PCC will continue funding Lincs Alert
Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner has made the decision to continue funding the Lincs Alert system so it’s members can continue to receive community safety and crime prevention advice through the service.
The system, currently administered by Lincolnshire Police, enabled messages to be sent to residents warning them of crime in their area, information about current scams and crime prevention advice.
Lincolnshire Police recently took the decision to move away from using the Lincs Alert system in favour of social media platforms.
PCC Marc Jones has decided to fund and run the system initially for another year to properly assess its developing functionality and to continue offering a service for the thousands of people already signed up.
The community based Safer Together Team which are part of the Office of Police and Crime Commissioner will take over the running of Lincs Alert and develop its use in their work of community engagement and support.
Users of the service will be required to consent to receiving the newly provided service from the OPCC to comply with privacy legislation. Currently 12,000 of the 21,000 current users of the service have given this permission and will continue to receive localised information designed to inform them and help keep them safe.
“There are residents across the county who rely on Lincs Alert to provide them with useful, timely and relevant information which allows them to keep themselves, their families and their property safe,” said Mr Jones.
“Many people value and trust the information they were receiving and I wanted to properly assess the system and investigate how it could be used as a way of communicating with the public so decided to retain it for initially for a further year while it is properly evaluated.”
“I would urge those who have not signed up to the service before to join and they too can receive this service which is totally free to them and does not involve signing up to social media companies.”
In a recent survey, completed by 3,200 Lincs Alert users, 91% said the messages they received were important and more than 88% said the information was relevant.
Three quarters said they valued Lincs Alert because they didn’t trust other sources of information such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.
Two thirds said the warnings they received about crime in their area had helped them change their behaviour and 80 per cent said the system had made it easier to spot scams.
The Lincs Alert webpage can be accessed by clicking here.