Today saw the last full meeting of the Surrey Police Authority.  On 15th November residents of Surrey will vote for the first elected Police & Crime Commissioner for the county. I have really enjoyed serving on the Authority and at times found it quite difficult to know that I would not be there to see all the things we were discussing come to fruition.

The  Authority who have set the policing plan and the budget and have acted as a critical friend to Surrey Police will be disbanded on 22nd November.  I have to say, I don’t envy the Commissioner.  It has kept 17 of us quite busy to do all the work of the Authority so he or she will have their work cut out.  They will inherit our staff who are excellent and hardworking and have a great understanding of how things work.  They will inherit from an Authority who have taken our work very seriously up to the end of our time and even today were questioning the Deputy Chief Constable closely.  They will take over a situation where the Police Force has a 89.3% confidence rating with Surrey residents and an 83.9% satisfaction rating.  The levels of detection of serious crime are increasing Surrey is now second among all forces for the detection of sexual crimes.

To the people of Surrey I would say please choose very carefully.  The Commissioner will have huge powers being able to set the policing budget and plan for the county and to fire the chief constable.