Issue - meetings

To receive an update on the PCSO Service Level Agreement

Tony Potts, Community Safety Manager, attended to provide an update on the current situation in relation to the proposed service level agreement (SLA), between the Safer Cheshire East Partnership and Cheshire Constabulary, in relation to the funding of Police Community Support Officers (henceforth PCSO).

It was explained that the financial issues around the funding of the SLA were still being discussed when the report was submitted to the Committee. As the meeting was postponed from 2 December 2010 to the 6 January 2011, it was reported that more detail had become available since that point. With this is mind, it was noted that an agreement had been reached that the Safer Cheshire East Partnership would match any central government funding package for PCSOs. Having said this, due to the comprehensive spending review, a number of uncertainties had been created around future funding, with the finite details still unknown. One of the most important elements of this was that the funding for PCSOs was no longer ring-fenced and in its place a general ‘neighbourhood police’ fund had been allocated to local authorities who had been granted full autonomy over direction of spend.

It was reported, that whilst it was expected that a large proportion of this fund would be allocated to funding PCSOs, this would not be confirmed until the budget had been decided. As a result, the total amount of PCSOs in Cheshire East would be unknown until the final budget had been settled.

Tony Potts continued to explain due to this uncertainty, both parties – the Safer Cheshire East Partnership and Cheshire Constabulary, had agreed not to progress the SLA until the final details were known. It was reported, that the SLA would likely be reviewed as part of this process.

Following detailed consideration of the report and its subsequent explanation, a number of queries and comments were made. Firstly, the point was made that when the budget had been finalised and a decision over resource allocation imminent, the Sustainable Communities Scrutiny Committee should be consulted in order to provide input to the budget ‘balancing act’.

The aforementioned review of the SLA was also queried. Bearing in mind that the Committee had already offered its input into the SLA in a meeting on 5 August 2010, there was concern over how much this would change in any review and whether this would cause any delays. It was confirmed that the current SLA was robust and any changes would likely be minimal with Cheshire Constabulary simply ratifying a few slight modifications.

Continuing with the SLA, it was questioned who would be responsible for monitoring the delivery of its terms. The Committee were reassured built into the SLA was the requirement for progress reports to be brought back to Members on a regular basis and following these, it would be in the Committee’s prerogative to flag any issues for concern.

RESOLVED

a)     That the report be received.

b)     That the Committee be consulted in the decision over  ...  view the full minutes text for item 64