Last week (4 April 2025), was the regular meeting of Cumbria’s Police, Fire and Crime Panel. This is a committee made up of 10 councillors (5 Cumberland and 5 Westmoreland and Furness) to scrutinise the work of the Cumbria Police, Fire and Crime Panel.
The first part of the meeting was dedicated to financial issues, where we considered the up to date expectations for the 2024-25 financial year for both Cumbria police and Cumbria fire services. There had been no significant changes but one issue that the Panel asked about was the shortfall in spending on PCSOs (Police Community Support Officers). The Commissioner assured us that further PCSO recruitment was imminent (and that adverts are live now) to hopefully get back up to strength on PCSO numbers.
The remainder of the meeting was considering two separate aspects of the Commissioner’s current priorities:
Police, Fire and Crime Plan – Protecting vulnerable people and communities
This report covered a wide range of topics, all focussed on supporting vulnerable people, and communities, in Cumbria.
- Tacking misuse of drugs, including tackling ‘county lines’
- Domestic abuse
- Violence against women and girls
- Victim support
- Anti-Social behaviour
I asked a couple of questions of the Commissioner:
- I asked how the police (and fire) services were able to work with other agencies such as the Council’s adult care services, and NHS mental health and drug and addition services, to make sure that very vulnerable people received the support that they needed.
- I asked about anti-social behaviour, in particular whether the police were able to provide advice at the planning stage of local improvements, to try to make sure that we design public spaces in a way to try to tackle anti-social behaviour from the outset.
Police, Fire and Crime Plan – Making the best use of our resources
The second report from the Commissioner was on his priority of making the best use of resources. This outlined how the Commissioner is undertaking work, particularly around better use of integration of ‘back office’ functions between the police and the fire service, to be more efficient. There was also some news of better integration between both fire and police around joint use of property, and also a good example from Grange on Sands about how the ambulance service was able to share with the fire service.
I asked one question, about whether or not the proposals were ambitious enough, in the light of what looks like a very tough few years for public services, as the Chancellor announces a spending review in the coming months.
The full papers for the meeting are here. Any questions, please ask!
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