Last week I signed off the Police and Crime Commissioner accounts for 2017/18 at the Joint Independent Audit Committee.  This was post a review by the Committee and the full external audit from Grant Thornton.  I am pleased to say they were given a completely clean bill of health by the auditors.

The auditors commented that both the PCC's office and the Chief Constable had proper arrangements in place to ensure that we deliver value for money in the use of our resources. This is something I have been passionate about delivering for Wiltshire alongside our key priority of keeping the county a safe place to live and work.

The fact this green light was given by an outside audit company, independently of my office and the Force, provides reassurance to me, at the same time as enabling public confidence, in the way in which we are working.

In the face of decreasing funds from central government, and extra demand on our force's resources, this is no mean feat.

I would particularly like to thank our staff who work so hard to produce these accounts to such a high standard. This year thy have had to produce these accounts much earlier due to changes in legislation and, of course, our staff have been dealing with incidents in Salisbury and Amesbury as well.

It is tribute to them that the accounts have been produced on time, while we are accounting for and recovering the cost of, the two major incidents in Salisbury and Amesbury at the same time.