Commissioner provides funding for more Community Officers

51 additional Police Officers and PCSO's will be on our streets within 6 months

Humberside Police and Crime Commissioner Keith Hunter is delivering on a promise he made during his election campaign to release money from financial reserves to fund more Community Police Officers and PCSOs.

Agreement has been reached between the Commissioner and the Chief Constable to provide an initial increase of 17 Police Constables, 30 PCSOs and 4 Sergeants across the force area, all the new officers will go into neighbourhood policing teams to improve crime reduction and engagement with the public in areas of high demand.

The new officers will be split into two areas:

1. An ‘Early Intervention’ capability (2 Sergeants, 10 Police Constables and 20 PCSOs). These officers will be divided between four of the highest demand areas for Humberside Police. These are the East and West Marsh wards in Grimsby, the Bridlington South ward in East Yorkshire and the Scunthorpe Town ward. These officers will work in partnership with the four Local Authorities to target the individuals, families and locations causing the most problems for the police and residents. The aim is for them to deliver a noticeable reduction in offences over a sustained period of time.

2. There will also be an increase to the Hull city centre neighbourhood team (2 Sergeants, 7 Police Constables and 10 PCSOs) to provide additional resource to this high demand area, particularly during the City of Culture events in 2017.

Keith Hunter said: “When I took office Humberside Police was running below its established level of officers. The amount of financial reserves held was too high and by releasing some of these reserves we can increase the number of police officers and PCSOs and put them into the areas where they are most needed in each of the four Local Authority areas.

“My job is to help residents get the best police service possible and ensure taxpayers’ money is spent wisely to do that. This is the first step in that process and I will be carefully monitoring the effect these new officers and PCSOs will have, and look for other opportunities in the future to add further value. This will be reviewed in light of future police funding settlements from central Government which are as yet unknown, but this is very much the beginning of a journey to provide an improved police presence for our residents.”

Humberside Police Chief Constable Justine Curran said: “Helping communities to stay safe and flourish is at the heart of what we do as a police force. Being able to bolster our service to communities with these extra officers and staff is really good news for everyone.

“The police officers and PCSOs who work within our neighbourhoods do a brilliant job in building relationships and gathering intelligence which helps to keep us better informed and in turn improve how we police areas.

“We have done a lot of work to identify exactly where these officers are most needed, according to the demand across the whole force area and the new officers will go directly to the neighbourhoods where they are most needed and where they will make the most difference.

“New police officers do of course take some time to recruit and train but we expect to see them in post and working with the community within the next six months.”

A recruitment campaign will begin in the coming weeks and will be advertised at www.humberside.police.uk/join-us

· The Force establishment is currently 1,525 police officers and 228 PCSO’s. The uplift will increase this to 1,546 and 258 respectively by April 2017.

· The total cost of this uplift from reserves has been budgeted at £8.1m over the next five years and these new officers are in addition to existing recruitment plans announced previously by Humberside Police. This figure includes salaries and oncosts.