Quality not quantity, says police chief amid concern at numbers
A POLICE and crime commissioner whose force has seen a 15 per cent decline in frontline officers over the last decade has urged residents to consider the quality rather than quantity of community policing.
Launching a survey on neighbourhood policing, North Yorkshire’s commissioner Julia Mulligan said while she expected residents to call for more bobbies on the beat, there was more to effective community policing than simply being visible.
Mrs Mulligan’s comments follow concerns being raised that neighbourhood policing without sufficient officers was not giving the public the reassurance, interaction and engagement they wanted.
After being elected in 2012, she launched a four-year plan which stated: “Our police need to be more responsive, more visible and more accessible.
“It is only then that North Yorkshire residents will feel safe – and that is what I am here to deliver.”
At the neighbourhood policing survey launch in Harrogate yesterday, Mrs Mulligan said the force was now working on improving the visibility of officers in communities, but also in ways that did not require them to be visible.
“We have got the money that we have got and the question is how do we best make use of that money.”
She said it was important that residents voiced their views on the quality of local policing. The survey at www.telljulia.com, follows changes to the structure of neighbourhood police teams.
Mrs Mulligan said while she was striving to find a balance between visible police officers and investigating crimes that needed significant investigations there was a “fixation on numbers” of officers, which was unhelpful,
She cited the number of police staff investigators at the force doubling to 50 in the last two years, as an example of officers which are not classified as ‘frontline’, but play a key role in policing.
She said: “We have got the amount of police officers we have got so we better found out how we best use them.
“There are lots of things that North Yorkshire Police is doing to improve the visibility of police officers and I’m sure the public will come back and say that is one of their concerns.”