Police praised in new report (From Warrington Guardian)

Police praised in new report

CHESHIRE police force has been praised as generally 'good' by the police inspectorate.

Out of 16 categories it was rated as 'good' in 11 and 'fair' - meaning improvement is needed - in the other five.

Chief Constable Peter Fahy was praised for his strong leadership.

He said: "The report, while positive in many areas, does not tell us anything that we did not already know.

"We have achieved real improvements in performance over the past year, but we need to do still more to increase the confidence of local people."

The force, which covers almost one million people, was thought to be doing particularly well in solving robberies and burglaries.

Police authority chairman Peter Nurse said: "This report confirms what the authority members already thought - Cheshire has a good performing police force that consistently achieves its targets."

There was good news on the recruiting of female and minority recruitment, especially after the forces involvement in the racism scandal following the BBC documentary The Secret Policeman.

But the force was described as 'generally weak' in its service to witnesses and victims of crime and it was worse than most similar forces for answering 999 calls.

The number of people actually satisfied with the police response to burglaries, violent crimes and traffic accidents has also fallen between 2000/01 and 2002/03.