An independent organisation is undertaking a consultation exercise with residents within diverse and harder to reach communities to establish a baseline assessment of trust and confidence in South Yorkshire Police.

The work has been jointly commissioned by the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner and South Yorkshire Police to seek the views of the diverse and varied communities within South Yorkshire. The results will complement the work already undertaken by Your Voice Counts and will be used to drive improvement and measure future progress.

Dr Alan Billings, South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner, said: “Through survey work already undertaken by South Yorkshire Police and the national British Crime Survey for England and Wales, we know that public confidence in South Yorkshire Police is generally quite low. This exercise will help us to better understand the levels of confidence within some of our more diverse communities and identify the key drivers.

“In the last few months the Force has begun to reintroduce neighbourhood policing into communities and I believe that establishing a baseline at this point in time will provide a valuable marker which can be used for improving confidence levels across all of our communities in the coming years.”

Representatives from SMSR Research, under the supervision of team leaders Mark Brady and Grant MacFarlane, will be visiting more than 4,000 households over the next few weeks to ask a number of questions to establish the levels of trust and confidence amongst communities and to gain insight into what effects the levels of confidence communities have in their local police service.

Each survey should take around 10-12 minutes to complete. Individuals conducting the surveys are employed by SMSR Research, working on behalf of the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner and South Yorkshire Police. The surveys are being carried out during November and into early December. They are in line with the Market Research Society’s Code of Conduct and answers will be treated in the strictest confidence. Findings will be reported anonymously and shared with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner and South Yorkshire Police with the aim of providing a baseline for the Force to use to improve public trust and confidence.

If any queries relating to the survey are raised through Neighbourhood Policing Teams, 101 or other contact, please contact the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner Engagement Team on ext 714155.

The survey is now closed.