Review criticises police meetings

MEETINGS designed to help police gather information from the public are failing to address some problems, and some gatherings are not even open to local residents, according to a new report.

South Yorkshire Police introduced so-called Police and Communities Together (PACT) meetings around a year ago, as part of the new community policing model which has been adopted by the force.

The meetings are supposed to be held every month and advertised to all residents in each “safer neighbourhood team” area, which is the responsibility of a team of dedicated police and support officers.

PACT meetings are meant to allow the public to have their say on issues concerning them, and give community officers vital intelligence and information about crimes being committed in their area.

A report was commissioned by deputy chief constable Bob Dyson in November and although some areas are performing well, others are struggling to put on meetings and make people aware of them.

The findings of the report will be considered on Friday by members of South Yorkshire Police Authority, which oversees the work of the county’s police, and recommendations made on how to improve.

A review team was instructed to visit every PACT meeting put on by 55 safer neighbourhood teams last November to check whether the gatherings were being run and how they were received.

Eight recommendations have now been made after some reviewers found that meetings were either not open to the public, or not advertised in any way to ensure that interested residents could attend.

The review says: “It is fair to say that the use of advertising for PACT meetings, using posters, the safer neighbourhood team (SNT) website and flyers is, at best, haphazard.

“The force marketing team has made publicity material available to SNT inspectors, but at a recent meeting with them, it was clear that a large number of staff were not aware of what is available.”

According to the report, the reviewers found that some areas of the county were doing much better than others in terms of running the meetings, with 228 people attending those held in Doncaster in November.

In Barnsley, however, only seven people attended meetings held in the same month, with 211 attending those held in Sheffield and 151 going to PACT meetings in the Rotherham district.

The report says that the low number of people attending in Barnsley may be explained by the fact that, at present, many of the meetings are actually closed, with the public barred from attending.

Reviewers found that in Barnsley, the public were not allowed to attend seven out of nine meetings which were supposed to be open, while three out of 21 were closed in the Sheffield district.

The report says: “It is worth pointing out that the PACT process was introduced in South Yorkshire at very short notice, only eight months ago.

“This has meant that some SNTs have chosen to bolt the meeting on to an existing structure, but it is clear that some of those structures don’t allow for public attendance.

“The argument might be that public representatives attend the PACT meeting, but this cannot be then described as a public meeting”.

The report highlights some positive messages from the PACT process and says that based on reviewers’ visits, the meetings allowed officers to engage with around 600 people in one month.

But it concludes: “There is still room for improvement in some areas. Better co-ordination with and co-operation from partners, improved marketing of meetings and providing staff with relevant skills and equipment will help build the foundations of a successful process.”