Issue - meetings

To receive a verbal report from Sergeant Barry Booth.

Inspector Booth presented his report to the Committee highlighting the following initiatives introduced in the last year:-

Project Enlightenment – re-invigorating officers into schools, this commenced end of December early January with the Plume, William De Ferrers, Ormiston Rivers Academy, Ramsden Hall and Heybridge. It was noted that it was not just middle and high schools that required intervention but also Primary Schools.  

Engagement Strategy – the PCSOs have taken the lead on this and are responsible for supporting all local initiatives:- fairs; coffee mornings with police officers; support in schools; regattas. They co-ordinate all arrangements for the aforementioned events.

Tasking and Co-ordination -  attending Safety Advisory Group meetings, Community meetings, MACE meetings etc. All feedback is taken away and acted upon as appropriate. 

Operation Overwatch  - work ongoing on sexploitation, drugs and gangs. Employing anti-social behaviour legislation such as Community Protection Notices ((CPNs) has been very effective, led by the Town Teams. There has been over seventy hours of police footwork, over forty searches, resulting in key arrests, community resolutions and dismantling organised crime groups.

CPT ( Community Policing Team) – the team take control of briefings, all community information is incorporated into briefings that drive the activity of the police, very successful strategy.

Gypsy Traveller Rural Engagement Team – working with them on organised crime groups, breaking up burglary rings that prey on the elderly posing as police.

Neighbourhood Watch – reinvigorating the neighbourhood watch. A success story in the Chelmsford area at the moment . Rolling out the active alert mobile telephone system which is now being used by three communities. The information provided through this system fills in the blanks for the police around local crime. This is working very well around drug dealing, suspicious persons, lifetime intelligence which has led to a number of significant arrests.  Noted that should other communities wish to sign up to the active alert number they should contact Sergeant Matt Dalby.

Stop and Search  - ninety plus stop searched since the beginning of January in Maldon alone. This is something we should be doing more of given the current climate.    

In response to questions Inspector Booth responded as follows:-

-        that Police attendance at Parish/Town Council meetings can be co-ordinated on email via an intelligence sharing document. This would generate an action on the central system and a Police Officer would be assigned to attend as required. In the case of Maldon Town Council, he signposted Members to the Town Sargeant Graham Thomas, to discuss the way forward. He added that as long as they had appropriate notice it should always be possible to send a police representative;

-        that if necessary a separate active mobile alert phone could be set up for the farming community;

-        that managing rural crime was a challenge given that the overall number of rural officers was only eight, there was a lot of area to cover and rural crime was on the increase. Police needed to know what the policing requirements were in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8