DEVON and Cornwall's Police and Crime Commissioner has reinforced his promise to make a real difference in his pioneering role.

In an interview to mark his first six months in office, Tony Hogg is pledging to spend the summer tackling priorities set out in his Police and Crime plan.

With the correct internal structure in place, he wants things to move quickly.

Mr Hogg said: "I am engaging with Health and Wellbeing Boards, local criminal Justice Boards and the Community safety Partnerships.

"I am putting forward an alcohol seminar this summer because I want to get on top of people's thinking around alcohol and the night time economy."

The Commissioner has spent considerable time with police officers and staff since being elected in November, including a full night shift on patrol in Plymouth City centre. This highlighted the huge demand on policing resources.

Funding and partnerships

"I want to do an awful lot on demand reduction on our police," he explained. "We have less police. We are going to have another funding round coming up in a couple of years' time and we need to be ready for that.

"We need to look at partnership working, we need to look at the public playing their part, we need to look at collaboration, we need to look at new ways of safeguarding and we need to look at the policing model and commissioning.

"In all of that, together with specific things like alcohol and its misuse, we need to try to reduce the demand on policing because we have to face the future in a sustainable way."

Mr Hogg has also confirmed that a comprehensive review of the OPCC's internal structure is complete.

"I am perfectly happy to tough out the need to resource the team properly because we are taking on more and more than the Police Authority.

"We are going to do commissioning, which the Police Authority didn't do. We are looking after victim services, which the Police Authority didn't do.

"We are going to measure performance better. We are going to engage with the public better.

"I inherited a team of around 15 and we are engaging another six more people. That is a relatively small group in comparison to the police."

'We want to do a better job'

"We want to do the job better and I have to persuade my police and crime panel and the public why we need these numbers and why it is important.

"All of the issues should be supported by business cases and good argument.

"I can see very clearly that there are a number of areas where we are going to make a significant difference and we are going to do things better than the old Police Authority.

"I think, primarily we are engaging with the public in a new way. We are going to give people a better say in their policing priorities.

"We are going to make it possible for them to have a better feel about policing. Now, some may want to engage with that, some may not, but at least I will be providing the avenue for engagement so that the public can comment on the priorities in policing."

To help do that, Tony Hogg marked his first six months in office by taking part in a live interactive web chat on his PCC website on Wednesday.