Agenda and minutes

No declaration of interests were made.

RESOLVED

that the minutes of the meeting of the Panel held on 5 November 2020, be received and approved as a correct record.

The Chairman introduced the item and welcomed everyone to the meeting. He spoke briefly about the Panel’s work to date (specifically the 5 November meeting) and confirmed that Cabinet had acknowledged and supported all the ideas and suggestions presented to them at their 1 December meeting.

 A warm welcome was extended to Inspector Mark Dickson from Nottinghamshire Police who was in attendance at the meeting to talk about the impact of coronavirus from an operational perspective and to address concerns regarding possible increases in crime and anti-social behaviour (ASB) since the start of the pandemic.

Inspector Mark Dickson – Nottinghamshire Police

Inspector Dickson advised that the pandemic had impacted the work of the Police from top to bottom and at the start of the initial lockdown in March 2020 all front line operations had been stripped back and Police officers went back out into the community to educate and enforce the new national lockdown rules. 

During the first lockdown there had been increased levels of ASB and officers’ time was also taken up dealing with and enforcing breaches in the Covid rules.  However, once the first lockdown was over, the team reverted back to more standardised policing with the addition of ensuring the public were adhering to the new social distancing rules. 

Legislation was currently changing on a weekly basis and time was being taken up learning and facilitating new enforcement rules, whilst staying on top of the ever changing position. The District of Ashfield, following the second lockdown, had now found itself in Tier 3 although, again, guidelines were forever changing as the pandemic shifted its direction.

Inspector Dickson had taken up the role of Ashfield’s Neighbourhood Policing Inspector in May 2020 and had been impressed with the effectiveness of the joint working with the Council through the Integrated Hub at the Council offices.  Ashfield staff had worked incredibly hard throughout the pandemic, going above and beyond their normal duties in many cases.  This had resulted in areas of best practice that had been acknowledged and adopted by other local authorities.

At this point in the proceedings, a Member question and answer session took place:

The Director of Legal and Governance advised that there had been no progress since the last meeting and no additional information could be offered at this time.