Message from Roger Hirst, the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex
This survey is to gather your views on what you think of investing in both Essex Police and Essex County Fire and Rescue Service through the council tax precept. The precept is the amount we pay as part of our council tax for local policing and fire and rescue services.
Approximately 60% of police funding comes from Central Government. Police and Crime Commissioners are responsible for raising the remaining funds via the police precept to maintain police resources to keep our communities safe.
Crime is falling, all crime is down 6.7 per cent in the year to September 2023. But we want to do more. With your support we are investing in Essex Police by placing more officers in your communities and focusing on bringing all crime down further.
Building on investment already made during 2022/2023 to 2023/24 we are continuing to strengthen activity to tackle the issues causing the most harm including anti-social behaviour and drug driven violence. We delivered the funding to recruit 905 more police in Essex by March 2023, making Essex Police the largest it has ever been.
But there is still much more to do. It is vital we continue to invest in prevention and getting more visible police in your communities. This is how we will get crime down.
We also need to continue to invest in our fire and rescue service so they can manage risk across Essex and help prevent harm in our communities.
We know this is a difficult time financially for the country. It is also a difficult time financing for both our police and fire and rescue services. The 2024/25 budgets for both services are being set against the backdrop of a challenging economic environment with inflation at a historically high level and utilities and fuel costs rising.
The current CPI rate of inflation is 6.7 per cent. Essex Police and Essex Fire and Rescue Service are not immune to raising costs and this will have an impact on the services.
An increase of 6.7% in the policing precept is £15.64 per year on a Band D property and in the fire and rescue precept is £5.38 per year on a Band D property.
However, we know you want us to do more than just maintain the current level of service, you want crime to continue to fall and for our fire and rescue service to continue to improve their ability to manage and minimise risk. To achieve this we will need to make both services more efficient but may also need to increase the precept by more than the current 6.7% rate of CPI Inflation.
We know that any increase in the precept must be carefully considered and your views matter. Please take the time to complete the short survey and tell us what you think. It will really help us when it comes to setting our budgets and the Council Tax precepts for policing and fire and rescue services for next year.
Roger Hirst
Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex
All responses from this survey will be collated and summarised as part of the final report. Individual people will not be identified, and your name will not be mentioned in any reports that we write for this purpose. You don’t have to take part if you do not want to - this is a voluntary activity.
Under the Data Protection Act we have a legal duty to protect any information we collect from you. The information will only be used for the purposes of informing our policing and fire and rescue service strategy and how to fund it. The data will not be kept longer than is necessary to do so, up to a maximum of five years. We will not share your personal details with any other agency unless we have concerns that you or another individual may be at risk of harm or if it is required by law. We do not collect personal information for commercial purposes.
If you choose to provide your contact details so we can keep you informed of the work of the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex, we will store your details and where necessary share your details with third parties for this purpose.