Community Safety / Crime

A NEW ERA FOR POLICING

A major Policing restructure across the West midlands means officers will be better placed to serve local communities and deal with priorities like anti-social behaviour and criminal damage.

The reorganisation, called programme paragon, is driven by the force’s commitment to local policing. One of the main aims of the initiative is to free-up officers so they can spend more time patrolling our neighbourhoods and less time filling in paperwork. changes include:

• Complex, time-consuming detective work taken out of local police hands and transferred to a crime team at force HQ in Birmingham.

• Greater use of ‘community resolutions’ which give officers discretion to deal quickly with low-level crimes by bringing victim and offender together to agree a punishment.

Sergeant Phil Rafferty said: “the restructure gives my officers an opportunity to speak to more of you, understand your priorities, and take whatever action is needed to make your lives better. We’ll be equipped to provide a better, more flexible service to communities.”

Neighbourhood police boundaries have also been redrawn to bring them into line with those of other organisations, such as councils, and help promote partnership working. it means the number of neighbourhood police teams will reduce from 32 to 18 but, crucially, the number of pcs remains the same.

YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICE TEAM…

• NDC area is now part of the Henley Ward neighbourhood police team
• The Sergeant for this team is Phil Rafferty
• There are 16 PCs and 6 PCSOs in this team
• The inspector for the Henley Ward is Jo Floyd

To contact your neighbourhood police go to
www.west-midlands.police.uk/np/coventry
and click on the Henley ward or visit them on Twitter: NECov_Police