29 March 2018: International Treaties – Policing and Justice

Our partnerships and common purpose beyond boundaries remain critically important to our safety, both individual and collective. Nationally and for each individual, safety and justice are two foundation stones of our nation’s history and future.

Local safety for everyone has increasing elements of international, national and regional input.  Risks are able to be initiated remotely and controlled remotely. But the impact is on individuals where they live, work or have their digital footprints. So our actions locally will always be an important component of our safety.

My role as Police and Crime Commissioner focusses on keeping the people I serve SAFER and it is the electoral area that I serve that gives me my mandate and has a priority in my thinking and planning.  But I would not be serving them well if I did not look further afield and understand the strategic needs for partnerships and common purpose with like-minded colleagues to enable us to be kept safer, including from threats initiated at a distance.

In practical terms what it means for me is that:

• Whatever decisions are made nationally, beyond my control, I will continue to tune the plans I make and continue to enable local response to be as operationally effective as the Chief Constable (among others) can make possible with resources and the legislative context we operate in.
• I value the many existing collaborations we have internationally, and know of some from the excellent work of ACRO Criminal Records Office – hosted in my area, and doing important work on behalf of us all. Their work to ensure key relationships remain, whatever decisions are made for BREXIT or through other legislative changes and treaties, will continue in identifying how mutual aid and operational engagement can appropriately continue or be reformed in changed circumstances.
• I will continue to value my engagement with the Criminal Justice System, principally via the Local Criminal Justice Board on which I sit. I will join colleagues in planning for changes, as they become clear, with the aim to ensure the whole criminal justice system continues to deliver and sustain and enhance the enviable reputation it has.

Whatever changes come, and the pace and range of change accelerates each year, my promise remains to add value to keeping us SAFER and to contribute to a just society.