A new three-year plan has been written to set firm priorities and objectives for Guernsey Police.
The Head of Law Enforcement, Damian Kitchen is today publishing his first Guernsey Police Service Delivery Plan.
It outlines “five pillars” as priorities and objectives for all police staff – including officers and civilian staff – for 2025-2028.
Mr Kitchen said the five pillars serve as a clear plan for all of his staff to work towards.
“It’s a way of focusing our efforts over the next few years and giving myself and the staff some direction around common goals,” he explained.
“(The plan has) been built upon feedback from, first and foremost, the public. As you’re probably aware, we did quite a big community meeting a number of months ago, which is something I was keen to do early in my tenure. We did a survey which we got around 1700 responses to, which was really useful. And when I did the interviews around that earlier in the year, I committed to using that feedback to inform the delivery plan going forwards.
“Other things that we’ve done to inform (the plan) are speak to victims of crime. I spend quite a bit of time listening to the journey of victims and what we’ve done well and what we could do better in future. I think that’s really important, also, listening to the staff and the officers that are delivering the services, and last but not least, elected representatives as we do a lot of work with the States of Guernsey and other stakeholders.
“All of that experience I’ve had over the past 10 months and that engagement is informing this delivery plan, which is why I’ve waited until 10 months into my tenure to come up with this.
“What I didn’t want to do is just land, decide what I thought was best for us. I thought it was really important to listen and then soak it up, come up with a plan.”
Mr Kitchen said he was really keen that the community was involved in developing the Guernsey Police Service Delivery Plan, because we are all stakeholders.
“Every officer and member of staff in this police station is a member of the community. All their families are members of the community. Police officers are the public so this is ‘we’.
“It’s not for me to sit here and tell people what I think that they should have. Yes, there is a certain amount of professional judgment, because myself, my leadership team, and a number of people across the organisation have got a lot of years in policing and experience, but we don’t know everything.
“I’ve talked about making people feel safe, I’ve talked about victims and their journey, and making it a good experience when you have to interact with Guernsey Police. They are the people that know how we will make that better, and what’s important are the people that live across the Bailiwick, not me. So, yes, absolutely, that engagement isn’t just about a survey, it’s not just about a meeting, it’s about keeping that going for the next few
years.”
