Please find below letter from Dorset Police Chief Constable Martin Baker and Dorset Police Authority Chairman Michael Taylor to the Force’s key external stakeholders.
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This is the latest in our series of Stakeholder updates, which are issued after each meeting of the full Dorset Police Authority, the most recent of which was held on 28 June 2012. In this letter we are taking the opportunity to update you on the operational performance of the Force, our current financial position and the action being taken to match operational priorities with a reducing level of resources.
Operational update
The Home Secretary’s primary indicator of policing success is crime reduction and at the end of 2011/12 total recorded crime in Dorset was at a 14-year low. In the first quarter of 2012/13 this reduction has accelerated, with crime down a further 14% on the same period last year. This equates to approximately 1,500 fewer crimes.
Our community can be confident in this performance not least because a recent inspection by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) found that Dorset Police achieves “excellent compliance with the National Crime Recording Standards and Home Office Counting Rules and that gives a high level of confidence in Dorset’s crime statistics”.
In the year to the end of March 2012 the annual incident count for anti-social behaviour stood at 38,373, a reduction of 21.3% since 2007/08. As with recorded crime, the numbers of reported incidents of anti-social behaviour have continued to fall in the current year compared to last, with a further reduction of approximately 20% (1,900 incidents).
The Force is currently registering its highest ever public rating for doing a good or excellent job. This measure is showing a 10 percentage point increase since 2006. Confidence in Dorset Police as measured from a random sample of over 4,000 members of the resident public has also improved significantly, from 70% to 77% in the last year alone (Dorset Community Safety Survey 2011/12).
‘One Team’ update
The first phase of the Force’s One Team change programme concluded with the introduction of a ‘direct delivery’ method of managing intelligence, investigations and public protection, rationalising the provision of these functions.
The Force concluded the current phase of the programme prior to the Olympic and Paralympic Games and will move onto the next phase after the Games, which will continue the work to deliver high levels of operational performance while making the necessary Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) savings by March 2015 and preparing for the demands of the next CSR period.
Research and consultation in relation to the future of the Force Marine Section remains ongoing. Further work will then be carried out post Olympics to investigate opportunities for enhanced partnership working with other police forces and organisations.
In designing the future operating model of the Force, we remain focused on protecting the public, maintaining our emergency services and reducing crime. While Safer Neighbourhood Teams (SNTs) are and will remain a vital component of our policing model, with significant further reductions in officers and staff still required to be made, it is inevitable that SNT resource levels are being closely examined.
Financial update
As detailed in previous communications, the Coalition Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) has effectively meant budget cuts in Dorset of approximately £20m by the end of the CSR period in March 2015.
The one-off council tax freeze grant, pressure to restrict further increases and potential for more cuts in the next CSR period could see this figure rise substantially. On our current projections, we will soon be at a resource level last seen in the early 1980s.
In response, the Force has undertaken an enormous change programme to deliver savings whilst maximising its operational effectiveness.
Initial savings were focused on infrastructure, processes and reducing workforce numbers. Reductions in the workforce have been achieved by taking early steps (in March 2010) to restrict recruitment and by introducing a highly successful voluntary severance scheme, which has meant that we have so far been able to avoid compulsory redundancies. All of this has resulted in the achievement of savings of approximately £10m to date, but there still remain significant additional savings to make – at least a further £10m – which will necessitate additional substantial reductions in numbers of officers and staff by March 2015.
The Force’s operational success is particularly notable when considering the officer and staff reductions that have already been made. In response to the ongoing requirement to make financial savings, there are already 270 fewer Dorset Police officers and staff (including 56 front line PCs and six PCSOs) working for the public since the current CSR was announced. To fulfil the savings required by the end of the CSR period, the current structure has to reduce by around another 162 police officer and 160 police staff posts by 2014/15 in order to meet the budget requirement.
In the medium term, the Force is at increased risk of operating from increasingly ageing assets, including estates, technology, vehicles and specialist equipment. A robust programme of work is therefore being undertaken to see how we can preserve and improve our infrastructure in order to maintain our performance.
The Force is already the fourth lowest spending force in England and Wales, with a high proportion of its budget spent on front-line officers and very low management support costs.
This has been achieved while maintaining high level performance in relation to both cutting crime and cutting costs. The Force and Authority has already explored many of the other avenues available to it in terms of cutting the budget.
There has been much news coverage in recent months relating to the benefits (or otherwise) of outsourcing and the Force and Authority continues to keep outsourcing opportunities under review and to that end have signed up as ‘interested parties’ to outsourcing opportunities being looked at by other forces and authorities. However, no contractual obligations have been entered into.
Our work so far has clearly shown that our internal costs are significantly lower than that being delivered from private sector outsourcing partners.
The Force and the Police Authority continue to play an active and integral part in driving forward the South West Collaboration project. The Regional Collaboration Board is chaired by the Chief Constable of Dorset and the programme covers operational areas such as serious and organised crime, as well as back office functions such as procurement and is overseen by the South West Police Authority Joint Committee (SWPAJC).
Of course, the Force will continue to work with the Authority to try and get more money from Government, to drive down costs and to look for increased opportunities around collaboration and outsourcing and partnership all in liaison with the public.
What should be in no doubt is that when in November 2012 a Police and Crime Commissioner is elected in Dorset he or she will find a workforce and organisation fully committed To Making Dorset Safer and To Making Dorset Feel Safer.
Yours sincerely
Martin Baker QPM Michael Taylor CBE DL
Chief Constable Chairman Dorset Police Authority
