Federation welcomes new PCC

10 May 2021

Humberside Police Federation has congratulated Jonathan Evison who has been elected as the new Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC).

Mr Evison, a former steel worker, defeated Keith Hunter, who had been PCC since 2016, after a second round of votes was counted following Thursdays elections and has pledged to put more emphasis on tackling rural crime and anti-social behaviour.

“We would like to congratulate Mr Evison on his new role,” says Humberside Police Federation chair Lee Sims, “We look forward to meeting him soon and hope that together we can build an effective working relationship.

“He takes over at a pivotal time for the police service. Officers have been on the frontline of the pandemic for more than a year now and this has had an impact on their wellbeing. We believe the health and wellbeing of police officers and staff should be a key priority for the Force and we hope the PCC will be behind us on this.

“We are also in the midst of a major recruitment campaign which will see officer numbers increased but we need to see more done to retain existing officers so that we don’t lose their experience.”

Branch secretary Rob Grunner added: “From a national perspective, we have the threat of a return to the target-led ‘tick box’ culture, something that we as a Federation completely oppose since many of us remember how this panned out last time it was imposed on us, with figures being fudged to make some forces look better. This will be just one of the issues we would like to speak to the new PCC about.”