Essex Police lead seven forces looking to maximise joint working

ACC Julia Wortley (right), of Essex Police, will be undertaking the role of temporary DCC to help Essex, the five other Eastern Region forces – Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk – and Kent maximise joint working.

ACC Wortley will lead work to explore and develop proposals for future collaborative working between the seven forces, helping to drive out inefficiencies at a crucial time for policing.

Essex Chief Constable Stephen Kavanagh says, “The challenges of rising demand and falling budgets are so serious that they cannot be solved by individual forces acting alone. If we do not find ways of making what we do more efficient and effective our prospects are grave.

“Our Essex and Kent Support Services and Serious Crime directorates show what we can do when we do it together. Julia’s advice, commitment and leadership in the ACC role will be hugely missed but her reputation within the region and experience in taking forward complex collaboration projects such as Athena makes her the perfect choice for this hugely important role.

“I would like to thank her on behalf of the force for her remarkable contribution to Essex Police.”

ACC Wortley, who took up her post on 26 October, says, “Working together efficiently across force boundaries saves time and money and ultimately improves local service delivery to the public. As a group of forces, we have much to do to maximise the benefits of collaboration but the incentives to do so compel us to work harder than ever to deliver policing services in a different, more joined-up way.

“I am looking forward to the challenge of building more collaboration projects and want our team of forces to be the UK leader in making collaboration work.”