Chief Constable of Suffolk, Stephen Jupp, looks ahead to how the county will use the extra officer allocation.

Earlier this month we received our notification from the Home Office regarding the increase in police numbers coming to the constabulary. You may have seen that we will be getting an additional 54 officers by the end of March 2021.

This will be followed over the next two years by two further increases. I can speculate that this hopefully will mean a further 150 officers joining us by March 2023.

Previously in this column I have spoken about the importance of a constabulary's ability to fight crime through good intelligence-led proactive policing.

In the past couple of weeks I have been in Bury and Lowestoft hosting a public meeting with the Police & Crime Commissioner. This week we will be out in Ipswich.These meetings provide me with an opportunity to listen to what is important to the public of Suffolk and what you want from your constabulary.

Whilst I recognise that visibility is important, I believe the main priority for us is to keep you safe. We will be taking time to ensure that this uplift in officer numbers is used to support that priority.

We are actively recruiting new officers and have a number of student intakes planned for the next 18 months.

Last week I met our latest intake - it was wonderful to see all 14 new recruits (all Suffolk people) describing to me why they wanted to join the police service to make a difference and to keep you safe.

Policing is a wonderful career, something on a daily basis that brings such a breadth of challenge and variety of work, like I believe no other public service does. Suffolk Constabulary is a great place to work.

It is in all of our interests for the constabulary to remain one of the best forces in the country. If you want a rewarding career while serving your community then find out more about joining us by going to our website www.suffolk.police.uk

Inspection report

The hard efforts of your officers and staff have just been highlighted in our annual HMICRFS (Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services) inspection report, and again we were rated as "good" across the three key areas in the national inspection programme. This is a real achievement for one of the smallest constabularies in the country that has been on three years continual cut backs. It emboldens us as an organisation and gives us confidence to continue in our mission to keep you safe.

Tackling serious and organised criminals

Our ability to police proactively by disrupting serious and organised criminals using Suffolk's road network has just been enhanced as we have launched the two further Sentinel teams.

All three areas in Suffolk now have a dedicated, highly-trained and equipped team to focus on the criminality that affects us all.

Being agile and dynamic with our resources means now we can target criminals at the earliest opportunity and we have just conducted a very successful week in and around the Bury St Edmunds area with over 18 arrests. This was a week of action to target those suspected of involvement in the supply of class A drugs in the west of the county.

Ipswich murder conviction

As your Chief Constable it fills me with pride when our staff are recognised for their hard work and dedication. Much hard work recently led to the conviction and sentencing of those responsible for the tragic murder of Daniel Saunders in Ipswich in December 2018. The skills of all officers and staff flow through the organisation and this case is but one example.

Honouring officers and staff

Finally, we held our Long Service and Commendation Awards evening recently which was supported by the Vice Lord Lieutenant Robert Rous and the High Sheriff Roz Eminson.

It was great to honour hard working police officers and staff in front of their families, and also members of the public for some fantastic acts of bravery.

Without the support of families and loved ones we, as a policing family, would not be as effective as we are, and seeing the smiles of pride on family members again emboldens us to do the job that we love to do.