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Chief Constable's View at 2008 AGM 
It was my pleasure to address the Cumbria Neighbourhood Watch Association Conference on Saturday 4th October 2008. My second visit but your eighth Annual General Meeting, which is testimony in itself to the commitment and hard work of all your staff, Committee and members.
Craig Mackey - Chief ConstableI took the occasion to outline some of the successes we have achieved in Cumbria, in the fight against crime and disorder. It has been another exceptional year for the Constabulary as we continue to achieve outstanding performance, meet key policing targets and remain one of the leading forces for combating burglary, robbery and thefts from vehicles.
Figures revealed in the Constabulary's recent annual performance review showed that in 2007/08 Cumbria experienced a 23.9 per cent reduction in robbery, a 17.5 per cent reduction in thefts from vehicles, a 23.5 per cent reduction in thefts of vehicles, a 14.5 per cent reduction in incidents of anti-social behaviour and a 25 per cent reduction in the number of people killed and seriously injured on the county's roads. The review also confirmed that the Constabulary achieved some of the highest levels of confidence from local residents in the UK.
Of course, none of these successes could have been achieved without the active involvement of our many partners, including Neighbourhood Watch. It was particularly pleasing to be able to highlight a number of local neighbourhood watch initiatives that have now received national recognition. These include the Rural Crime projects, such as the Smartwater and the Trespass Scheme. There is no doubt that these activities have directly contributed to the marked reduction in crime, such as Quad Bike thefts, and the displacement of the activities of some of our local criminals across the border into neighbouring Counties!
I also spoke about The Green Paper on Policing, which details the challenges now facing the Constabulary in shaping our services for the future. At the heart of this is the need to further improve public confidence through our responsiveness to issues of local concern & our answerability to local communities. This, in part, will be achieved by our continued development of Local Team Policing.
There is considerable overlap in the aims of Local Team Policing and the Neighbourhood Watch movement, particularly in respect of crime prevention, sharing intelligence, identifying issues of local concern, being involved in community problem solving, promoting social cohesion, and confidence in local policing.
Nationally, poor communication between the Police and Neighbourhood Watch schemes has been the biggest issue reported by scheme members over many years. Once again, you highlighted this issue to me at your Conference as the main area where we need to improve. Local Policing Teams offer good opportunities to develop communication by improving the two way flow of information between the Police and Watch members, and I am absolutely committed to making this happen.
I also spoke of the challenges of policing through `the credit crunch'. Strategically, this will impact on police and partners budget lines. There will no doubt be hard decisions to be made by Cumbria Constabulary and by Cumbria Neighbourhood Watch, as we have to once again adjust our structures as we cut our cloth accordingly.
Operationally, we have already started to see the consequences of recession, as some parts of the County are starting to see a small rise in acquisitive type crimes. These types of crime are almost always opportunist in nature, and can be prevented by simple, sensible precautions. They can also be prevented and detected by good local knowledge and neighbours watching out for neighbours. I am absolutely confident that the Cumbria Neighbourhood Watch Association will rise to this potential challenge and continue to support the Constabulary through all your activities.
Craig Mackey, Chief Constable - Cumbria Constabulary