Kingston taxpayers should hold part of the police’s budget in order to have more of a sway on their priorities, according to community leaders.

Rashid Laher, vice chairman of the Kingston Community and Police Partnership (KCPP), set up in 1982 to give people an independent say on how the borough is policed, made the suggestion in an interview with the Surrey Comet.

He believed more say on overall priorities should be decided locally, not by targets handed to borough commanders by Scotland Yard and rewarded with financial input.

He said: “Give us that money and we can have data and say to the borough commander these are ours [priorities].

“The borough commander is not going to get that £10m or £1m or whatever it is unless he meets our targets. If the money was held locally where there was more local decision making.”

Fellow vice-chairman, John Azah, said: “We want to be a lot more efficient about how we affect the policing priorities. What I think is wrong with the priorities with the process is [it is] regardless of what priorities we decide in Kingston.

Responding to the suggestion Graham Speed, Metropolitan Police Authority member for Kingston, said: “I think local residents and groups like KCPP have a very good opportunity to influence both central and local priorities and decision making. It reaches a point when some things have to be set centrally.”

KCPP meets publicly five times a year, bringing together community groups from residents’ associations, churches and religious organisations to reflect “grass-roots” opinion and is funded by a £47,900 annual grant from the Metropolitan Police Authority, which it has to bid for.

Other panel members include a retired Met police officer, Age Concern, Kingston College and University, and the head of facilities at Kingston Hospital.

Members of the public can turn up and put questions to the borough commander, although people rarely do, a fact the KCPP admits. It is trying to encourage more people to come along.

Chairman Sandra Flower, and vice-chairs John Azah, chief executive of Kingston Race and Equalities Council, and Rashid Laher, chairman of Kingston Mosque, told the Surrey Comet they were satisfied with policing in the borough.

Asked for a view on how Kingston police were doing, Mrs Flower pointed to the sanction detection rates and said she thought clear-up rates were very good, pointing to a figure mentioned by Chief Superintendent Paul McGregor that slightly less than the target of 32 per cent of recorded crimes in Kingston were now being solved.

She said: “When I look back over the time I have been on the group the way we worked and were able to work has changed. We work closely with the police and for many years we have done.”

Asked whether there was anything Kingston police could improve or should focus more attention on none of the trio could think of a specific issue.

If you want to know more, contact KCPP administrator Linda Chesters on 020 8547 5038 or email linda.chesters@rbk.kingston.gov.uk. The group also has a website at e-voice.org.uk/kcpp.

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