Cutbacks hit hard but PCSP is forging ahead

Cutbacks hit hard but PCSP is forging ahead

24 August 2016

JUST under a year ago Police and Community Safety Partnerships (PCSP) were told to prepare for a massive 50% budget cut. 

Vital anti-social behaviour and community safety programmes were put at risk by the government austerity measures but by last November the Department of Justice decision was reversed.

The past year has been spent putting the PCSPs back on track while also dealing with the merger of the new super councils.

Set up in April 2012, they are a merger of the old Community Safety Partnerships (CSP) and District Policing Partnerships (DPP), and recently reformed to match the new council boundaries.

The Newry Mourne and Down PCSP is now back to doing what it does best, though helping to hold the police to account is trickier than ever in the light of recent savage PSNI funding cuts. Chief Constable George Hamilton warned there would be casualties and Neighbourhood Policing, one of the local success stories, was one of them. Three teams are now down to just one in the Down District area alone.

The new PCSP manager for this area, Siobhan Fearon, along with the chairman, councillor Brian Quinn, and vice-chair, Dan McEvoy, have spoken, however, of a great determination to work together in the current circumstances as they assessed the past year and looked ahead to the future.

Mr McEvoy acknowledged that while the PCSP holds its main meeting in public there is no interaction with the public as there was in the days of lively DPP meetings. Instead he said that the Community Safety Network had been relaunched by the PCSP to meet this need and will meet four times a year.

In a frank assessment of the CSP DPP merger, he said: “The CSP was very singly focused on community safety issues and didn’t worry so much about the police interaction as you had the DPP on the side. Did we water down the functions by coming together as a PCSP? I think everybody who has had experience of both would say to an extent there was a bit of a watering down because when you bring two important bodies together something has to suffer because it is resource implications.”

However, Mr McEvoy believes that with the support of their officers they will continue to be effective in targeting issues such as anti-social behaviour.

“The likes of Stream Street has been one of our major successes,” he said. “Could we reinvent that? Redeliver that? Yes we can as long as we have identified the need.

“We will get in there at a really grass roots level and hopefully show people that working with organisations such as the PCSP will only benefit the outcome.”

Referring to tackling the major issues in Down such as burglary, Mr McEvoy notes recent police efforts to reduce this crime. However, he also has concerns about the remodelling of the local policing structure when it comes to connecting to officers on such practical matters.

“Whereas we had a group of eight or nine officers within the Downpatrick area who worked in the neighbourhood policing team from 2008 onwards they don’t exist anymore, now we have two officers,” he said.

Mr McEvoy acknowledges that the new PSNI Local Policing Teams are expected to deal with neighbourhood issues as well as response issues, but he is sceptical that they will be able to find the time in an already packed schedule.

“We have neighbourhood watch coordinators who haven’t spoken to a police officer in a 12 months,” he said.

Mr McEvoy said police had acknowledged to him that this shouldn’t be happening. “We wait to see,” he added.

He continued: “If your life is fine, 2.5 kids, nice job, no issues, you are not interested in the PCSP.

What we are trying to ensure is that those people who have an interest through being the victims of crime or whatever know who we are.”

Pointing to the strength of local community interest in the local PCSP, Ms Fearon said: “We have 170 odd schemes the length and breadth of this district who are actually supporting the community safety needs in terms of being the eyes and ears, supporting their local neighbourhoods, getting access to information coming down from us and also proving information back up to the PCSP or the police.”

To help build community relations she also pointed to initiatives such as their ‘Coffee with Cops’, where members of the public can meet informally with officers in local coffee shops.

“If they are at a coffee shop near you please in say hello and get to know your police,” she said.

“Absolutely I would encourage people to get involved with the PCSP, to establish a neighbourhood watch scheme and attend the community safety networks.”

Among the many PCSP programmes currently in action are those such as Home Secure, which offers practical security advice, the Good Morning Good Neighbour telephone service for more vulnerable residents, education programmes around cyber safety, sexual assault and violence and night time diversionary projects to encourage young people away from anti-social behaviour.

“Domestic violence is another big issue, we do an awful lot of work supporting victims of domestic violence,” said Ms Fearon. “In a couple of weeks we are bringing over Zoe Lodrick to speak on issues around domestic violence.”

Zoe has over 22 years experience in sexualised trauma and domestic abuse and provides training and consultation to police. This particular seminar takes place in Burrendale Hotel, Newcastle on September 15.

Chairman Brian Quinn said that in many cases the new PCSP would be able to draw on more professional expertise of this nature.

“The PCSP has recognised the work that is done in the past and is continuing it on, maybe with some changes because of the whole change in structure,” he said. “Whether that will engage with people right away or not — it will just take people a bit of time to see.

“I am hopeful that through the local District Electoral Area meetings there will be also be more local engagement.”

He added: “While we are working on limited budgets there are other funding avenues for people and the PCSP are making them aware of these, so it’s not down strictly to just PCSP funding.

“We are working with limited resources but having a lot of success.”

The next PCSP meeting in public will be held on September 20 and the next Community Safety Network meeting will be held on November 8 in Newcastle’s Burrendale Hotel.