Wiltshire Police Chief Constable “opening door” to force with honesty
The Chief writes an open letter to the PCC every two weeks
Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police, Catherine Roper, says transparency is a key part of her quest to rebuild trust between the public and the force.
The Chief writes a bi-weekly, open letter to Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Philip Wilkinson, detailing the forces exploits.
She said she has a “very strong” working relationship with the “incredible” PCC.
“He is here to challenge me. He is here to make sure that I provide the best possible policing service to the people of Wiltshire and Swindon. And he absolutely does challenge me and drive to make sure that that I drive the best performance of my police force,” she said.
When Chief Constable Roper took charge of Wiltshire Police, she made the commitment to increasing transparency and “opening the door” to the work within the force.
The bi-weekly letter is part of her effort to achieve this.
“It's on a lot of our social media. It's on our our our web page and is an effort by me to increase that transparency, to open the door on what it is that we are doing and and to be really honest.”
In the letter’s, the Chief documents how she and her officers are addressing the difficult and challenging issues they are tackling and being honest about problems in delivering their service to the public.
Another part of her efforts is increasing visibility within communities, with mobile police stations and informal meetings with members of the community.
Each weekend for the last six weeks, officers have been out and about in various villages that don’t often get police presence.
“I'm currently I'm reviewing or sort of community engagement strategy to make sure we can be even more accessible and and people can give us the feedback and come and talk to us about their concerns, to make sure that that they know that we are there to keep them safe and to talk and to help them.”