The annual Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner’s conference, took place on 14 March, its Unstoppable Essex spirit embraced The Future of Essex vision and focused on Partnerships in Action, welcoming delegates from the emergency services, Local Authorities and community organisations, all keen to share and find out more about projects tackling crime and community safety in the county.

Delegates learned more about partnership projects turning lives around in the county, and were challenged to think differently about how new partnerships could benefit all.

Four workshops were held; a multi-agency approach to gangs; making volunteering great again; improving community safety through collaboration; and how to work effectively with community organisations. Two of the four workshops included Essex Partners projects; the Essex Faith Network and the Essex Data programme.

Shammi Jalota, Essex County Council Head of Partnerships and Equality, co-hosted the Effective Communities workshop with the Bishop of Colchester. “Participants at the workshop built on what faith organisations are already doing to tackle disadvantages and social isolation, and to increase community capacity by learning from each other and sharing best practice. There are many great examples of community volunteer-led activity throughout Essex, by working together we can focus and align our work to protect our most vulnerable people, and support our communities to flourish.”

More than 70 people from Essex’s public and voluntary sector attended the workshop exploring our multi-agency approach to gangs; introducing delegates to the new Essex Violence and Vulnerability Strategic Framework. The workshop looked at collaboration and information sharing among agencies. 

The Essex Data team shared its data and intelligence work to create a current picture of Gangs, Violence and Vulnerabilities across Essex, which will enable us to work smarter as a partnership to effectively target resources and interventions. Partners at the workshop discussed how this intelligence will inform the wider partnership framework, opportunities to scale up existing work and generate new areas of insight for partners. 

Jo Turton, pictured below, who will take over as Chief Fire Officer / Chief Executive of Essex County Fire and Rescue Service on 1 April, gave her first speech in the county, detailing how partnership working in her role as Chief Executive of Lancashire County Council gave her the skills and experience to take the Fire Service forward.