Time is flying by and there's only six months to the new incoming Police and Crime Commissioners. There is an awful lot of work going on behind the scenes, not just locally but nationally as well.
A new national interim board has been set up that will act as the umbrella for all Police and Crime Commissioners across England and Wales. It's called the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) and will replace the Association of Police Authorities (APA) that currently has the same function for Police Authorities. I sit on the new Board representing the Independent members, so a bit more work for me there, but it's important stuff so I am happy to take this on.
It was an absolute honour to attend the Federation Conference last week as the Police Negotiation Board (PNB) Official Side Chair. They were very welcoming to me personally, despite their deep and worrying concerns around the Winsor 2 Report and its proposals over police pay and conditions. Thankfully they were a lot more welcoming to me than they were to the Home Secretary or the Police Minister!
I headed off home after the conference via Dartford to see how Kent Police would fair in their final national match. Alas it was a football defeat but a truly excellent match, I am very proud of the team but Kent just met a better side. There are great hopes for next year but coming second in the entire country is quite an achievement, a bit like winning silver at the Olympics.
Yesterday we had a visit from around 30 Dutch Mayors. There's a lot of history here as we have had a relationship with the Dutch Police for over six years now and we work extremely closely with them. It was quite interesting to discuss our reform changes, as the Dutch are actually centralising their accountability system and how it works, as opposed to decentralising it as we are about to do. It will be interesting to meet up in 10 years time and exchange notes!
We have our own Commissioning Conference here in Kent this Friday. It is important that our stakeholders and partners understand what's in store for us all in the new Police and Crime Commissioner world. We have a number of expert speakers coming along giving different viewpoints and angles as to what everyone - be it the police or partners - should be thinking about in terms of commissioning. The health service has already done a lot of work around this, so it will be interesting to hear what the audience thinks.
I have to say that I was surprised last week when I heard Sir Hugh Orde, President of ACPO, speaking out about the possibility that with fewer police officers on our streets, 16,000 fewer nationally by 2014, crime could rise but who I am to question his professional judgement about what could happen?
I would just like to say though that even with the reductions we have had to make here in Kent, crime is still down here in the county - 4,000 fewer victims of crime in 2011/2012 - to be precise. I keep an eagle-eyed view on performance and have a personal weekly update of crime figures for Kent from our Assistant Chief Constable. This week's figures were particularly good and are a credit to our hard working officers and staff.
We may have fewer officers and staff but the ones we have do a very good job of keeping the county safe. I am aware that here in Kent we need to reduce the workforce even further by 2014 - 500 officers and 1,000 staff over a four year programme of which almost half have already gone - in order to meet a 20 per cent cut in funding. We still have a long way to go but can't afford to be complacent and we never will be. Let's not forget public safety is and will always remain paramount.
Finally, hats off to my daughter and her lawyer colleagues for their 10k charity walk in London yesterday, to raise money for free legal advice centres. I expect it will cost me though in sponsorship!