Balance Your Bobbies

“Balance your Bobbies” is a fresh and innovative way of enabling you, members of the public in North Wales, to engage with us, and tell us what your local policing priorities are. We will be asking you to assist your District Inspectors balance their neighbourhood policing resources.

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”. Albert Einstein 1879-1955 Nobel Prize for Physics 1921.

You do not need to be a physicist to know that in our daily lives most of us struggle to find the balance, either between our work and family time, our finances, or the Gym versus the Sofa.

We have 15 policing districts in North Wales, each managed by a District Inspector. You can find out more about your local inspector, their team and what they do in your community on North Wales Police’s website (www.north-wales.police.uk).

One of the joys and challenges of policing is to balance what we do with the people and resources we have- opening a new box of constables is not an option that is open to us- and we are asking for your help in achieving this.

As well as responding to neighbourhood issues the District Inspectors in North Wales have to provide an emergency response, protect the most vulnerable people in our communities from harm, and play a role in tackling serious and organsied crime, and terrorism.

However, one of the most important things they do is listen to local people. To achieve this balance we need to know what the local issues and concerns are, and know where, why, and when things are happening.

Neighbourhood issues vary from area to area. They could be anything from graffiti, alcohol related antisocial behaviour, car crime to speeding drivers and may inlcude other higher profile crimes, such as drug dealing or violence.

There already exist a number of means for the public to make us aware of these issues through regular local public meetings, Police Authority Community Forums, Force wide surveys, and feedback through Police Authority members, and others.

The Balance your Bobbies interactive project was revealed at the National Eisteddfod in Bala on 7th August 2009. The web based version of Balance your Bobbies was launched online on Monday 9 November 2009.  Please click here to indicate which issues you would like the Police to concentrate on in your area? www.balanceyourbobbies.com

You will be invited to cast a monthly vote online to indicate which issues you would like the Police to concentrate on in your area.

By casting your vote we will be better informed so that we can consider how we allocate resources at a local level to deal with these varied issues.

When you go onto the Balance your Bobbies pages on www.balanceyourbobbies.com we will ask you to state your postcode. After you have stated your postcode details of your District Inspector and local neighbourhood policing team will appear, in addition to a list of local policing prorities which have been identified by your District Inspector.

By using on-screen slide bars, members of the public will be able to indicate which issues they would like the police to concentrate on in their area.

But nobody will be able to allocate more than 100 percent of the available resources and the system will reject attempts to do so.

The hope is that this will show to members of the public that there is a finite amount of resources available in each area and we are very interested in the opinions of the local community as to how they think that should be distributed.

At the end of the month, the local inspector will get a report revealing how many people voted, what the local average is and how statistically significant it is.

There will also be an opportunity for the inspector to update that part of the community website and reveal what she or he has done in response to the views indicated via the Balance your Bobbies scheme.

As a Police Authority, we have a statutory duty to consult with local people on policing priorities. Together with the Force, we draft an annual Policing Plan and a three-year strategic plan which include the strategic policing priorities. In order to do this we need to be aware of what local people believe should be policing priorities and the Balance your Bobbies scheme is a further opportunity to engage with local people in this regard.

We would like to emphasise that the Balance your Bobbies scheme will not affect North Wales Police’s role in protecting the most vulnerable people in our society, tackling serious and organised crime and terrorism.

So help us to find the balance……. Because if we do not listen to local people then we may hit the target but miss the point!