Commissioner Simon Hayes wants your questions on your confidence in the police for a scrutiny meeting with Chief Constable Andy Marsh.
Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire Simon Hayes is responsible for challenging police culture, attitudes and behaviours and ultimately holding Hampshire Constabulary to account on behalf of Hampshire and Isle of Wight residents.
Mr Hayes is seeking questions from members of the public for the next Commissioner’s Performance, Accountability, Scrutiny and Strategy (COMPASS) meeting. The focus of this scrutiny meeting between the Commissioner and the Chief Constable will be on confidence in the police.
Public confidence in police has been severely shaken in recent times following high profile criticism of the conduct of officers, both past and present, in the handling of the Stephen Lawrence murder, the alleged police cover up following the Hillsborough disaster, dishonest officers in the Plebgate affair and police response to domestic abuse.
Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary Tom Winsor stated “the police service has been damaged, but it is certainly not broken” in last month’s HMIC annual assessment statement.
Commissioner Simon Hayes said “I will seek assurances from Chief Constable Andy Marsh that the public can trust Hampshire Constabulary in the way it conducts itself in relation to areas such as leadership, governance and standards, complaints processes, and data and statistics. So, I invite members of the public to submit their own questions on this particular topic.”
In order to be considered by the Commissioner, questions must:
- be related to confidence in policing
- not discuss specific or individual cases or investigations
- not be related to the work of the Police and Crime Commissioner, as the COMPASS meetings are about the performance of Hampshire Constabulary.
The submission deadline is Thursday 24th April 2014. Questions can be submitted via the following channels:
- Telephone: 01962 871595
- Email: opcc@hampshire.pnn.police.uk
- Facebook: Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire
- Twitter: @HantsPCC, using #COMPASS
The COMPASS meeting is being recorded and will be available on www.hampshire-pcc.gov.uk early May.
To keep up to date with the developments around the COMPASS meetings, members of the public are encouraged to sign up to the Commissioner’s monthly bulletin via the My Settings tab on the Commissioner’s website www.hampshire-pcc.gov.uk, follow the Commissioner on Twitter @HantsPCC, or find the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire on Facebook.
I am deeply concerned by the direction Hampshire Constabularly is taking. I do not know who is running the force. Is it the Commissioner or the Chief Constable? I do not think that the Chief Constable, Andy Marsh, should stil be on duty bearing in mind the serious allegations made against him concerning the scandal at the Stanbridge Earls School. He should be suspended until this is resolved. It beggars belief that the Constabulary is considering closing Eastleigh police station and has removed the cells from Andover police station. Poor policing now seems to be norm in this County. Recently I spoke to a sergeant in Andover police station concerning the handling of a particular case which a resident had brought to my attention. The rudeness , disrespect and lack of any help was astounding. My thoughts on that officer after putting the phone down on him are totally unprintable, in my opinion he should not be serving in the police force. I have no doubt that the reply to this from the commissioners office will be that cuts have to be made, crime is trending down, and we walk on water. Personally, I do not believe that. Crime figures are trending up. I believe that it has become far more difficult to report a crime. The only area in which Hampshire Constabularly is excelling is in the use of their speed vans, which are far too often placed on the 303, to be linked to road safety, it is all too apparent that they are there to generate income. I do not think for one moment that the commissioners office represents value for money, I would rather see that money channelled into keeping police stations open. Get back to decent honest policing, drop the marketing and MBA speak and keep our police stations open. But above all uphold the traditions of Law and Order and serve the people of this county, rather than the other way round, which is how it seems at the moment.
It is like the sign says Police Slow ( in taking action ) a resident asked my advice regarding an incident involving damage to his vehicle, I suggested that he inform the police, which he did, the answer he got was, ” we may be able to send someone round within 24 hours ”
In my opinion this type of attitude is not acceptable, I like many others have no confidence in the police, we never see them, nor indeed do we see the PCSOs patrolling the areas, which they have been told are hot spots.