CUTS to policing budgets in Essex Police have \u201cadversely affected the force\u2019s ability to reduce and detect crime,\u201d the policing watchdog has said.<\/p>\n
HM Inspectorate of Constabulary said the force has \u201cone of the lowest levels of spend on policing and has correspondingly fewer officers per head of population.\u201d\u00a0It added in its report Policing in Austerity: Rising to the Challenge that victim satisfaction for the force was 79.5% – lower than in other forces.<\/p>\n
The HMIC stated Essex Police has identified that it needs to save \u00a344m over the four years of the spending review – between March 2011 and March 2015. It added that the force has planned how it will save the \u00a344m – and therefore has no outstanding funding gap.<\/p>\n
Essex\u2019s position is not without challenge as it has below average spend on policing per head of population compared with other forces in England and Wales, so it will be\u00a0 harder to drive out further savings.<\/p>\n
Zo\u00eb Billingham, HM Inspector of Constabulary for the Eastern Region, said: \u201cEssex Police has a smaller savings requirement compared to other forces.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe force has made progress in meeting its financial challenge. However, there has been an adverse impact on the service it provides to the public as a result of some of the changes it has made.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is now being addressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe force has well established collaboration arrangements, particularly with Kent Police. It is delivering a higher proportion of its savings requirement through collaboration when compared to other forces, which is commendable.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaintaining a high standard of policing has recently been a challenge for the force.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new Chief Constable and the Police and Crime Commissioner are fully aware of this issue and are already taking steps to improve the service delivered to the people of Essex.<\/p>\n
\u201cHMIC will continue to monitor the force for the remainder of the spending review period.\u201d<\/p>\n
See the full report\u00a0http:\/\/www.hmic.gov.uk\/media\/essex-response-to-the-funding-challenge.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CUTS to policing budgets in Essex Police have \u201cadversely affected the force\u2019s ability to reduce and detect crime,\u201d the policing watchdog has said. HM Inspectorate of Constabulary said the force\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":184,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":372,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions\/372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}