Staffordshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Ellis says a new custody detention contract will free up police officer time to focus on frontline policing, improve safety in custody areas and offer better value for tax payers’ money than ever before.
Resource Group has been successful in winning the new three-year contract to provide flexible detention services for Staffordshire Police’s three custody sites at Etruria, Burton-upon-Trent and Watling Street in South Staffordshire.
G4S won a contract in 2005 to provide detention services and have done so for the last decade but were unsuccessful in their bid for the new contract. The previous arrangements were agreed between Staffordshire Police, the old Police Authority and the company and provided civilian detention staff to support sergeants in custody services.
Mr Ellis says the new approach builds on and adds to the previous arrangements but focuses on more cost effective flexible services that free up local policing time.
“As well as supporting day to day custody operations similar to those already in place, the new contract will release police officers from more tasks that used to take them away from policing communities for thousands of hours every year.
“Moving offenders to and from prison and collecting people who have been arrested by local police officers at busy times, such as Friday and Saturday evenings, can be done under the new arrangements by detention staff. It means police officers can stay on patrol and in local communities for longer.
“Visible policing, more often in more areas is a priority and the new contract, as well as the wider investment in new mobile technology, will increase front-line policing time by thousands of hours every week across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent. The new contract also means a safer custody environment with greater monitoring of potentially vulnerable prisoners.
“This has been a complex piece of work and I want to pay tribute to the senior officers who have worked so closely with officials from my office to deliver an agreement that fits better than ever the needs of Staffordshire Police while offering improved value for money for local tax payers.”
Superintendent Simon Tweats, from Staffordshire Police, said: “The new contract will provide extra support for officers, enabling them to focus even harder on investigating crime and spending more time reassuring victims.
“It will mean a much stronger emphasis on swiftly bringing offenders to justice, reducing the amount of time suspects spend on bail. It will also build on and strengthen the safe detention of suspects, taking every opportunity to make necessary checks on their welfare and to work even harder with partner agencies in addressing any unmet health needs.”
Resource Group is the Police & Justice division of the NOONAN Group. The group has been established for 37 years, employs 14,500 staff and is the leading provider of Strategic Outsourced Services, operating throughout Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the Isle of Man. Resource was recently been successful in winning the contracts for Custody Detention Services with Thames Valley Police and Gloucestershire Constabulary.
Resource Group Director of Police and Justice Russ Smith said: “Resource Group are delighted to have been chosen to provide detention officer services for Staffordshire Police. The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner and the Police have been forward thinking and innovative in the way they want this important service delivered and Resource Group are proud to be the chosen organisation to provide this.”
Resource Group were one of three companies, including current provider G4S, to provide high-quality bids for the new contract which starts on 2 June.
It is anticipated that most of current custody detention officers will transfer their employment to the new provider.
