More officers set to spend time working in local communities

From today West Midlands Police are changing the way they work, with more officers now dedicated to working locally in our communities across the West Midlands.

A new local policing model will better serve communities across seven policing areas; Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall and Wolverhampton.

Each local policing area will be led by a Chief Superintendent commander who will understand the issues that matter to communities in their area and have greater control over how they use their resources to meet local needs better.

Response and investigation teams will now be based at the same local police hubs as neighbourhood officers, meaning they can work more closely together to prevent and solve crime and keep people safe.

This means more officers spending more time understanding and preventing local problems as well as addressing the issues that really matter to communities.

What will be different?

• Increased neighbourhood presence to really understand local issues and work with communities to tackle these.
• Response officers (those who respond initially to your calls) are now more local to provide a better service.
• Local investigation teams with a renewed focus on areas such as burglary, robbery, vehicle crime and domestic abuse to deliver better outcomes.
• Increased use and availability of local custody facilities to support our focus on arresting more offenders

West Midlands Police say they want this new way of delivering local policing to make local areas safer, by making more arrests for violent crime, especially for domestic abuse.

The police force will also be able to work more effectively with our partners, local businesses, and other agencies to reduce crime and disorder and make the streets safer.

Chief Constable Craig Guildford said: “When I joined West Midlands Police in December last year I said I wanted us to be recognised as a police service that is big enough to cope with everything that is asked of us, whilst showing we are small enough to care about the things that really matter to our communities.

“The new local policing model will help us to get better at solving local issues and preventing and solving crime by working in partnership with communities to deliver justice and keep people safe across the West Midlands.”

The Chief's three clear aims:

1. Delivering a service for local people:

• Increased local neighbourhood policing with officers proud of the beats they police.
• Police stations open to help people.
• Improved call handling.

2. Building engaged communities

• Listening to community concerns and working together to tackle local issues.
• Recognising that communities are always changing and finding new ways to engage with them.
• Being transparent and accountable to communities about what we are doing and why, being open to scrutiny of the use of police powers.

3. Employer of choice

• As a major employer across the region the force will provide good opportunities to develop local talent.
• Officers and staff that serve the public with integrity, professionalism, compassion and fairness to earn their trust.
• A renewed focus on ensuring the force is representative of our local communities so we have the skills and talents we need to serve the public better.

The force has extensive expertise and experience in handling serious crime and complex investigations and policing major events, so they will maintain specialist centralised capabilities and teams including Operations, Intelligence, Force Criminal Investigations Department and Public Protection Unit.

They will play an important part of the new model to support our local policing teams.

Mr Guildford continued: “This is a really exciting time for us all and we hope you will see a tangible difference. It’s vitally important that you let us know how we are doing. We are keen to hear your issues, concerns and feedback so we can make sure we are addressing the right things.

“The one message that I would like people to take away is that you can expect to see more officers spending more time in your local community.”

The West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, Simon Foster, said: “It is absolutely essential that West Midlands Police invest in, prioritise and rebuild community policing, in order to deliver for the people of the West Midlands.

“I want to see more officers spending more time in local communities to prevent and tackle crime, build trust and confidence, police by consent, protect people and help the vulnerable.

“I remain committed to working with the Chief Constable to put 450 additional police officers into community policing, to strengthen the bonds between the public and the police, so as to proactively solve local issues before they become critical problems.”