Are Sussex Police good value for money?

I spent the morning of Friday 14 March at the Police and Crime Panel meeting in Lewes. I had asked Katy Bourne, OBE, the Police and Crime Commissioner, a question and was keen to see if there would be a follow-up response. Dee Williams reports. 

I was the only member of the public present in County Hall and was duly ignored by the circle of councillors, the commissioner and her aids. My question, regarding difficulty obtaining data on the number of successful prosecutions following police investigations into assault, was quickly dealt with. There was an opportunity for follow-up questions, but unfortunately not from members of the public who are forbidden to speak. The short answer was that the data was available and it was indeed important data, but I needed to reword my FOI to obtain it.

As the meeting continued the consensus appeared to be that Sussex Police were steadily improving under the guidance of the PCC and that generally, all was well.  It is a statutory duty of the commissioner to produce a Police and Crime plan and this was duly discussed and agreed upon. To a layman, such as myself, the three priorities appeared to be no more than the basic requirements of any police force as seen below.

Although there was a confident buoyancy in the responses from the commissioner, Trustpilot reviews for Sussex Police show that much work is needed to build public confidence.

With 88% one-star reviews, comments such as the following reflect a public perception commonly seen on social media sites.

October 16 2024

I was involved in an incident. The police told me unless the incident was recorded on CCTV it will be shelved and not pursued.

That’s the same as saying, all crimes that are not recorded will be shelved. It’s pathetic, as I was the witness and not a camera. In order to get out of the job of investigating certain crimes they consider petty, this is the line they come out with. It’s so unprofessional.

In my own complaint of assault, the CCTV footage requested by Sussex Police was not retained in their system resulting in the loss of vital evidence.

The following comment also chimed with my experience of trying to provide evidence of a crime.

January 4 2025

Absolutely horrendous service. All they do is interrupt you after asking questions and put words in your mouth and then when you try to correct them they say with such authority to not interrupt them.

My victim statement was skewed by the need to respond only to questions from the investigating officer who was totally disinterested in any contextual information.

There has been an initiative by the PCC to focus on ‘business crime,’ defined as:

 “any criminal offence where a business, or person in the course of their employment, is the victim” (p67).

Data from the PCC report does show an improvement in successful outcomes defined as:

The term successful outcome is used by the police service when a suspect is charged with an offence(s), is issued with a caution and/or is given a community resolution or diversionary, educational or intervention activity (p75).

In Hastings, 17.7% of business crime achieved a successful outcome in 2024, compared with 10.8% in 2021. Before celebrating this achievement it should be noted that over 80% of reported business crimes are still without resolution.

The language is also of interest, with the use of  ‘No. disposed’ as a key heading.  Looking at the paperwork from my complaint, there are a number of opportunities to close the case using the NFA code [no further action]. A dictionary definition of ‘dispose’ is to ‘get rid of’.

Councillors did their best to represent their constituents in the meeting. Cllr Williams from Wealden District Council requested more police presence for rural communities that were adversely affected by the theft of farm machinery. Later Cllr Czolak from Brighton and Hove City Council informed the PCC that residents continually saw their payments to the police rise while feeling increasingly underrepresented.

The PCC determined from this that if both rural and urban constituents felt the same then Sussex Police were probably getting things about right. Or possibly getting things equally wrong?

Coming back to the subject of value for money, I was surprised to see on my recent council tax bill that I pay almost equal amounts to Hastings Borough Council (£273.50) as I do to the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner (£237.25). My personal experience of using Sussex Police to assist me in protecting the public has left me wondering if this is good value for money. Your thoughts and comments are most welcome.

 

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