THE Government’s plan to ensure every neighbourhood has a dedicated named officer has been slammed as a ‘red herring’ by one of the North East’s top policing bosses.

Boris Johnson’s flagship ‘Beating Crime Plan’ includes a series of eye-catching policies, including electronic tracking of offenders and beefed-up stop-and-search powers.

But, just days after the initiative’s unveiling, key proposals are already facing criticism, with chiefs insisting they have already been implemented.

“I think [the named officer plans are] a bit of a red herring in some respects – it’s nothing we don’t already do, to an extent,” said Kim McGuinness, police and crime commissioner (PCC) for Northumbria.

“You can already go on Northumbria Police’s website and find out more about your neighbourhood policing team.

“If you are a victim of a crime and you’re given a police officer’s details, and then they go on leave or rest for 48 hours, then of course you want someone else to pick that up.

“It’s a principle founded in a positive ideal, but we need resources to have enough officers for crimes to be solved and for victims to be looked after properly.”

Through Northumbria Police’s website, anyone in the force area can use a postcode checking tool to find contact details for their neighbourhood team, as well as details of the inspector and chief superintendent responsible for that area.

The website for neighbouring Durham Constabulary allows the public to see even more information, including names of sergeants, constables and police community support officers assigned to different areas.

Under the Government’s proposals, this information would also be available through a ‘national online platform’ that would allow the public to ‘raise any concerns with their neighbourhood officers directly’.

Other proposals include:

  • A national league table that ranks performance when it comes to responding to 999 and 101 calls
  • More litter picking, street cleaning and other unpaid work to ‘ensure offenders are visibly and publicly making reparations for their crimes’
  • A trial of alcohol tags that can ‘detect alcohol in the sweat of offenders guilty of drink-fuelled crime’

Despite dismissing many of the suggested measures as ‘gimmicks’, PCC McGuinness was cautiously positive about the prime minister’s post-pandemic priorities.

She told the Northumbria Police and Crime Panel: “I think it’s good that, coming out of a crisis like Covid, people are talking about crime.

“A lot of it is things we’re always striving to do.

"We’ve talked about making sure the public know who their police officers are and we’re already talking about antisocial behaviour, but we need sustainable funding that allows us to deliver it.”