Police and Crime Commissioner

On Thursday I had an informal chat with the Police and Crime Commissioner for Dorset. The discussion was about where we are going to take this whole democratic agenda in respect of the issues of crime and disorder reduction across the County and expand it to the judiciary and the safeguarding processes in partnership. The point is, and I am delighted to report this that as an elected body he is working to the same agenda as the Community Safety Partnership which is all about a bottom up approach to problem solving directly from the electorate and support for the principle of safer neighbourhoods, victim priority and partnership. This is music to my ears! This week sees the next CSP meeting and yet again all the stats show a reduction in just about every area, a remarkable turnaround from some five years ago. The notional savings just this year alone of the reduction in incidents from last year is in excess of £3 million. And before you say it I have been back to the bean counters to check that the stats are right and everything has come back ok. There is no doubt that a great deal of restructuring is still needed to establish a pan Dorset approach to other partnerships but we have made a really good start and that needs to be followed through. The PCC has some interesting ideas which compliment the work that ward Councillors should and are doing in seeing that neighbourhoods are setting higher standards for their areas so I look forward to working with him and his team in continuing the good work.