Coalition plans - more than just cuts.

The Home Secretary's speech to senior (more senior than me!) police officers this week set out some clear messages for the service and the cuts we have to face. I am sure you can look out for some Echo headlines on police cuts like the recent ones on council cuts. But there was more in the speech than just about the money, or lack of it. Theresa May also talked about giving people more influence over policing and holding us more accountable locally and less accountable to Whitehall bureaucrats. Fine by me. That includes plans for locally elected Police Commissioners. Just to be clear, that doesn't mean local police senior officers (me!) or Chief Constables being elected. What it does mean is that one person will be elected to cover the whole of Hampshire and Isle of Wight and it will be their job to set the police force budget, agree plans/priorities and appoint the Chief Constable. When they come into effect then the current Police Authority will cease to exist.

Local influence over policing already happens in many ways and if you want to have a say in what happens in your neighbourhood then get in touch with your local team. You can find them through our website http://www.hampshire.police.uk/Internet/localpolicing/southampton/. This week we also had the first meeting of the new Southampton Police Independent Advisory Group. A team of local community members coming together to advise us on how we can make policing in the City better. I was very encouraged by the first meeting and I hope we can have some very frank and helpful advice from these new 'critical friends'.

A week of contrasts

Quite a week with some great contrasts. Important arrests for some serious crimes in the city including the horrible assault on the cyclist down near the Itchen, the court sentences for those who caused violence at the Pompey game and then the government announcements about huge budget cuts. Officers and police staff are understandably proud of some of our successes but have concerns about what the future holds. Our Chief Constable is quite clear that we will not sacrifice the work we do to protect vulnerable people, keep our presence in every neighbourhood and still catch criminals. But the Constabulary is going to have to find some serious cuts to meet future budgets. I will do all I can to look after the interests of the City and my officers and staff but we too will have to take our share of the cuts. Our new building is still going to be finished and occupied by April next year. If it seems a bit of a luxury in these times of financial hardship then I get that but we have to have somewhere new to work as we are not able to stay at the Civic Centre for much longer, the diggers are getting closer every day. I will be making sure that we don’t waste any money on the fit out and we operate from the new building with as much efficiency as possible.

Finally if you saw the story about the operation at YMCA then the 'readers' comment on the echo website was correct when it pointed out that the Echo was quite wrong to suggest we use machine guns - a bit sensationalist I think, semi-automatics - yes, machine guns? Definitely not.

Big Brother is back

The last Big Brother series starts this week. Until reality TV took on this title to describe minute by minute surveillance of contestants the term 'Big Brother' used to be more widely understood as a description of alleged state intrusion in the privacy of people's lives (from George Orwell's book 1984). By coincidence, last night I was meeting with some members of the community in Southampton and one of their concerns was about the purpose and use of CCTV in the City. This followed a story from Birmingham about allegations that CCTV there was being used to spy on members of the Muslim community. I was able to give reassurance that the city CCTV systems in Southampton are in place to prevent and detect crime and disorder on our streets. They do not focus on any groups or communities. There are some mixed views about the benefits of the use of CCTV cameras. Some people object to them but many others welcome them for the increased sense of safety and reassurance they offer. CCTV systems certainly do deter some criminal and anti-social behaviour and when crimes are committed in public areas then CCTV is often a good source of evidence. However, the amount of footage of drunkenness and associated crime in the city centre at night shows that the deterrent effect has limits especially once alcohol takes over.
The new government is talking about minimum pricing on alcohol and if you have read many of my previous entries you will know that I would welcome that. We have started the anti-social behaviour campaign which will run through the summer and on 12th June we have the start of an operation to deal with any problems linked to World Cup matches. Alcohol features as a risk in both these issues. Sadly for some people the mix of alcohol and football support leads to behaviour like domestic violence or expressions of hatred including racism. Let's hope the vast majority can just enjoy the spectacle, sporting excitement and pride in the performance of their chosen team without resorting to drunkenness and disorder. If government cuts are as big as some are suggesting then I can say that the biggest way to save policing costs would be to reduce the amount of excessive use of alcohol. If the end of Big Brother is partly because audiences have finally tired of seeing exhibitionist behaviour, encouraged every time the housemates get a ration of alcohol delivered, then that's fine by me. There's more then enough similar drunken exhibitionism played out on our streets every weekend.