Transcript of this meeting [PDF]

Finally, can I just briefly turn to Safer Neighbourhoods? I know there are some questionson this and I will get into the detail of answering those questions as and when we turn tothat, Chairman. I hope you will have seen that the Chairman and I wrote to all boroughleaders and chief executives this week making it clear that Safer Neighbourhoods willremain the cornerstone of policing in London. I am aware that a number of Membershave tabled questions. I will address those shortly. Just some general comments. We arenot proposing any major changes to policy. What we are doing is thinking about themodel going forward. As I said earlier, I remain absolutely committed to protectingoperational capability as far as I can and the delivery of neighbourhood policing throughthe existing 32 borough structure is key to this.What this process is about is having a sensible discussion with partners, and sometimesthose discussions get very heated and reported on etc, but it is about trying to have asensible discussion with partners, led by Territorial Policing (TP) and led by boroughscommanders, who do a very challenging job and are having these discussions every day.We are talking with partners and communities about the service we provide all the time.You would expect us to do that. This is about gauging the views and giving us all roomto consult, discuss and think about how best we can move this model forward in difficulttimes. The commitment to Safer Neighbourhoods is absolutely clear. It has brought realbenefits to London, we have seen increasing confidence year on year since it has beenimplemented and we have seen significant reductions in concerns around anti-socialbehaviour. Most recently, over the last 12 months, reductions by people in London aboutconcerns about anti-social behaviour coming down from 23% to 13%. We do not want tothrow away the good work and the benefits Safer Neighbourhoods have brought.Thank you, Chairman.Kit Malthouse (Chairman): Thank you very much. Just on the single patrolling, youmight be interested to know I have taken to accosting officers that I find single patrollingand thanking them for doing so and, in the last week, I have done it five times! It is ahuge rise in what it was a year ago. I do not know how many of you have noticed but itreally is now, certainly in central London, it is very noticeable the amount of singlepatrolling that is taking place.Sir Paul Stephenson (Commissioner, MPS): If I might, Chairman - sorry to interrupt.To reinforce this seamless teamwork, I have taken to accosting those that are not singlepatrolling!Kit Malthouse (Chairman): OK. Right. We have got a lot of questions to get through.There are a number of similar questions from people so I am going to try to group them,if that is all right, which will mean, Commissioner, you might have to dodge aroundslightly. I think it might be worth us talking about Safer Neighbourhood Teams firstbecause there are a few Members who have raised a question about that.Joanne [McCartney] and Jenny [Jones], in particular, have raised questions --www.merrillcorp.com17