I want to use this week’s blog to talk about the biggest issue for me and my office at the moment – the Police and Crime Plan. 

I launched my Police and Crime Plan for public consultation last Friday at Herts Forward – a conference for local leaders. It is called ‘Everybody’s Business’. What I mean by that title is that the police can’t fight crime and keep us safe on their own. The full range of public and private partners has a role to play, and the community needs to play its part too. The working draft builds upon my January open letter to the County , and is open for consultation until 8th March.

Building on strong foundations; Public Focus; Offender Pays; Business Sense

The plan recognises the great successes of the Constabulary and partners to date - I want to build on these strong foundations. I want to ensure we continue to deliver effective local policing, that our detection and conviction rates remain high and that we continue to protect especially our most vulnerable. This isn’t just a plan for business as usual - I want to drive real change in three areas:

Public focus
Offender pays
Business sense

The public focus theme is about greater customer care across the criminal justice system, about greater support for victims of crime and about more active citizens. The Offender pays theme is about making offenders pay for the costs they create as well as for any rehabilitative or restorative measures taken. And it is about a concerted attack on criminal assets to recover the proceeds of crime. The Business sense theme is about working more closely with local businesses, about efficiency and about taking a more business-like approach to Constabulary and partnership use of resources and assets.