Increased public trust a major boost for Wiltshire Police, says Chief Superintendent
58% of people feel the Force is doing a good or excellent job
Wiltshire Police insists it wants to keep building public confidence, despite trust in the Force being higher than the national average.
Figures from the Office of National Statistics reveal 58% of people in the county feel the organisation is doing a good or excellent job.
Chief Superintendent, Doug Downing, says it's a boost to everyone within the constabulary that public confidence is higher.
It represents vast progress for a Force that was labelled "inadequate" in 2022 following an review by His Majesty's Inspectorate (HMICFRS).
"This has been a real team effort," Chief Supt Downing said. "It really supports the strategy that we've been taking as a Force, which is to really put the communities at the forefront of everything that we're doing, to work with the communities, with our partners, to problem solve within the communities and to listen to the concerns of those that we police."
He added that higher trust from local communities means there is a belief that policing is "fair, accountable and legitimate".
After the 2022 HMICFRS inspection, the Force was placed into special measures to help it make the necessary improvements, much of which has been overseen by Chief Constable Catherine Roper, who took charge in February 2023.
She reintroduced Neighbourhood Policing Teams in 2024 to improve the connection between officers and local people.
Chief Supt Downing said the Force had to "look at ourselves in the mirror and understand where our gaps were", but believes the changed approach is now reaping rewards.
He said: "We've put in place an approach in which we promote problem solving, that we promote visibility and we absolutely promote at the forefront community policing and then working to protect our victims."
It's leading to better outcomes for victim response times and improvements in many other areas of police performance.
The work doesn't stop, Force insists
While there is a lot of pride for the improvements being made, the Force insists it's not resting on it's laurels.
Chief Supt Downing said continuing to demonstrate a robust service that listens to victims and operates in a timely and efficient manner is key to maintaining and boosting public trust further.
"Fundamentally at the forefront is listening to our communities, listening to their concerns and responding to them and actually being out there in the communities, engaging with them. We've placed far greater emphasis on engaging with our communities," he said.
The organisation has been proactive in being visible to communities with mobile police stations visiting towns across the County on a regular basis, with Q&A sessions on social media and attending public events.
Although there is much to celebrate, there are still areas to improve, including ensuring every investigation is done to a high level.
Chief Supt Downing said: "We know that we can improve the quality of our investigations at times we we've seen some brilliant investigations and some brilliant work being undertaken by our officers and staff.
"For me, it's now around the consistency of that and ensuring that we're consistent, that every victim receives a high quality investigation. So that's the focus going forwards."
Progress has been shown through other metrics, such as growing reports of sexual offences, with the Force telling us that it wants us to continue calling in crimes to them.
Chief Supt Downing admitted rising reports could be seen as a negative, but told us that under reporting is a major issue and it masks issues such as hate crimes and domestic abuse, which can leave people unprotected and perpetrators not facing justice.
"We want victims to be heard," he said. "Where victims feel ignored, we know trust then diminishes. When it increases, we see that flow of reporting and it enables us to understand where to be and when to be there."
We can report crimes online and we can raise concerns to our local Neighbourhoods officers. We should still call 999 in an emergency or if a crime is ongoing.