More for the police must mean more for the rest

The excellent Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire, Julie Spence has been meeting the Home Secretary today along with the Chair of the Police Authority, asking for more money to meet the extra cost of policing caused by immigration. I hope she succeeds.

I have my doubts, not because the case isn't robust, but because the police are just one part of the public sector in Cambridgeshire that are suffering because of the same problem; I was at a school in North East Cambridgeshire this week that is spending about £50k a year on students with English as an Additional Language; the probation service suffers; GP surgeries have to use a language service to manage foreign patients and have to foot the bill themselves; I could go on and on.

Thee is no doubt that the migrant population do add to the economy of this area. But the Government cannot claim, on the one hand, that they are benefiting in taxes from migrants and then bury their heads in the sand when the case is made for the return of some of those taxes to cope with the difficulties that are caused to the public sector.

Feet on the Beat

The BBC are focusing on the fact that Police Officers spend more time than they should on form-filling for fear of reprisals if they make a mistake.

But deeper in to the story they actually start to get to the meat of the problem - that there are too many forms. Of course, that could be seen as a criticism of the Government, so they won't use that as the headline - especially because the Conservatives have been saying this for years.

We are in an age of technology and police are now starting to use "helmet cams" to record their activity - I hope these can be used to cut down on form-filling - why record on paper what is already on film?

I remain convinced that the main way of solving most of our antisocial behaviour problems is "feet on the beat". Thinking that there is a genuine possibility of a Police Officer walking around the corner, complete with camera, would surely be a deterrent to a great deal of the bad behaviour that we all see and read about. The Government make claims about record numbers of policemen - but the public are still not seeing them, and this is one of the reasons there is shrinking confidence in our Constabulary.