North Yorkshire Police announces major review of its operations
It's to boost visible frontline policing
Last updated 7th Feb 2023
A police force which has struggled to recruit Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) and other non-officer staff has announced is to consider a major overhaul of how it operates to boost visible frontline policing.
Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Zoe Metcalfe and North Yorkshire Police chief constable Lisa Winward made the announcement as they revealed they would ask residents to pay 4.99 per cent extra council tax for the service, despite leaving more than 120 posts vacant.
A meeting of the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Panel was told the review could lead to an increase in uniformed officers attending incidents such as burglaries.
Mrs Metcalfe told the panel of North Yorkshire and York councillors and experts that inflation was set to present an ongoing challenge to the force’s finances, so an operational and organisational review of the force would be undertaken for the first time in eight years.
She said the review would aim to deliver the best possible frontline and visible policing services, while a pause on the recruitment of PCSOs would create the opportunity to “redesign neighbourhood policing”.
However, the commissioner added she would be expecting the chief constable to “grip the force’s finances tightly”.
Two members of the panel highlighted that the force would be asking the average band D householder to pay £14.03 extra “when they will actually be getting less in terms of 50 less PCSOs and 74 less staff”.
The band D £295.08 demand will mean an average rise of more than £90 in the amount residents are obliged to pay North Yorkshire Police to cover the cost of the police service not paid for by central government over the last decade.
Chief constable Lisa Winward said there had been a huge change in the nature of demand since the force’s last overhaul in 2015, including “a massive increase in technology and the seizure of technology, an increase in child abuse and rising online crime”.
She said: “The sort of work that our officers are now doing predominantly has changed since 2015. We have tried within the existing budget to investigate and deliver a high-quality policing service.
“We really need to go back to the core of policing, investigation, arresting by people and being physically present in our communities.”
The meeting heard despite focused recruitment campaigns the force had been unable to recruit PCSOs as people were either joining the service as officers or were seeing “more favourable jobs” elsewhere, so the police budget needed to be spent elsewhere.
The meeting was told the precept increase would also be used for “urgent” service improvements, such as £1.9m extra to improve 999 emergency call handling times, 101 call handling time, and expand means of the public contacting police.
The report states: “Demand profiling has identified that in comparison to other forces, North Yorkshire Police have a significantly smaller workforce in the control room than other comparable forces.”
Costs facing the force are expected to increase by £18m, mainly due to pay rises and inflation.
With a £1.5m injection it is proposed to boost frontline uniformed response teams, which will see the number of officers rise to 1,645.
After the meeting, the panel’s chairman, Councillor Carl Les, said he did not believe it was a case of people paying more for less, but rather that residents would be paying more because of inflation, for a service that would be different in future.
“I think at the moment it is the only thing the commissioner can do. We really are between a rock and a hard place this year in budget-setting terms.”
“We know that there is a cost of living crisis and how hard it is going to be for some people to pay any increase whatever that might be, but equally all the services are facing the same sorts of pressures we are.”