Policing costs to increase by 10% (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Policing costs to increase by 10%

THE cost of keeping Wiltshire's reputation of being one of the safest places to live is going up by almost ten per cent from April.

The Wiltshire Police Authority has set its 2004/05 budget at £88.5 million.

It said it has to ask for an extra 9.98 per cent on council tax to make up the difference in its spending plans and what it receives from the Government.

The increase will represent £120.63 a year for Band D properties, which has to be added to all the other elements of the annual council tax bills including the county council, district council, town or parish council and fire authority costs.

Last Thursday the police authority agreed the budget for 2004/5, which it stated was targeted at improving performance and giving better public access to police officers and police staff.

The authority said the budget would enable further development and improvement of the policing service for those that live and work in Wiltshire and Swindon and showed a continued commitment to Keeping Wiltshire Safe.

The 2004/5 budget, said a statement issued by the authority, reflected and built on the strong, positive progress

against the priorities of 2003/4, particularly in the areas of police

officer accessibility and efficiency, and using technology to ensure that

police officers spend as much time as possible outside the police station.

The budget will finance the following initiatives:

l New police radios will be provided for every police officer, together

with mobile electronic equipment to enable them to work outside the station and spend longer in their community beat or sectors impacting directly on the service provided to local communities.

l Improvements to the force's technology systems will be made to enable

more efficient and effective reporting of crime and managing the information

flow from members of the public, partners and members of staff.

l A commitment to increasing the number of special constables on the beat in Wiltshire and Swindon, and police community support officers, whose role includes providing reassurance and a local uniformed presence.

l An improvement in call handling so that the first response to

non-emergency calls made by the public will give the caller a better overall

service. The additional investment will be placed into people and IT to

fully track contact from the public, the progress and outcome of that

contact and enable the results to be audited.

The statement said the authority noted with satisfaction the improvements in service delivered by the force during the current year and that this progress had contributed once again to Wiltshire being the second safest county in which to live and work, and with high levels of public confidence.

It was noted that 37 additional police officers had been recruited, together with two police community support officers. The full benefit of these appointments, the reports said, would be seen in the current financial year, once training had been completed.

New prisoner handling teams have been pioneered in the county.

This Wiltshire force innovation, the report said, is significantly increasing the amount of time police officers are able to spend outside of their stations and meeting the public.

As a result, across the county, police

officer time spent dealing with prisoners has reduced by a third.

In 2003 Wiltshire officers spent an addition 96,000 hours on patrol rather than being engaged on administrative work in their stations the equivalent of an additional 93 police officers released to front line duties.

This has been enabled by better technical support, new styles of working, and increased use of civilian support staff in a variety of roles.

Overall crime in Wiltshire was down by 3.5 per cent compared with last year and an increased police presence on the streets had contributed to that decline, said the report.