Police working hard but some crimes increasing

Attended an interesting meeting with the police last night.

I can honestly see why Staffordshire Police are so highly regarded nowadays. That said I still can’t agree with senior officers’ disappointment about their merger with the West Midlands Police being scrapped.

They seem absolutely certain that everything is in place to work in cross boundary partnerships which will tackle what they call public protection and category one, ie terrorism and organised crime. If this has been achieved to the extent they say, why was huge amounts of public money wasted on the mergers.

Figures for Trent Valley Policing Division, which basically covers Lichfield, Tamworth and Burton, show that overall crime figures are down but, worryingly, Common Assaults are up by 11%, Domestic Burglary is up by 23% although there’s an improvement in crime detection to 32.37%.

I’m bemused how overall crime can be down with such big increases in assaults and house break ins. I’ll try to find out when I meet with officers from the police command team in a couple of weeks. Several other things also worry me……

Central government are forcing more and more of Staffordshire Police resources to go into anti-terrorism activities meaning less for local policing in rural villages around Lichfield, Tamworth and Burton. Of course I agree anti-terrorism work is vital but, as our County is probably less of a target than most major cities, surely central government and not Staffordshire tax payers should bare the brunt. Linked to that it seems that funding for 31 Police Community Support Officers has now been withdrawn by the Home Office. What is not noticed by most people is the way the government will fund initiatives, such as more police or more PCSOs, for a couple of years and then expect council tax payers to pick up the ongoing costs.

It’s difficult. Staffordshire Police are hardly likely to turn down a couple of years of funding for more officers. The problem is at the end of Home Office funding all the extra officers have to be lost or alternatively the tax payer has to pick up the ongoing cost of them locally. It’s clever of the Government because they can initially claim all these extra police on the streets and a couple of years later transfer all the cost to local people!

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