria Police, the Crown Prosecution Service, HM Courts Service, Probation, HM Prison Service, theYouth Justice Board, and Legal Services Commission work together with a representative from Government Office North East.

Priorities include further developing the service to victims and witnesses, focusing on offenders causing the most harm, improving the efficiency of the criminal justice system from arrest to sentence and crime reduction.

Inspection Findings

The force is regularly inspected by a team within our Corporate Development Department and by organisations such as HMIC and the Audit Commission. Any areas for improvement are taken into account in deciding our priorities.

Collaboration with other Forces

Northumbria Police, Durham Constabulary and Cleveland Police already work together in many areas and have identified further opportunities for collaboration which will increaseresilience and provide better value for money.

Efficiency Plan

The Home Office requires the police service to deliver 9.3% cashable increases in efficiency and productivity by the end of 2010/11. The Green Paper ‘From the Neighbourhood to the National: Policing our Communities together’ placed more emphasis on local accountability. Northumbria Police Authority has agreed a three-year target of £28.8m (or £9.6m a year)efficienciesfor the period 2008-09 to 2010-11.We have achieved all previous targets and expect to exceed this target by £1.2m.

Consideration of these factors has resulted in our Objectives for 2009-12

Objective

Improve performance in ‘acquisitive’ and ‘volume’ crime

Why is this important?

We are determined to improve the safety of peopleinNorthumbria - despite economic pressureswhich may make crime more likely or illegal activity more prevalent.

Although it is widely reported that the economic downturn is expected to lead to an increase in crime, the force has so far continued to reduce the crimes which cause the most concern to our communities, such as car crime and personal robbery.

  • ‘Acquisitive’crimeoccurs when items are stolen or acquired fraudulently
  • ‘Volume’ crimeincludes street robbery, burglary, theft, vehicle crime, criminal damage and drug crime

We acknowledge the potential problems facing the region but remain determined to keep Northumbria a safe place to live, work, visit and invest.

What will the force do?

We will further develop our intelligence around acquisitive crime so that resources can be targeted more effectively by accurately understanding current and emerging trends.

We will target and manage offenders who have the worst impact on communities and are responsible for the most crimes. Working closely with partners, we will improve links to programmes targeting repeat offenders, many being drug dependent.

Much acquisitive crime is opportunist, based on weaknesses in security or lack of awareness. We will work with partners to prevent crimes against vulnerable groups such as the elderly and students.

This will mean:

  • Less crime in your area – and more criminals caught
  • Reduced alcohol and drug misuse and fewer crimes as a result
  • Less criminal damage in your area, with more offenders brought to justice
  • Increased public confidence and satisfaction
  • Improved response to incidents

Around 6000 fewer crimes by 2012

Objective

Alcohol and youth-related crime and disorder

Why is this important?

Much crime and disorder is fuelled by alcohol. The public are concerned by the minority of teenagers who act anti-socially - more than a quarter of our recorded incidents relate to anti-social behaviour.

We want fewer young people to become involved in crime and disorder. Tackling alcohol and youth related crime needs more than just police intervention.

What will the force do?

Working in partnership, we can further developan education strategy (to deter youths from crime and disorder), and reinforce parents’ responsibilities (through making use of parenting contracts)as well asyouth service referrals and targeted diversionary work.

We will also address the problem of some people unfairly stereotyping all young people as anti-social, using the media to highlight successes and promote positive messages about the law-abiding majority.

Where enforcement is needed, we will make best use of our powers by targeting persistent problem premises and offenders.

This will mean:

  • Less - and reduced public perception of - anti-social behaviour
  • Better run pubs, clubs and off-licences
  • More young people and children participating in diversionary activities
  • A reduction in violent crime, including domestic violence, influenced by alcohol
  • Over 5000 fewer incidents of disorder and
    1800 fewer violent crimes by 2012

Objective

Provide effective local policing to address neighbourhood concerns and improve the quality of service delivery

Why is this important?

We want to improve your confidence that the police and our partners are dealing with the crime and anti-social behaviour issues that matter locally.

Wewant you to be able to see and feel the difference that we and our partners are making to your quality of life.