Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160
- 161)
TUESDAY 11 MARCH 2008
MR LEN
DUVALL AND
MR PAUL
STEPHENSON
Q160 Chairman: Mr Duvall, one last
point?
Mr Duvall: I think it would be
wrong for us to go back on Safer Neighbourhood Teams. It is the
new foundation stone of policing. When people got into cars we
lost something in terms of the contact and, quite frankly, patrolling
and giving anticrime prevention information, or even going to
local schools, is not a bad thing and I suspect there is not any
neighbourhood that cannot do that work if they are not in a hot
spot area, as they say. However, I do think we need to look at
some issues and there is a live discussion around Safer Neighbourhood
Teams where they have an allied major town centre, what do we
do there, do we have the right numbers. We are looking at making
sure we localise our Transport Safer Neighbourhood Teams which
are central at the moment, and we want to localise those to transport
hubs and start working locally on bus routes. Also, we live and
die by wards but the police do not and nor do the criminals, and
we know there are extra resources that we put in some areas which,
quite frankly, may not be required in that locality, so over and
above the core, because of the size of the neighbourhood, there
is a debate to be had whether people stay on Safer Neighbourhood
Teams or help to supplement other Safer Neighbourhood Teams but
still be available to help in times of need. So we would not obstruct
them or allow them to be moved off willy nilly, but keep them
focused rather than in response. That is a healthy discussion
which we are not rushing into because of the issues we have discussed.
History is littered with Safer Neighbourhood Teams and nobody
ever believed they would happen. There are suggestions made by
people that some of the changes being made in the service now
will go away, that we are running custody suites with medical
support and moving away from doctors to senior nurses to give
a better service to the criminal justice system, but there are
reforms going on that are here to stay and that will be with us
for some time in the future.
Q161 Chairman: Thank you very much.
We have kept you longer than we anticipated because what you have
had to say has been very useful, but if we have missed anything
please send us a note.
Mr Duvall: I was going to suggest
that.
Chairman: And your suggestions of where
we can visit. That would be very helpful.
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