Last week was the regular meeting of Cumbria’s Police, Fire and Crime Panel. This is the body made up of 10 councillors (five from Cumberland, five from Westmorland) to scrutinise the work of Cumbria’s Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner. As Vice-Chair, I was chairing this meeting as the Chair had sent his apologies.

Policing and Fire policy update following the General Election
We asked the Commissioner to give the Panel an update on expected policy changes following the General Election, and change of Government, on 4th July 2024. This was a verbal update because the situation is very new and still changing. Highlights included:

The Commission talked about the Government’s commitment to half violent crime and hate crime and also specifically tackling violence against women and girls. I asked a question about whether Cumbria currently met the Government’s commitment to a dedicated rape team in each police area, with he answer being that Cumbria would be looking at the best solution to meet the Government’s target to works with the significant distances involved between our different towns.

The Government has promised 13,000 additional policing staff. We asked how many of these would be coming to Cumbria, but there is no news on this yet and police forces are waiting for the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review, so we should find out more in the Autumn about how many police we will get, and how long this will take.

We talked about the work being done to reduce anti-social behaviour. This includes the focus on community beat officers, the potential of new ‘respect’ orders and ending the £200 de minimis on shoplifting offences. There was no news yet on the new Governments’ promise of ‘Youth Hubs’.

We asked the Commissioner about the outcome of the recent Inspectorate Report into Cumbria police – which been very positive – and comparing this to press reports about poor staff morale. We agreed to receive a report next time about the Commissioners work on the Inspectorate Report.

Financial Report (Police) 2023-24
We received the end of year finances for the Commissioner and Cumbria Police.

Both the Commissioner budget, and Cumbria Police budgets were broadly in balance for the last financial year. (The total cost of our policing in Cumbria is just over £153 million.) I asked a question about funding for PCSOs (Police Community Support Officers) and whether we would be back up to full staffing next year – the answer was yes. Fire service finances are coming to our next meeting.

Police and Fire Commissioner Annual Report 2023-24
This was the formal annual report of the previous Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner, which broadly shows good news for most types of crime falling in Cumbria, but with robberies and drug offences both rising. We asked about fraud and ‘cyber’ crime, but were told that fraud crimes are reported in a different way. I asked for a more detailed update on the performance on the 101 phone number in Cumbria at the next meeting, to make sure that people are able to get through when the call the police, and without waiting too long.

Recruitment Process for Independent Member
The Police, Fire and Crime Panel has two independent members who are co-opted following a recruitment process. We agreed a process to fill one vacancy, which will be advertised over the summer.

Future Meetings
Finally, we agreed that future meetings of the Panel would move around Cumbria, to make it easier if members of the public wanted to attend. We will move around between Carlisle, Workington, Barrow and Kendal, and will meet for an additional briefing/presentation in Penrith.

The papers for the meeting are here.

Please just ask if you have any questions.