The recent warm weather has led to an increase in burglaries that have taken place because householders have left windows open and doors unlocked. Please remember that over half of all burglaries occur in homes with windows left open (particularly at night) and when doors are left unlocked.
Sergeant Ceri Rees has successfully completed his probationary year as a Sergeant and was pleased to be confirmed as a fully qualified Sergeant. Sergeant Rees' previous experience as a military police officer has assisted him in achieving promotion quickly in the Metropolitan Police Service.
I also confirmed PC Matthew Halsey ( pictured) who completed 7 years in the Royal Navy serving in Bosnia and the Middle East with the Royal Marines as a engineer. PC Halsey's grandfather was also a police officer in Harrow in the 1970s and I look forward to him visiting the station to reminisce on how the Metropolitan Police Service has changed.
I met with the Deputy Chair of The Metropolitan Police Authority, Reshard Alaudin and discussed how we can maximise the contribution of Harrow's Neighbourhood Champions' to reduce crime. This will be one of the areas we will look at during Harrow's Neighbourhood Champions' conference this week.
One of the examples we discussed was Mrs Viv Hart, the Neighbourhood Champion from Rayners Lane, who highlighted a problem of anti-social behaviour in the form of drugs use and drug paraphernalia (syringes, noise, littering) in her local area.
Rayners Lane Safer Neighbourhoods Team led by Sergeant Paul Culver set up a day of action involving all the local councillors at which the residents put forward suggestions to stop this anti-social behaviour.
A clean up operation was arranged with the Council removing washing machines, fridges and a toilet, together with 45 bags of rubbish. The Safer Neighbourhoods Team also assisted in the clear up alongside local residents.
This part of the ward has been transformed into an area that children can now play in safety and the residents can be proud of.
All thanks to the drive and determination of one of our Neighbourhood Champions.
I had a meeting with the Chairs of the Ward Panels at Harrow Civic Centre about the new proposals agreed by the Metropolitan Police Authority regarding Safer Neighbourhood Teams In essence the Safer Neighbourhoods Teams will remain with 2 PCs and 3 PCSOs for each of Harrow's 21 wards.
However the 21 Sergeants in Safer Neighbourhoods Teams will be reduced to 16 .
This will mean 10 of the SNTs will share a sergeant, allowing me flexibility to deploy resources to crime and anti-social behaviour hotspots.
I was pleased with the support I received from Chairs and look forward to working with the newly formed Community Board which will oversee the new tasking element of Safer Neighbourhoods resources.
The key elements of the new model are: There will be no reduction in the number of PCs and PCSOs within Safer Neighbourhoods teams and every ward will retain a dedicated Safer Neighbourhoods team of two Police Constables and three Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs). Boroughs which currently have enhanced teams with six PCSOs will also retain these staff.
Every Safer Neighbourhoods team will continue to be supervised by a Sergeant who may also have responsibility for other teams from neighbouring wards.
The revised supervisory model will mean that Safer Neighbourhoods Sergeants may supervise more than one team.
The revised supervision model will lead to a reduction of approximately 150 Safer Neighbourhoods Sergeant posts in 2011/12.
Every borough will be expected to bear a proportion of the total Safer Neighbourhoods Sergeant reductions on a pro rata basis.
This will lead to a reduction of approximately four to six Sergeants per borough Safer Neighbourhoods shift patterns will be reviewed to better meet local needs and will reflect both Safer Neighbourhoods demand and the desire of Londoners to see more officers and staff on duty in the evenings and at weekends Safer Neighbourhoods Teams will continue to be aligned to political ward boundaries unless there are exceptional reasons to amend these boundaries to meet local needs Under the developing model, boroughs will have the flexibility to temporarily deploy their Safer Neighbourhoods officers and staff across ward boundaries to conduct community based problem solving and crime reduction wherever community demand indicates the greatest need.
These temporary deployments will be authorised and monitored through the borough tasking process During these periods of temporary deployment to other wards, every ward will retain a minimum strength of one PC and one PCSO from its dedicated team Crime reduction and anti-social behaviour will be objectives of Safer Neighbourhoods activity and Safer Neighbourhoods teams will continue to have a lead role in delivering reassurance and problem solving locally There is an expectation that all Safer Neighbourhoods implementation will be complete by the start of the next financial year (2012/13).
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