Click here for the latest updates on the consultations taking place about changes to Surrey Police

Surrey Public First

Over the last few years, Surrey Police Authority and Surrey Police have made major changes to the way we go about our work. These changes are part of Surrey Public First - our plan to simply put local needs at the heart of our work, not complicated bureaucratic targets and inspections. 

Surrey Public First has seen us:

- Stop chasing arbitrary and complex targets - that do not reflect local needs

- Return discretion to policing - giving our officers the freedom to use their common sense to resolve minor problems rather than having to always resort to formal action. This doesn't just help give better resolutions for victims - it saves hundreds of hours of officer time.

- Tackle head-on the problems concerning local residents most - such as antisocial driving, criminal gangs or low-level disorder over halloween and bonfire night.

The Chief Constable is now planning to take Surrey Public First even further by making major changes to the way Surrey Police operates. By making radical changes, we can put much more of our limited resources into frontline policing, giving a better and more accessible service for residents and making the lives of criminals as difficult as possible.

What is being planned?

The Chief Constable plans to recruit up to 200 new constables for Surrey and offer better ways to contact your local police by:

- reducing the number of senior officers by 50 posts - creating a smaller command structure and reducing our costs

- replacing the current structure of three geographical divisions by instead organising the force by its main functions - this will end the triplication of some functions, cutting overheads and bureaucracy

- locating neighbourhood policing teams in Borough & District council offices - to allow them to work better with their council counterparts on complex local problems like antisocial behaviour

- replacing outdated, expensive and under-used police buildings with better ways to visit the police - reducing how much we spend on maintaining little-used buildings and making it easier for people to visit the police by opening police counters in more accessible public places such as town halls or shopping centres.

The Police Authority agrees that these plans make sense for Surrey, particularly as the recession begins to hit public spending.

What will the changes look like?

- The increase in police constable numbers would have a significant impact on visible police presence. The increase would allow the Chief Constable to boost the number of officers patrolling Surrey's neighbourhoods, as well as strengthening the force's ability to tackle the most serious crimes

- Our ability to respond to 999 calls would be unaffected by the changes. Response and investigating officers would continue to be based in their current locations.

- Relocating police counters from police buildings to more accessible places would make it easier for you to visit Surrey Police. Would it be helpful to be able to speak to officers or staff at a permanent Surrey Police counter while you are shopping at your local shopping centre?  Would it be convenient to be able to do all the things you could do at a Surrey Police station at your local town hall or library? We are consulting with communities to find out how we could improve accessibility to our services before any changes to police buildings take place. No police station will be closed unless a better alternative is in place.

- The changes are likely to take two to three years. The Chief Constable hopes to implement the majority of the changes by the summer of 2012.  

- The Authority has set testing targets for the Chief Constable to make sure that the new constables will make a real difference. These include reducing serious crime by 15% by 2013, maintaining public confidence in Surrey Police at more than 80%, arresting many more Class A drug dealers (from 135 a year in 2009 to 210 a year by 2013) and disrupting and dismantling more criminal gangs (from 10 a year in 2009 to 17 a year by 2013).

More information

Click here to see the press release issued when the Authority gave its initial approval to the plans

Click here for a briefing sheet giving more detail on the proposals

Click here for a letter from Peter Williams, Chairman of Surrey Police Authority, to our local newspapers. This gives some background to our consultations and how people can take part

Consultation

From the outset of this process, the Authority has made it clear that a thorough process of consultation with the public must take place as the changes take shape. The Chief Constable has said that no police station being considered under these plans will close before consultation has taken place in the area in question and a better alternative put in place.

The Authority began the process of consultation in December 2009 by sending a questionnaire to its Citizens' Panel and also making the same questionnaire available to complete on this website. In total, more than 2,700 residents participated in this survey.

Update March 2010

The findings of Surrey Police Authority's county-level research have now been published. You can read them here.

Key findings of this research include:

- putting more officers on the beat is the main priority for respondents

- the majority of respondents would support changes to their police stations if it meant more officers on the beat

- local people strongly expect Surrey Police to work with partner agencies like local councils and the health service to deal with complex local issues

- there is a good level of interest in some of the alternative police locations suggested so far, such as shopping centres and libraries, but there remains a large number of people who have yet to decide.

Surrey Police is now beginning a process of further consultation in every Borough and District which will run until the end of 2010. By providing many opportunities to consult, via a range of methods, we hope that by the end of 2010 everyone who would like to have a say about the changes will have been able to do so in one way or another.

Update July 2010

Consultations in Spelthorne, Surrey Heath, Guildford and Woking have now been completed and the results reported to the Police Authority. You can read about this in more detail here.

Consultations in Runnymede, Epsom & Ewell, Reigate & Banstead and Mole Valley are now beginning and will run from July-September.