Police Scotland

Firstly, sorry for the lack of updates, but there is a reason!

 

As you know the speed of change towards the creation of Police Scotland is picking up and we are getting an ever clearer idea of what the service is going to look like. First the appointment of CC House and this week the appointment of the four Deputy Chief Constables means that we are now seeing real progress towards the 1st April 2013. As such there are new roles being identified within the National Police Reform Team and I have been seconded from Lothian and Borders Police to the team.

 

My new role is to coordinate all of the changes which need to be made by the existing 8 Police Forces and 2 Agencies in order to  be ready for the first day of the new service. I am reassured that local policing and the involvement of our communities will be a genuine focus of each division of the new service and Edinburgh I am sure will be at the forefront of this!

 

And so until I return from my secondment...

 

thanks for reading and please do tell your local SNT what you expect and how they are doing

 

 

 Bryan

@bryanarodgers

Whats happening in...Southside/Newington

Having looked to establish how we go about our business, I thought it might be useful to start to let you see in more detail the work of your Safer Neighbourhood Teams. I thought I would start with Southside Newington.

So, as you know Insp Andy McLean is the local Inspector who covers Southside/Newington and Meadows/Morningside. The Sergeant covering Southside/Newington is Alan Campbell.

Insp Andy McLean

Sgt Alan Campbell

 

 

There was a visit to Sciennes Primary School today by PC's Evelyn Heggarty and Janie Harman today for a Park Smart day of action in response to complaints about parking around the school as well as concerns regarding driving. 

PC Janie Harman

PC Evelyn Hegarty

 

Sciennes Primary School

There was also a lot of support from our Road Policing Unit, the staff and most importantly the Junior Road Safety Officers who gave out road safety leaflets around the area.

Evelyn and Janie were later joined by the South Neighbourhood's Crime Prevention Officer, PC Carol Menzies and they delivered a personal safety talk at the Grange Nursing Home.

PC Carol Menzies

You can contact any of your Southside/Newington SNT officers directly and you can also Have Your Say about the services we provide in the Area and your concerns or suggestions.

Have Your Say

...in the East as well!

I did say that I would also update the local priority setting for the East NA. In the same way as the South, the SNT Sergeants from Craigentinny/Duddingston and from Portobello/Craigmillar lead on gathering the information to suggest local priorities for the Neighbourhood Partnerships to set us.

In the Portobello/Craigmillar area, you have Sergeants John Young and Barry Mercer;


  

Sgt John Young

Sgt Barry Mercer
 



John and Barry can be contacted by e-mail

 

adivsntcraigmillarportobello@lbp.pnn.police.uk

 

They can also be contacted at Craigmillar Police Station. You can see the current local priorities for the area by following the link here 

 

For the Craigentinny/Duddingston, Sergeant Stevie Bissett has the lead in this area. Stevie has just joined us so photographs of him and the new community inspector (Neil Clyde) as soon as they have posed!

 

Stevie can be contacted by e-mail at

 

adivsntcraigentinnyduddingston@lbp.pnn.police.uk

 

He can also be contacted at Portobello Police Station and the Craigentinny/Duddingston current local priorities can also be seen here

 

 

I would also say a big thanks to Kent Police for the recent course I have been on, hard work but really well run and I have brought back a lot of good ideas and additions I can make use of locally. Always learning!

 

Bryan

@bryanarodgers

  

With You and For You

Okay, local priority setting. I am passionate about this but we need to get more people involved in offering their views and opinions. It works like this...

Each of the Neighbourhood Partnerships has a sub-group structure and the police report to the most relevant sub-group (it's often the Community Safety one but each NP has it's own sub-group names)

As part of this, the local Inspector will present options to the group for what scould be considered as priorities in the area to be tackled by the teams.

Issues like, Drugs, Housebreaking, Violence, Terrorism, Public Protection, Road Safety and ASB will always be Division wide priorities and we will always be working towards improving life for all along with our partners. But what we are very aware of is that sometimes in dealing with the big picture things, the risk is that we miss local issues and concerns that really impact on people and this is wny we give our teams the opportunity to be given these local priorities.

Normally, the information gathering is led by the SNT Sergeants. In this post, I thought I would start with Alwyn's South Neighbourhood Area.

 In the Liberton/Gilmerton Ward and for that Neighbourhood Partnership, James and Stephen and their teams lead the information gathering;

Sgt Stephen Hagart



Sgt James Sinclair



mailto:adivsntlibertongilmerton@lbp.pnn.police.uk

 

In the Southside/Newington Ward its;



Sgt Alan Campbell



 

mailto:adivsntsouthsidenewington@lbp.pnn.police.uk

 

 

In Meadows/Morningside its;

 

Sgt Stephen Rosie



mailto:adivsntmeadowsmorningside@lbp.pnn.police.uk

 

And of course both Alan and Stephen report to the South Central NP

 

So, they and their teams read up on all of the latest crime figures, look at where there have been recent repeat calls and most importantly, listen to what their communities tell them. The teams regularly hold 'Have your say' events in places like council offices, outside shops, as part of other meetings or distribute cards or questionnaires. In reality they all look at as many ways as they can of finding out what worries you, what you want to see them do locally and in what specific areas.

 

Of course we know we want to hear from more people and in more ways and will keep looking for opportunities and new ideas (thats why I included the e-mail addresses for the teams!)

 

The Inspectors or the Sergeants then take all of the possible priorities to the sub-group meeting and present them with the meeting deciding on the three that should be tackled over the coming 6-12 week period.

 

The agreed priorities are then published and can be found below;

 

Meadows/Morningside

 

Southside/Newington

 

Liberton/Gilmerton

 

The teams are then accountable for evidencing how and if they meet these priorities and only the NP decide if they have achieved success.

 

If you would like to offer a view or voice a concern, please do e-mail the Sergeants or phone the SNT contact numbers on the website - or of course stop an officer and let them know!

 

 

Thanks again

 

Bryan

@bryanarodgers





You've got to have friends

One of the realities of working in policing and, in particular looking to prevent crime and improve the quality of life for people is that it's  about so much more than the police alone. We work with a whole range of partners, from individual's, volunteer groups, community groups, other public services, private companies, academics and so on.

 

I am not going to even try to cover all of the partnership work that goes on but thought I would start with some basics about how the Neighbourhoods are set up in Edinburgh.  

 

There are 12 Neighbourhood Partnerships in Edinburgh, each one is set up for the purpose of improving quality of life in the local area and is made up of people from communities as well as public services.  

 

What this practically means for South and East is that there are 4 Neighbourhood Partnerships which are within the area and who we work very closely with, infact the local community Inspector is a member of the board (see the previous blog post). You can see from the links below the membership of our local partnerships

 

Craigentinny & Duddingston NP

 

Portobello & Craigmillar NP

  

Liberton & Gilmerton NP

  

South Central NP

Of course you will notice that there are only 4 NP in the area compared to the 5 Wards - The answer lies in South Central NP which covers both the Meadows/Morningside and Southside/Newington wards.

I should say that from the links above you can see your local community plans as well as info on upcoming meetings and minutes of previous meetings. You can also see that there are a number of representatives from communities on the NP and commonly they are the chair or representative from the local Community Council.  You can also follow a few of our community council's on twitter ( @MarchSciennesCC, @PortyCC ).

So, I don't want this to be too long a read but can I also mention our CEC Neighbourhood Teams

 

 

Sarah Burns in the South (@south_team) works very closely with Alwyn, and

 

 

Jim Hunter in the East (@east_team) works very closley with Nadine

and all of our respective teams work together to help and to solve problems for people.

Now, I have honestly only scratched the surface on partnerships and am concious, I haven't yet mentioned  our emergency service partners or all of the great volunteers or groups we work with (and I promise I will come to them!) I have concentrated on the NP this post because next time I want to talk about local priority setting and how you can get involved because for me it is one of the key ways we are looking to change the way we deliver services.

Thanks again for reading, and as ever let me know if there is anything you would want me to blog about.

Bryan
@bryanarodgers   

So...Who's who

I thought I would take a quick break from preparation for my course next week and try my first proper blog entry. There is a lot I would like to talk about and also to hear about, from any reader, but it makes sense to tell you a little about us first.

 

Until a few months ago I was the Chief Inspector responsible for the East Neighbourhood Area of Edinburgh (more on that in a moment), however I was fortunate enought to be temporarily promoted to Superintendent and am now responsible for both the East and South Neighbourhood Areas. My office is at Craigmillar Police Station in Edinburgh and you can also find me on twitter @bryanarodgers

 

Ch.Supt. Malcolm Graham

I work directly to Chief Superintendent Malcolm Graham (@EdPoliceChief) who is the Divisional Commander for Edinburgh and who is responsible for the three Operational Command Areas (OCA's) which make up the Division. He is also responsible for the  specialist and support functions which are directly managed by his Deputy, Superintendent Craig Naylor (@Craig3564). 

 

I am perhaps a little bit better known in the East than in the South due to my previous job there, but that's something I am keen to remedy over the next wee while. As I also said in my first brief blog entry, I am keen to get as much input into our delivery of police and public sector services as possible.

 

Anyway, back to the South and East OCA;

 

South Neighbourhood Area

 

The Chief Inspector for the area is Alwyn Bell, he has responsibility for delivering the full range of response and community policing and has two Inspectors to help him do this.

 

Insp. Andy McLean

Andy is based at St. Leonards Police Station and has responsibility for the Safer Neighbourhood Teams who cover the Meadows/Morningside ward and the Southside/Newington ward. You can see the photographs of the members of these teams together with the public meetings they attend and how to contact them by following the links below;

Meadows/Morningside SNT

Southside/Newington SNT

 

Insp. Alan Bowie



Alan is based at Howdenhall Police Station and leads the Safer Neighbouthood Team responsible for the Liberton/Gilmerton ward. Again, you can see more information on the team as well as their contact details by following the link below;

Liberton/Gilmerton SNT

 

 

East Neighbourhood Area

 

The Chief Inspector for the area is Nadine Aliane, she carries out the same role as Alwyn does in the South and also has two community Inspectors to help;

 

Insp. Alan Carson

 This Alan is based at Craigmillar Police Station and covers the Portobello/Craigmillar ward. You can see the full information on the Safer Neighbourhood Team for this area also by clicking on the link below;

Portobello/Craigmillar SNT

 

 

 

The second Inspector in the area is Neil Clyde. Neil is new in post ,so no photograph yet but I will post a link as soon as he has posed for one. Neil is based at Portobello Police Station and covers the Craigentinny/Duddingston ward;

Craigentinny/Duddingston SNT

 

 

Okay, almost there but a couple more sets of important people who make up the team in the South and East. DCI Gary Cunningham heads the CID for the area, this includes our reactive investigators as well as our Drug Action Team, Housebreaking Investigation Team, Violent Crime Unit and Initiative Team.

 

 

Last and never least are our Community Patrol Teams who work 24/7 and respond to the emergency calls but also do their bit to target their work to prevent crime and improve your quality of life. These teams are also lead by Inspectors who work round the clock.

 

So...sorry if that was a bit long or a bit dry but I thought it would be useful to tell you  more about who works in South and East and  their roles before I started to blog about the work they do.

 

 

In my next post I will talk about our partners and how we link with them as well as things like local priority setting. Of course if anyone would like to know about anything else in the area, I would be pleased to hear from you.

 

Don't forget, you can also get information directly from www.lbp.police.uk or follow the force on twitter - @lbp_police

 

Thanks for now

 

Bryan   

Why Blog?

I thought I would try a blog to accompany my tweets so this is really just a short test. I am grateful to those who are currently following me and started doing this as a way of highlighting the things we do in our communities but also seeking views and ideas from people about what we do and how we do it. I'm enjoying using twitter but sometimes 140 characters is just not enough!.

In the coming weeks I would look to explain a lot of our structures and approaches and seek views as well as let everyone know about the work of all of the officers and staff in the South and East.

As a starting point please see a link to a recent Live Blog with The Edinburgh Reporter

http://www.theedinburghreporter.co.uk/category/ter-live/  

Of course you can also read previous Live Blogs with David Carradice, the local police commander for the West and Pentlands Area and Malcolm Graham the Divisional Commander for Edinburgh 

Bryan