Chief Constable reacts to State of Policing Report

Chief Constable Debbie Tedds has reacted to the State of Policing report that was published by HMICFRS earlier today.

She said: "Here in Warwickshire, we are committed to preventing and investigating crime and continuously engaging with communities to build confidence. We know from the great work that goes on across the force every day to protect our communities, and feedback from our engagement with communities, that policing in Warwickshire is highly regarded by many. We therefore continue to strive to provide consistent, high quality locally delivered policing services that deliver the very best protection from harm.

"Warwickshire Police has recently implemented huge advances in technology, recruited hundreds of new student officers and designed a new policing model.  This seeks to ensure we have the right people in the right place with the right skills, maximising the ongoing investments we have made in technology to ensure we have the capacity and capability to serve the public as effectively and efficiently as we can.

"Technology advances really have been the theme of the last year for Warwickshire Police, not least the deployment of new mobile technology across the workforce to improve responsiveness underpinned by a wholescale new IT infrastructure.  We also proudly saw the opening of our state-of-the-art new Operations and Communications Centre.  All this investment is instrumental in helping us to develop more efficient and effective ways to ensure the right service is offered to the public first time and enable us to meet the complex needs of modern-day policing in new and innovative digital ways.

"Through our Empower change programme, with the welcome support by the Police and Crime Commissioner’s (PCC) additional investment and the national police officer Uplift programme, this year the force achieved its highest ever numbers of police officers in our force’s history.  We ended the financial year, having over-achieved recruitment with 1,113 police officers in post.  While the force now has many young in-service officers, this brings with it huge opportunities, not least in enabling us to strengthen local policing, public protection, and prevention. It has also increased our diversity, brings in new skills and new ways of thinking, particularly in how we engage with younger generations within our county.

"With the resources and technology, we now have in place we are focused on our priorities of preventing and investigating crime, while engaging to improve public confidence in the force."