Forum Topic

What's happened to the Acton SNT?

From something Dan Crawford tweeted, it may have been abolished. Certainly nice Mark Pullen has been redeployed.

Sara Nathan ● 5238d33 Comments

Maybe's it's completely safe now?

Susan Kelly ● 5237d

Mark Pullen wasn't involuntarily redeployed. He moved to another SNT that was closer to home (Milton Keynes!).

Nancy Duin ● 5237d

Are we dow to one PC and one PCSO now?Where is the sargeant responsible for Acton now located?

Sara Nathan ● 5237d

I hope this doesn't mean the election allegations that Boris Johnson was cutting police numbers were true after all.

Guy Fiegehen ● 5237d

Hello W3ers; To clarify as I probably should have posted a good bye message. Acton Central now have a team of 1 Sergeant (Chris COOK), 2 PC's (Amar Mushtaq and Shinya Nishitani) and 2 PCSO's (Jamie Forrester and Sarah Kearney). They are still about but I have gone to Harrow due to travel issues and wanting to see the family more. They are still about and can be contacted on the same telephone and email addresses. Post Olympics the Commissioner and The Mayor are actually looking at expanding and increasing safer neighborhoods. I have details and can post if people are interested. Been great working with you all - Mark.

PS 43XB Mark Pullen ● 5237d

..and thanks for all your excellent work.  Best wishes.

Dee Cook ● 5237d

We will miss you Mark!No-one got back to us about the security for the street party so I wonderedSo do we still have a full unit in Acton?And will your successor come and introduce himself at the ward forum next week?

Sara Nathan ● 5237d

Over here in Highlands Avenue, we received a SNT newsletter only a week or so ago.It mentions two 'meet the team' events, both crime prevention stalls - one on Friday 15th June, 5pm - 7.30pm at Acton Main Line Station, the other Sunday 24th June, 3pm - 4.30pm, in King Street.Perhaps you should invite Mark's successor to the meeting - there is an e-mail address:- ActonCentral.SNT@met.police.uk

Amanda Knights ● 5237d

Tisnt my meeting unfortunately - but hope the council will have done so.

Sara Nathan ● 5237d

Got notification of the ward forum meeting agenda today and the SNT is supposed to give a report.

Nancy Duin ● 5237d

Dan seems to think there's a reorganisation in October when most of the Acton resource is being removed.sounds a bad idea to me.

Sara Nathan ● 5237d

There is a re-organisation taking place and the new 'Policing Model' will come into effect after the Olympics. In short you will see SNT Teams enhanced, not reduced in numbers.To get all the details and to have the oportunity to ask questions direct to a senior officer, do come to our next public meeting at Ealing Town Hall, next Wednesday May 23 @ 7pm.Charles GallichanChairman - Ealing PCG

Charles Gallichan ● 5235d

That's exactly the time of the Acton Central ward forum- organised by Ealing Council. Doesn't sound terribly clever to me.Does no-one co-ordinate these things?

Sara Nathan ● 5235d

Sara,In our defence, we did advise all councillors of the dates of our meetings for this year back before Chritmas.That stated, it is almost impossible to avoid a clash with something else. Attendees at our meetings have expressed a preferance for a Wedneday or Thursday eveing. Then there is the issue of being able to get a room at the Town Hall.Consider that each Ward has four meetings a year - so 23 x 4 = 92. Same again for Police Ward Panel meetings. Then there are religious events, not to mention the host of other interest groups and voluntary organisations all having their own schedule of meetings. Finally, take out the Olympic period ( when travel will be a nightmare) and you can start to get a picture of the problem.So sorry you can't do both meetings on the night - but if you are a member of a resident's group or neighbourhood watch, why not 'split resources' and some go to one and some to the other. Then swap notes after.Kind regards,Charles

Charles Gallichan ● 5235d

I have asked more than once before, but never had an answer other than you might raise it in a meeting.We don’t all have time to attend the meetings.When are you going to publish the minutes of the meetings and where?If in anyway at all public money is being used to fund these meetings, then we should be told what you have done and what you will do. It is or has been done in other boroughs.Any chance of a real answer this time please?

George Knox ● 5235d

Can I hijack this thread in the hope that the community police officers are watching, and ask why there seems to be no policing of the drunks on the Mount.  I come through there every evening at about 5.45pm on my way home from work, and they're legless, urinating in the usual places and generally ignoring the notices with no police presence.

Anne Brown ● 5234d

Thanks so much for the advice as to how to organise residents to attend clashing meetings.As chair of the Churchfield Community Association, of course I have to be at the ward forum.A member maybe prepared to come to your gig on the same night but I wouldn't bet on it.

Sara Nathan ● 5234d

Sara,My apologies if you found the last sentence of my posting offensive - it certainly was not intended to be patronising.Just trying to propose a solution to the problem - fully appreciate it is down to each to decide on their priority.

Charles Gallichan ● 5234d

George,We send minutes of our meetings out to all members of the Group. Also an annual report and a copy of our accounts ( although not a large document given our limited budget)are available to all members.Individuals who live/work/worship in the Borough are welcome to attend our public meetings.We are in the process of building a website so that minutes, etc. can be made more widely available. We are aiming to have this up by the end of the month. Although I have to put in a caveat, in that this has to be done largely by the volunteer committee members. In years gone by the Group did have a paid part-time administrator, but with budgets being what they are these days this is no longer the case.So we have to find the time ourselves.I think I should also point out that Committee members receive no fees,no expenses or any form of financial compensation.

Charles Gallichan ● 5234d

CharlesThank you for responding.The good bit is that progress is being made towards a website. That is a very good bit.But what I don’t understand is why you have to be a member before being graced with communications – that is if tax payer’s money is being spent.Surely you could have made a regular feature of summarising the main findings and main action points in the local media.Why I go on about this is because the police are not easy to deal with if you raise questions about aspects of management. The waters seal over, and there is some sense of that happening with your organisation to a certain extent.Openness and access to information is how the world is going and your website is going to help in this direction.

George Knox ● 5233d

"I hope this doesn't mean the election allegations that Boris Johnson was cutting police numbers were true after all."He's going to have to do something - he's promised to cut council tax (which pays for the police, at least the GLA precept does, which is all he can touch), he's already cut numbers once and could only claim they were going up because George Osborne gave him a 90m pre-election bung to help.  That probably won't happen in future years, so something's going to have to give.

Thomas Barry ● 5230d

Roger Foreman is coming from the Churchfield Community Association.

Sara Nathan ● 5230d

I rather fear that Cllr Dan Crawford's tweet was an attempt to play politics with local policing.  I guess that Cllr Crawford has had the same briefing that the Tory group got on 14th May and which the public will get on 23rd May if they attend the ECPCG meeting.  It seems that the Safer Neighbourhood model is changing although Superintendent Ian Jenkins was of the opinion that overall Ealing would win out with more officers.  More people are being redeployed from the centre and the neighbourhood model will be more area based than ward based.  There will still be a ward focus from a PC and a PCSO but the area will be more important with detectives, etc working at that level.  These changes are being driven by the new Met Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe.  The police reckon there is clear evidence that this approach worked on Merseyside where BHH made his name.

Phil Taylor ● 5230d

Apparently our new Sergeant is coming to the ward forum tomorrow so maybe we will find out then.

Sara Nathan ● 5230d

"It seems that the Safer Neighbourhood model is changing although Superintendent Ian Jenkins was of the opinion that overall Ealing would win out with more officers.  More people are being redeployed from the centre and the neighbourhood model will be more area based than ward based.  There will still be a ward focus from a PC and a PCSO but the area will be more important with detectives, etc working at that level."I understand the words, but not what it actually means for neighbourhood policing. Politicians eh?

Peter Millman ● 5230d

New Sergeant Chris Cook told the ward forum that his team was up to full strength. He didnt say if that was likely to be cut in the future.

Sara Nathan ● 5228d

I thought I'd look up what the Borough Commander said at a recent Council meeting (Overview and Scrutiny Committee, 29th March 2012). Apologies for length of quote.***Andy Rowell informed Members that a new Borough wide Safer Neighbourhood Model is to be introduced shortly which will see an extra 2,000 officers in neighbourhood policing teams.  He said that the extra 2000 officers will come from transferring officers from back-room and non-operational roles, and from merging existing squads.He said that the new proposals are part of a major new investment in neighbourhood policing, beginning in the Autumn 2012, which will usher in a new era in the way in which the Police serve and protect the communities of London.He said that under the new proposals each ward will retain its dedicated Police officers and PCSOs, who will work together in local integrated neighbourhood policing teams. He said that it is proposed that Ealing Borough will be divided up into 4 clusters, with teams comprising of uniformed officers, detectives, forensic and other officers, under the leadership of a Police Inspector.He said that these teams will investigate lower level neighbourhood crimes, such as thefts, criminal damage and anti-social behaviour, and they will proactively target offenders, engage with the public and work with communities and partners, to address problems.He said that the more complex crimes will continue to be investigated by criminal investigation departments, who will prioritise on pursuing more hardened criminals and gang members, and supporting vulnerable people, such as victims of hate crime, or domestic violence.He said that changes to shift patterns will also see more officers on duty at key times, such as late at night and at weekends, and they will be used in a more intelligence-led way, in the areas where crime is taking place or could take place.He said that it is intended that under the new proposals neighbourhood policing will be at the fulcrum of crime prevention, and the approach to local policing will be that Police are more visible to the public than hitherto, and more flexible in how they use their resources.***We shall see.

Guy Fiegehen ● 5228d

This is all very useful but all these bits and pieces do not tell the whole story. Perhaps Charles knows the answer. Perhaps our stats terrier Phil Taylor might research this, or even know himself.The question is, once the new structure beds in, how many Met police and how many PCSO's and how many Council Noddy men in yellow jackets shall we have on the streets looking after our safety in Ealing? And then are there any other police units regularly in the Borough e.g. BR Transport police, and what are their average numbers over say 6 months?And how will these numbers compare with the figures at the last local election?

George Knox ● 5228d

The quote posted from C/Supt Rowell is accurate to what we have been told. Post Olympics the plan proposed is each ward team to consist of 1 Sergeant, 3 PC's, 1 DC (detective), 2 PCSO's . Shift patterns to be changed to include more late turns and teams dealing with majority of calls on ward.

PS 43XB Mark Pullen ● 5228d

Mark, thank you for this info. I think you will agree however that it only goes a little way to answering my question.I wonder whether you have the info to elaborate - that is for the whole extent of the security service - whether police PCSOs or the boys in yellow from the Council plus the other police who regularly frequent the Borough.I am not asking about police who work in counter terrorism or drug gang smashing for obvious reasons.

George Knox ● 5227d

This series of posts has replaced Acton Central Ward with Acton. There are three SNT teams with Acton in their name. All the SNT teams are carrying on as before, with their focus on local neighbourhood issues. In addition the wider Met police force is to be reorganised along more local lines, so there will be a new team with the Acton end of the borough as their focus. As far as I know the exact numbers of the new teams are not yet known.

Pete Grist ● 5227d

George,Sorry to be late in posting this - but hit with a health issue which has slowed me down somewhat over the last few days.Anyway, at the EC& PCG public meeting on Wednesday we had a joint presentation from Supt Ian Jenkins and CI Simon Message on the new Policing Model and what it will mean to the Borough. (There is a 'health warning' here - no pun intended on my own condition - as yet they do not know what the final figures are going to be for number of warrented officers or PCSO's. It is, however, very unlikley that there will be a reduction in numbers.So we will be above the numbers at the last election. Matters are moving pretty fast so that it can all be implemeted straight after the Olympics.I haven't the space here to go into all the details of the presentation, but here are the key points.Ward Teams will be at the heart of things and each Ward will continue to have their own Ward Panel. There will, however be more empahasis on running day -to-day business by 'Cluster'; four for the Borough. One benefit will be that this will allow shift patterns to be changed so that at least one Ward Team will be on duty within a cluster from 8 to midnight every day and 8 to 2am onn Fidays and Saturdays.The Cluster Inspectors will also have additional resources, over and above the Ward Teams, from CID and other departments. This will bring both action and accountability more locally.Cluster Inspectors will also have the powers to move officers around within the cluster to tackle a specific problem. For example a sudden rise in street robbery in a specific road.The buzz word for such action is 'flexing' resources.This methodology is already in use for the monthly Operation Cubo and bringing in some great results.Ward Panels will now choose one priority for their ward, the other two will be 'cluster priorities' set by the Inspector. Although looking at what has been set by Wards over the last couple of years where many Wards have chosen exactly the same ones, so I don't envisage many problems here.A question was also asked about BTP - again I don't yet have numbers but the value of their contribution to the safety of Ealing was recognised, both on our buses and also around schools at 'kicking out' time. Also note, that Code Red urgent calls for assistance from bus drivers has dropped some 30% since the demise of the bendy (broken) buses. So this is anothe positive.PCSO numbers are well down across the Met and Ealing is no exception. This is due to the fact that many have become full Police Officers and there was a recruitment freeze as training resources were concentrated in getting Police Officers trained in time for the Olympics. This freeze has now ended, so we should see numbers recover over the coming months.So over-all things are looking pretty positive and the general rate of crime in the Borough continues to fall.I will add one point here - there is one BUT and it is an important one. Whilst the reorganisation is taking Officers from behind desks and Central posts to get them back into Boroughs and on to the streets. All this will be for nothing if Central Operations keep demanding high numbers of officers to provide 'aid' to Central London. It is no use giving us more officers, if all that happens is that they are immediately rostered to be Westmister. A point I made pretty forcefully when the London PCG Chairs last met with the Deputy Commissioner.The other key agenda item was the issue of 'Beds in Sheds', as it was at the Safer Ealing Partnership Board meeting on Thursday. Happy to say, more good news here and I'll post details on the Ealing Today site thread on this issue tomorrow.

Charles Gallichan ● 5227d

Charles, clarity at last and I am most grateful as I am sure some others are, to get a better understanding of what's going on in the Borough. Your report possibly raises a few questions but they can be thought about later.I wonder whether you might also consider an article for the Gazette in the forthcoming months.Hope you have recovered.

George Knox ● 5227d