Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne sets out her case for in increase in the police’s precept within the overall council tax local residents will have to pay from April. Both Rother District Council and East Sussex County Council have already indicated their parts of the council tax charge will increase.
“I attended a meeting of the Sussex Police and Crime Panel, who hold the important role of scrutinising the decisions I make in office, and following consultation with residents, I asked the Panel to consider an average £5 increase in the precept to enable investment in two priority areas for policing:
- Protecting children and vulnerable adults in Sussex from exploitation and abuse.
- Digital forensic capability to retrieve, analyse and store information held on computers, mobiles and tablets.
I welcomed the panel members’ scrutiny and consideration of the proposal and am pleased to say that they unanimously voted in favour of the precept increase.
Sussex Police has seen a significant rise in demand for digital forensics services in the last four years. One particular recent case identified over a million indecent images on one device and another where 56,000 emails had to be analysed.
Cases like these can take weeks of a specialist’s time to investigate and the precept increase will help support this work with an investment of £1.8m in digital forensics over the next year.
As well as a rise in demand for digital forensics we have also seen increased reporting in Sussex of Child Abuse, Rape and Domestic Abuse, and our level of understanding around Child Sexual Exploitation has grown significantly over the last two years.
The extra £5 a year (per Band D property) will provide an investment of £1.3m over the next year for 40 police officers and five police staff focusing on protecting vulnerable people.
I want to ensure that we increase the level of resourcing and skills to match the increased demand, and build on my previous investments in safeguarding hubs and dedicated sexual liaison officers, and you will be able to monitor how that investment is progressing in my webcast monthly meetings with the Chief Constable.”
[Source: Police and Crime Commissioner]