Senior Cambridgeshire police officers return to front line

The scheme gives officers and staff the chance to showcase their work as well as raise any challenges or concerns.

Chief Constable Nick Dean said: “As a chief officer team, we need to make sure the decisions we make are in line with the concerns and pressures of all the workforce. The Front Line Time initiative gives us a great opportunity to get out there and gain a proper understanding of the day-to-day work and issues right across the force.

“The scheme began last year and we’ve already been able to properly catch up with so many of our fantastic teams.

“During the last six-months particularly, I have been exceptionally proud to watch my officers and staff deal with an unprecedented global pandemic with such professionalism.

“At a time when most people were staying inside and the anxieties of most of us were heightened, officers and staff from right across the Constabulary, alongside other key workers, continued to show up and leave loved ones to go out and serve our communities.

“Like the rest of the country, other members of staff adapted to life working from home without the usual social opportunities and many adjusted to additional pressures of juggling work and childcare.

“That’s why it’s been vital that now, more than ever, our chief officer team has been visible and there to support our workforce during what has been, and still very much is, a hugely challenging time. And indeed continuing to understand their pressures and make improvements to ultimately provide a better service to our communities which is, of course, one of our overarching aims.”

In the last couple of weeks alone, Mr Dean has met trainee officers and observed as they learned vital skills to become fully fledged officers. He got stuck right in by taking part in a role play, acting as a drink driver, to test the trainees on when to make an arrest.

Deputy Chief Constable Jane Gyford has joined the Road Policing Team and spent a late shift with the Intelligence and Specialist Crime Department, putting her detective skills to use and learning all about how the team manage live manhunts for wanted individuals and high risk missing people.

Assistant Chief Constable Vicki Evans also returned to the beat for patrols in Cambridge City Centre and engaged with the university and local businesses ahead of the recent Extinction Rebellion protests.