Monthly Column: Police and Crime Commissioner John Tizard
The people of Bedfordshire have a right to be safe and to feel safe. Whoever you are, whatever your social economic status, wherever you live, whatever your ability or disability, ethnicity, faith, gender, sexual orientation you are entitled to the services of an effective and efficient police service.
Equally you are entitled to be able to access and benefit from high performing services across the criminal justice system, and across the wider public service landscape.
The UK faces some major structural challenges. Inequality and poverty including child poverty are holding back too many people and creating division.
As we have seen over the past few weeks, racism and the evil intent of those who would divide us are all too prevalent across our country. Fortunately, Bedfordshire has a proud record of social cohesion, inclusivity and standing up to racism. It is never enough to be “non-racist”, we must always be “anti-racist”.
As the Police and Crime Commissioner for Bedfordshire I have a duty to ensure that there is an effective and efficient police service, and that the wider criminal justice system is co-ordinated to achieve ever improving outcomes. As the only elected politician with a county wide remit, I have a duty to represent the interests of citizens from every party of the county which I will do by pursuing criminal and social justice.
Appallingly the public services, which should be foundations of a modern civilised society, are despite the efforts often heroic efforts of those who work in them, are underfunded and often broken, often because of previous government so called “reforms”.
Public finance is very tight after fourteen years of austerity and consequently could be for a few more years. Underinvestment in our public services including the police service, the wider criminal justice system, the NHS, schools and most other critical services have led to severe problems and left the criminal justice system broken.
Parts of the public service system have been blighted by the application of competitive markets based service models.
However, as much as we need new money for our public services including the police, we must always strive to ensure that we use the money available effectively and efficiently. Budget constraint should not be an automatic excuse for poor service.
We should never divorce the pursuit of greater equality, social justice and fairness from the pursuit of criminal justice. These are part of the same societal contract that should guide every action by every public organisation and every elected official.
We must ensure that the rights of individuals (citizens, victims, suspects and offenders) and communities are always respected and safeguarded so human rights must be non-negotiable.