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PUBLIC meetings held by police bosses are set to be scrapped later this year - because hardly anyone goes to them.

Lancashire Police Authority (LPA) top brass are set to axe the regular meetings which are designed to allow residents to question senior officers over policing in their area.

Members want to look at alternatives, including politcal-style focus groups, because the meetings are often poorly attended and are seen as ineffective compared with Police and Community Together (PACT) meetings.

Figures show that an average of 21 people sat through each of the last five LPA meetings in Eastern division, covering Blackburn, Darwen, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley, while 13 residents typically turned up in Pennine division, covering Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale.

But numbers are often much lower. Only eight people sat through the February 2007 meeting in Hyndburn borough and a Rossendale meeting in February had just two members of the public present.

Coun Malcolm Doherty, who chairs the LPA and also sits on Blackburn with Darwen Council, said: "What we are thinking of doing is finding other ways of consulting the public.

"We are looking at all sorts of things but we have not decided yet.

"One of the problems with the meetings is that people are getting used to having direct contact with police at PACT meetings and they find that useful.

"With the public meetings we move around, so we go somewhere else after people have raised issues and it just goes round in circles - they never come to conclusions.

"We are looking at different ways of talking to the public but we have not made any decisions yet."

Senior police are also believed to prefer PACT meetings, where local PCs and PCSOs meet residents rather than top ranking officers.

Insp Paul Goodall, from Blackburn police, said: "I think some decisions need to be made about the value of the police authority meetings and whether they have been superseded by others, such as PACT meetings, that take place on a monthly basis.

"We do a lot of work through our PACT meetings and those have evolved into other meetings."

Jon Puttock, chief inspector of the Pennine division, said: "The police authority meetings are helpful to us because we have got members of the community there telling us where to concentrate our resources.

"Sometimes you get 30 or 40 people there but sometimes there's only a handful there.

"People will only come if they have got real issues and it may be a good sign if they don't come."

12:41pm Sunday 11th May 2008

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