Smaller police budget needn’t mean worse service for public

Liberal Democrat Police & Crime Commissioner candidate Peter Andras has used a visit to Tyneside to highlight the need for collaboration between the police, local councils and voluntary organisations in fighting crime.

Liberal Democrat policy is to use proven methods such as restorative justice and community punishments as a way of reducing reoffending rates, and on Tuesday Peter said that if elected he would seek to work with external partners on such schemes, ensuring that planned reductions to policing budgets would not impact on outcomes for the public.

Peter said:

“Lib Dems in the North East have a very good track record of working with the police, both as individual councillors and in the cases of Newcastle and Northumberland as the people running those councils.

“In Newcastle, for example, a Lib Dem council was responsible for setting up Safe Neighbourhood Action and Problem Solving (SNAPS) groups. Made up of police, councillors, housing officers and other interested parties, these groups share data and agree collaborative action to deal with problems such as anti-social behaviour.

“By maintaining close contact with tenants and residents’ groups, and reporting to communities through local ward committees, the whole process gives communities a real say over how problems are dealt with.

“It also ensures communities have the confidence that the police and other agencies are working together. This cooperative approach has paid dividends, with the Cowgate programme helping to cut crime rates in half.

“In these tough economic times, when we know every penny of the policing budget needs to be spent wisely, working with external partners would help the public to get maximum value from their policing service while keeping costs down. Simply throwing money at problems and hoping they will disappear is not going to be good enough.”