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Tuesday, 26 July 2011 00:00 |
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Wealden Police update. 22/7/11
Date: Friday, 22 July, 2011, 12:05
This September a restructure of policing across East Sussex will be implemented. The division is changing the way it works - but the quality of service the public receive won’t change. As part of Serving Sussex 2015, the Force is looking at how it can continue to provide an excellent service to the public by doing things differently, while meeting the financial challenge across the public sector.
East Sussex Divisional Commander, Chief Superintendent Robin Smith said: “Sussex Police understands how important neighbourhood policing is to the local community and this will be protected despite the need to make savings. It is not about taking away services or blind cuts, but finding alternative ways to deliver policing.
“We are committed to protecting, or even improving, our service. Quite frankly, we won’t be able to do this if we work in the same way with less money and fewer people. Instead, we are looking at how we can do things differently and find ways to cut out waste and bureaucracy.”
One of the ways Wealden District is helping to achieve this is by looking at whether it can provide a better service to local communities by restructuring it’s current facilities with the rest of the East Sussex Division.
Wealden District Commander, Chief Inspector Dick Coates, said: “I believe these new arrangements will improve service provision to the people of Wealden.
“In September response officers will work from one central base within Wealden. This is situated at Uckfield Police station. Response times should not be effected as the response teams will continue to be mobile, visibly patrolling across the district as they do now. It will allow better co-ordination of the teams and deployment will be better managed.
“The change will only effect where response officers start and finish their shift. After booking on at their base station and receiving a short formal briefing from their supervisor, they will be tasked to go out in the community for the rest of their shift. This new model will allow them to continue to attend emergency and priority calls but will have less paperwork and so they will be back out into the community more quickly.”
East Sussex will also see the implementation of RIT, the new Responsive Investigation Teams, who will be based in Uckfield, Eastbourne and Hastings and will go live towards the end of September. RIT has already been successfully implemented in Brighton and Hove and more recently in West Sussex. RIT allows secondary investigations to be streamlined and removed from front line response policing. This means that response officers will continue to attend emergency and priority calls but will then hand over the investigation and, where relevant, prisoners to the dedicated RIT freeing them up to get back out on the streets quicker.
Chief Inspector Coates continued: “I am pleased that there will be three RITs across East Sussex. RITs are operational officers and are not desk bound but will also go out and interview victims, witnesses and suspects.
“This is an opportunity to provide a high quality crime investigation service to victims. It will reduce duplication and bureaucracy and the number of days it takes to investigate crime and will increase efficiency .
“Throughout Wealden our Neighbourhood Police Teams are unchanged. They will continue to work from our local stations in Hailsham, Crowborough, Uckfield and Heathfield. Their main role is to engage with the public which is more often done during the time when the community are available and want to see the team . The fact they do not work nights regularly does not make them any less effective in reducing crime and bring offenders to justice. In fact should the need arise the Police officers on our Neighbourhood teams will have their duties altered to work overnight. This has been done recently following a rise in crime within Hailsham town. Neighbourhood officers targeted a number of suspects overnight and arrested a number of them. Crime has been reduced and the life of the community returned to normality.
The force CID Review is now coming to a conclusion and the CID structure for East Sussex will change to a divisional based model, rather than district based.
Chief Inspector Coates said: “Wealden CID team will be based in two locations in September. A larger team covering the south of the area will work from Eastbourne and a smaller team of detectives covering the north of the District will work from Uckfield. This will allow there to be a bigger pool of officers available to cover Wealden at times of high demand. Our experienced and dedicated detectives will remain committed to supporting the policing operation on Wealden, preventing and detecting crime and bring offenders to justice"
The District Commander and Neighbourhood Inspector will continue to work from Hailsham Police station with a full overview of Policing across Wealden.
“A review of police station opening hours, formal consultation with our staff and public consultation identified more efficient ways for Sussex Police to provide a front office provision for members of the public. A key point is the police station is not shut and officers are available to see members of the public by appointment or when they are available.
"The Force has a target of £52 million to save by 2015; altering the hours that front offices are open is just one way in which the force can save money and as it makes sense to reduce them at stations which receive low numbers of visitors.
In an emergency, or when the front office is closed, the public will always be able to contact us quickly either through 999 or the non emergency number, 0845 60 70 999. We have one of the best records of all forces in the country at answering these calls quickly, and attending emergency calls within the 15 minute target.”
Proud to be serving Wealden.
Dick Coates, District Commander.
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