http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3493425
Blunkett Reveals Plans for Better Policing
By David Barrett and Caroline Gammell, PA News
The Home Secretary will today reveal details of a Coppers? Contract which he hopes will encourage positive contact between members of the public and the police.
David Blunkett is determined to improve first impressions of the police, make it easier for the public to contact a police officer and ensure that people are kept up to date on impending court cases.
Writing in The Mirror ahead of today?s Police Superintendents? Association (PSA) annual conference, Mr Blunkett said the changes would be implemented within two years.
?Unlike health and education, the more contact people have with the police service, the less satisfied they are,? he wrote. ?I?m determined to change this for the better...
?Being a victim of crime is bad enough without feeling let down by those who you thought you could trust.?
Mr Blunkett said the plan was not about superficial changes, and insisted that police officers would still be tough on crime.
?What I, and I suspect most of the public, want is a professional service where victims of crime are treated with the sensitivity and attention they deserve.?
He said a pilot scheme in Lancashire giving non-emergency callers an honest estimation of the time it would take to deal with their query had proved successful.
In addition, he said, officers in Oldham were using mobile phones to text witnesses telling them of court appearances, rather than trying to physically track them down and waste police time.
Mr Blunkett?s comments came as a senior officer warned the death-toll on Britain?s roads may start to climb after years of decline because of a failure to invest in traffic policing.
President of the PSA, Rick Naylor, said police had ?lost their edge? in preventing deaths on the road and neglect of traffic policing could have serious consequences for all areas of crime fighting.
Mr Naylor said he believed the 3,500 deaths a year on Britain?s roads could be cut if resources were directed back to traffic police teams rather than cameras.
?The association believes that cameras do have a part to play in road safety but the camera does not educate the driver,? he said.
?If a traffic officer stops a speeding driver, for example, he will explain to him or her the errors of their ways.?
Mr Naylor, who will open the PSA?s annual conference this morning, did concede that speed cameras did deter bad driving.
?But we believe this deterrent effect does not last as long as a police officer actually stopping you and talking to you about the consequences of your actions,? he said.
?It?s old-fashioned bobbying, but it?s effective.
?What cameras do not have is the caring attitude of policing, which is not just about enforcing the law it?s there to make you feel safer as well.?
Deaths could also be reduced by learning from accidents, improving car and road design and increasing use of compulsory education courses for motoring offenders.
Mr Naylor said he would be interested to see the Home Office gathers national data on how traffic departments had been scaled down in recent years.
The PSA also published research which showed an overwhelming majority of senior officers and police authority members want to see a major re-organisation of policing in England and Wales.
Headline results of a survey showed less than 1% wanted to retain the existing 43 forces.
The PSA has already suggested that a national police force should be created ? an option not favoured by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), which represents chief constables and their deputies.
Of the 73 Acpo members who replied to the survey, not one supported the current 43-force structure, said PSA vice-president Ian Johnston.
?There is definitely an appetite for change,? he added.
Results were based on questionnaire answers from 763 Acpo members, police superintendents, police authority members and local authority chief executives.
Those questioned were not asked to suggest alternative policing structures.
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An appetite for change? I should say so. Speed camera days are numbered.
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