The Borough Commander took part in a Q&A session on the amalgamation of Barnet, Brent and Harrow police forces. Here are his responses to questions from the public:
The questions
below were sent in via our @MPSBarnet, @MPSBrent and @MPSHarrow Twitter
accounts.
The session was
conducted on Tuesday 9th October 2018 at 6pm.
The video responses
by Simon Rose were uploaded to Twitter and have been recorded below.
1. “What do you
see as the main challenges of this merger?”
“I think there
are two main challenges of this merger. The first one is logistics, we are
moving quite a few people from one location to another but basically that’s the
deck chairs being moved on a ship. A far more fundamental challenge is we are
moving over to a model where most officers will investigate and follow through
with the enquiries they start. This is something we only did 20 years ago in
the Met and it’s a model being used elsewhere around the country. What’s good
about this? It means that for a victim of crime, when an officer reports this
crime, they meet the investigating officer there and then and there is
continuity but fundamentally the challenges are our officers getting used to
this MI Investigation process because it hasn’t been done this way in the Met
for some time and the logistics of moving around large numbers of people”.
2. “How will the
merger help increase security in areas such as Harlesden?”
“The merger
doesn’t mean a reduction in the number of officers to the Borough. It’s a
reorganisation of what we’ve got. The benefit of it is that areas such as
Harlesden, Wealdstone High Street, South Harrow and the Grahame Park Estate we
have a much bigger pool of officers in one big team in order to make them
available to deploy at the times of peak times and those high demand areas.
It’s actually a more efficient way of working with what we’ve got, to where we
are putting it and where we need it the most”.
3. “Does that mean
one fast response vehicle for all of North London?”
“No, we certainly
haven’t got one vehicle for the whole of North London. So the minimum strengths
on an early turn, early shift, is 77, on a late shift its 86 and a night duty
is 82. That’s quite a lot of officers but it’s a big bit of land. There’s 3 large
area cars, 43 emergency response vehicles, IRV’s we call them and 6 station
vans. So there is 50 plus vehicles available for deployment. They aren’t all
going to be driving around at the same time, some will be in custody, some will
be on enquiries but it is a very large pool of vehicles and officers available
to deploy to demand.
4. “Will the
merger result in any changes in the overall number of active Police officers
across the three Borough’s or the distribution of officers across different
parts of the Borough?”
“So we are still
going to have the same number of officers we had before. We will have in
February, the serious sexual offences and child abuse team will also be based
locally but at that time their work will come with them. So fundamentally the number of officers we’ve
got aren’t going to change. In relation to the distribution, because Harrow
custody suite closes and we go to an East and West patrol site based out of
Colindale and Wembley, the emergency response officers will patrol from two sites
rather than three. So the patrol base changes but the number of officers we had
before and afterwards stays the same”.
5. “In the context
of recent firearms incidents in Harrow, how can residents be assured they will
receive a sustained (or improved) level of Policing following the merger?”
“I think the
recent firearms incidents in Harrow is actually quite good proof that this can
demonstrate an improvement in service, because as a result of being one BCU, I
as the Borough Commander have access to the proactive assets of all 3 Borough’s
and following the incidents in Harrow, we flexed officers from Barnet and Brent
into Wealdstone and South Harrow and other Harrow as necessary to resource the
demand there. So if you're actually looking for a case to prove that larger teams
demonstrate more resilient processes and enable to deploy to the needs of
Harrow as and when they rise, on that basis this is very good proof that it
works”.
6. What is the
impact on Police response times as a result of Harrow Station closing?
“Currently Harrow
has one of the best emergency 999 response times in London. Approximately 92 –
94% of all 999 calls, we arrive within 15 minutes. After we have merged the
emergency response times at Harrow will still be within target. The target is 90% of emergency response calls
will be answered within 15 minutes. The officers will be parading from Wembley
rather than Harrow, if you look at an AA route planner, its 9 minutes’ drive,
obviously it's far less if you’re using blue lights and sirens and the cars will
be deployed across the whole of the East and the West of the Borough or the BCU
accordingly. So after the merger, we will still be meeting our response times”.
7. “Where will
members of the Public be able to find a physical Police response in Harrow
without calling 999/101?”
So this is one of
the things that doesn’t actually change at all. Harrow front counter will still
be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. Harrow Police
Station will still have Police officer’s working out of it. That will not
change. The building is actually getting refurbished next year. So every single
way you have to contact Police in Harrow prior to the merger is still the same
afterwards. It doesn’t change”.
8. “What impact
will the merger have on Police availability for non-emergency activities, such
as partnership working across the Borough?”
“The
relationship we will have with partners will change after the merger. We are
going to a model where we will have one partnership team, a larger partnership
team, servicing the needs of three Boroughs rather than one. So it will be
centralised, a lot of that partnership work is being delivered from South
Harrow Police Station but the number of officers in that role doesn’t change.
Their location does change but one of the biggest change, significant change is
that it is slimming down the management structure. So it is fair to say that
our attendance at meetings or senior officers presence at the more
discretionary meetings will be less because the best way to protect the front
line is to slim down the management. That is one of the things that has
happened and you will certainly see one Borough Commander for three Boroughs rather
than previously three for three.
9. “How will
resources be managed across crime hotspots on the 3 Boroughs?”
“The process we
will use to manage Police resources across the three Boroughs is the same as it
was before but rather than having three coordination and tasking meetings, we
will have one that will look at the risk across the three Boroughs. The available pool of assets will be much
larger and it will be allocated according to threat, harm and risk. So for us at the moment across the BCU it is
Harlesden, Wealdstone High Street and to some degree the Grahame Park Estate”.
10. “How will resources
be evenly split and prioritised to the needs to the respective areas?”
“The resources
are going to be allocated with the use of the TTCG (Tasking and Tactical
Coordination Meeting). That will allocate resources to threat, harm and
risk. The Borough or the BCU will also
have an East and West patrol site and the line has been divided so that demand
is about 59% and 41%. The officers in the East will responding to all of Barnet
and the South East corner of Brent demands and the officers in the West, will
be responding to the rest of Brent and all of Harrow’s demands. That is about
50:50 but the extra asset will be targeted at the central coordination and
planning meetings”.
11. “How can you
reassure residents that the tri-borough merger won’t lead to more street crime?
What are you doing to persuade the Government to release urgent funds to Sadiq
Khan to keep our communities safe?”
“Clearly it’s
not my role to lobby the mayor to bring extra funds or officers into policing
but in relation to the tri-borough merger and how it’s going to affect the
deployment of the resources, I think, well I know as I have been party to the
decisions and have made the decisions, when we had the significant crime
incidents at Harrow we flexed, or I flexed extra officers from Barnet and Brent
into Harrow to respond to that, so that’s actually a benefit to the tri-borough
merger. We have a bigger pool of officers that can deploy according to the
peaks and spikes in demand, which Harrow has benefited from”.
12. “Where are the
Police on the streets?”
“So the question,
where are the Police on the street? Unfortunately if when you look out your
front room you don’t actually see an officer walking past or driving past at
the actual time they walk and driving past, you will never know they’ve gone
past. So for example we have a minimum strength of 77 officers on an early
shift and 86 officer on a late shift and 72 officers on a night shift. We have
a total of 53 marked and a couple of unmarked vehicles deployed every day and
these are the vehicles and officers who are on patrol on the three Boroughs.
The fact you don’t see them, does just mean that you don’t notice them when
they walk or drive past or you don’t happen to look out of your window when
they go past your address but they are there, honestly!”
13. “What is the
cost of this restructure cost the public purse?”
“The restructure
is actually being done to save money and to protect the frontline. So a lot of
the amalgamation of Boroughs into BCU’s or the closing of Police station, it
saves money. The whole amalgamation process actually saves 73 million, which
equates to 1583 frontline officers. So a big driver for this is making better
of use of what we’ve got. It’s actually about saving money, not wasting money”.
14. “Can you
confirm that the three Boroughs will be safely policed under the new BCU
structure?”
“Well that’s what
I am going to be held accountable for by the safer neighbourhood boards, by the
Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Mark Simmons, who is my boss and the
Commissioner. That is what I am charged
with being responsible for delivering. I believe yes it will”.
15. “Police are
struggling to cope with rising crime will there be investment in police cars,
CCTV?”
“So there is
going to be no extra investment in Police cars and CCTV. What we are actually
investing in is mobile technology so that officers with these tablets can take
a report at the scene and give a victim of crime, the crime reference number at
the scene and then go on to the next job. If you look at how policing is being
delivered since 1829, there’s this yo-yo process - You’d go out in 1829, you
came back and wrote it up with a quill and bit of parchment probably. The ins
and outs have fundamentally been the same until very recently. Only now that
the officers have got tablets, they go out and take details on the street,
enter the crime report on to the database and give the victim the details then.
They don’t need to go back to the Police Stations and that efficiency - that is
the investment in technology is helping to make a difference”.
16. “Which units
will create the new NW unit?”
“So very simply,
what’s being merger to create this North West BCU are the Boroughs of Barnet,
Brent and Harrow. There is a slight extra to that, if you like and a quite
positive extra. The Sapphire, which is the sexual offences, the rape, indecent
assault investigations and the child abuse investigations are also coming back
to the Borough with the investigating officers. So with the good news around
that is previously if you had a victim of domestic abuse rape, domestic abuse
assault and there were child abuse allegations, there would be three separate
teams dealing with that. Now there will be one team dealing with whole thing at
the same Police Station. You will get more efficiency, better victim service,
continuity and a more integrated Police response”.
