THE new month and start of the financial year means the launch of many of the changes I have been developing since my arrival in January.

March has been a really busy month for myself and my senior managers as we have held a series of briefings for all of the staff within Huntingdonshire.

These briefings have allowed us to take some time out to explain to the staff what the vision is for 2013/14 and how we can collectively move forward to achieve our goals.

The briefings have primarily focused on three key areas; people, professionalism and performance.

With regards to the people aspect, this is the commitment I have to the staff that I manage. I demand a lot from them and so take my responsibility to support and develop them very seriously.

What this will mean to my staff is that they will regularly get time to have one-to-ones with their managers where they can be supported to develop and achieve.

I will support them to develop their skills as I think this is crucial in developing an exceptional work force. My mantra is be the best you can be” and so it’s my goal to help them be so.

Professionalism is all about the service they give to you. How polite they are, do they listen, do they update you when you report a crime? Do they turn up chewing gum, not looking smart?

All of those things have been discussed and all staff are aware of my expectations in such matters. The maintenance of standards such as this are crucial in ensuring that you as the public, get the professional service that you pay for.

Finally performance. This is all about me being clear about what good performance looks like. More importantly making sure that my staff know the targets that I have set and that we are all on the same journey.

My focus is primarily on reduction and targets have been set to reduce victim based crime, dwelling burglaries and anti-social behaviour by five per cent. The violent crime target is a reduction of three per cent.

Although my main aim is to reduce crime, once it is reported to us, my expectation is that we try as hard as we can to detect it for you.

I have a newly structured burglary team who will now be attending burglaries from the very outset and need to achieve a 20 per cent detection target. This “all in one service” by those experts will allow us to identify trends and pick up on investigative opportunities from the very outset.

In addition to this violent crime detection rate is set at a target of 60 per cent and our overall detection rate for all crime is 32 per cent. This year we finished just under 30 per cent so I am determined to improve on this.

All in all its set to be a busy year.

In closing this month’s article I will remind you of the survey we sent out last month to identify how you as the public would like to be communicated with. The results of this survey are due to be released in the next week and so I will update you in next month’s column as to the outcome. Thank you to all of those who took the time to fill it in.