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Message from Tim Hollis CBE QPM Chief Constable

In recent years the force has invested heavily in areas of activity which most impact upon local communities.  Our aim is to ensure people feel confident we are there when they need us to provide the service they seek.

Crucial elements of our success in that regard are our Neighbourhood Policing Teams.  They cover all parts of the force area and are located within our four policing Divisions based at: Beverley, Grimsby, Hull and Scunthorpe.  You’ll find details of each Division elsewhere on the website.

The Neighbourhood Policing Teams consist of a mixture of police officers, special constables, PCSOs and volunteers.  The emphasis of their work is on providing local and accessible policing across the Humber region, forging relationships with people and seeking to tackle those persistent and irritating local problems which so often undermine the confidence of local residents.

In order to ‘raise the bar’ on the delivery of local services, in December 2008 I committed the force to the national Policing Pledge.  This required us to scrutinise how we delivered local policing and to make further adjustments.  During the summer of 2009, all forces of England and Wales were visited by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and rigorously tested on how they delivered the Pledge.  I was delighted when the results were announced.  Humberside Police was the only force in the Yorkshire and Humber Region to receive the highest grading awarded and one of only eight forces in the country.  The challenge during 2010 is to build upon that success.

Another critical area was that of call handling, how quickly we answered your calls to us and, when necessary, sent officers to assist.  Again, we have invested in more staff, more training and better equipment and we are consistently meeting the national targets set in that regard.  In case you wondered, during an average month we receive some 12,000 emergency 999 calls and 21,300 non-emergency calls.

Humberside Police has a proud history of providing service to the communities across what is a large and physically diverse area since the force’s creation in 1974.  It is an area defined by the Humber estuary which now constitutes a major entry point into the UK for goods and people coming from the Continent via Rotterdam and Zebrugge.  As such, I regard the region as one which has an important part to play as the role of the UK in relation to the rest of the European Union continues to develop.  It is an area which has a long and distinguished history, frequently influenced by the presence of the Humber, now made up of a rich network of local communities which are, quite rightly, proud of their roots and keen to retain their sense of identity.  Between them, they make for a varied and interesting area to police.

2010 holds particular challenges for the Police Service.  Pressure to deal with all aspects of what is a complex public service continues to grow.  For, in addition to delivering service directly to local people, we also have to ensure that the wider harms to our local communities as represented by terrorism, serious and organised crime (particularly drugs) and major incidents are addressed.  Increasingly, and for sound operational reasons, this is increasingly being done jointly with other police forces in the Yorkshire and Humber Region.  Humberside Police are actively involved in these initiatives and a small number of local officers now work as part of regional teams tackling criminality at this higher level.  The aim remains the same – to protect people from harm and to tackle criminals at every level.

For reasons which are well rehearsed, funding across the public sector is going to get tight and I have no reason to believe that the police service will be exempt from the pressure to reduce costs.  Indeed, that pressure has already started to make itself felt.  Naturally, my ambition is to do everything possible to maintain our frontline services and we are already looking very closely at how the force is managed so as to ensure that necessary ‘back office’ functions are delivered as efficiently as possible, albeit that can only ever deliver modest savings as, in the force, they are not large.  Similarly, we are working with other forces in the Region to explore how we might make savings by sharing some services.  That work has, in fact, been going on for some time now and it will continue.

I continue to have a concern, however, that the order of savings which will be required of us later this year will mean we may have to review how elements of our frontline delivery are provided.  Whatever happens, I can assure you we will strive to ensure that Humberside Police continues to provide the high standard of service we have established in recent years.  I am looking forward to working with you to that end – we all want to make our area a safe and happy place in which to live and work and an attractive area to visit.