Policing, Community Safety, and Public Trust with Clare Moody, Avon & Somerset Police and Crime Commissioner

[00:00:04] Well, welcome everybody back to The Social World Podcast. I'm Dave Niven and as always it's a pleasure to have your company. I've been kind of always pushing law enforcement questions to a variety of senior people over the years and today is no different. I've managed to persuade Clare Moody who's the Police and Crime Commissioner for Avon and Somerset to come on and tell us her perspective on things and

[00:00:33] give us a little bit of an insight into the work of a Police and Crime Commissioner. So Clare, very welcome to the program. Clare Moody Thank you for inviting me on. Clare Moody Now I read your bio which everybody can see on the front page obviously of the podcast but they'll also like to hear from you. Can you just tell us a little bit about, I'm not going to use that word journey, I'm so sorry about it, but I mean all the various pressured situations that you've been in that have actually

[00:01:02] if you like moulded the woman you are today and how you actually go about and the experience you've gained and going about the job you have today. So could you tell us a little bit about your background?

[00:01:14] Clare Moody Of course, thank you David. Yes, as you said I've had a rich and varied career to date and I've been genuinely very fortunate in that. So I spent 20 years working in the trade union movement. I spent a couple of years working for Gordon Brown in number 10. I was an MEP for five years.

[00:01:41] Clare Moody Of course, sorry, a member of the European Parliament when we had such things. And I also ran, was co-chief executive of an equality and human rights charity.

[00:01:55] Clare Moody Of course, I was doing that until I was elected into this role as police and crime commissioner. So as you say, it's been a career of really interesting jobs, but with a lot of challenge in them.

[00:02:14] Clare Moody Of course, I've been doing that.

[00:02:30] Clare Moody Of course, I've been doing that. I've been doing that in that I've been able to do jobs that align with my values. And I know that's not a position that, you know, everybody has the chance to be in. So I really do recognise my good fortune on that front. Okay, well I mean The experience you must have picked up is considerable The networking That you must have Been open to is also considerable But also the learning curve

[00:03:01] In all these Different places, whether it's national Whether it's strategic Whether it's just local or whatever But I really think The amount of information And experience you must have absorbed Is pretty high You're absolutely right about that learning And every day being a school day Even now as you can imagine But Again It's You go through life

[00:03:29] You pick up bits You learn things as you go along And that is immensely valuable That kind of human grace Well it's what makes being a human interesting You get to Enjoy I happen to love meeting people I Really enjoy spending time With people Learning from them From their experiences But also it's really important When you do have so much

[00:03:58] Busyness if you like Is to build in reflection time And to Think and embed That learning And that You know To To maximize the chance Of growing yourself as well And to Making the most Of those experiences So that you Are a better person And you are better At your job From that So have you got a good Support network I mean in terms of Not just in terms Of the practicalities Of the job But in terms of Keeping your head straight

[00:04:28] Oh God yes Yeah No I I have Brilliant friends Many of whom I've known for Decades And There's nothing like Friends to keep you grounded And I have You know A lovely family Support as well Including my son You know And So They all Also help to Well help to keep me In a bigger space Than just in You know

[00:04:58] My workspace I think we all need Those bits You need that balance In life Couldn't agree with you more I mean When I was involved In social work And managing social workers One thing that really Always disappointed me Was that There never seemed to be Enough time for Reflective supervision There was always Plenty of time For kind of Work supervision If you know Like case work And things like that But never Because for social workers Their tools are

[00:05:28] Between their ears And if And if They weren't Healthy Or in a bad way You had to deal with that To get the best out of them And There was never Enough time for that And I still feel That's the case And I rather suspect That might be the case In the police force as well In terms of actually Giving people time To reflect And recharge I don't know If that's An opinion you shared It's a really Important point David And it's one That the Chief Constable Sarah and I

[00:05:57] Do talk about Because Police Particularly Police officers But actually Also police staff In some of their roles As well They They face Situations That thankfully You and I Rarely ever Have to face They go Into situations They are involved In work That involves Trauma Either Either their own Direct trauma

[00:06:26] For them Or Trauma In the Cases And the People that they Are talking to And Helping to support And so That reflection And that Emotional intelligence If you like And empathy And support And resilience The resilience That they need To have That Stressing That in Supervision

[00:06:55] And work With the Officers and Staff Is really Important I really Hope That The work That you're Doing And the Messages That you're Putting forward A bit from What you've Just said There Are helping People Realise That stress Is quite Acceptable To talk About Oh It's so Important That we do It really Is And it Goes Your question About the Wider support Network Or What's

[00:07:25] Happening For the Officers And staff In Even Somerset Police It's That That Balancing For people That you Know If you Don't If you Ignore It It gets Bigger And it Gets Worse We know That You Almost Don't Need To know All the Evidence Base There Is Around That You Just Sort of Almost Instinctively Know

[00:07:58] Society Acknowledging It More Largely Because Very Brave People Have Openly Talked About Their Mental Health Challenges And The need Of course I mean It's been Through Quite a Lot Of Challenges In It So I mean It Always Has But Essentially Nationally I mean Policing Has Been Under So Much Of The Spotlight In Terms Of Individual Challenges But Also Societal Kind Of

[00:08:28] Challenges And The Way That The Police Forces Are Regarded In The Community Has Kind Of Fluctuated Hasn't It Over The Last Decade And In Terms Of People Being Quite Safe And Feeling Safe To People Feeling Totally Unsafe I mean It's A real Problem I Suspect That You've Had To Rattle With Very Much So This The Trust And Confidence Piece As It's Labelled If You Like

[00:08:58] That Is Really It is A Fundamental Piece Of Work In Terms Of Needing To Build That Because As You Say There's Been A lot Of High Profile Stories That Have Revealed Some Real Issues Inside Policing That Have To Be Addressed That Is Part Of My Role That

[00:09:27] Governance And Scrutiny Role Is To Call Out Respond To Those Culture Problems As Well As The Individual Cases That There Have Been In Avon And Somerset As Well As In Other Forces Most Particularly In That Again Is Core To Getting Policing Right

[00:09:56] Is Actually Facing Up to Those Problems And Responding To Them Well We'll Pick Them Up As We Go But Let's Maybe Start At The Beginning If You Like I Mean You're Elected Till 2028 Therefore You've Got Quite Some Time To Go In Your Term Of Office Was It What You Expected Believe

[00:10:26] Me It Doesn't Feel Like A Long Time Left It Feels Like Only Three Years Now Nearly I've Had Ten Months In The Role But Is It What I Expected Do You Know What It's It's Better Than I Expected I Wanted The Job And Obviously Because I Stood For It And Went Through All Of The Election And All The Rest Of It But I It's You I Think

[00:10:56] And I Wanted The Job Because There's Opportunity And Possibility To Do Things In This Role That There's Even More Opportunity Than I Had Realized And That Is Immensely Satisfying So I Am So Pleased To Have This Role And Yeah It's It's More Than I Expected Well

[00:11:27] I'm Very It's Like You Really Favor The Latter Oh Completely And Politics The Point Of Politics Is To Make A Difference The Point Of Politics Is To Change The World For For The Better And So I Yeah I Would Be So Frustrated If

[00:12:03] Change So I'm Very Pleased To Report That Is Not What This Job Is People Be Pleased To Hear That But I Mean Generally Speaking Well Let's Kind of If You Like Mark Your Card And I Mean That Nicely I Mean I'm Looking At The Strategic Crime Plan That You Put Together From 2024 To 20 29 And You Had Five Particular Areas That You Highlighted I'm Sure There's More But Just The Five Can I

[00:12:33] Take You Through Them And Ask Your Opinion On It The Strengthening Neighbourhood Policing Was One How's That Going So There's A Couple Of Key Developments On That The Reason It's In The Plan Is Because Everywhere I've Been Every Conversational Meeting That You Have At Some Point Touches On

[00:13:02] Wanting A Local Connection Between Communities And The Police And Neighbourhood Policing Is Where That Is Most Evident And Sits Most Strongly And It's About Again Sort Of Difference In Communities So In Terms Of The Changes That Are Coming About In That Area One Is I'm Delighted That There Has Been 200 Million Pounds Additional

[00:13:32] Money Put Into Explicitly Put Into Neighbourhood Policing From The Government Since The End Of Last Year In Two Tranches One In December One In The Last Month And That Is Enabling Me Right Now We're Working Through The Numbers But It Means That We Can Get More Police Officers Into Those Neighbourhood Teams Which Is Really Important So People Should

[00:14:02] Start Seeing That Difference In The Coming Months We're Not

[00:14:37] Have People To People To Working Yep, we are working. Absolutely. We are putting moving resources around a little bit, but it's putting experienced people into the neighbourhood teams, which is also really important. But the exact numbers and how that's going to work is still a work in progress.

[00:14:59] And my chief finance officer and myself work with the Avon and Somerset police finance officer. And so it is a conversation that I have with them. And I should have made clear earlier as well. This is coming through from the Home Office. It's national policy. So I have a role in this to play, but I am not operational.

[00:15:27] It is very important to state that, that I don't make operational day to day decisions. Mine is that strategic involvement. And in your question was about how this sits with the chief constable, Sarah Crewe.

[00:15:43] And that is, you know, very happily, we are working in parallel on this. Absolutely. Yeah, we have exact, we have shared objective around the neighbourhood policing.

[00:15:58] And that brings me to the second development in this area, which is the looking at changing the model of Avon and Somerset police, which currently is based on directorates.

[00:16:16] And moving that over time, doing it with care. So it's not sort of a crash bang situation, but moving that to having a more geographical focus, so that more of the force is looking to the area being place based, if you like, as the language used in local government a lot.

[00:16:42] So that is, that is a second strand of work that is very much pointing to that first priority. Okay. Well, look, let's, let's move on then take the second of the key areas that you can highlight it in the crime plan. And that's the reduction of violent crime. I mean, obviously, nobody's going to argue with you on that one. But how's it working out?

[00:17:12] It's, well, that is a, that is a sort of a huge amount of, you know, a huge focus. And it's not something that you can go, right, I'll do this, and that will change. Yeah, of course.

[00:17:56] It has to be evidence based. And it's not going to have immediate impact. But I do, through my office, we run the violence prevention partnership, violence reduction partnership. And that does, has a sort of hub and spoke model. So in Avon and Somerset, we have five local authorities. And the VRP works with all of those local authorities.

[00:18:25] That's the violence reduction program. Partnership, absolutely. Yeah, sorry. Okay. So we have the hub of the, as we call it, the VRP that sits in my office. And then that hub links to the spokes, which are in the five local authorities. And that works a lot. It works a lot on how you, successful interventions around, for example, mentoring with young people.

[00:18:53] It's about education programs. It's so many other kind of either group level, group based, school based or individual based interventions that are about giving young people opportunities and different paths forward than the ones that they may have seen laid out in front of them before the intervention.

[00:19:20] It sounds very much like, and I agree with you, but it sounds very much like a kind of, it's not just don't do it or we'll punish you. It's very much, listen, the reason we're telling you not to do it is this could change your life and this could be educational and this can give you opportunities elsewhere. And there's far better ways to do things. I mean, I'm not talking about the violence against women because I do actually feel that's still quite endemic in society.

[00:19:46] And I know that the chief constable has been pushing, is it Bluestone? I'm trying to think, remember the initiatives that are going on and that all power to it. But I don't think we're going to solve that one. And I very sadly think we're not going to solve it within your term of office unless you get reelected, of course. But effectively, you know, the preventative side, which is effectively that's the third spoke in your plan, isn't it?

[00:20:14] The prevention of everything. And I presume that folds down to things like county lines and knife crime as well and young people. Of course. And that's part of all of that work with the VIP and about my work with partners and the commission services that come through my office as well.

[00:20:36] In all sorts of areas, particularly in relation to victims, but also in relation to reducing reoffending work as well. And people who have been in the criminal justice system and trying to give them an alternative future. Yeah. I mean, sorry. You finish. Yeah, no, I'd love to talk about the Vorg work as well. We'll come to that. Don't worry, I'll give you a chance to talk about it.

[00:21:04] I just wanted to pick up one thing as you were saying that there, because I wonder how you felt about the fact that in Britain or certainly in England, I think it's Britain, we lock up far more people than any other European country pro rata. Yes. And I'm wondering why you think that is. I mean, it's a hugely difficult question.

[00:21:27] But it just popped into my head there when we were thinking about prevention and actually maybe rehabilitation after prison and so forth. And that's something that the police do get involved with. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't have an easy answer for you for the why. I am really there are, as you can imagine, I'm a politician. I'm a Labour politician. So I have sympathy with this, the current government.

[00:21:56] But one of the things I think they did at the start of the term of office in government was they commissioned David Gork, who had been a Tory minister in this area. And they commissioned James Timpson, whose brother was a Tory MP.

[00:22:18] But the Timpson family famously have been very proactive around employing ex-offenders in Timpson's, the key cutting and shoe repairs company. And James Timpson is in doing a review for the government around prisons.

[00:22:41] And David Gork is looking at sentencing as well so that we can look and base policy on what works. Because you're right. We have, I believe it's the second highest rate of imprisonment behind America of adults. And we have high levels of re-offending when people come out of prison.

[00:23:10] So, yeah, I believe we have to look at this again. And as you know, our prisons are full, you know, that's that was a big deal. And old too, aren't they? They're kind of gorgeous. Yes. So there's so much to be done in this area. Yeah. I mean, there are things that I've often wondered about when new prisons are being built, if they ever do get built, but whatever. But many places, Scandinavian countries and so forth, they put them slap bang in the middle of towns and cities.

[00:23:39] And they encourage, you know, weekend leave for the not too violent offenders, you know. You know, there's this idea of reintegration is huge. And normalising their lives again, as opposed to just the impression that people get of lots of the people being cast adrift after prison and really kind of in a very patchwork support system.

[00:24:08] And that is really important that because this isn't just about the prisons and it's not just about the police. It's, you know, or probation as well, which is obviously involved when people leave prison. But it's making sure you've got the support if people have addictions or, you know, kind of or and it's making sure that you people have jobs.

[00:24:37] Housing is such a problem in this country for every year, so many for our young people. But in this, you know, for across the piece, people, we have housing stress in this country. And that includes for the prison leaver population as well.

[00:24:54] And if you can get those surround that surrounding care, if you like, around or surrounding support, rather, then you stand a much better chance of reducing reoffending and getting people back into society. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's if you've got to do you've got to do all of that.

[00:25:17] But all of our problems, you know, the problems that we face, there isn't one of our public bodies that has all the answers. It's about working together, you know, health with education, with local authorities, with the police, with prisons, probation. All of these bodies work together to solve our society problems.

[00:25:39] And so do you have much to do with the partnership board in the authorities that the police force covers? Yes, completely. I work in partnership. Well, the Violence Reduction Partnership has its own executive board, which I chair. I chair the Local Criminal Justice Board, which involves partners from across a range of organisations.

[00:26:06] I work with the integrated care boards, which are the health boards. And at the moment with NHS England, that is, you know, being currently, I think there's been an announcement about changes to that. But, you know, all of these different areas, it's it's fundamental to work with them. And my role is very rooted in that partnership working across. So what do you do in the afternoons?

[00:26:40] As I joke, sometimes my Sunday evenings are my own. No, fair enough. I was fortunate enough to chair a couple of safeguarding boards myself, which are now called partnership boards, you know. And I'm fully aware of the of the choreography required. Let's put it that way. Actually getting to that point, which I totally agree with you on about the importance of working together.

[00:27:08] OK, look, survivors is another area that you've highlighted specifically within the crime plan. Could you just say, are there any developments that you're actually seeing or aspirational developments you'd like to mention? So just we commissioned the victim survivors support for seven years.

[00:27:38] And that's got several strands of work within it, which is the general sort of adult victims of crime support, which is done through victim support.

[00:27:54] But also working with Nextlink and Safelink around independent sexual violence advisors and independent domestic violence advisors who are known as Isvas and Idvas. Working with, you know, you've got an explicit strand of work around children and young people who have been victims of crime as well.

[00:28:24] So, yes, there's that is a significant part of the sort of funding of commission services that we run through my office as well. So it's positive steps happening. Yeah.

[00:28:40] And when we were talking about the violence against women and girls and you rightly mentioned to what there's been two real innovative pieces of work that have and are happening in Avon and Somerset. And that the chief constable, Sarah Crewe, was instrumental in making them happen. She led on the work which was called, in Avon and Somerset, it was called Projects.

[00:29:11] Project Bluestone, which has become a national operating model, which is called Operation Soteria. And that is around rape and serious sexual offences, what are called RASO.

[00:29:26] So what is now happening, and I'm delighted to be underwriting the funding for this, or actually covering the funding for this, is developing that model into looking at domestic abuse. And that is called Projects. And that is called Project Brightlight.

[00:29:52] And where, you know, really important work and really important experience from Operation Soteria. We've now got the academics in that are looking at the state of play in responding in how the police respond to domestic abuse situation.

[00:30:13] But doing that, and the reason I bring it into this conversation or this part of the conversation is that it is really important because the objective of this is that we increase the number of victim survivors that feel able to report and to engage with the police in, you know, with regards to what's happened or happening to them.

[00:30:41] And to do that effectively, yes, we need the police to respond well. Yes, we need there to be empathy and understanding and perpetrator pursuit in these, in this place. But we also need the victim survivors to have the support that is necessary.

[00:31:00] And, you know, working with IDVAs, the independent advisors, is vital to that because it is such a difficult thing to go through. Well, there's two things there. I mean, it's great that that program is actually gathering speed. That's good. I mean, but there are a couple of things that I'm sure that are maybe outside your control.

[00:31:24] I don't know, but one is the issue of trust from the public in order for survivors. I mean, I remember this in social work. We've seen it in church, all sorts of places. It needs that trust to come forward and actually have a better view of the police that that's somewhere where you can go for help, somewhere that will help you.

[00:31:48] Because on the other hand, unfortunately, the police do get tangled up in people's perception with the court system and justice system. And the fact that there's such a traffic jam now of cases of violent sexual nature, rape, etc., that can't be dealt with for years.

[00:32:10] And so the whole issue of getting some kind of closure, some kind of way out of it is really sort of messing a lot of victims up. I mean, does that actually play a part in any of the kind of governance issues that you have?

[00:32:32] It's so important, this point, in terms of where we are with the court system and the criminal justice system. I frequently talk about the fact that we have lost £100 million in, has come out of Avon and Somerset's policing budget in the last 14 years.

[00:32:57] That has, you know, you have seen when I interact with other public services, you know, you can see the same, if not bigger challenges. And one of those that it really shows up in is in the criminal justice system.

[00:33:16] We are fortunate, in Bristol in particular, there, but it's true with other judges and other courts, there's been a real focus on delivering, you know, particularly around the RASO cases, as they're called. Could you just say what that means? Sorry. Sorry, that is the rape and serious sexual offence. Sorry, right, it's just for people abroad listening to this. Yeah, thanks.

[00:33:46] Of course. No, well, anyone who is intimately wrapped up in this world, it's important not to use too many acronyms. And, but this, so we've got a real challenge. That's why the ADVIS and ISVAs help so much, the advisors that work with victim survivors,

[00:34:08] because the length of time that they need to be engaged and have a relationship with victim survivors and that there is a support network there for what is a very challenging situation in terms of those delays. You know, I can't pretend it's easy. I don't pretend there's a quick fix. I do work with the criminal justice partners.

[00:34:36] I mentioned the criminal justice board that we, that I chair and, you know, have very good engagement with partners who all want to do a good job and who are all, you know, operating as well as they possibly can. But yeah, it's going to take time to fix all of this. Well, let me move on slightly. I think we've got about another 10 minutes, if that's all right with you.

[00:34:59] I think let's talk about the, what I would call the more contemporary, newer safeguarding challenges that law enforcement and various other sort of statutory bodies are facing. Such as cybercrime, grooming on the internet, human trafficking, slavery, modern slavery.

[00:35:27] All of these are absolutely huge in terms of numbers and in terms of money and in terms of organized crime and in terms of the worldwide reach, because the world, as we all know, is shrinking, to use a kind of a fairly hackneyed phrase, but it's true. How does the force kind of compartmentalize it? Because these are now emerging as huge areas of threat to the community.

[00:35:55] And I just wondered if you could say a little bit about how you might actually sort of restructure that. Or have you even got the resources that are needed to tackle that kind of thing? And the last question, the resourcing, that is one of the things that, as you can imagine, is almost perpetually at the top of my mind. And, you know, there's no question, but the resourcing is challenging.

[00:36:25] But you're, I'm really glad you highlighted this as well. You know, things like internet, child abuse, you know, there is a lot of focus on that in policing. Because obviously the consequences of that are devastating for the children involved. But it happens behind closed doors.

[00:36:47] So there is that, you know, this was a subject of one of the police question time episodes that I do with the Chief Constable Sarah Crewe. Because it was important to highlight that this is an area where the police have to pay attention. This is an area they have to put resources into.

[00:37:11] But it's an area that happens in office, you know, behind closed doors a lot of the time, you know, doing that work. Because they, you know, it's done online, obviously, the research and the investigation. So when police, you know, when, you know, so it's, and the public would expect the police to do this work. They would rely on the police to do this work.

[00:37:38] So it's getting that kind of public understanding and awareness of the fact that, you know, police officers and police staff have to do this stuff out of sight a lot of the time. And, but they're still there and they're still working. So it's part of the picture of policing these days. And be special. They need to be specialists too. I mean, I've done a lot of interviews with people, for example, in North America, Canada, etc.

[00:38:07] Who are the kind of trafficking intelligence initiatives and so forth, you know, and I'm very much into it. And we're going to be doing one with a chap, an organization called Raven, who's just been presenting to Congress and several things for new legislation that they're putting forward over in America. But the point about it is, is things like follow the money is a big initiative now that seems to be spreading.

[00:38:33] And a forensic accountancy expert in Canada I was talking to was expecting, you know, we're talking like $600 billion in organized crime.

[00:38:45] We're talking about the police over there actually engaging organizations and effectively giving them permission to go into the dark web and actually dig out evidence and information so that law enforcement can actually, can actually make better challenges. I mean, it's lateral thinking like that that seems to be needed.

[00:39:08] It's training frontline people in insurance and banks and, you know, the frontline stuff to recognize signs and symptoms of people that are acting in such a way that might suggest that they're under duress or being trafficked or being brought. I mean, all these lateral things, but that takes such amount of time that I wondered if the force here actually partners, if you like,

[00:39:36] with people who are able to do things like that. There is partnering that goes on in this and there is, you know, both sort of outside of partnering and there are very good organizations that work closely with Avon and Somerset Police to, in all sorts of areas where we know that trafficking and human slavery goes on, there's more to do.

[00:40:03] But, you know, what you were talking about in terms of, you've got to protect the people in the localities and respond to human trafficking and modern slavery because the people are happening in a location and you've got to be there to be able to intervene at that point.

[00:40:24] But you are so right about the fact that this needs not just to be happening at that end point at the local level where there is real, I mean, there's obvious human suffering. But the way you've got to deal with this is to go up the chain and get to the people behind the people behind the people that are the ones that you're seeing in the locality. And, yeah, there's both some really good stuff happening at Avon and Somerset level.

[00:40:53] But there is also a lot of, you know, immense work going on, for example, in the National Crime Agency that looks at this through the serious organized crime lens and is able to do that at that national and international level and working with partners internationally as well. Because we have to do both those things.

[00:41:42] There was only two, there's 237 cases and 2023, 301. So it went up by about 33% in terms of the force being able to identify that. But strangely, last year, it's gone down to 260 again. So it seems to be kind of like a bit of a roller coaster. I don't know if that's something that's come across your desk, but it seems a bit in need of a look, if you see what I mean. Yeah, yeah.

[00:42:37] David, because that's highlighted a change that I wasn't aware of right now. And so I need to take that away and go and look at that. All right. I mean, people who talk about these things, you know, the kind of the community groups and whatever who have been looking into it. And I fully understand. You don't know what you don't know, right? I mean, you know, the police force, unfortunately, your crystal ball is not all powerful.

[00:43:05] But they do talk about that 90% of victims in Avon and Somerset are unknown to the police. It's a figure that's bandied around. And I therefore think, you know, that albeit you do great work, but there's just so much more, isn't there, that's always just there under the surface. Yeah. And there's a couple of things on that. Well, three things, I guess.

[00:43:33] One is that, of course, they're under the surface because it's illegal. And therefore, everything is going to be done to try and hide it. Secondly, if people in the community have suspicions or, you know, aware of anything going on in, you know, that resembles human trafficking, modern slavery,

[00:43:58] then I would so encourage them to report it either directly to the police through 101 or the online reporting services, or they can report anonymously through Crimestoppers. And, you know, that really is an anonymous service, but it really gets the information to the police. Yeah, that's good to know. Let's put that on the front page. Let's make sure we put the contact details for that on the front page of this podcast as well. Oh, definitely. Definitely.

[00:44:28] And the other point is the point you made earlier is working with partners and building that awareness. And again, that's around getting the intelligence. So, as you said, whether it's working with, you know, finance companies, working with, you know, building awareness in the market, banks, you know, whatever.

[00:44:50] That's, you know, that you just build that wider awareness in our society so that they can spot the signs if, you know, they're in. It's got the same pathology in some ways as domestic abuse in terms of, you know, it's a hidden crime that people are sometimes frightened or coerced and not into actually reporting.

[00:45:42] You're reporting. We're talking labor slavery. We're all the different sort of things, as well as kind of the supply chain problems of what we eat and what we wear and who makes them and what kind of conditions they're in and so on. I mean, you know, the police can't solve everything. I know that.

[00:46:00] And I'm just saying maybe it's the pathological kind of thing in terms of actually borrowing from some of these successful initiatives that you've got and actually just superimposing it onto educational initiatives to do with slavery and trafficking. Yeah. The important thing we're at the starting point of the extension of the model into domestic abuse.

[00:46:26] But the important thing about Project Brightlight is that domestic abuse is about 20% of crime. So it's in terms of that, therefore, and extending this kind of perpetrator focused, victim centered, you know, context led approach is that if you're dealing with one in five crimes in that way,

[00:46:54] then you're going to be dealing pretty much with every other crime in that way, because it's not a specialist area of work anymore. It's business as usual, if you like. And that therefore helps with this, that particular style of working spreading into exactly as you say, into this area of work. Okay. We're getting close to the end. So just maybe as a penultimate question.

[00:47:22] I think people obviously are kind of very conscious of the fact that there's been a lot of conversation and a lot of legislation being talked about and a lot of kind of difference in the way that the forces are run. Getting rid of bad eggs, getting rid of police officers that cross lines and whatnot has always been very difficult. And we hear that from chief constables across the country and we hear that from government.

[00:47:50] Are you, what's the word? Are you kind of hopeful that that will become an easier problem to deal with? Yes, I am. I am also pleased to say that despite any challenges and the length of time some of these processes can take.

[00:48:15] The, we already have seen officers dismissed from the force for behaviours that are simply unacceptable. And I would add that what is really important is the foundational principles of policing. And, you know, that, and Sarah Crewe, the chief constable, talks about this a lot as well, is that the police are the community and the community are the police.

[00:48:46] So, sadly, that means the police force reflects problems in the community. But, you know, the, that relationship depends on trust. And therefore it means that the police have got to have, there has got to be real scrutiny to ensure that the police are as good as they can be.

[00:49:07] And that there is not an opportunity to exploit the powers that police have, because they do have powers over the rest of us that no one else does. So, that is why it matters so much that we uphold the standards inside policing. And the standards that so many police officers genuinely deliver on. Okay. Okay. Very final point then. We've got about a minute left, if that's all right.

[00:49:33] But just a message, if you like, from the Police and Crime Commissioner to the people of Avon and Somerset, as to, if you like, your hopes for the future. And maybe even your expectations for the future in terms of improvements that you, well, loads of whom you've talked about already, but just a sort of a parting message, if you would.

[00:49:58] So, my hopes, my, you know, the police and crime plan, which we'll put a link to on the front, on the website, but that points to where my focus is over the coming years.

[00:50:14] But I am hopeful that we are going to get some more, you know, we are going to get more resources and therefore be able to deliver that effective and efficient police force for the people of Avon and Somerset that operates in a fair way and that people can feel and see and relate to Avon and Somerset police into the future.

[00:50:43] Right. Well, Claire Moody, thank you ever so much. I mean, it's been a pleasure talking to you. I really wish you well in terms of your plans and in terms of the aspirations that you put forward. And maybe we could pick this up in a year or so and we'll just maybe do a check and see how it's gone, if that would be all right with you. That would be great, David. And thank you so much for this chance to talk with you. No, you're very welcome. And thank you. Thank you.