Interview - David Sidwick

INTERVIEWS David Sidwick

Dorset’s new Police and Crime Commissioner.

On Thursday 13 May of this year, Dorset (including those of us in BCP) saw a new Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) take up his role after winning 70,353 votes. David Sidwick (Con) took over from outgoing Commissioner Martyn Underhill, who had been in the post for nine years. So we decided to meet Mr Sidwick our new Police and Crime Commissioner to see what his plans were for policing in our area over the next four years. At the time of conducting the interview in June, Mr Sidwick had only been in the role a few weeks but gave some fascinating insights into how he sees his role and the role of policing develop in the coming months and years.

BHL: So David, congratulations on your election as Dorset’s new Police & Crime Commissioner but some reading this interview won’t really understand the role. What are your responsibilities?

DS: The very simple answer is that you are the elected voice of the people to hold the police to account. It’s my job to create a plan called the ‘Police and Crime Plan’ which has priorities, and that should be based on the needs of the people I represent. So when I was running for election, I conducted a very engaged campaign, which was basically asking the people what they wanted/expected. The PCC also has a responsibility to set the Police budget. There are 2 elements to that: there is a national funding element and also a council tax element called the Precept. So, we need to make certain that there is enough money available.

BHL: Dorset has traditionally not had such a generous deal from central government compared to other police forces, why do you think that is?

DS: Yes, when you look at the percentage that we actually have coming from the precept (from council tax paid by local tax payers), it is much higher than it is in other areas. From memory I think there is one force that has 80 percent funding from the National Funding Formula and we have less than 50 percent funding from the National Funding Formula. So, this is on my agenda to address that. But it’s also on a lot of other PCC’s agendas too!

BHL: James Vaughan, Dorset’s Chief Constable recently announced his retirement. Was it something you said?

Ha! No not at all. It’s been something I think James had been considering for a little while and it seemed an opportune time for him to step down and hand over the reins to somebody new. it’s our responsibility to make that transition work. We are going to be working to make certain we get the best possible candidate. There is a process in place that’s already moving forward. James has announced his retirement but he won’t disappear immediately, he’ll be working with me on the development of the Police and Crime Plan and on a smooth transition to the new Chief Constable going forward.

BHL: Why do you think people in Dorset voted for you? What sort of feeling were you getting on the doorsteps when you were campaigning?

DS: I think I got a good grasp on the doorsteps of what really matters to people in Dorset. The nature of the campaign that I ran wasn’t about saying ‘Vote for me I’m conservative’ it was about ‘Vote for me because I see the same issues as you do’. I spent two years connecting with local people as part of the campaign. There were over 50 face-to-face meetings and the audience varied between 6 to 300 in a hall. I also spent those 2 years working with the police. I went out with neighbourhood policing teams and the Rural Team and spoke to the Major Crime Investigation team; So, I tried to understand all the pieces of policing in Dorset before getting here. I also did 3 surveys. Over 1000 people answered the Residents Survey and 70 businesses answered the Business Crime Survey. So, I really tried to do what it says on the tin: Be a representative of the people.

BHL: So, from those surveys, what do you think are the priorities of the people in Dorset? What do you think they are expecting of their police force?

DS: Ok, so let me pick on the two things which came out. One was, very clearly, antisocial behaviour is an issue and that was only slightly less in Dorset but it was top of the tree in BCP. It was closely followed by issues around drugs and vehicle theft, things that are directly linked to the bigger issue. In the rural area there was farm theft, hare coursing, poaching, that sort of stuff. But again, there was antisocial behaviour, there were drugs beginning to creep into our market towns causing concern. So, apart from the rural crime factor, a lot of it is very similar. That is helping me shape priorities, that’s why my first priority is: cut crime and antisocial behaviour. Second priority is something which virtually everybody told me across the whole patch, they want to feel more

connected with their police force, they want to see visible community policing. That is something I’m really keen to work with the police in order to address.

BHL: The messages we hear from police officers is that they have to spend too much time filling in paperwork rather than being out on the beat. Is that something you can help to change or is that just the system we’ve got to live with?

DS: No, it’s not just the system and we don’t have to live with it. I remember going out with a PCSO and she said that when she started the job 10 years ago, roughly 70% of the time was in the community - now it’s 30% of the time. It’s something I have already discussed with the Chief Constable. There are initiatives which are emerging but we have to transform how the frontline operates, learn from other places and make certain we always embed this practice early in Dorset.

BHL: Last year we heard about the extra police officers being recruited. Are those new police officers going to be utilised effectively to make them a more visible police force?

DS: You have just put your finger on the main plank of the first part of the Police and Crime Plan in development. I have already started discussions, I said it clearly in the campaign “There is no point in having new police officers unless we bear down on prevention and we have them visible in the community” and I’ll be working with the police going forward to ensure that happens. I want to see a larger neighbourhood policing team and I want to see a larger rural crime team.

BHL: Feedback we’ve had from readers is that Dorset Police can be difficult to contact. I know the police conducted a survey last year asking the public how they would like to communicate with the police force in the future. Will the police will be implementing changes to improve communication?

DS: So, the answer to that is: yes, but it’s not going to be taken in isolation, there are other surveys, as you know I have done my own. So, we are going to be taking information from the public from a number of different sources but the point is very clear, this is about being community connected; I would like everybody to know who their police officers are, I would like them to be able to connect to them swiftly and we have some technological solutions which we are moving forward with, which should transform that. There is also an element of consistency that we have to address as well. So, for example, we have to make certain everybody knows the best ways to contact the Police depending on the issue and that is something I’m wanting to address. But there is also a secondary element to it: Who to communicate with in order to get the issue they have addressed. Let me give you an example: you have an issue with rowdy or noisy neighbours. So, in the OPCC Antisocial Behaviour Survey we conducted last summer, 50% of people said they would contact the police while 45% said they would contact the local authority. Actually, that one is the local authorities’ responsibility. I’ll give you another one: begging is a concern to a lot of people, particularly in the centre of BCP, 45% said they would contact the council, 39% said they would contact the police. With that one, it’s the police. So, there is a communication element that we’ve got to get much better at, which is to help our residents understand where to go. So, that is something I’m really interested in and we should, if we get that right, improve things considerably.

BHL: Many BCP residents are of the opinion that antisocial behaviour seems to be on the increase. I was looking at the figures recently and it was down during lockdown but has now started to increase again since the restrictions have been lifted. Obviously, that is a concern for local people, how are you going to be addressing antisocial behaviour?

DS: So, to a certain extent you are asking me to reveal my Police and Crime Plan before we’ve fully developed it, I don’t really want to do that! But let me say this about antisocial behaviour, it was one of the core reasons I decided to stand, because I saw in the paper it was 1-week Somerford, 1-week Poole bus station then it was the centre of Bournemouth. It wasn’t a key priority within the Police and Crime Plan that we had then, it will be front and centre now. It will be a priority in the plan. The Coronavirus pandemic has actually seen partnerships work much better already and that is something they are continuing with. We can already see examples of joint multi-agency work tackling crime and antisocial behaviour; We have the hub, the Multi-Agency Control Centre which is set up on the beach in order to help monitor and control antisocial behaviour in the summer. So, I see that as going in the right direction, I think there is more that can be done and a plan will come forward with measures to address antisocial behaviour specifically but we’ve also got to get up-stream as well. We’ve got to talk about how we address it with our young, how we stop them from starting down that path which can lead to more serious criminality.

BHL: In my last interview with the Chief Constable, we touched upon the merging with Devon and Cornwall, which was a hot topic a couple of years ago. He said at the time that this idea had been “shelved” Would you say it’s something you support?

DS: No. Let me expand a little bit. I’ve been part of very large mergers and you have to remember what your fundamental objective is in merging. The objective in business mergers was shareholder value in some cases, in other cases it was to achieve an expertise that they didn’t have. When you are talking about a police merger, you either have to do it because you absolutely need to do it because of money or you’re doing it because you can significantly see that you can create a better service.

So, I can see where we are at the moment, with our strategic alliance with Devon and Cornwall HR and finance are joint and that to me makes perfect sense but we need to remember that we have local priorities and remember that we are serving the local people and that policing needs to stay local.

BHL, So we can safely say while you’re PCC we won’t be seeing an official merger with Devon and Cornwall?

DS: I think that what you can say is that there is no desire on my part to go down that route, I suppose if there was a policing review across the country and everybody was told to merge into one big force, it would be very difficult to say “No, I want to stay as PCC of Dorset” but what I will make certain of is that we’ll always have the best deal for the people of Dorset.

BHL: So can you explain a bit more about the recent changes that divided Dorset Police in two - one half dealing with wider, slightly more rural Dorset and the other was BCP. So, how will this change affect policing in the BCP region?

So, this is one that I completely support. One of the issues I said earlier was the issue of connectivity, the issue of people feeling that the police force is there for them and is going to help them sort out their problems. It gives us a much closer partnership between the force and the local authorities, everybody will be working on the same page, everybody should be working together better and it also brings them closer to the communities. Because if you think as if you own the geography, you care about the geography, you care about the people there, it makes the link tighter. What we’ve got to remember is that there is a whole heap of police activity that will still happen across both regions, so it’s not being split in two completely.

BHL: Something we highlighted in BH Living online was your campaign around the issue of dog theft. I’m reading a lot more about pet theft - do you think it’s actually on the increase or are we just reading about it more?

DS: It is on the increase. There haven’t been that many reported cases in Dorset itself, but across the country it has gone up. We know it is of huge concern to people across the country, we know that because we talked to them and my postbag went berserk during the election. Thankfully it is relatively rare but we need to make certain it stays rare. For criminals this isn’t a dog, this is £3000 - that’s the way they see it. If you are lonely and isolated, the dog is not £3000 it is effectively your family, it’s your lifeline and it causes huge pain if that dog is stolen. I can’t imagine what it would be like if our pup went missing. We formed a southwest action plan to address pet theft, part of which was to keep lobbying upwards and that has been taken up. I challenged the Home Secretary at least three times during the election cycle when I had the opportunity to talk to her. We now have a task force set up at highest level. We, ourselves, have obviously got it on our agenda for the Police and Crime Plan but also the force already is going to be launching a campaign soon to make dog owners aware of how to make their pets more difficult to steal. I’m already working with them on an action plan to address the problem, because I’d like to see someone with a responsibility for pet theft in Dorset and I’d like to see a close link with the Regional Organised Crime Unit.

BHL: What do you hope to achieve by the time the next election comes around in 3 years?

DS: I would like to have people in Dorset feeling like there is a difference made to the areas of antisocial behaviour, drugs, rural crime and the hidden harm such as domestic violence. If in 3 years’ time people in Dorset think we have made progress in addressing those issues then we’re well on our way to making Dorset the safest county in the UK. I will be very happy and I will feel that I am able to ask them for a mandate to go further and make certain we really hit that home.

BHL: Thanks for your time today David, when can we expect your new Police and Crime plan to be published?

DS: You can already tell by the way I am talking that I’m already having conversations with the Chief Constable about the priorities within the plan and all the rest of it. I’ve got to have it put together by next March. However, as I’ve only got 3 years, I’ve spoken to the team here about shortening the time period and well see how quickly we can get it out.