Commissioner welcomes extra £2m Home Office funding

Cambridgeshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner has welcomed the Home Office announcement that a bid for extra funding has been successful.

The police and crime commissioners and chief constables of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire put in a bid for a £1.95m slice of the ‘Innovation Fund’ and have been told they will receive the full amount for the current year.

The money will support Programme Metis, the Cambridgeshire programme aimed at using technology to increase the time officers spend out in their communities, to be delivered across all three forces.

Sir Graham Bright said:  “This is great news for the people of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire.  This money will be used to modernise and transform the way police services are delivered, ultimately protecting the frontline. The success of the bid demonstrates how police and crime commissioners and chief constables are working effectively together, creating innovation through collaboration.

“The money will be invested to help us find technological solutions that maximise the time officers spend out in their communities and enable the public to contact us in different ways. It will help us to provide an efficient, value for money service that keeps our public at its heart while saving money.”

Chief Constable Simon Parr said:  “Programme Metis was launched to modernise the way Cambridgeshire police do business, to keep officers on the frontline for longer and improve our service to the public. Part of this work includes the publicised roll out of slates to frontline officers. Early results show this is allowing each of them to spend an extra hour per day on the frontline.

“We are extremely pleased to have been successful in this bid. This funding will enable us to transform our forces in a way that commercial businesses have been doing for many years.”

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