Neighbourhood Engagement Contract …………………………………………..……

East Neighbourhood Policing Team

Neighbourhood Engagement Contract - Self Evaluation Report and Neighbourhood Engagement Plan

Part 1 – Introduction and Self Evaluation

Section or department Eastern NPT

Date of completion 26072019

This is a self-evaluation completed by the NPT Sergeant and responsible for the specific section or department. The second part of this report becomes the Neighbourhood Engagement Plan when complete. This report will be completed annually and submitted to the SMT for final assessment by the OPCC. Results of the evaluation will be taken to Force boards.

Provide the context of your business area in relation to Engagement with communities.

The Eastern section consists of a large rural community with three key towns of Wimborne, and and large villages such as and . The popularity of the area, being close to the New Forest, and the Dorset coast, has seen a rapid expansion in housing from the 1980s with the Verwood, Ferndown, and Corfe Mullen populations more than quadrupling. There still remains a rural feel, however, especially in the north and west of the area.

The towns hold the majority of the 59,039 households and 138,570 people (2016). The average age of the community, across the section, is 47. The proportion of individuals over the age of 65 is significantly higher than the national average. More than half of the population are made up of successful professionals, in suburban or semi-rural homes and active elderly people, living in pleasant retirement locations. Current housing growth can be seen to be concentrated on the Colehill, Wimborne and wards, with 2,500 new homes being built around Wimborne alone (2018 onwards).

The Neighbourhood team in total comprises of 9 PCSOs and 4 PCs with 2 Sergeants leading them. Clearly, a significant policing challenge lies in the geography; a vast area, covered by a small number of officers. Eastern has borders with 2 other Forces and 5 other Dorset sections. Our cross-border working is formalised within Operation “Border guard”— rural crime in the North of the section, and Operation Target in the Wimborne area, tackling ASB.

Eastern section is less culturally diverse than neighbouring and Bournemouth with 95% of residents having been born in the UK. 99% of those residents speak English and more than two thirds identify as being Christian religion. 24% of residents identify no religion and 0.4% identify as Muslim. Ethnic minority groups account for less than 2% of the population, against 15% for as a whole (Experian). Eastern NPT have a geographic responsibility to manage crime and disorder, build public confidence, manage offenders and repeat victims and focus on crime and ASB hotspots. Underpinning all of this is our relationship with the public. Whereas patrol officers tend to interact with only a small number of public at any one time, NPT try to influence far more than that in a proactive program of engagement. Engagement has been, in the recent

Neighbourhood Engagement Contract NPT

Neighbourhood Engagement Contract - Self Evaluation Report and Neighbourhood Engagement Plan

Part 1 – Introduction and Self Evaluation past, dominated by face-face encounters (Primary engagement); however, with NPT resources in Eastern being reduced by over 60%, the ratio of face-to-face against online or media based tactics has been adjusted as visibility in public has inevitably declined. It follows that those resources that remain deployable are now spending more time at a computer designing and distributing online engagement information. As a result of this, Eastern NPT are recruiting community volunteers to take some of this administrative burden away from frontline staff. The partnership with volunteers, drawn from the local community is a form of engagement in and of itself. The Section has also built, and retains, a good number of Special in its establishment. This helps to ensure we are reflective of the community we serve.

A clear focus and expectation of the team is around our “culture and standards” NPT officers comply with the policing “code of ethics” and weave and embed this key standard into our day to day policing by: Listening to our community, ensuring all our teams interactions are with dignity, fairness and respect. Recognising the Peelian principles that “The police are the public and the public are the police” and that the police require strong community links to achieve their core aims. This ethos and continued community engagement is key to legitimacy and support of the public we serve. Delivery a Culture of inclusion and recognise the community has different demographics, ages and cultures and that a “one size fits all” response will not be effective Pride in Policing- Policing has a positive effect on the harmony of the community. Officers should be proud and showcase the achievement of our partnership working and collective success and not allow austerity or concerns over resourcing to be communicated or displayed in a negative attitude.

How does your department engage and listen to the community and your staff? Primary Engagement (thematic) This form of engagement is generic and driven by themes, for example crime prevention, cyber-crime, safeguarding etc.  Face to face on street/ foot patrols  Facebook- Each team maintains an interactive page on which they post, comment and reply to members of the public.  Dorset Alert- This is also interactive in that officers can post messages and members can reply to the officer  Twitter- available to all but only used in some areas  Website enquiries facility  Sheducation events (general public events)  Written correspondence – emails and FB responses  Community events, eg. Festivals/fayres.  Radio interviews  Station attendees and direct calls or emails to the team

Secondary Engagement (targeted)  Victims of crime/ASB- Victims First visits

Neighbourhood Engagement Contract East Dorset NPT

Neighbourhood Engagement Contract - Self Evaluation Report and Neighbourhood Engagement Plan

Part 1 – Introduction and Self Evaluation

 ASB management action- matrix, patrols, letters, home visits.  Harder to reach community links- local groups  Business Coordination Groups- focus groups of business representatives to steer business engagement.  School visits and surgeries  Street corner meetings (evidence based) Quick Strike leaflet drop  Facebook targeted posts.  Press release  Targeted Sheducation  Surgeries  Careers conventions  NPT maintain and use a Key individual Network to distribute messages and gather intelligence.  Licensing visits on a regular and seasonal basis.

Tertiary Engagement (volunteers and partners)  Watch group interaction and development- newsletters, meetings, joint working, recruitment events.  Forum representation, e.g. EDISH&W Forum  P&CG meetings  Partner links- ED&CDC, Aster, Spectrum, NHS, Schools  Engagement with Harder to reach communities using public/private agencies, e.g. Prama  Integration of volunteers into local policing teams- examples in Eastern are: CCTV, Ferndown Community Office, Sheducation, Community messaging, ASB admin.  Corfe Mullen and Wimborne crime prevention teams are deployed following relevant acquisitive crimes- teams are drawn from the ranks of the Homewatch in those areas. We use this tactic to raise awareness, build confidence, increase watch group membership and register more people to Dorset Alert.

How have you quality assured what your staff are delivering? Supervision take an active role in both delivering engagement and checking the activities of their teams. Surgeries are regularly reviewed to ensure the event achieves best value in terms of officer time versus public benefit. In reality, this value tends to fluctuate and this trend is built into the review process. Supervisors monitor the team social media feeds and give feedback where necessary. All staff have undergone initial and refresher training covering social media management. New volunteers have been assimilated into an existing community messaging team to ensure corporate consistency with other sections. Supervisors also take a lead role in delivering before a lay-review each year, the results of which are then brought back and fed into the development of engagement strategies for the following year. Eastern supervisors attend and contribute towards the NPT supervisor’s forum, which provides a platform to discuss and review engagement across different sections, cross-pollenating good ideas. Supervisors hold regular supervisory meetings to ensure a consistent approach is adopted. This assists with the identification and development of best practice. Supervisors also hold regular 1 to 1 meetings with staff to tailor development and ensure good work is acknowledged.

Part 2 – Neighbourhood Engagement Plan (Essential Components)

Neighbourhood Engagement Contract East Dorset NPT

Provide an update against the essential components on your activity or contribution if primarily delivered geographically.

Build and deliver an Engagement Plan [Standard satisfied on completion of this document]. This plan aims to provide a framework for delivery that is effective and efficient, flexible enough to be applied across the varied demographic of the Eastern section and balanced with our available resources. Face-to-face engagements with members of the community. Clearly, a face-to-face engagement event is the most powerful in terms of communication- only 7% of a message is transmitted in words alone. That said, it is in maximising our face-to-face engagement that we find the most challenge. This means that we must target our face-to-face engagement to achieve the greatest impact. This is done in Eastern by locating our staff and planning our events to compliment the needs of victims, the prominence of repeat locations and the risk attached to repeat offenders. Our commitment is to provide  3 face-to-face engagement events each month that will be targeted towards either supporting victims, managing offenders, hotspot visibility or a combination thereof. These events will be public and published in advance.  1 thematic street corner meeting each month, aimed at addressing the crime or disorder priority of the moment  An ongoing program of work to support and develop tertiary initiatives like pub watch and shopwatch. To build and maintain accessible and positive relationships with key community leaders and key organisations. Eastern NPT already works very closely with both Statutory and local partner agencies. We plan to maintain this arrangement and develop it as far as possible. Our commitment is to provide

 A reviewed and efficient Key Individual Network (KIN) list, where each member of the list is someone we regularly engage with.  Attendance at key Homewatch meetings through the year.

 We will endeavour to attend or report to the remaining PACT panels.  Informed and relevant contributions at Partnership and Co-ordinating Group Meetings.  Ensure KINs are listed on Dorset Alert Messaging Systems and are reviewed.

To increase the use of social media platforms. The Eastern section social media footprint has grown steadily over the last 2-3 years. We use it in order to broadcast good news stories, raise awareness of notable crimes or trends and give advice. The public use our pages passively- by reading our posts and also proactively to engage with us, either in response to our posts or by messaging direct. Since the last review on review East had numerous Social Media Channels these have been amalgamated to share the teams collective success and to avoid confusion over ward and boundary issues.

Twitter East Dorset Twitter East Rural

Neighbourhood Engagement Contract East Dorset NPT

Twitter NPT local Inspector 1656 Perry FB East Rural Facebook East Dorset Instagram East Dorset Instagram East Rural Link to force Neighbourhood policing website

Our commitment is to provide  Continual Staff training and support in social media (with our NEO team) and a commitment to increase use of East Instagram and Facebook posts. Ensuring that we utilise Social Media to promote police activity and engagement and to send preventative and informative messages.  Dorset Alert- Staff to receive appropriate training and Dorset Alert to be promoted within our community. To utilise the use of a Volunteer to assist NPT in the use and volume of posts

Communicating outcomes against priorities on a regular and timely basis. Our commitment is to provide A quarterly update on priorities and progress via the NPT web pages in each area. We will identify priority cases and ensure the community are informed about what matters to them. Our communication strategy will be reflective of more traditional approaches such as Homewatch but also encompass online social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. We will maintain and develop our strong links with Dorset Police News Team to maximise local media platforms. To promote and support the use of the Dorset Alert system

Our commitment is to provide We will ensure that all members of NPT have received training from their Neighbourhood Engagement Officer on Dorset Alert. We will tailor Dorset Alerts for the community which are timely and relevant to crime prevention, appeals, updates and community contact. Neighbourhood Teams will ensure that Dorset Alert Sign Up information is available at engagement events. We will be inclusive of those who may struggle to sign themselves up to Dorset Alert by ensuring that those who wish to be a member can be. We will review the content of the alerts to ensure that it is timely and relevant. To have a website for the local policing area. We will work with our Neighbourhood Engagement Officers (NEOs) in reviewing the NPT areas on the Dorset Police Website. We have agreed with our NEO that they will conduct a 3 monthly review of the website priorities and staffing. We must ensure that changes to teams and staffing are detailed on the website to keep it as accurate as possible. We will outline the local priorities and provide examples of work undertaken to address identified issues.

Neighbourhood Engagement Contract East Dorset NPT

Ensure local councillors are recognised as key community leaders. We will ensure that local councillors, who are recognised via the KIN process, are kept up to date regarding local priorities and police response to critical incidents. We will maintain effective communication channels with clerks for our Towns and local parish councils to provide updates around local policing issues, so they can disseminate this information through their own processes to the local councillors. We will send representations (in person or writing) to Town and Parish council meetings in response to specific local issues as required. The NPT Inspector will directly contact the local County, Town /Parish council in event of a significant or critical event within the local community- to ensure that the local community is kept updated and to allow the two way flow of information

Ensure regular engagement with the Safer Schools and Community Team. We will hold regular communication with SSCT in the management of young people in our area. NPT Supervision will provide local knowledge to SSCT to assist with decision making processes of offending behaviour. We will look to link in with SSCT to ensure that school inputs are standardised and providing the latest information. We recognise the importance of SSCT in safeguarding processes and will link with them around the section’s Children at Risk Meeting. To utilise Neighbourhood Engagement Officers We value the work of our NEO and will provide capacity for them to visit each station in the section. We will make staff available for continued professional development, maximising their knowledge of social media forums. NPT Sergeants will support our NEO in implementing new approaches. We have also committed to work with our NEO every 3 months around reviewing the website.

Part 3 – Good Practice and Requests

Is there any initiative or activity you would like to raise as good practice? Corfe Mullen and Wimborne Crime Prevention Teams- these are teams of willing volunteers drawn from the local Home Watch groups that can be called and deployed to conduct door to door visits on the residents and businesses in the immediate vicinity of a relevant crime (burglary, theft, damage etc.) Their remit is to raise awareness of the crime, encourage membership of the Home watch and Dorset Alert, provide crime prevention opportunities, be they simple advice or booking a crime prevention survey with the NPT. The creation of a Children at Risk Meeting to identify and address vulnerability amongst young people with KINs from local schools, Youth Offending Service, Health Professional and ASB Teams. Identification and use of dedicated Police Councillors from local councils to provide a consistent and regular channel of communication, ( In Wimborne this is Councillor Sue Cook who is also Chair of the local PACT panel, for example) Are there any tools that would be helpful to improve your ability to engage with the community and staff? Reliable laptops to assist with being able to sign people up to Dorset Alert at engagement events. This would also assist with officers being able to carry out more duties and administration away from the station.

Neighbourhood Engagement Contract East Dorset NPT

Neighbourhood Engagement Contract East Dorset NPT