Chief Constable’s proposed changes to Neighbourhood Policing in Cambridgeshire
Thursday 5th November
You may be aware that Chief Constable, Nick Dean announced proposals to neighbourhood policing in Cambridgeshire on Wednesday 21st October.
You can read about his proposals here.
The plans include the reduction and alignment of PCSOs to all neighbourhoods across the force, the removal of the community safety role and a change to the opening hours of enquiry offices across the county.
The proposals were announced at the start of an internal consultation with those affected.
As your Acting Police and Crime Commissioner, it is my job to listen to any concerns you might have regarding these proposals (as well as any other matters relating to policing and crime) and make sure the Chief has considered these.
It is the Chief’s responsibility to manage his workforce, both in terms of police officers and staff.
With this in mind, I wanted to make sure you have had a chance to read and understand the Chief’s proposals.
If you have any further issues or concerns on this issue that you would like me to raise with the Chief Constable, please do get in touch by emailing me at: cambs-pcc@cambs.pnn.police.uk.
I can assure you that the Chief has not made these proposals lightly.
Every year, as with all public services, the resources across the whole organisation are taken into consideration – changes to demand, modernisation which requires investment, and basic costs rise. This means difficult choices have to be made. Savings continue to be made in other areas of the Constabulary as well as police staff posts from office functions. This is not a choice anyone wants to make, but the budget has to balance.
Additionally, our county remains the 5th lowest in the country in terms of funding per head of population. This continues to put us at a significant disadvantage therefore both myself and the Chief Constable, along with other public service sector leaders, will continue to present the case nationally to Government and I will again raise this with our local MPs when I meet them next week.
I wanted to take this opportunity to remind you that Cambridgeshire already has the highest number of warranted police officers it has ever had. Thanks to the Government’s uplift police officer recruitment programme, an additional 62 warranted police officers have been recruited over the past year a further 140 officers set to join the force over the next two years.
It is the Chief Constable’s intention to publish responses to any concerns he receives on his website in due course.
I want to reassure people that I will continue to raise any further concerns brought to my attention concerning this and monitoring the impact of these proposals in the coming months.
I am very proud of the Chief Constable, his officers, staff and volunteers for the hard work they have put in to continuing to deliver such a professional service particularly over the last few months and keeping Cambridgeshire safe. These are unprecedented times but ones in which our Constabulary continues to meet the needs of the people of Cambridgeshire.
Ray Bisby
Acting Police and Crime Commissioner for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough