The following is an excerpt from Warwickshire Police and Crime Panel meeting held on the 21st of November 2024. The excerpt has been taken from the public speaking section whereby questions were put to the panel in relation to the current situation involving the Warwickshire Hunt and the review which Police and Crime Commissioner Philip Seccombe has organised.
The public speaking section began by Amy Carnell-Bridgewater reading questions which she explained had been submitted by Dr Denise Taylor.
- What measures are the Police and Crime panel taking to ensure that the independent investigation into the policing of the Warwickshire Hunt is truly impartial given the documented affiliations of the PCC with pro-hunt organisations. Specifically, how with the panel address concerns about conflicts of interest and ensure that the findings are transparent, evidence based and fully shared with the public?
Response by Andy Davis (chair) – In relation to the independent review, the panel have no jurisdiction to interfere with the process, it’s the Commissioner’s decision to instruct a review. We’re not aware of any evidence that would show the review has not been handled independently and we’ve not seen the findings for that review yet. (Directed to PCC Philip Seccombe) We would invite you to say something about that review later on in the meeting Commissioner if you would. And while the review may have finished no findings have been reported as of yet, we may hear more about where the final report is from the Commissioner shortly.
- The Warwickshire Hunt continues to operate several times a week engaging in illegal activities such as breaches of the hunting act, dangerous road use and trespass. What actions are the panel taking to hold the PCC accountable for ensuring that the acting Chief Constable enforces the law effectively? How will the panel ensure that Warwickshire Police prioritise public safety and lawful policing of the hunt and what measurable improvements will the public see as a result?
Response by Andy Davis (chair) – It’s just highlighted the issue about the panels lack of influence around operational policing, so as you know this doesn’t fall within the panels remit so we have no powers to instruct Warwickshire Police on how they allocate their resources to prioritise activities. The PCC is also not able to interfere in operational policing and so the purpose of the police and crime panel is to challenge and support the PCC in the delivery of the duties and we’ve got a strategic role which includes scrutinising the budget, the council tax precept which we’ll do February, the police and crime plan which we’ll do in due course and contributing to policy development.
Andy Davis then asks if there are any supplementary questions to which he is told by Amy Carnell-Bridgewater no. The panel then moves onto Liz who says that “in fact those questions were mine, they weren’t Dr Taylors.” Liz proceeds to ask a third question.
- What steps is the panel taking to ensure that the findings of the independent investigation as well as the evidence reviewed and conclusions drawn are made public, given the history of complaints being dismissed or downplayed how will the panel ensure that this investigation restores public confidence through genuine transparency and accountability?
Response by Andy Davis (chair) – We’ve been advised that the findings of the review will be independent and made public, we’ll get confirmation on that from the Commissioner shortly, when he introduces his report as the next agenda item and we’ll know how and when and what will be done. In relation to the complaints referred to these are dealt with on an individual basis and responded to or referred to as soon as possible. We have a process that has to be adhered to and where appropriate a complaint will be considered fully, and we’ve done that over the past twelve months with complaints and convene a sub committee to deal with complaints as they come through, as members of the panel will recall.
This then concluded the questions to the panel. The panel then moved onto PCC Philip Seccombe’s report.
Andy Davis (chair) – (Addressing PCC Philip Seccombe) I’m hoping that you’ll say something about the two items that have been raised.
PCC Philip Seccombe – I’ll certainly try my best.
He then proceeds to introduce his report and then goes on to say.
PCC Philip Seccombe – The review, it is, what I’m actually going to do is, this is an office review it’s not me personally so I’m going to ask Polly my monitoring office if she’d like to give a statement to the panel of where we’ve got to and when you’re likely to hear something.
Polly Reed (chief executive office of the PCC) – Thank you Commissioner. So the review was announced, the Commissioner announced the review before he was re-appointed, before the PCC elections. There was a bit of time after that while we determined the approach for the review and we have done that in a way that is hopefully transparent and is hopefully demonstrates that it’s been an independent process. We sought advice from various, erm, we offered the opportunity to various people and organisations to be part of the review, and carried out an independent process within our office to make sure we had appointed somebody. That individual has now been working on the review for a number of weeks, think he started at the end of September. I know that people are eagerly awaiting the report to come forward, it’s not in our gift actually to tell him when the report will be completed that’s part of his own work and the extent of the activities he wants to complete to ensure he can reduce the report in terms of the line of reference that we set out. So the status is that we’re currently still awaiting the report, we still intend to publish it once we have it, which hopefully will be in the next few weeks, then we’ll be in contact with you and let you know of our plans of publication.
Andy Davis (chair) – Have you got any specific plans around how you’re planning to report on it given the level of public interest and the request around transparency and people just wanting to see the detail of what’s in it?
Polly Reed (chief executive office of the PCC) – We haven’t finalised yet the time or date or anything like that but we are clear that we will publish a report so it won’t just be a press statement or something like that, it will be a copy of a report, and we will make that known to people, we will write out to people who have previously corresponded with our office to let them know it’s being published. We had wondered if it would be in time for this meeting so had that been the case we would have brought it to this meeting, but that’s not the case, obviously we’ll make sure that yourselves and the panel will receive a copy as soon as possible as well
PCC Philip Seccombe – Just to finish that off you saw the terms of reference, we’re very much hoping that the report will be conforming to those terms of reference they were pretty wide ranging as you’ll remember so we’ll see what happens but because it’s independent we can’t demand time frames or the rest of it so I’m very much hoping it will come within the next weeks rather than months.
