LAYING We’re tackling crime together
WITH DIVISIONAL COMMANDER CHIEF SUPT GORDON CROSSAN
Each week, Renfrewshire’s top cop, Chief Superintendent Gordon Crossan, gives us his expert take on the major policing issues facing the area. This week he talks about working closely with the local authority to deliver the best results.
This week I’d like to inform readers about how policing across Renfrewshire is scrutinised.
Oversight for Renfrewshire and Inverclyde Police comes from Renfrewshire Council’s Police and Fire & Rescue Scrutiny Board which is made up of local councillors.
The board’s role is to ask myself and other Local Area Commanders tough questions to make sure the force is tackling the major priority issues in the region.
At the most recent meeting of the board, I invited members to come along to one of our local tasking meetings at Mill Street Police Office.
Councillors Marie McGurk, John McNaughtan and Jane Strang came along on Tuesday to see how we operate.
The morning meeting is where senior officers across the whole division brief the divisional command team on crimes, events and challenges over the past 24 hours, as well as forward planning for known events.
The meeting is used to identify priority investigations based on threat, risk and harm, and thereafter allocate resources accordingly.
Attendees include the command team, Local Area Commanders (Chief Inspectors), CID, Public Protection Unit (PPU), Events Unit, Intelligence, Roads Policing and Proactive Unit.
Officers from Greenock, Johnstone, Roads Policing and Public Protection Unit attend remotely via video conference.
The meeting attended by the three councillors covered a particularly busy period for us.
They heard first hand about the excellent work my officers and staff carry out.
Ongoing incidents that day included mental health, vulnerability, sexual crimes, indecent images of children, hate crime, fireraising, drug offences, road safety and policing a football match.
After the meeting I had a chat with the councillors who were impressed with the professionalism, efficiency and compassion show by my team.
Officers spoke of mental health and vulnerability challenges and how they are looking at casual factors for behaviours, rather than criminalising people with mental health illness.
There was much discussion around non-recent reporting of sexual crimes and the significant increase in reporting, most of which can be attributed to the excellent work of the PPU who are encouraging victims to come forward, then providing quality support to them.
These are often complex and lengthy investigations.
At the other end of the scale, there was discussion around localised anti-social behaviour, vandalism and general disorder, all of which are low level crimes, but can have significant negative impacts in our communities.
Much of our discussion centered on violent crime and our response to this.
I was able to reassure the councillors that we have a focus on reducing all types of crime, however violent crime remains a divisional priority and we have ongoing work to tackle and reduce this.
We also discussed how national police resources support local policing with resources and/or expert advice, which is the case in relation to the recent firearms discharge at Braehead where the national Major Investigation Team is leading the investigation, supported by some of my officers.
The support of national resource is of paramount importance when dealing with serious, complex investigation.
We are fortunate to have a scrutiny committee who are engaged with policing and working with us to improve outcomes for communities.
I am extremely grateful to the members for taking time out their busy diaries to come to see our work with a view to ensuring that we continue to deliver the highest quality of service across our communities.