Crime and fear of crime can have a long-lasting detrimental impact on a person’s health and wellbeing. I am therefore committed to doing everything possible to protect children and adults from harm, placing a firm focus on understanding the experiences of victims and practitioners, listening to their voices and ensuring that feedback is acted upon.
Key progress during 2023/24:
- £1m in government funding secured for projects to improve safety in three Surrey towns: In October, I was pleased to announce that my team had secured nearly £1 million from the Government’s Safer Streets Fund to enhance public safety and tackle anti-social behaviour in Walton, Redhill, and Guildford. In close collaboration with Surrey Police and councils, we were able to allocate £462,924 during 2023/24, with us providing match-funding of £556,301. During 2024/25 we will allocate a further £352,986, with £306,498 in match funding. A total commitment of almost £1.7 million. This money has been used for a range of projects including increased CCTV coverage, youth outreach programs and security improvements in key areas. In Redhill and Guildford, effort have focused heavily on reducing violence and enhancing town centre safety, ensuring that all residents – especially women and girls – can feel safe.
- Delivery of the Serious Violence Duty: The Serious Violence Duty is a key part of the government’s programme of work to collaborate and plan to prevent and reduce serious violence – taking a multi-agency approach to understand the causes and consequences of serious violence, focusing on prevention and early intervention, and informed by evidence. The Duty compels the police, probation and youth justice teams, fire and rescue, integrated care boards and local authorities to collaborate and communicate to deliver a local needs assessment and strategy to reduce violence in their area. My team is the lead convener for the local partnership and has been working during 2023/24 to support the preparation, publication, and implementation of the Serious Violence Reduction Strategy, including oversight and performance monitoring of delivery plans and expenditure. A Serious Violence Reduction Partnership has been formed and I have seconded an experienced member of staff to the role of Serious Violence Programme Lead. This role has led the assessment and analysis of local need, development of the partnership’s strategy and commissioning of interventions. During the 2023/24 financial year, interventions included targeted support for children and young people in custody, outreach services to support victims of ‘cuckooing’ and night-time economy projects to tackle violence against women and girls.
- Reducing violence: The UK government has committed to a programme of work to prevent and reduce serious violence, taking a multi-agency approach to understand its causes and consequences, focusing on prevention and early intervention. The Serious Violence Duty requires specified authorities to collaborate and plan to prevent and reduce serious violence, and Police and Crime Commissioners are encouraged to take a lead convener role for local partnership arrangements. During 2022/23 my office has been laying the foundations for this work and will prioritise this in the year ahead.
- Million-pound crackdown on anti-social behaviour: In addition to the funding we have secured for community safety initiatives and ongoing work to support the reduction of serious violence, we have also received £1m in additional funding from the Home Office to help us tackle anti-social behaviour (ASB) and violent hotspots. The funding will be instrumental in enhancing police presence and visibility across Surrey, particularly in areas where violence and ASB have been identified as significant issues. This boost will enable us to enforce measures such as stop and search, public space protection orders and closure notices. This initiative is part of a larger £66 million government package set to commence in April 2024, following successful trials in counties like Essex and Lancashire, where ASB was reduced by up to 50%. Despite the low levels of neighbourhood crime in Surrey, the concerns raised by residents at our recent ‘Policing your Community’ events have been clear – ASB, burglary, and drug dealing remain top priorities Surreyfor our residents. These issues were also highlighted in the 1,600 comments we received through our Council tax survey, with over half of the respondents marking ASB as a critical area of focus for Surrey Police in 2024. In response, this February I set the council tax rate that will help fund our police for the coming year, supporting the Chief Constable’s plan to address the concerns most pressing to our residents, improve crime outcomes, and dismantle the networks of drug dealers and shoplifting gangs.
- Cracking down on drug gangs: In my recent ‘Policing Your Community’ roadshow, which involved in-person and online events across Surrey’s 11 boroughs, residents consistently highlighted drugs and drug-related crime as a critical concern. This issue was also identified as a top priority in our latest council tax survey, with many people urging Surrey Police to focus on it in the upcoming year. These comments have been taken on board and in March I joined proactive patrols and early morning raids targeting suspected drug dealers in areas of Spelthorne and Elmbridge. These operations, which involved covert officers and specialised units like the Child Exploitation and Missing Unit, resulted in 21 arrests and the seizure of substances such as cocaine, cannabis and crystal methamphetamine. Surrey Police also confiscated over £30,000 in cash and numerous mobile phones suspected of being used in drug transactions. Our efforts to combat county lines criminality are ongoing, and these operations are crucial in disrupting these networks that exploit vulnerable individuals. We are also engaging with the community, raising awareness at schools, local businesses, and through public outreach initiatives. I am committed to continuing these efforts and urge everyone in Surrey to report any suspicious activities or instances of exploitation they witness. Together, we can work to eliminate this threat from our communities.
- Advocating for change on Surrey’s mental health response: February 2023 saw officers spend a record 515 hours on incidents relating to mental health – the highest number of hours ever recorded in a single month by the Force. As the national lead for mental health and custody for the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) during 2023/24, I have been in ongoing discussions with local health partners, Surrey Police and the National Police Chiefs’ Council to advocate the ‘Right Care, Right Person’ model in order to reduce the burden being placed on policing. Ultimately, the model recognises that police officers often cannot provide the level of specialist medical care or support required by those seeking help for their mental health and seeks to ensure these individuals have access to the right expert or agency.Following the national partnership agreement signed by key stakeholders from across the police and healthcare system, I am pleased to confirm that ‘Right Care, Right Person’ will be rolled out in a phased approach in Surrey from April 2024. The model will be used to triage incoming 999 calls and decide on an appropriate course of action, including whether to deploy police officers. Surrey Police has worked closely with local NHS Trusts, the ambulance service, and social care teams to plan, test and implement this model. We will continue to collaborate as we evaluate its success. I firmly believe that implementing ‘Right Care, Right Person’ is the correct course of action to help our communities get the high standards of care they deserve, by the most appropriate agency or professional. To be clear, applying ‘Right Care, Right Person’ will not mean withdrawing from all welfare or mental health related calls for adults, and there will many cases where deploying a police officer is the right thing to do. This includes where there is a threat to life, a policing purpose or a clear need for an urgent response. However, police resources should only be used when there is a clear need to do so.
- Southeast Partnership Against Rural Crime: In early 2024, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire and Isle of Wight, and Thames Valley police forces formed the Southeast Partnership Against Rural Crime (SEPARC). The Partnership aims to protect rural communities by sharing intelligence and specialist skills across borders and through joint operations. SEPARC will bring combined action against agricultural, wildlife, environmental and heritage offences and, following an initial two-week operation in February 2024 to mark the launch, I will be paying close attention to its work in the coming year. Surrey Police has also made a commitment to visit every National Farmer’s Union (NFU) member to help them address concerns about crime and during 2023/24 I committed some staff resource from my office to support the work of the Rural Crime Network.
Explore further data concerning Surrey Police progress against this priority.
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