Dear Police and Crime Commissioner, Philip Wilkinson,

The Comprehensive Spending Review announced last week outlined the funding that will be received across policing for the next financial year.

The headline figure is a 2.4% financial increase however, in real terms, this represents a 1.7% uplift to our funding which will cover little more than anticipated annual inflationary pay increases for officers and staff.

While any increase in national police funding is welcome in light of the challenges all forces are facing, it doesn’t relieve the full financial pressures on our organisation.

As previously outlined, Wiltshire Police must save £5.2m this financial year (in addition to £1.6m worth of savings we had already identified).

To date, we have identified savings of £3.8m through the rationalisation of our estate and our fleet in addition to making sustainable efficiencies within our police staff cohort.

At this current time, we are maintaining our existing number of police officers and PCSOs to ensure we are fully visible and accessible to our communities.

This work will continue at pace to ensure we balance our budget for this financial year, and to prepare us for the likely savings required in the years to come. I am determined that we ensure our future sustainability and continue to deliver an improving service to the communities of Wiltshire.

Through navigating these immediate financial challenges, we have also improved the grip and governance of our financial management and planning.

This is evidenced in our Force Management Statement (FMS) for 2025 which we’ve published today.

The FMS allows us to share an important self-evaluation with our communities– highlighting the progress we've achieved over the past year and detailing how we plan to address the challenges that lie ahead.

The document also sets out the progress the organisation has made under my vision of Keeping Wiltshire Safe as underpinned by my three operational priorities – Safer Public Spaces, Violence and Burglary.

The roadmap for how we will achieve these priorities is outlined in our three-year strategic plan and the publication of in year delivery plans. We’ve now published the progress made against the strategic plan for 2024/25 and our communities can read more about this here.

Due to the improvements made to our governance – as evidenced in our latest His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) report – I have reduced the number of in-year delivery plans from seven to two for 2025/26.

These are owned by Deputy Chief Constable Mark Cooper, who has responsibility for the operational plan, and the Chief of Corporate Services John Derryman, who oversees the corporate delivery plan. You can find these two plans here.

Both outline how they will support our strategic priorities of:

- Serving our communities, keeping them safe and preventing crime

- Delivering high standards of crime investigation and service for victims

- Delivering an efficient, effective, affordable and sustainable police operating model configured to meet demand

- Attracting, retaining, developing and inspiring our workforce supported by high standards of leadership and professionalism

- Embedding a culture of organisational learning and continuous improvement.

The foundation of our priorities and all future plans must continue to be the strengthening of our relationship with our communities.

Despite the financial challenges we are facing, I have committed to increasing the visibility and accessibility of our officers, staff and volunteers in our neighbourhoods.

This will be brought to life next week as we mark Neighbourhood Policing Week.

Our focus for the week will be on sharing the stories of our neighbourhood teams and highlighting work that our communities might not realise these teams do to reduce crime, improve the safety of our streets and engage with the public.

I would encourage our communities to follow our social media channels and visit the Your Area section of our website to find out more about their Neighbourhood Policing Team.

Our frontline teams have a pivotal role in supporting both our communities and victims of crime. This week, there has been much national debate on how policing can better support our most vulnerable victims.

On Monday, the Home Office published the independent National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (CSEA) by Baroness Casey which examined the abhorrent criminality of child grooming. The full report can be found here.

The report included details of:

- what can be learnt about the scale, nature and characteristics of group-based CSEA

- drivers of this type of offending, including the role of ethnicity and culture

- the response to group-based CSEA at local and national level.

In response, the Home Office announced a nationwide police operation – led by the National Crime Agency (NCA) – to target those who have sexually exploited children as part of a grooming gang and will investigate cases that were not previously progressed.

The NCA will work in partnership with police forces around the country and specialist officers from the Child Sexual Exploitation Taskforce- Operation Hydrant - which supports police forces to address all complex and high-profile cases of child sexual abuse.

The Prime Minister also announced this week that a National Inquiry into child sex abuse will be established following Baroness Casey’s report.

As the Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police and the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) lead for Children and Young People, I welcome any scrutiny to challenge and ensure the police service is protecting those most at risk to abuse and assists us in improving our service to them.

In January this year, I commissioned an urgent review into grooming gang cases within Wiltshire Police over the last ten years. This process included a detailed review of all grooming and Child Sexual Exploitation investigations looking for evidence of missed opportunities around group-based offending, criminal outcomes and how we’ve managed the associated risks.

This provided us with a comprehensive picture of offending in our county which helped identify improvements we can make to better support victims.

This work led us to developing an enhanced process to better capture and triage instances of group-based offending. This enables earlier identification of this sort of criminality and maximises our opportunities to disrupt it. We’ve also introduced a new Vulnerability Board which will provide the governance required to deliver the Casey report recommendations.

Our review did highlight a concern which I need to ask our communities to help us tackle. We are seeing lower than expected reporting of this type of crime or intelligence reports highlighting concerns regarding child grooming either for sexual or criminal purposes.

We know that this type of criminality is tragically happening across England and Wales, and I ask for any concerning behaviour of either a victim or a perpetrator to be reported to us. Behaviour that may indicate a child may be being groomed is explained on this section of our website along with ways of reporting this to us or partner agencies. All reports will be taken seriously so I would encourage anyone who has concerns about children to contact us and seek our support. 

We know, based on our work with those who have a lived experience of child sexual abuse and exploitation, that these types of offences are under reported, and many victims remain silent for fear of not being believed.

We will not allow the voices of survivors to be marginalised, and we will ensure our policing response is robust, inclusive and reflective of all perpetrators.

Finally, I wanted to end this week’s letter with the wonderful news that one of our Special Constable’s has been recognised in the King’s Birthday Honours.

Damien Penman has been awarded a British Empire Medal for services to policing for his work within the Digital Investigations and Intelligence Unit (DIIU) creating software using cell site data to help locate missing people. Special Constable Penman created a web-based programme that all officers are now using to import cell site data and display it on a virtual map.

I would like to congratulate Special Constable Penman and all those who were recognised this year for their contribution to our country.

Kindest regards,

Catherine Roper

Chief Constable, Wiltshire Police