Northamptonshire Police Chief Constable on the force’s use of Twitter and what the future holds

Following the launch of a new campaign where Northamptonshire Police display and track its priorities in a public-facing way, the Chief Constable has spoken about how social media will play a role and what the future looks like for the force.

On Tuesday (May 18), four priorities - domestic abuse, knife crime, anti-social behaviour and serious organised crime - were announced as Northamptonshire Police’s main focuses for the next 12 months.

Nick Adderley, Chief Constable of the force spoke to this newspaper about what work would be done within each of the priorities, as well about his force’s use of social media and what the future holds.

Following country-wide discussions about police officers using Twitter more and more to share aspects of the job, the boss of the county force stands by the vital important role of social media.

Chief Constable Adderley said: “It is vitally important and it was one of the clear observations when I arrived to use it for connecting with and to be accessible to the community, and as a way to share some of the work we are doing.

“Using lots of outlets is vital as we have to keep the public informed as to what is happening, especially as the fear of crime is often worse than the reality.

“It gives the public an opportunity to see what we are doing and to come back and ask questions about the work that is going on.

“And I’ve lost count of the number of incidents that have come through to us from social media networks.

“We don’t always get it right on social media, on occasions we go too far, but we work to improve.”

To those who might not agree with the force’s stance on using social media, the Chief Constable reminds residents the ‘more traditional’ methods of contacting the police are still in place.

Chief Constable Adderley added: “You don’t have to read them (the social media posts) and the traditional methods of contacting the police are still available to you.

“We have to continue to move with the modern times.”

In terms of what is next for the force, Chief Constable Adderley is keen to keep working towards what he set out to do when he joined nearly three years ago.

He continued: “I set out to listen to the public, represent the public, provide quality of service and believe in ourselves.

“We are the police, what we do is fight crime and protect people. If we don’t, there is nobody else.

“I want to keep on with the persistent messaging and push hard for those objectives.

“We need to be regarded as an ‘outstanding’ police force and one that the people of Northamptonshire can be proud of.

“I want to see this job through and deliver on the promises I made.

“We’re not there yet but I think we will be in 18 months to two years.”