'We can't do it through police alone' says police and crime commissioner as he outlines plan for 'safer, fairer Bedfordshire'

Seven missions contained in the initial police and crime plan remain, according to the county’s PCC John Tizard speaking to Luton Borough Council’s scrutiny crime and disorder committee.

“If we’re to reduce and prevent crime, and make Bedfordshire safer we can’t do it through the police alone,” he explained. “We need a whole system approach.

“During the rest of this term in office, I’m considering how we can get much better, even stronger partnership working. If we’re going to tackle the causes, it has to be on a system-wide basis as no one agency can do it.

“Both Bedfordshire Police and my office have good relations with the county’s three unitary authorities, BLMK integrated care board (ICB), the rest of the public sector, voluntary organisations and community groups.

“In developing the direction for 2025 to 2028, it’s very much reflected on what I’ve achieved and the approach of the last few years. There are four key ambitions which underpin what I hope we can achieve together.

“It’s how we get a fairer and more socially just county because we know the correlation between deprivation, poverty, inequality and crime is very significant.

“If we’re to tackle crime in the long-term, we need to remove those social and health conditions. We must also build trust. If policing isn’t recognised by the community, it can’t work and we get friction.

“We’ve really good community policing. If we look back to August, we were one of five police areas in the country where we didn’t have any civil unrest. That’s a great credit to Bedfordshire Police.”

His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary report on the county force was published in January, he said. “It’s good, although they use the term ‘adequate’, but we need to improve as it can always be better. That feeds into public trust.

“Another area is developing policing in the community and how do we get that support. There were seven missions in the previous plan. All remain and they feeds into those ambitions. This focuses on a safer and a fairer Bedfordshire.

“Early intervention can prevent (crime), as can good parenting and the roles schools have to play in the process. It’s not me offloading, or that it’s all about everyone else.

“If we don’t work on causes and eliminate those, we won’t reduce crime in the long-term. Around reducing reoffending, it’s how we get that collaborative approach again.

“Everyone wants more visible policing. That’s really important. There are nearly 1,500 police officers in the county and 1,000 police staff, who play a key role in tackling crime.

“We’ve had the first instalment of our four-year increase in funding of policing which is just under £2m from April 1st, enabling us to have more than 20 extra officers in community teams and eight PCSOs,” he added.

“It gives an opportunity to really build a local neighbourhood police service, which is embedded into communities. This would focus on prevention and problem solving, as well as cracking down on anti-social behaviour.”