Lunch Speaker: Keith Hunter, Police & Crime Commissioner

Wed, May 24th 2017 at 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

A talk by Keith Hunter about his role as the Police Crime Commissioner for Humberside


On May 24ththe guest speaker was Keith Hunter, former English police officer and politician, and the current Police and Crime Commissioner for Humberside, representing the Labour Party.  He was elected to the post on 5 May 2016.  Hunter spent thirty years with Humberside Policerising to the rank of Chief Superintendent, where he was divisional commander at Kingston upon Hull. He retired in 2011.

Keith explained that he looks at the performance of the Humberside force and assesses if it is performing well enough for the money invested.  He has a duty to ensure that we live in the safest community possible, and that the public gets the best “bang for its buck”.  He works closely with the Chief Executives of local authorities and with the Chairs of Community Safety Partnerships – the statutory bodies responsible for delivering community safety.  He is looking to re-energise these CSPs.

Part of his role is to ensure that the people of Humberside have a representative to hold the Chief Constable to account.  He does not speak for Humberside Police, nor does he oversee complaints about Humberside Police.  Nonetheless he does still receive a lot of complaints and reminded us that the correct route is to go first to the force in question to make the complaint and then if not satisfied to go to the PCC.

Keith told us that his remit is to ensure that the force operates in an effective and efficient manner.  There is a budget of £175 million and Hunter decides how it should be allocated.  The majority he allocates to the Chief Constable to spend as required but Keith has held back £400,000 to reinvest in things like victim support services. He has commissioned research to find gaps in VSS, including vulnerable groups such as female victims of sexual assault and elderly people who have fallen victim to internet fraud.

Keith is also helping Neighbourhood Watch Schemes get back on their feet after a period in the doldrums. He is aiming for fewer, but more effective NWS.

Together with the National Police Chiefs Council he is trying to make the force more locally accountable. He has the national portfolio lead for Police Partnerships and local policing. He was keen to point out that while official crime figures have gone down – dropping 18% - the knock-on effect is that funding has gone down accordingly. In his view, this argument does not stack up because Police time spent on crimes not measured by the statistics – such as modern slavery - has gone up exponentially and this work is neither measured nor seen.  So, in real terms crime is not down as much as figures would have you believe and the lack of funding stretches the force thin.  Keith is trying to change how the performance of the force is measured to more accurately reflect the work actually being carried out.

One of his pledges is to increase the number of officers on the street.  He explained that in 2008 there was funding for 2200 police officers in Humberside and by 2016 funding had dropped to afford 1560 officers, but only 1450 were actually on the streets.  He has already identified resources that were being used ineffectively and now he is making strides with his pledge to get 200 more police officers on the streets by the end of his tenure, three years from now. This will mean an increase from 1450 officers in 2016 to over 1700. He is also looking to see an increase in PCSOs as well.  Additional resources have also gone into the East and West Marsh.

He fielded questions about Lincs Alert which he said he would look into as an aid to NWS

Frank Vivian gave a vote of thanks.

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