Fighting Crime (Public Engagement)

Public engagement in fighting crime is crucial. We all know that we cannot have a civilised society without a consensus approach to fighting crime, and that we need 99 per cent. of the people on our side to implement the laws that we want for our society. How do we improve matters? Crime has decreased in the past 11 years, funding for forces has increased hugely, we have police community support officers as well as regular police officers, and many other improvements have been made, yet a tremendous fear of crime persists. People remain convinced that there is more crime than actually occurs and that they will be victims of crime. They also still have a negative view of some of their encounters with the police. Clearly, a huge amount of work remains to be done to improve communication between communities and their local police forces. That approach seems to be working successfully at the local level. The neighbourhood policing scheme seems to have taken off well in the urban areas of my constituency, particularly the Communities First areas, where there is quite a high-visibility approach, with pictures put up, phone numbers and so forth, so that local people can get in touch. Nevertheless, there are still some issues that people feel quite strongly about—although perhaps I am biased and have a more negative view than I should because people come to me when things go wrong. We have a new chief inspector in the Dyfed-Powys force, Ian Arundale, who is determined to look into practices in the force and see what we can do better. We have to be prepared for change, both as communities and in the police force. One issue that seems to come up again and again is the police not getting back to people. As busy Members of Parliament, we all know how difficult it can be sometimes be to explain to a constituent that they are the 127th person to contact the office in the past few days and that they cannot have an answer immediately. However, it is a worry when people report something in their locality and are told that they will receive a response, but then do not receive one. There seem to be so many small, practical ways of overcoming that problem, such as better logging of promises to ensure that people are kept informed. Where there is progress on a case but that is not communicated to the community, that can leave a negative impression, even though something positive has happened. There are certainly some positive aspects: we have good meetings with local people, we have boxes in post offices into which people can put their ideas, and we have a generally high profile. We in Dyfed-Powys are lucky not to be plagued by serious crime very often. However, we have our fair share of antisocial and quite unpleasant minor criminal activity, which can be a blight on communities and individual's lives. We need to think what the best ways are of getting people fully involved. However, we must remember that the police and the average citizens are not the only ones who have a say or who can do something. Local councils, too, have quite a considerable role to play in certain areas, such as licensing. Too often, when people make applications for licences, they try to turn the current law against us by saying, ““You can't possibly turn us down, because of X, Y and Z.”” They say that because they are demanding a licence and employing people specifically to make their case. However, local councils have discretion and can invoke the provisions about not increasing the likelihood of more criminal activity to turn applications down. We were pleased in Llanelli in a few weeks ago when the county council's licensing committee turned down an application. The committee listened to local residents' concerns and said that 4 am was too late and would create problems, and so limited the licence to 1 am. Councillors can use their discretionary powers and must not let themselves be bullied by applicants who say that the law says that they cannot. Councillors should retaliate by saying, ““The law gives us full discretion and we as councillors will choose to do what the people of the area want.”” There is therefore a role for invoking the laws that we already have and for using them effectively to make our communities safer and more pleasant places to live, where people can be confident that they can go about their business without being confronted by antisocial behaviour. I am currently working with the mayor of Llanelli to look into the possibility of creating an alcohol-free zone in the town. We are obviously proceeding on the basis of full consultation with stakeholders, local residents and the police on whether such a zone might be an effective tool in the fight against antisocial behaviour. That would not mean that licensed premises would not be able to continue serving alcohol, that they could not use their beer gardens or that, if they have an appropriate licence for tables in the street, they could not continue to serve people there, but it might offer another tool to cut down on reckless and thoughtless antisocial behaviour, which is often fuelled by alcohol, particularly on the lighter summer evenings. There are a number of stakeholders in the community who have a part to play. It is sometimes easy for us to pass the buck. On the issue of traffic, for example, the police control the double yellow lines and the county council looks after the residents' parking schemes, and all these things get very confused in people's minds. It is therefore crucial that we make it clear who can do what, and that the various agencies communicate with each other, so that members of the public do not necessarily have to know who to approach, as long as their problem is passed on to the appropriate person. There is an antisocial behaviour officer in the county, and there should be direct communication between the police and that person. The same applies to the public protection people who clamp down on the shops that sell alcohol to under-age customers. There has to be direct communication, because members of the public do not always know whom they should go to, and they can sometimes get frustrated if they are passed from pillar to post. All our services should automatically communicate with each other to provide a better service for the public. If a member of the public has made one phone call, they do not want to have to make several more in order to get something done. They often end up in our surgeries, because they feel so frustrated that nothing is being done. The Green Paper provides us with food for thought, and contains some excellent ideas on possible ways forward. Certainly, anything that we can do to improve communication from the police to the community telling the community what they are doing, and from the community telling the police what they would like to be done, will be welcome. I am concerned, however, about the idea to scrap the local authority representatives on the police authorities and to have new crime and policing representatives instead. Although I do not always agree with all my local councillors, they are, in general, genuine representatives of the community. They have been elected on a broad slate of issues and they take an interest in all aspects of people's lives. The councils in the Dyfed-Powys area each select two or three councillors to represent the county on the Dyfed-Powys police authority. Those councillors automatically have a network of people whom they can consult. They know each other, they have meetings and they are able to represent what people across the county are feeling. In a county that measures roughly 45 miles from north to south and 45 miles east to west, how would a crime and policing representative get feedback from the public in order to represent such a large rural area? I do not know how anybody could feel genuinely representative of the whole of the Dyfed-Powys area. As far as I can see, they would not have a mechanism to provide them with the necessary input from their local communities. I am also worried that this proposal could give rise to some kind of extremist infiltration. We all know that it is not easy to get voters out to take part in elections, but we are now proposing to hold yet another election on a single issue. One can imagine candidates who might be over-the-top, over-enthusiastic vigilante types. One can also imagine some of the more extremist groups trying to get hold of that particular position of power, perhaps even as a knee-jerk reaction to some dreadful crime that has been committed in the community. I wonder whether such people would be representative of all the issues affecting the community. Our local councillors are also very aware of the other services that link in from the county council to the police authority. I have already mentioned public protection and the antisocial behaviour units. Councillors are also aware of the pressures on funding. They realise that for the police, like everyone else, funds are not limitless, and that they have to make difficult decisions. They probably have a much broader outlook on the issues affecting their communities. I worry that a system of crime and policing representatives that had no representation at all from locally elected members will not be the right way to go about creating a truly democratically representative group of people to advise on the work of the police authority in their area. Having said that, I welcome the Green Paper in broad terms, particularly its focus on trying to get greater involvement. I have to say that the problem will not be solved overnight; it is going to need continuous work. We are always going to have to find better ways of getting our message across, better ways of communicating with the public and better ways for them, in turn, to communicate with us. Although we all like to have a little moan, members of the public are aware that they cannot be at the forefront of deciding how things are done in every single service. People often say to me, ““This is something that the professionals will need to sort out,”” so we need to be cautious about believing that everything can automatically be devolved to and decided by communities. We need their input—there must be good consultation—but they also have elected representatives. They have us to change policies at the national level and they have their local councillors to change things at the local level. That is the right way to proceed.