Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall, Tony Hogg, has visited Kingsbridge to explain his role to community leaders.

He met with Kingsbridge Boatwatch, the Kingsbridge and Salcombe Chamber of Commerce and Kingsbridge police sergeant Dave Green, before going on to meet Kingsbridge Town Council.

The commissioner covers Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly and has a background of 34 years in the Navy, seven years in the helicopter industry and five years running a charity for excluded young people.

Talking about the election for the 43 Police and Crime Commissioners across the country in 2012, he said he made 'no excuses for it' and that it was 'chaotic', 'badly advertised' and at the 'wrong time of year'.

He hopes the role will be better understood by the next election in May 2016.

Commissioner Hogg highlighted the threats to the police force in light of government cuts as well as explaining his role in holding the police to account on behalf of the public.

He said it was great to hear that Kingsbridge, as a town, felt well-served by the local police force, with committed police officers, especially Sgt Dave Green.

He said many town councils said they didn't see enough of the police, but here it seems to be working.

The commissioner's role is to look at the efficiency and effectiveness of the policing and the criminal justice system, bringing together the different partnerships – drugs and alcohol teams, safeguarding children teams etc, appointing the Chief Constable, write the plan for policing, holding the budget and holding the police to account on the public's behalf.

The commissioner is the public's representative for the police, while protecting their professional independence and joining up the different groups that act with and inside the police forces in Devon and Cornwall.

The Police and Crime Commissioner role replaced the Police Authority, which had a team of 35, with a team of 25 in Exeter.

Commissioner Hogg said they are doing 'much more' than the Police Authority – but for 'less cost' and 'better value'.

The commissioner is scrutinised by 18 councillors and independents, most recently on the February 6, when they applied for a rise in the precept – the money gained from Council Tax to run the police force. They applied for 1.99 per cent increase, increasing the Council Tax contributions by £3.31 for a D band property, per household, per year.

The application of a 1.99 per cent increase is the highest they can ask for without triggering a referendum at two per cent, which in itself cost £1million.

Commissioner Hogg called it 'a no-brainer' in light of the extra pressures on policing.

In the next four years, the Government wants another £41million cut to the police force budget, and the commissioner said – looking at the budgets – 'we can continue policing at the same level for two years, but years three and four are going to be really difficult' and next year the force will have to look at raising more money from the public.

At the moment, Devon and Cornwall are the second lowest precepting police authority in the South West region. The funding formula for policing, according to the commissioner, is 'long overdue for correcting' as it doesn't take into account the influx of visitors in the summer months or the rural nature of the area.

Commissioner Hogg spoke of the issues in Devon and Cornwall, which are low on police officers in the first place – 'and then the area absorbs the population of the City of London' in the summer months – stretching the force even further.

He said 'relatively speaking Devon and Cornwall is a 'safe place to live and work' in terms of crime statistics and we should be 'proud of the Devon and Cornwall police force', and that the area's geography means that 'boots on the ground' and 'visible policing' matters a great deal.

He said: 'Its not just about finding savings, in terms of meeting the Government's requirements, and contracting, its opposing that contraction and trying to make sure that we have enough police officers to be visible'.

Devon and Cornwall Police are the biggest police force in England and Wales, with a complex mix of urban, coastal and rural areas, dealing with 600 '999' calls and 2,000 '101' calls a day; 25 people go missing every day and they have coped despite losing 1,000 of the 'policing family' through Government cuts since 2010.

Commissioner Hogg said he sees 'committed police officers doing very well given the pressures that they are under' but that that 'doesn't mean my relationship with the police is cosy, its not, it's a proper holding to account, but I have a great deal of respect for what I see'.

He said Devon and Cornwall had a good track record for 'serious, acquisitive crime' –domestic burglary, car crime and robbery, the crimes that cause great distress to the victim and the crimes that people worry the most about, but a 'pretty difficult track record on the lower end of crime – violence without injury, public order offences etc, where we have been seventh highest in 43 police forces'.

There are also difficult areas in the middle such as needing more reporting of sexual offences and hate crime, 'hidden crimes' such as domestic violence. The commissioner said 'we are seeing an increase in the reporting of these crimes, but we need to understand the underlying trend, and we're looking into that closely'.

He called Devon and Cornwall Police as a 'low-cost force' as the public pay a third of the cost of policing, where in other areas it can be 50 per cent.

The commissioner pointed out the changes in crime, including cyber-crime and child sexual exploitation and the risk, in light of the funding cuts, of the police withdrawing into online crime and the gap between the public and the police force widening.

He said the challenges for the future are 'more austerity', effecting not just policing but health and the voluntary sector, meaning its 'not good enough' to expect health and the voluntary sector to 'pick up the tab'. £52million was saved from the budget in the last four years and £41million to save in the next four, and 'its pretty grim'.

He said it seems 'inescapable' that unless something is done 'we're going to lose a lot of people' with the worst-case scenario being that 800 members of the police force will be lost.

He will be trying to avoid that – maybe with a merging of the traditional 'response, crime and neighbourhood' policing, which may make sense to do anyway, and the threat, if we're not careful, that the police migrate to the higher end of threat, risk and harm, and risk that they will withdraw to online.

The threat being that the police recede from public contact and Commissioner Hogg said 'we have to pull them back to the public again'.

He continued: 'It's very possible that in a year's time I will have to come back to the public with a choice: how do you feel about paying 20 per cent extra, about £30 a year extra, per household, which would raise £20million and would buy out the loss of 800 officers.

'We have to make sure we have squeezed everything out in efficiency, but it may be the choice the public have to make.'