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Walking Bus Celebrates its First Birthday

All aboard! The walking bus to Hazeldene Lower School in Putnoe its just arriving in its second year.

A partnership between the school, parents and Neighbourhood Police Officer PC Glyn Milbourne, the bus launched in July 2007 and has gone from strength to strength.

The bus operates to the school in Stancliffe Road every Wednesday morning during term time, come rain or shine, and currently welcomes aboard up to 19 children each week. During its first year, estimates suggest the bus has saved nearly 1,000 car journeys - reducing congestion around the school gates and providing a safe and enjoyable way for children to travel to school.

The Walking Bus is part of Hazeldene's healthy schools programme designed to promote healthy lifestyles and was recently rated as outstanding by Ofsted.
Nine year old Emily has been walking with the bus since its launch and said: “The walking bus is brilliant because we get awards every 15 walks and get to walk to school with a policeman ". Kay, aged seven, agreed: “The walking bus is brilliant because you get to make new friends and we get stickers, prizes and have different events".

"We have a great time on the bus, walking and chatting together whilst knowing that we are doing something positive to improve our environment both locally and globally. We even held a birthday party last week to celebrate our first birthday and enjoyed party games and food,” said Walking Bus co-ordinator Jeanette Pocock.

PC Milbourne often helps lead the bus and says it has created an excellent working relationship with Hazeldene. “I helped set up the scheme as many streets with schools experience problems during the twice-daily ‘school run’. Sometimes the inconsiderate parking and driving by parents causes irritation to the local residents and more importantly is potentially dangerous to the children. This is a fun way to help stop those kind of problems,” he said.

PC Milbourne is based at the Woodside Bungalow in Putnoe and can be contacted on 01234 357703 or via email on SNT.Putnoe@bedfordshire.pnn.police.uk . He and PCSO Rowland Gilbey hold a surgery every Wednesday at Putnoe Heights Church from 1pm to 3pm, operational commitments permitting.

New ‘Major Crime Unit’ Up to Standard

“A groundbreaking initiative” is how Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabularies described the new joint Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit (BHMCU) in its inspection report.

The inspection examined both Bedfordshire Police’s and Hertfordshire Constabulary’s capacity and capability to identify and assess the risks from major crime. It also looked at our ability to prevent and investigate these crimes and how we prioritise those that pose the greatest threat to individuals or communities.

Assistant Chief Constable John Fletcher said: “This report highlights a significant number of strengths in respect of our approach to major crime. In recent times, our record in terms of homicide investigation has been acknowledged as excellent and a real strength of the county's policing. Collaboration with Hertfordshire has significantly added to our capacity and resilience around the major crime function.

“The new collaborative team has consistently shown over the past eight months that it can produce high quality results both in terms of detecting and arresting offenders as well as providing a good service to victims of crime and their families at a critical time.

"I am very pleased with the outcome of this report, which is a testament to considerable commitment and hard work from those officers and staff on the new unit, as well as those colleagues within other parts of Bedfordshire Police who support the work of the MCU."

Since its creation in November 2007, the joint unit – the first of its kind in the country – has achieved a 100% detection rate for offences of murder, as well as supporting work which has led to significant reductions in offences of violent crime.

 

Call Handling Keeps Getting Better

It’s official – our Call Handling Centre (CHC) is one of the best in the country. An independent report into the performance of police call centres found that 90% of our callers were satisfied with the way their call was handled.

Such a high satisfaction level demonstrates the service we are giving to the people of Bedfordshire, and when compared with other public or commercial call centres, Bedfordshire Police continues to shine. 90% of calls to Bedfordshire Police are answered within 20 seconds – compared to 79% for police forces generally, 81% for UK organisations and 74% for other public sector organisations.

Adam Gould, CHC manager was delighted with the results of the report. “It shows the dedication and professionalism of our call handling staff.” he said. “We are committed to providing a world class service for the people of Bedfordshire and are continually looking to improve our service even further.”

Over the last year the Call Handling Centre has introduced Typetalk for the hard of hearing community and a translating telephone service for people whose first language is not English. Another new service being considered is an SMS texting service, allowing the public and Force to communicate by text message. Initially this will be trialled with the hard of hearing community.

 

Chief ‘Delighted’ with Budget Increase

After carefully considering the funding pressures and key priorities outlined by the Force, supported by public consultation, the Police Authority has set a budget of £96 million for 2008/9. This is a 5.3% increase on the 2007/8 budget of £91.2 million, which will be invested in performance improvements and our ability to be proactive in territorial policing and protective services.

This increase will allow for an extra 24 police officers, 27 new police staff posts and growth in the number of Special Constables.

The main areas of growth are intended to improve our capacity to deal with neighbourhood intelligence and volume crime offender management, domestic abuse, rape offences, vulnerable missing persons and sex offenders, as well as serious and organised crime.

There will also be additional investment in communications, training, forensics and capture of evidence from CCTV systems, as well as Special Branch accommodation. Finally, money has been set aside to support collation work and improve our internal inspection capacity.

Chief Constable Gillian Parker said: “I am delighted with the decision the Police Authority has made. We have worked hard in the last two years to make our structures and processes more effective and efficient, and we are starting to see the benefits emerge as improving performance. However, without the additional cash we would not be able to build on those changes. We all now have a responsibility to ensure that the public’s money is well spent and delivers those further service improvements that will be set out in the Annual Policing Plan and the three year Strategic Plan due to be launched shortly.”

Police Authority gives go-ahead for 24 more officers

Bedfordshire Police Authority has agreed a budget that allows for an additional 24 police officers, taking the total to 1,274 – the highest number in Bedfordshire’s history.

Having carefully considered funding pressures and the key priorities, the Authority approved a one-off investment into the Force and set a budget of £96.056M for 2008-2009, a 5.3% increase on the 2007/08 budget of £91.229M. Members were also pleased to note that efficiency savings of over £1M had been achieved.

The council tax precept has been set at £27.494M (29% of the total figure) with the remainder coming from the Government.

This means that in the coming year a householder living in a Band D (the average) property will pay £135.28 towards policing, around 37 pence per day. This represents an increase of 23p per week or 9.6% over last year’s precept of £123.43 for a similar property.

The budget shows that an additional £1.010M, which includes £1.3M in efficiency savings, will be invested in performance improvements, including increases to the police establishment. This increase in officers will mean an increased police presence in activities such as prolific and persistent offender management; rape investigation; domestic abuse and vulnerable people.

Peter Conniff, Chair of the Police Authority, said that he felt the decision to ask local taxpayers to invest in their police service was justified. “Our consultation established that the majority of those questioned were willing to pay an increase of 11% or more towards policing.”

He added: “The Authority has lost approximately £4m per annum since 2006/07 due to changes made by the Government to its funding formula. This year the Authority is seeking to redress the balance to give the Chief Constable additional resources to bring about performance improvements.

“Cutting crime and keeping people safe costs money. This budget will provide the Chief Constable with more resources, more officers and an increased capability.”

During the meeting, the Chief Constable, Mrs Gillian Parker, highlighted the need for additional resources and her plans for those resources. The Authority fully supported these proposals.

Mr Conniff concluded, saying that the level of council tax precept was still significantly lower than in other shire counties, adding: “This budget is an investment for policing Bedfordshire in the future, where people will be safe and will feel safe.”

Enquiry Office re-opens after facelift

THE ENQUIRY office at Dunstable Police Station has re-opened to the public following a multi-thousand pound facelift.

The office, which had not been updated for many years, now features automatic doors to make wheelchair access easier, improved signs, modern lighting, updated seating, new décor and other improvements.

Work started at the beginning of last month, but it meant visitors had to use a mobile police station in the rear yard or travel to Houghton Regis, Leagrave or Leighton Buzzard police stations.

However, the work did not affect the operational status of the police station, where it was business as usual behind the scenes.

Customer Service Manager, Irene Obazuaye, said: “Although we tried to minimise problems, we want to thank the public for their patience and understanding during this work.”

WE’RE PROUD OF OUR OFFICERS

Constable 5567 Matt Crouch, Patrol Officer, C Division
Following a colleague being diagnosed with a severe and aggressive form of leukaemia, Matt organised a fundraising event and other activities to raise awareness and money for Leukaemia Research. These events were highly successful and through his efforts, considerable positive publicity was gained for Bedfordshire Police.

Mrs Lynn Brookes, Divisional Command, J Division
Lynn led on the merging of the administrative and support services for J Division. This was a demanding task over a two-year period. She was also involved in the restructuring of the Corporate Services Division, not only achieving the necessary outcomes, but also continuing to make a major contribution to the performance of the Division.

Constable 652 John Schofield, Operations and Contingency Planning, G Division
John has led the planning, preparation and delivery of training for all CBRN officers within the Bedfordshire. This is a task normally carried out by more than one person, but John has undertaken a great deal of work in his own time to deliver high quality solutions. He has gone that ‘extra mile’ in protecting the people of Bedfordshire and the reputation of the Force.

Operation Turn-Up

Operation Turn-Up is the response plan to reduce the number of ‘Fail to Appear’ warrants held in Bedfordshire. The Local Criminal Justice Board, chaired by the Chief Constable, has a target to reduce the number of outstanding warrants to below 320 by the end of March 2008. Last August the total was around 520 – through some significant effort so far, the total has been reduced to about 395.

Warrants Officers, Liz Day at Luton and Michael O’Mahoney in J Dvision, are being supported by Robin Goodwin, who is providing an enhanced intelligence function on the warrants.

Sergeant 1376 Frank Fender – Licensing Officer, C Division
Frank has been instrumental in delivering sustained reductions in violent crime in Luton town centre. He has demonstrated innovation and commitment to performance improvement.

Sergeant 1392 Chris Bull – Leighton Buzzard Urban SNT, J Division
Chris has made an outstanding contribution to neighbourhood policing over the past 8 years. He ahs successfully pioneered a number of new initiatives with partners and shown real commitment and dedication.

Inspector 1186 Phil Cannings and Inspector 1140 Dave Minney, Call Handling Centre, Citizen Focus.
Phil and Dave have taken their supervisory responsibilities and commitment to Bedfordshire Police seriously through their flexibility and positive attitude. They have ensured that appropriate cover is maintained in the Call Handling Centre.