West Yorkshire Police and Crime Plan FAQs

• Under the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, the Mayor must produce a Police and Crime Plan which sets out the strategic policing and crime priorities for West Yorkshire, over the next three years.
• The Plan is also needed to understand and capture the priorities of the public and to map out the steps the Mayor, police and partners will take to deliver those priorities.
• Finally, the Plan gives the Mayor, and her Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, a performance framework to hold the police and Chief Constable to account for delivery of the Plan’s vision and goals.

• The Mayor and Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime have a duty to consult on the development of the Police and Crime Plan. The Mayor therefore asked the public of West Yorks to #TellTracy about their priorities for policing during August-November 2021.
• The Policing and Crime Team engaged the public in a variety of ways including via online surveys (including in multiple languages and Easy Read), face to face and online meetings, visits, community and partnership meetings, Focus Groups including with young people, Black and Minority Ethnic people, Women and Girls, Gypsy and Traveller groups, Sex Workers, Older people and those with disabilities.
• There were 2,390 responses to the public survey and 32 completed partner consultation forms as well as face to face engagement with over 930 people.
• The feedback was collated, and forms part of a report called “The Voice of West Yorkshire”.
• There was a high degree of support from residents for the Plan’s four proposed priorities. ‘Keeping People Safe & Building Resilience’ with its focus on high-harm offences such as sexual violence and child abuse received the strongest support.
• Across all the ‘areas of focus’ which sit within the Plan’s priorities, child sexual abuse and exploitation, and rape and sexual offences were identified as the first and third most important topics to be addressed, (selected by 79% and 69% of respondents respectively). Ranked second most important was neighbourhood crime and ASB, which was selected as a priority by 73% of respondents.
• 95% of respondents agreed that safer spaces and thriving communities was an issue for them, with the top 3 priorities being identified as neighbourhood crime, road safety and serious violence.
• 93.1% of respondents told us that supporting victims and witnesses was important to them, with helping victims of crime to get justice and increasing trust in the criminal justice system scoring most highly.
• 56.0% of respondents cited that seeing more officers on the streets was the key to boosting their confidence in policing.

• This Plan will set the direction for policing and community safety over the next three years.
• As the Mayor I was clear that I would listen to you first and that I would work with the police and partners to keep you and your family safe. I believe the Plan reflects all the hard work we have done in ensuring that vision became a reality.
• I am pleased to be able to confirm that reducing crime for all our communities, whilst supporting every victim of crime in West Yorkshire, will always be at the heart of the work I do as your Mayor.

• Respondents to the consultation were keen to ensure that the focus on women and girls did not reduce the focus on all victims of crime and I am pleased to confirm that every victim of crime is important to me, and you are all included in my plan for a safe, just and inclusive West Yorkshire.
• I will support all victims of crime to get the help they need to take back control of their lives, whilst ensuring those who need help out of criminal lifestyles, get it. Those who are intent on causing harm and distress, however, will pay the price.
• I am delighted to say that respondent feedback requested specific educational programmes to ensure every citizen of West Yorkshire was supported to be part of the solution, which included educating boys and men about healthy attitudes towards women.

• The plan has a wider partnership focus and approach than just policing. This has never happened before in previous plans. Understanding COVID and the impact of poverty and multiple and complex needs on offending, is also something the Plan recognises.
• The Plan has been subject to the widest consultation that has ever been done before.
• A strong focus on Safety for Women and Girls and an understanding of how important early intervention, prevention and equality, diversity and inclusion are to a safe, just and inclusive West Yorkshire make this plan different to any Police and Crime Plan in the country.

• The scale of engagement was huge, the biggest ever for the Policing and Crime Team. but there are always more people to talk to and I will continue to engage as we deliver the plan.
• We met with and spoke to older people, young people, sex workers, police, Black and Minority Ethnic communities, Gypsies and Travellers, families, community workers, and representatives from business, transport, health and education, and we heard what needs to be done.
• We know more needs to be done to represent all our communities and we are going some way to achieving that.

• This Plan is a living document – constantly engaging to understand its impact and refresh as we go.
• Whilst this Police and Crime Plan goes some way to setting our direction of travel for the next three years, what may be a good intervention now, may not be needed in three years’ time, so we know we must be agile, flexible, and able to respond to the current and changing government landscape.

• With partners, we have brought over £3.5m of external funding into West Yorkshire to boost support for victims of domestic and sexual violence and create safer public spaces.
• Through the Safer Streets 3 and the Safety of Women at Night funds, we have worked with our partners to make parks safer, implement behaviour change programmes to emphasise the role of men in supporting women’s safety, and worked with universities and night-time economy partners to tackle the issue of spiking in pubs, clubs, and bars.
• We are continuing to develop innovative approaches to tackling serious violence in, and with communities, through the ground-breaking work of our Violence Reduction Unit (VRU).
• We will deliver an additional 252 frontline police officers and staff by April 2022 and 750 police officers and staff by the end of my first Mayoral term.
• We have launched the Mayor’s Safer Communities Fund – awarding £210k in grants of up to £6k to vital voluntary and community groups across West Yorkshire.
• We have funded an additional 25 IDVA (Independent Domestic Violence Advisor) and ISVA (Independent Sexual Violence Advisor) posts to support all victims of domestic and sexual abuse.
• Working with West Yorkshire Police, incidents reported by victims as being motivated by gender-based hostility are now recorded as misogyny or misandry.
• The Ask for Angela safety campaign has been rolled-out across all districts of West Yorkshire.
• We have set up a pan-West Yorkshire Vision Zero Board to reduce and – hopefully eliminate – road deaths and serious injuries.

The Mayor of West Yorkshire commissioned an independent scoping report on the safety of men and boys following discussions with partners and through close working with male victim support services that she funds across West Yorkshire. Find out more about the report and read it.

We would love to hear from you about the Plan, and how we can improve it further to include your voice. If you would like to find out more, please email us at policingandcrime@westyorks-ca.gov.uk.