Fortnightly update to the Police and Crime Commissioner - 30 January 2026

Dear Police and Crime Commissioner, Philip Wilkinson,

This week, the Home Secretary announced the most far-reaching reforms to policing in decades.

Broadly speaking, the Government has outlined the following intentions:

• Consolidating the current number of police forces in England and Wales – creating fewer, regional police forces overseeing Local Policing Areas. An independent review will be conducted over the coming months and will report back in the summer regarding what this new configuration could be
• Creating a new nationwide police force to tackle the most complex and serious crimes
• The introduction of new ministerial powers to ensure consistency of policing standards
• Significant investment in technology – including the roll out of AI and live facial recognition to all forces.

Our communities can read the full White Paper here.

The reforms are wide ranging and ambitious – aiming to futureproof the policing service in this country to tackle the changing nature of criminality, with a clear focus on local policing delivery.

My commitment to you and our communities is that I will fully engage in all the national planning discussions to ensure that our policing teams are supported throughout any changes, and that our communities continue to receive an improved service.

We are more visible and more engaged with our communities than ever before. I outlined in a previous letter to you that we doubled our mobile police station deployments last year in addition to our neighbourhood teams attending more than 11,600 local meetings and community events in 2025.

This has contributed to significantly improving the levels of trust and confidence our communities have in us. This was evidenced last year when Wiltshire Police was polled as the third most trusted force in England and Wales according to annual figures published by the Office of National Statistics.

We are also seeing improved operational outcomes in Wiltshire, including:

• Our overall victim satisfaction rate was 74.2% in the 12 months to December 2025 (this increases to 81% for victims of hate crime)
• A 76% conviction rate for adult rape and serious sexual offences in 2025
• Attending 100% of residential burglaries in the last five months
• Proactive and appropriate use of Stop and Search increased by 87.4% in 2025 compared to the previous year, with improved recording of all stops
• We have improved the safety of our roads with a 14% rise in arrests for drink and drug driving (454 arrests last year) and a 30% increase in the number of speeding tickets issued (16,362 for the same period)
• We’ve seen a 20% increase in the reporting of rural crimes and, in the last 12 months, our arrest rate for hare coursing and poaching offences has risen by 500%.

I will ensure we continue this improvement journey.

To do this effectively, it is important to acknowledge that the needs of our communities and the nature of crime has significantly changed since the introduction of the current 43 police force model.

More crime is now coordinated by Organised Crime Groups via cross-border activity and is happening increasingly in the virtual, online space.

It is crucial, therefore, that policing continues to adapt and evolve whilst remaining true to our core tenet of public service and keeping communities safe.

I would like to provide some reassurance, however, in terms of Wiltshire Police performance against future expectations. Under the new reforms, response officers will be expected to reach the scene of the most serious incidents within 15 minutes in urban areas and 20 minutes in rural areas, and forces will be expected to answer 999 phone calls within 10 seconds.

In Wiltshire, we are already achieving this. In the 12 months to December 2024, our average immediate response time was 12 mins 49 secs and this fell to 12 mins 22 secs in the 12 months to December 2025.

We also halved the average time it took to answer 999 calls - from 8 seconds in 2024 to 4 seconds last year.

Regarding the significant investment in technology and AI outlined in the paper, Wiltshire Police has already introduced several AI and robotic solutions to advance our service delivery – from automatically sending text messages to people abandoning 101 calls, improving the quality of our data and enabling our frontline colleagues to work more effectively whilst out in our communities.

We are working closely with the national Police Digital Service (PDS) to strengthen and modernise our Digital Data and Technology (DDaT) capability, and this work aligns directly with your Police and Crime Plan and the national reform agenda.

Over the next six months, this partnership will deliver a range of outcomes that will improve the service delivery by Wiltshire Police and align to national policing priorities. 

We already have access to retrospective facial recognition in Wiltshire, with increased usage by my teams. However, we have plans to implement live facial recognition in 2026.

During my tenure at the Metropolitan Police Service, I worked closely with communities to understand their concerns regarding live facial recognition so, acknowledging the real opportunities this technology affords, I will progress this in Wiltshire with full transparency and community consultation. This will include an early ‘proof of concept’ approach to focus on criminality which is of the highest concern to our communities.

I will update you further on this over the coming months.

In summary, I am fully committed to continuing to improve the delivery of our local service, working collaboratively – with both the Government and wider policing network - to benefit our communities and ensuring transparency as we move through the reform process. I will also ensure our communities are updated as much as I can.

To this end, I would encourage our communities to listen to an interview I gave on Tuesday to BBC Radio Wiltshire regarding police reform. My interview can be found here at 01hr 07min into the show and will be available for 26 days from now.

Like you, Commissioner, I will also continue to attend as many local engagements and public meetings as I can to ensure our communities are well informed on our performance and progress. If anyone would like me or one of my colleagues to attend any events, please email my office.

I am so proud to be delivering a better service for our communities and Keeping Wiltshire Safe.

Kindest regards to you,

Catherine Roper

Chief Constable, Wiltshire Police