New PCC says focus is on preventing crime

Norfolk’s newly-elected police and crime commissioner (PCC) says her focus in the role will be “preventing crime in the first place”.

Sarah Taylor, a Breckland councillor and a director at a consultancy firm, is both the first Labour representative and woman to hold the role.

She will take over from Conservative Giles Orpen-Smellie on Thursday.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything like the degree of focus we need on preventing crime,” said Ms Taylor.

She said the topic had dominated many of her conversations with people across the county during canvassing.

Ms Taylor said she had also picked up on people’s shifting perceptions and waning confidence in the institution, which had been heavily impacted by the Sarah Everard case.

“I’m from an armed forces family, I have a natural respect for the police as do an awful lot of people in Norfolk,” Ms Taylor told BBC Radio Norfolk.

“I, like them, share the desire to make policing more within our society again and generate that trust again.”

Ms Taylor says she wants to collaborate with other agencies, such as the courts, and fellow PCCs to ensure effective public services

Ms Taylor polled 52,445 votes on Thursday, with just 21% of the electorate turning out.

Two Conservatives and a former Tory, standing as an independent, have held the post since its inception in 2012.

PCCs are elected officials whose job is to help ensure police forces function effectively, but not to run those forces themselves.

They hold police forces to account and scrutinise their performance on behalf of the public.

Chief constables are appointed by them and they can dismiss them, if required.

It is also their job to set the annual budget for their force and decide the level of the slice of council tax dedicated to police funding, known as the police precept.

Ms Taylor said she had been concerned that the low turnout in the PCC elections meant the public still did not understand what commissioners did, despite the role existing for 12 years.

Therefore, she said, it was now her job to seek people’s opinions and ensure their priorities were aligned with the constabulary’s.

She said she wanted to work in collaboration with the force’s partner agencies, including the courts, which were facing long backlogs.

“We’ve had a lot more Labour PCCs elected, but more locally I want to make sure the partnerships – that exist to make sure that policing works well and that we’re safe across the county – that they are effective,” said Ms Taylor.

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