Wyre Forest would have more of its police officers out on the beat, fighting crime under plans being considered by David Cameron's Conservatives. Other policy recommendations include directly elected police commissioners, freeing police officers from unnecessary paperwork by hiring more civilian staff, giving residents access to detailed crime information in their neighbourhood and introducing new part-time, paid police reservists.
The suggestions have been published by the Conservatives' Police Reform Taskforce.
The proposals include:
- Scrapping unnecessary form filling and modernising computer systems.
- Creating new teams of part-time, paid police reservists.
- Hiring more civilian staff to take over office jobs from trained police officers.
- Replacing unelected police authorities with directly elected police commissioners.
- Replacing Whitehall direction and targets with locally accountable leadership and priority setting.
- Giving local communities a 'right to policing' - with access to their police through regular beat meetings, which local councillors will also attend.
- Providing residents with detailed information of crime levels in their area.
Mark Garnier, Wyre Forest's Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman, welcomed the publication of the report and said:
"The police levy on council tax bills has soared by a truly breathtaking 209% in Wyre Forest since Labour came to power, but I'm not sure that local residents feel they have much to show for it. A new poll has found that in the Midlands 52% think that increases in council taxes over the last decade to pay for improvements in local policing have not represented good value for money. Just 18% of people think that policing in their area has improved and a staggering 73% do not know any police officers in their neighbourhood. I would absolutely stress that I have nothing but praise for our local police officers in Wyre Forest. Indeed, we have one of the lowest crime areas in the region and West Mercia is one of the best police forces in the country. Local police officers across Wyre Forest and the West Mercia Police region work really hard, but too often they are prevented from doing their job by red tape and Whitehall interference.
"The police should be out on the streets, doing what they joined the police force to do - prevent crime and catch criminals - not behind desks filling out forms. I speak to people on the doorstep and in the streets and this is what they tell me they want from their police force and what they expect. Yet on average police officers in England and Wales spend only 14 % of their time on patrol. In West Mercia only 8.1% of officers are dedicated to neighbourhood policing and Labour are now providing funding for 118 fewer PCSOs than they promised in their manifesto.
"Turning this around won't be easy or quick. But by replacing Labour's top-down centralisation with bottom-up local accountability; by replacing Labour's superficial gimmicks with serious and substantive change; and by replacing state control with social responsibility, we can make Wyre Forest a safer and better place to live for everyone."