Notes of the meeting held by the panel on 15 October 2020 were agreed as a correct record.

To question Senior Policing representatives on the key question.

The chair welcomed the representatives of Devon and Cornwall Police and explained that he had invited the Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall Police to the meeting but that due to a clash of meetings she was unable to attend but this should not be interpreted as a reflection of her lack of interest and commitment to the issue. However, the Police and Crime Commissioner had provided the panel with a written submission and the panel will review this and consider whether they wish to invite the commissioner to a future meeting of the panel.

Chief Superintendent Nikki Leaper presented data on proportionality in Torbay and South Devon and then the panel member and other councillors present directed a number of questions to her and other police representatives based around the key question of how do we make Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) lives matter at Torbay’s public organisations?

The key responses from the police representatives are detailed below:

• There was a clear admission that the data collected by the police was incomplete especially around ethnicity and that this made it difficult to accurately understand the extent as to how police activities impacted on Torbay’s BAME community
• It was identified that there were many barriers to accurately collecting this data and that language barriers in Torbay may be more widespread than first understood
• The data collected also faces other challenges in how a distinction is made between Torbay residents vs Torbay visitors as well as the need to ensure that the data on ethnicity was collected consistently across the force area so like for like comparisons could be made
• A particular issue with the ethnicity data was that county lines activity could distort the local figures
• The police recognise that to place the data in context they require the BAME data from the 2021 census and also need to work with other partner organisations to share data where appropriate
• That the police recognise that they need to build trust with communities over the use of stop and search and are currently working with independent advisors from the community to shape this and other policy approaches
• The police recognise they need to do more to obtain the ‘lived experiences’ of the BAME community to shape their approach and policy towards policing in Torbay and are setting up a South Devon Reference Group to address this
• That the police are open to working with the local community of Torbay to find ways to build trust and confidence in the police – they see this as societal issue not just a police issue
• Admission from police that they could do more to address racism and trust and confidence in them via schools and colleges and also use this as an opportunity to recruit young people into the police especially from the BAME community
• In answer to challenge from the panel on why so many BAME people are subject to stop and search the police representatives stated that it was still  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15.