AS HE marks two years in the job, Essex Police and Crime Commissioner Nick Alston believes local people have a better deal with him than they did under the old system.
The former Royal Navy officer took up the US-style role when the old policy authority, which consisted of 17 members made up of local councillors, was scrapped in a move aimed at cutting crime and giving the public more power to hold the force to account.
And despite criticism of Mr Alston's highly-paid appointments, including spending £230,000 on five new employees last year during a time of austerity, the commissioner insists that the public has made a saving through his role, and that he has already seen several successes during his tenure.
"I felt very strongly about bringing democracy alive in policing. I wanted people in Essex to have a decent say. We are not a new addition or level of governance, we replaced the old police authority," Mr Alston explained from his office in Hoffmanns Way, Chelmsford.
"We want to make the contract between police and the public they serve more dynamic and real and make partnerships to drive change and make communities safer.
"And this office costs less than the old police authority and is doing substantially more. We have ten people working here – we are doing all of that for far less money. I think that's good value."
In his Police and Crime Plan for Essex 2014, Mr Alston, 62, says he has focused on ten key areas, including reducing youth offending, improving crime prevention and road safety.
But he recently made the surprising announcement that he would be scrapping numerical targets for Essex Police, which would help them focus on the overall goal of reducing crime, rather than chasing numbers.
"There is a huge difference between data and crime," he explained. "The risk is that officers will manage to those targets but miss the point.
"We want Essex to be safer, for there to be less harm so that people feel safer. There is a risk in setting targets, it's damaging.
"For example, someone attempting to break into a property but failing could be classed as burglary or as criminal damage, so if you are trying to keep burglary statistics down… If you don't have an accurate record, police don't have a chance."
Although the commissioner said he did not want to have specific targets, he did say that he would continue to focus on issues such as domestic violence, which he has been working to combat since taking up his role.
"Since I took over, roughly once every two months in Essex someone has been murdered in a domestic violence incident, and every other day I am reading about really serious domestic abuse cases.
"A woman won't contact police until there have been around 30 incidences of domestic violence, and at A&E the number of women with injuries from domestic abuse is staggeringly high.
"When I took over, Essex Police was at a standstill over how to deal with domestic violence effectively, and it was criticised in reports from the IPCC. I found they were in a bad place, and I have engineered them towards new solutions.
"The most important thing I have done is appoint Stephen Kavanagh (the former Deputy Assistant Commissioner at the Met Police) as Chief Constable.
"I said before I found him that this would be the most important thing I did. He has transformed how Essex Police deal with domestic violence."
