Police and Crime Commissioner
Welcome and verbal update
Minutes:
Shaun Wright, Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire, attended the meeting and gave a report on his work as Commissioner:-
- Community Safety required a partnership approach – seek to endeavour to align all agencies/services, pooling budgets and jointly commissioning services thereby maximising ever decreasing resources
- The Police and Crime Plan was a key document for the Commissioner and hopefully for partners to ensure alignment to the key areas
- Drug addiction, alcohol and mental health issues were all significant issues impacting on crime and community safety. Whilst substantial funding was being directed to drug interventions, unless the re-offending link to mental health issues and drug/alcohol abuse was addressed, no significant impact would be made
- 90% of prisoners had at least 1 mental health problem. 1/3 of all incidents responded to by the Police were linked to someone suffering with mental health problems. Mental Health Services were very stretched and had been underfunded for a significant time – need to work smarter with the resources available
- Keenness to align the Commissioner Office and South Yorkshire Police with the Board
- The Police were a significant recipient of the Commissioner’s funding but he could commission any service he so wished. Keen to tackle reoffending rates
- A certain amount of the budget would be safeguarded for Prevention and Early Intervention as a baseline that could be built upon
- Hallam University had been commissioned to map out current funding and partnerships within South Yorkshire which directly contributed to Community Safety which would feed into the commissioning decisions and the update of the Police and Crime Plan
Discussion ensued with the following points raised:-
· Prevention and Early Intervention was a priority. Work was required to create governance for the budget setting and commissioning strategy for 2014/15
· The need to involve the Commissioner in the consultation on CCG plans
Shaun was thanked for his attendance.