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Centralisation of policing to hit 999 response times
• DESPITE claims to the contrary, there can be little doubt that the Metropolitan Police’s “Asset Management Plan” for Camden will result in a further decline in response rates to 999 calls in the borough.
Before the introduction of borough-based policing in the late 1990s, two of the then five policing areas in Camden (Hampstead and West Hampstead) met the Met’s target of responding to 80 per cent of 999 calls within 12 minutes. By 2000, none of the five areas achieved this target and Camden’s response times were the poorest in London.
About four years ago, it was “discovered” that Camden measured the way in which responses to 999 calls were timed differently to other parts of the Met. Thus Camden’s relative performance against other boroughs improved, while the actual poor performance remained unchanged. For the past nine months, only June saw more than 70 per cent of 999 calls responded to in less than 12 minutes (70.3 per cent) and the last recorded month of October saw this response figure drop as low as 61.5 per cent.
Now we are advised that adopting a single control warehouse for the borough’s force and a single custody suite will lead to an improvement in response times. All the evidence from borough-based policing here in Camden shows the reverse will be true. If response teams always have to go back to the same base with suspects or to fill in reports, rather than three (or the occasional five) bases that are still currently used, then there will necessarily be fewer police officers circulating more widely in the borough – and this is without taking into account the rush hour, the school run, one-way streets, bus and cycle lanes.
The record of Camden’s police has been pretty good recently in terms of fighting crime, so we mustn’t let a trendy theory of how to modernise our police hamper them further, on top of all the forms the current government forces them to spend their time filling-in. Camden’s Safer Neighbourhoods Teams currently operate out of nine police premises in the borough, plus King’s Cross police station just inside Islington. Yet the Borough Commander told the Camden Community Police Consultative Group that the plan was to have three of the 18 Safer Neighbourhoods Teams operate out of each such building in future – an immediate reduction of four police premises in Camden!
These are not plans to localise policing in Camden – quite the reverse. These are further plans towards the centralisation of policing which will hamper, not improve, our police’s ability to respond to 999 calls throughout Camden.
CLLR ANDREW MENNEAR
Conservative, Frognal & Fitzjohns Ward
Rosslyn Hill well used
• OUR Borough Commander has omitted the following in his references to police services based in Hampstead:
– The Camden (North) Borough Task Force.
– The Safer Schools Team.
– Scenes of Crime officers.
– The only training school for new officers under the Initial Police Learning and Development Programme in the borough.
–Office for the Community Policing Inspector for the north of the borough.
– Office for the local Crime Prevention Officer.
– Daily use by the Hampstead Heath Constabulary as part of their joint initiatives with the Met Police.
– Meeting rooms for local Safer Neighbourhoods Panel meetings, for the North Cluster meeting of all SN teams and SN panel chairs in the north of the borough, and for the joint Hampstead Heath Constabulary and Met police committee which is open to the public.
– Special Constables from the Royal Free Hospital and Specials from Camden Borough (over 100 now) operate from the station.
– Parking facilities on site, vital for staff stationed there but also useful for any robbery squad and / or terrorism briefings or debriefings.
This is not intended as a defence of the existing buildings, nor the future use of the huge total site, but an illustration of the variety of services provided by the Met Police at Rosslyn Hill, put in true perspective for the first time.
If you think that you do not see many police officers now, just imagine what the future holds for north Camden if the public does not actively challenge the issues in the next three months. I will organise a public meeting in early February, if people care enough.
NIGEL STEWARD
SN Chair
Hampstead Town Ward
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