With your support we have invested in Essex Police by placing more officers in your communities and we want to make sure those officers are in a position to get crime down. Since 2016 we have increased the number of officers in Essex Police by 905 making the service the largest it has ever been. There are now more officers than ever before, visible on the streets of your cities, towns and villages.
Crime is falling, all crime is down 6.0% in the 12 months to September 2024 – that's 9,425 fewer Essex people who this year have to deal with the distressing, and at times devastating, consequences of crime.
But we want to do more, we want fewer people to be impacted by crime.
As our new officers learn their roles, gain experience and develop further skills, we want to drive crime further down. My ambition is to bring crime down by 40% from its high and we need your support to do this. As our new officers become more experienced and gain additional skills, we will be able to achieve more, but our costs will also increase. Our plans are to ensure that vulnerable people are protected from harm. That is a job for both Police and the Fire & Rescue Service. Both services are facing the impact of high levels of inflation over the last few years, both on goods and services and on pay awards.
It is vital we maintain our investment in crime prevention and get more visible police in your communities as well as investigating crimes and bringing offenders to justice. This is how we will get crime down. We also need to prevent fires and road traffic collisions and make sure high-rise buildings are protected.
The number of house fires in Essex has decreased over the last five years from 783 a year to 677 a year, that’s 106 families who do not have to suffer the trauma of a house fire. This is the direct result of increased protection and prevention visits by our officers. We have also successfully driven down fires in commercial properties, continued the long term reduction in the number of deliberate fires and taken on an increased role in building safety regulations.
But we want to do more, we want to prevent more fires and save more lives as well as delivering an effective response if a fire does happen. We want to keep up this work helping our fire and rescue service to manage risk across Essex and help prevent harm in our communities.
We will continue to make both Essex Police and Essex County Fire & Rescue Service more efficient. Over the past four years Essex Police has saved £42.3m through efficiencies and the smaller Essex County Fire & Rescue Service has saved £5.2m.
To achieve the goals outlined above we need your support. We know that any increase in the precept must be carefully considered and we will focus on efficiency in both services.
We want to keep crime falling, prevent more fires and save lives. To do this we must maintain and invest in the strength of Essex Police and Essex County Fire and Rescue Service. Those are our plans, but we would like to know your thoughts.
Please take the time to complete this short survey, which takes about five minutes to complete, and tell us what you think. Your views matter.
It will really help us when it comes to setting our budgets and the Council Tax precepts for policing and fire and rescue services for the next year.
Roger Hirst
Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex
All responses from this survey will be collated and summarised as part of the final report. Individual people will not be identified, and your name will not be mentioned in any reports that we write for this purpose. You don’t have to take part if you do not want to - this is a voluntary activity.