Press release published on 4 June 2019
A consultation being launched by Stephen Mold, Northamptonshire Police, Fire & Crime Commissioner and Northamptonshire Police aims to start a conversation about the difficult choices that have to be made when policing the county and about how police resources should be allocated.
The consultation asks people to put themselves in the shoes of the Commissioner and the Chief Constable and tell us where they think resources should go and what matters to them most.
Northamptonshire is growing fast: the population has increased by 115,000 over the ten years to 2017, which is equivalent to adding another large town within the county border.
Policing itself continues to change and become more complex, with police officers responsible for work that isn’t always seen by the public, including: monitoring high risk offenders; investigating serious and organised crimes; protecting vulnerable people from exploitation and attending incidents where people are in mental health crisis.
Last year Northamptonshire Police control room operators answered 280,531 calls to the 101 number, averaging 1,178 calls a day, of which 320 were 999 calls. On average only 167 crimes were recorded a day and 40% of all the calls received were regarding concerns for someone’s safety or welfare.
Now a consultation called ‘Policing – how would you decide’ will give people the opportunity to learn more about the work of Northamptonshire Police and let them try to allocate policing resources to the areas of work they think are important, using a special online simulator.
The survey can be found at northantspolice.pointsimulator.com
Focus groups are also being held in local communities around the county and the results will be used to help inform decisions about the future shape of Northamptonshire Police services. The closing date to take part is July 30.
Northamptonshire Police, Fire & Crime Commissioner Stephen Mold said: “I want to start a conversation about local policing in our county. The issues that police are expected to deal with changes all the time and becomes more complex and despite the fact that the Force has a budget of £130 million, tough decisions will always have to be made.
“Through this consultation, I would like to raise the awareness of some of the work that police officers do that may not be obvious to most people, and I want to hear where local residents think the focus should be.”
Northamptonshire Police Chief Constable Nick Adderley said: “Last year, we took more than 340,000 calls to our control room and almost 40% of them were concerns about safety or welfare, that’s far more than the number of calls about crime.
“Through this consultation, we want to explain what your local police do, with partners, to keep the county safe and we want to hear how confident you are in the way we are doing that. Put yourself in my shoes and take a look at the challenges we face and the difficult decisions I have to make within finite resources.
“Ultimately, we want to make sure that your needs and expectations help us to shape how policing Northamptonshire is delivered.”
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