Constitution

The Charity was created by a Trust Deed dated 25th February 1999
 

Objectives

The main objectives of the Charity are to promote for the public benefit, the prevention of crime and the protection of people and property from criminal acts and the advancement of education for the public benefit in all matters relating to crime prevention, road safety, alcohol, drug, solvent and other substance abuse or any matters affecting crime and safety in the community that improves the quality of life of communities.

These objectives are achieved by operating The Cambridgeshire Bobby Scheme and the Young Peoples Driving Centre.
 

Recruitment and Appointment of Trustees

New Trustees are recruited on the basis that they either, represent the beneficiaries of the work of the Trust; are or have been High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire; or represent the Cambridgeshire Constabulary. The work of the Trust is such that Trustees do not need to receive any specialised awareness training but keep themselves informed by reference to Charity Commission circulars, expert individuals and relevant published reports
 

Operation Review and Future Developments

The Trust continues to operate The Cambridgeshire Bobby Scheme, now in its ninth year, which has helped in excess of 16,000 older people who are either the victims of burglary or who are concerned about home and personal security.

The Scheme operates throughout Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, maintaining a 48 hour response to 71% of eligible burglary victims which has significantly reduced the repeat victimisation rate amongst that age group. The Scheme is a crime reduction programme and its work helps overcome the shock of crime and restore self confidence. This enables many older people to live independently for longer than they otherwise might. The Scheme is able to reduce the rate at which elderly victims of crime believe they are unsafe in their own homes and transfer to institutional care. For these reasons, together with the wider crime reduction benefits, the scheme is widely acknowledged to be an effective and beneficial programme.

This year the Bobby Scheme has protected a record number of homes, 2159 which we were able to achieve following a successful bid to the "Safer Homes Fund", sponsored by the Home Office. This enabled us to protect 554 homes in Peterborough and 563 in Cambridge, two of ninety towns and cities seen by the Home Office as being particularly prone to burglary of the elderly.

In those homes, we did not charge for proactive work - the customary charge being £20 and extended this approach throughout the County. In order to operate that approach, we were supported by a £10,000 award from the Community Cashback Scheme.

In recent years the Trustees have managed to balance demand with available funds by raising or lowering the minimum age for eligibility. We are pleased to report that the current financial position has enabled the scheme to offer assistance to those aged 65 and above and intend to continue to do so.

The Trustees envisage a decline in numbers of homes they are able to protect in the coming year, as the Safer Homes initiative has been discontinued. Careful management of our costs and improved purchasing of locks and other security devices has enabled us to keep our overheads to a low  level, although costs for insurance and our security advisors' vans (in particular fuel) have increased considerably.

As part of the Trust's commitment to improve public safety, we continue to operate a Young Peoples' Driving Centre, the major activity of which is a schools' programme. An average of sixty students are engaged in this programme every week of term. The programme is designed to change these young peoples' attitude to driving behaviour and allow them to develop their driving skills. This should result in them becoming safer drivers, reducing death, injury and misery through inappropriate "road behaviour". The Trust is encouraging more schools to participate in these programmes by subsidising the fee paid by each school.