Nick Butler’s police column: No surge in crime because of World Cup

However, on this occasion my expectations were so very low that I don’t have cause to grumble.

We do know though that some types of violent crime do increase around the period of the World Cup and because of this we had in place extensive plans to keep people safe.

We visited hot spot locations, pubs and clubs and made sure that all reasonable safety measures were in place.

I am pleased to say that we didn’t have any increase in crime or disorder and in fact crime is currently very low. House burglary is actually down by 34% or 48 less victims of crime compared to the same time last year.

Having said this the number of calls we receive hasn’t reduced and our operations centre handles over 2000 calls per day.

This is because we don’t just investigate crime. One of our most important jobs is to identify vulnerability and people that are in need of support during a time of crisis.

If we identify that somebody is vulnerable we will make contact with them and conduct a risk assessment and then tailor a support plan. We have a Multi-Agency Safe Guarding Hub or MASH for short.

The MASH is the county’s first point of contact for new safeguarding concerns and has significantly improved the sharing of information between agencies, helping to protect the most vulnerable children and adults from harm, neglect and abuse.

The MASH in Nottinghamshire is one of only a handful of MASHs nationally that handles concerns about both children and vulnerable adults, taking a holistic, family approach.

More than 60 staff from the Police, Health, Probation Trust, Schools, Children’s Social Care and Adult Safeguarding are working together in the MASH office.

The MASH receives safeguarding concerns from professionals such as teachers and doctors as well as members of the public and family members.

For those concerns that meet the threshold for Social Care involvement, representatives from the different agencies in the MASH and outside will collate information from their respective sources to build up a holistic picture of the circumstances of the case and the associated risks to the child or adult.

As a result, better decisions will be made about what action to take and support will be targeted on the most urgent cases. Feedback will also be given to professionals reporting concerns.

Better co-ordination between agencies will lead to an improved service for children and families.

This is another area I feel we have made significant improvements over recent months and in many respects we are leading the way with this work.

I wanted to raise this important work as we don’t just bring offenders to justice but spend as much time helping people too.