Under the Local Government Act 1999 Cumbria Police Authority, like all other public authorities, has to meet the duty known as "Best Value".  This means that we must continually work to improve our performance and demonstrate that the policing services in Cumbria meet the needs and expectations of the communities within the County.

To do this we consult on the overall priorities and direction of the police service to ensure thast our aims are in line with those of the people of Cumbria.

We deliver Best Value by reviewing all police services on a rolling programme, "challenging" how and why we provide them, "comparing" them with services from other providers, "consulting" with service users and considering how "competatively" we deliver the service.  This process is often referred to as the "4Cs" and has to be demonstrated in all Best Value Reviews.  Although the Police Authority is responsible for achieving Best Value in the delivery of police services, in practice the process of securing it is undertaken jointly with Cumbria Constabulary.

When the duty of Best Value was first introduced it required all services to be reviewed in the five year period between April 2000 and March 2005.  This requirement has now been relaxed to enable us to focus our Best Value Reviews on priorities and areas where significant improvements may be achieved over a reasonable period of time.

To make sure our Best Value Reviews are both robust and delivering significant improvements in policing services they are inspected by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC). They visit the Constabulary annually to inpect our Best Val;ue Reviews and the reports of their inspections can be found on their web site at www.homeoffice.gov.uk/hmic/hmic/htm