Consultation Hub

Welcome to Citizen Space. This site will help you find and participate in consultations that interest you.

Recently updated consultations are displayed below. Alternatively, search for consultations by keyword, postcode, interest etc.

Featured Consultation: 2012/13 Budget Consultation

Featured consultation

Consultation closed on 15/01/2012

We Asked, You Said, We Did

Below are some of the issues we have recently consulted on and their outcomes.

2012/13 Budget Consultation

We asked:
Whether you thought we should accept the government offer of a one off grant and freeze the policing part of the council tax, or whether we should reject the offer and increase it.
You said:
The majority of survey and focus group participants were in favour of accepting the government offer and freezing the policing part of the council tax. Whilst a small majority of face to face (shopping centres) participants were in a favour of an increase, most of these people favoured a small increase only.
We did:
We decided to accept the one off government grant and freeze the policing part of the council tax, which provides us with funding equivalent to a 3% increase for one year.

Policing Priorities Summer 2011

We asked:
What you feel are the key policing priorities and whether you are aware of the plans to introduce elected Police and Crime Commissioners.
You said:
Across both the online survey and the face to face consultation ‘investigating and solving crimes in your local area,’ ‘responding to emergencies’ and ‘ensuring offenders are brought to justice’ emerged as the top priorities. ‘Preventing crime through work with vulnerable people’ and ‘reassuring the community’ were considered lower priorities. Over 60% of those who completed the online survey were aware of plans to introduce elected Police and Crime Commissioners and 50% of people said they would vote in such an election.
We did:
The top two priorities in our current policing plan are ‘respond when you need us’ and ‘investigate crime and protect you from criminals,’ which corresponds with the feedback you provided. Your views will also be taken into account in the process for developing next year’s policing plan, which has just begun. The results were also presented to all members of the Police Authority and the Chief Constable and his team in early October for consideration – you can watch a recording of this on our website: www.aspola.org.uk.

Budget Consultation 10-11

We asked:
Whether you would favour an increase in the policing part of the council tax and where you would like the police to focus resources.
You said:
The majority of people in the online and telephone survey were prepared to pay more for policing but only 1/3 of people were prepared to pay as much as 4% for policing. In the face-to-face consultation (focus groups) the majority of people did not favour a council tax increase. Local policing was considered the highest priority across all the consultation. This was followed by gathering intelligence and investigation. The ‘support function’ was considered a low priority by people completing the online survey and in the focus groups, they also wanted to see savings in specialist operations such as the helicopter and firearms.
We did:
We opted for a 2.5% increase by using the Governments top-up grant in exchange for a council tax freeze. We feel this met the willingness from the majority of participants to see an increase in the policing part of the council tax while not overburdening any resident’s who were not in favour. We were faced with some very challenging decisions and following your views we will make £15 million of savings in our business processes and procurement, by removing back office support functions for Neighbourhood Policing, reducing the flying hours of the helicopter, freezing police officer recruitment and economies of scale by progressively moving to one communications base rather than two.

During the consultation process, we ask for your feedback, you tell us and then we make positive changes. Public participation is key to our work. See what happens with We Asked, You Said, We Did.