Rutland shopkeepers ‘giving up reporting shoplifting, police and crime commissioner told
Shopkeepers are ‘giving up reporting shoplifting because nothing is happening’ according to a senior councillor.
Christine Wise (Lib Dem - Uppingham), the Rutland County Council cabinet member for communities, told police and crime commissioner Rupert Matthews (Con) that some retail businesses in the area had given up reporting thefts from their businesses.
She said the county is 25 per cent down on its beat officer number, having lost a neighbourhood officer in Oakham this summer, who has not as yet been replaced.
The Leicestershire Police chief constable Rob Nixon said in September the post will be filled.
In their meeting at County Hall in Glenfield, Leicester, this afternoon (Monday), Coun Wise told Mr Matthews: “Shopkeepers in Oakham and Uppingham have said they had given up reporting shoplifting because nothing is happening. And I think that’s sad, because we were getting on top of that.”
The commissioner said: “I’m deeply concerned if the shopkeepers of Rutland feel that they are unable to report crime to the police because nothing gets done.
"This may be a communication issue by police to the shopkeepers, because things do get done. It may be that the police are perhaps not as adept at updating victims of crime as we would like them to be.
"On the specific issue of Rutland being a beat officer down, I raised this with the chief constable in a one-to-one meeting, three or four weeks ago and he assured me that they would be replaced as soon as an experienced beat officer became available to go and take it up. I will ask him again. I think losing 25 per cent of your beat officers in a county is not where we want to be.”
He said retirements of experienced officers had led to the situation and a beat officer was a highly skilled job that could not be given to an officer with little experience.
Coun Wise said: “It raises a question about workforce planning, if we didn't have a single spare experienced beat officer to step into the breach. You wouldn’t run most industry like that, where you have one experienced chemist and then they left and you just didn't have one.”
The Leicestershire police force is having to cut costs by several million pounds this year. As part of this it is planning to reduce the number of its full time PCSOs from 200 to 150.
Coun Deborah Taylor (Con), who chairs the police and crime panel, told the commissioner she was questioning whether it was the right way to go as the PCSOs are the officers everyone knows. She said she felt the force was rushing into the measure and asked Mr Matthews whether he was happy with the reduction.
He said: “I am not happy with it. As I’m sure we are all aware, we are sitting around waiting to see what the government is going to give us in terms of funding.”