Agenda and draft minutes

Everyone was welcomed to the meeting and introductions made.

Minutes of the last meeting were agreed as a true record.  There were no matters arising.

Stephen Mold & Helen King

The OPFCC Budget consultation would be going live the following week.  OPFCC Stephen Mold attended the meeting with Helen King, Chief Finance Officer, who would shortly be retiring and Vaughan Ashcroft who would be taking over from her.

Stephen reminded the group that the governance of NFRS was transferred to the PCC on 1/1/19.  There had been several issues such as recruitment freezes which had affected operational delivery, an inherent budget shortfall, no transfer of reserves or capital funding and an ageing estate requiring significant investment. Since that date the annual budget is almost £8m more, £10m of capital investment, increase in wholetime fire-fighters from 242 to 254, over £5m in one off grants.  Over 40% of the operational fire tender fleet will have been replaced by 2024 as most had reached, or were reaching, the end of their useful life.  Technology has been updated, with most of the significant front and back-office systems replaced or the replacement scheduled.  A thorough review of the estate had been carried out with recommendations made to ensure facilities are sustainable, more environmentally friendly and less reliance on fossil fuels.  Welfare and changing facilities have been refurbished.

Where we are now – Fire:

Prevention

·         Continue to collaborate with partners to target those most at risk.

·         More than 5,600 home fire safety visits conducted in 2022/23 to help some of the most vulnerable live in safer homes.

Protection

·         Working with local authorities to support planning process and HMO inspections, business, landlord and commercial forums.

·         763 risk-based inspections carried out in 2022/23 compared to 425 in 2021/22

·         Fire Protection officers visited more than 1,000 premises in 2022 to help significantly reduce the risk of fires in buildings where people live, work and visit.

Where we are now – Police

·         Highest number of police officers ever with over 1,500

·         Police officers in Neighbourhood policing now doubled to 116 and increasing.

·         The first Force to take burglary seriously and ensure all victims of a residential dwelling burglary were visited.

·         N’hants has seen lowest increase in crime

·         Serious knife crime trend is decreasing

·         Serious Violence Duty has been introduced

·         Neighbourhood crime, personal robbery and theft from persons increasing at a lower rate than nationally.

·         Over £1.2m worth of stolen plant, trailers and vehicles recovered.

·         £1.3m ANPR expansion – 294 cameras on posts, 17 new car kits, 10 rapid deployment cameras, 4 more members of staff to keep the network running.

Growing Population

Government grants are allocated by historic formulas which was frozen on 2011/2.  However, Northamptonshire’s population has increased above the national average (2012 – 2021 – national average increase = 6.5% while Northamptonshire increased by 13.5% over the same period).  What does this mean in real terms?

·         We receive £20 less in police grant per head of population than the national average - £15m less in real terms.

·         We receive £23 less than Nottinghamshire in police grant per head of population.  In real terms that is £17m.

·         If the police grant formula was based on number of households  ...  view the full minutes text for item 89.

Olivia Bent

Olivia introduced herself as the Cycling Officer funded by British Cycling and WNC by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.  This was a 2year partnership until September 2025 with potential for an extension.  It was community focussed rather than competitive.  Activities include

·         Bike library

·         pedal parties,

·         active travel – towns and cities are congested with motor vehicles so looking to support people in cycling to work

·         working with Northants Sport at the bike park to set up an under 18 cycling club

·         British Cycling had funding for disability cycling with adaptive bikes, Clubs needed to affiliate with British Cycling in order to access funding. 

·         Breeze Rides were women only rides and they were looking to get more leaders trained up in the New Year.

·         Bikeability in schools – already working with some schools in Daventry

·         Speaking with girls in schools to find out what barriers they faced

·         Coaching qualifications

Rachel asked if there was any chance of the bike library linking in with other charities as some of the people in refuge had mentioned bikes.  Olivia explained the Daventry project was where stolen bikes had been recovered but the original owner was not traceable.  There had been about 500 bikes but when visited there were only a few that were actually useable.  She was still in the process of finding out who was doing what.  As well as Daventry there was also Delapre and Umbrella Fair restoring bikes.  Rachel stated she had a contact at Umbrella Fair and would contact them directly.

Cllr Humphries stated she was trying to get active travel further up the agenda and was there going to be an overview of how many more residents were getting on bikes.  Also Men in Sheds were asking for donated bikes and repurposing them.   Olivia responded that Men in Sheds were engaged with the Bike Library, British Cycling were keeping a tabs on people attending Breeze Rides and how many were using the bike park.  She was also working with the active quarter in Northampton.  It was intended to have a connection from the Delapre hub to the bike park as the bike park was owned by the Golf Course so it was not possible to have any bike storage there.

The event would be at the Guildhall on Saturday 9 March, 11am – 3pm.  Due to pressures in the New Year, planning had already started.  Booking of a stall would be through an online form which would be circulated to members.  If any space remained on 5 January, it would be opened up.  There was capacity for 4 workshops with 3 booked already.  The theme for this year is #Inspire Inclusion.

Inspirational Woman nominations would open up on Monday 18 December until February 4 with the 2 categories of Business and Community.  The link will be circulated when available.

Debs – 16 Days of Activism – events until 10 December.  International Day of People with Disabilities event at Fernie Fields on Friday 1 December.

Rachel –managed to get funding for a DA health co-ordinator to be hosted by NDAS to improve DA response in health settings and give professionals the confidence to ask questions.  Also lottery funding for a volunteer co-ordinator.  The whole DA setting nationally was having issues recruiting but they were finding volunteering a good stepping-stone into to paid roles.

Debbie – the next Women’s Business Network meet was on Thursday January 18 at 12 noon for those attending face to face and 12.15 for those joining by Teams.  The session would be a workshop on goal setting.  If you want to attend and are not already booked on, please contact debbie.maccoll@westnorthants.gov.uk.

Next Meeting will be on Tuesday January 30 at 11am in the Godwin Room, Guildhall and on Teams.