Police force asks public to rate it on social media

A POLICE commissioner has become the first in Britain to poll residents over social media to improve public confidence in his force.

Durham’s acting police and crime commissioner launched a pilot in January with Elucd, a New York-based company that uses adverts on websites and social media apps to survey residents about their view of local policing.

Steve White said while he believed public confidence was “at a good level” it was “not as high as it was”. He said: “By being able to use a tool like Elucd we should be able to get to the bottom of it and understand what it is.”

He said a particular issue among Durham residents was the visibility of officers. The Government has pledged 20,000 new police officers, 200 of which are due to come to Durham.

Mr White said: “These national initiatives come with strings attached. The strings that are attached with us is that all these officers have to be front-line uniformed response.

“So it will be interesting if at the end of the period we can demonstrate hopefully using Elucd’s tool, to show whether or not it’s made the difference that the Government wanted.”

The commissioner said the cost of the pilot was commercially sensitive but that he considered it to be “good value for money”.

Adverts ask a representative sample of internet users how safe they believe their community to be; about their view of the police; and what law enforcement bodies could be doing to improve trust.