Swaffham: Positive way forward for town policing
"I LIKE it better when you have a rant!" It was one of the councillors whispering in my ear when I attended last week's meeting of Swaffham Town Council.
I had arrived to find a police officer giving his report. I was impressed. This was no caricature PC Plod, with clichd tales of "proceeding in a westerly direction" to apprehend some local ne'er do well, nor was he blinding his audience with statistics and spin, but an articulate officer clearly explaining the day-to-day business of applying the "Safer Neighbourhood" policies.
After hearing his report, I felt that I understood some of the difficulties in policing the town. I learned the circumstances when the modern equivalent of a clip round the ear would be handed out.
I learned the wisdom of applying that rather than more formal action, which often leaves a youth with a criminal record that makes it more likely that he will find it difficult to get a job and so lead him into a spiral of increasing criminality.
I also learned more about the range of organisations which are represented at the Safer Neighbourhood meetings that the police coordinate. It was all good stuff.
Much less impressive was what I heard about the "power of wellbeing".
This is new statutory guidance for local councils, one of the biggest changes since 1974. It gives huge scope for "quality councils" – Swaffham Town Council has the certificate – to do things that are otherwise beyond their powers.
In the past I heard the complaint that the town council was constantly up against the problem of not having the powers it needed: "The county control that. The district is responsible for that. The police are responsible for parking there. We haven't the powers to do that. We'd like to take that over."
Here is the legislation which potentially overcomes that problem. Yet what did the council do last month? It decided not to organise the necessary training session for itself.
Now, if I understood it right, this month an attempt was being made by one councillor to try to stop the town clerk from even learning about this new legislation. How can you expect to do the best for the town if you are not even prepared to ensure that those who brief you on the law are adequately trained in that law?
It also emerged that there was some confusion about the cost of the training which the councillors had turned down for themselves. Some, it seemed, had thought that it would cost the council 200 for each of them when, in fact, it was 200 for the whole council.
If the plan, last month, was to stop the council doing its best for Swaffham, then it would appear that last month the council made one of its best decisions in years.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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