So: Busting to offer an opinion on the Government’s plans for policing but can’t get to London? Can’t find a Minister to listen? Technology to the rescue…

Policing minister Nick Herbert will be undertaking a live online Q&A at 11.00 BST on Monday 2 August on the Number10 website to answer your questions on the Government’s plans to change the face of policing over the next five years. Earlier this week, the Government launched the consultation Policing in the 21st Century: Reconnecting Police and the People, which contains proposals for ways to make police in England ...

Are you following me on Twitter?

Essentially, I use three key channels to reach my police and public sector audience.

The blog, for those longer pieces that require a view or a bit more thought. This is emailed to those people, like you, who subscribe.

The ‘interesting things’ section of the www.openeyecommunications.com website. This is regularly updated with things that catch my eye, but that I don’t want to write a longer blog piece about. This is not emailed out. It’s regularly updated, but you have to visit the site to see the items (go and bookmark the page now!).

Twitter, for those shorter, ...

As they say “timing is everything”, so congratulations to the staff at Thames Valley Probation who have scooped a prestigious national award for their pioneering work introducing restorative justice as part of community sentences. The probation trust won the award at this year’s Howard League for Penal Reform’s Community Programmes Awards, which is pretty timely as the whole RJ agenda seems to be shooting back up the ‘this is really important stuff’ agenda.

Justice Minister Crispin Blunt, speaking at NACRO, gave his first public speech this week on the direction and reform of the criminal justice system.

In ...

The Home Office, in common with other Government Departments published its Structural Reform Plan this week.

Apparently ‘Structural Reform Plans are the key tool of the Coalition Government for making departments accountable for the implementation of the reforms set out in the Coalition Agreement. They replace the old, top-down systems of targets and central micromanagement’. There, now you know.

The five priorities for the Home Office are:

1. Enable the police and local communities to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour Enable police forces and local communities to deal better with the anti-social behaviour and crime that blights people’s lives

2. Increase the ...

This week saw the publication of an essay, under the Royal Society of Arts brand, from Ben Rogers on anti social behaviour. The burning question: Can citizens tackle anti social behaviour?

Ben’s premise is that just as people are trained as first aiders (First Aid courses apparently started in Woolwich, hence the title), so they could be trained as community responders to tackle anti social behaviour.

The rationale is that in these difficult financial times, and against a philosophy of ‘co-production’ of outcomes,  a community oriented, skills based, training programme which addresses effective ASB interventions, is designed by professional experts, is simple, ...

Staffordshire Chief Constable Mike Cunningham has been in the local papers this last week, talking about the potential cuts the force faces and his position in relation to it. Mike is an interesting guy and his comments in relation to shared services echo those from colleagues around the country. In an Express and Star article he forecasts the financial realities driving the sharing of human resources, IT and financial management as well as closer links between specialist branches of forces such as firearms units, road policing and communications.

If greater collaboration in these areas of business is the ...

A quick reminder for you.

The majority of my readers get their Open Eye Communications updates via email. However, only the longer blog posts in the ‘blog’ section of the website are emailled to you.

I regularly update the ‘interesting things’ section with shorter items and…well, interesting things, that catch my eye. To read these you need to visit the website (I have just posted an item about the shocking number of ex service personnel that are being arrested and entering the criminal justice system) and click on the ‘interesting things’ tab.

A quick plea here. Whilst you’re on the ...

I know that I keep banging on about Foursquare, but it offers such potential for policing that I really feel I have no choice!

Foursquare has just added a ‘layers’ feature to it’s basic operating premise ( just to recap in case you missed it, Foursquare is a ‘game’ that uses your phone’s location to allow you to ‘check in’ to various locations in your area. The greater the number of check ins, the greater status you achieve and the more badges you get (think boy scout patches!). Smart companies and organisations are seeing the benefit of this ...

Home Secretary Theresa May gave a speech to the ACPO Conference today in which she set out the direction of policing under this Government. The full text of the speech can be read here.  However, the main points are as follows:

Big cuts in the Home Office budget are anticipated in the forthcoming Spending Review (the Institute for Fiscal Studies was talking about the 25%-33% range last week) however, the Government will honour the existing pay deal for police officers negotiated with the previous administration, and they will stand by the deal for police staff too.

There will be ...

Policing and Criminal Justice Minister Nick Herbert gave a speech today (23 June) at Policy Exchange in which he set out the seven principles which will run through their approach to reform of the criminal justice system.

Over the next few months, they will be setting out proposals for fundamental criminal justice reform and will introduce a Police Reform and Social Responsibility bill in this first session of Parliament.  Later this year, they will set out proposals to reform sentencing and the way that offenders are managed.

I have edited the speech to draw out the seven principles. To ...