Crime has risen in St Albans, London Colney and Harpenden

Hertfordshire Constabulary’s crime figures show the number of reported crimes has risen in St Albans, London Colney, Harpenden and Wheathampstead.

Police and Crime Commissioner David Lloyd has announced plans to recruit 21 officers in March.

But the Police Federation said the recruitment drive was taking the officer numbers up to what had been budgeted for by the force and not recruiting extra officers.

Neal Alston, chair of Hertfordshire Police Federation, said: “Officers are working absolutely flat out all of the time. What we have asked the force to do is look at where they are deployed.

“We believe there are not enough people dedicated to answering calls from the public.

“About 60 per cent of a police officer’s job is not dealing with crime. The public want more from us than just dealing with crime.

“They want us to look for missing people, deal with low level anti-social behaviour, or road traffic collisions and people with mental health issues.”

The force's latest crime figures show the number of reported crimes has increased while officers time is being spent doing other things.

Between April 2015 and December 2015, 2616 crimes were recorded in St Albans – up from 2305 in the same period in 2014.

In Harpenden, 1141 crimes were reported over the same period in 2015 – compared to 1066 in 2014.

In London Colney, crime rose slightly, from 1,057 reported crimes to 1,076.

Chris White, Liberal Democrat candidate for Hertfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner criticised the incumbent Conservative David Lloyd for proposing to cut the amount of money collected by the police in tax bills.

Hertfordshire Police and Crime Panel approved the tax cut on Thursday.

He said: “Commissioner Lloyd acknowledges that crime is up with a 4.6 per cent increase in anti-social behaviour, a 6.8 per cent increase in burglary, a 21.1per cent increase in motor vehicle crimes, as well as a troubling 40 per cent increase in crimes against the person across the whole county.

“Even if some of this is due to better recording methods, it cannot justify Commissioner Lloyd's pathetic attempt to court electoral favour by cutting council tax by a token 0.55 per cent.

“Elsewhere in the budget, it is clear that Hertfordshire policing is being held together by sticking plaster - with a £4 million raid on reserves and £5 million reductions in front-line and back office policing.”

White added: "Despite all this David Lloyd finds time to congratulate himself on his "prudent" financial plans.

“I doubt whether the many victims of crime in this county will take such a cheery view.”

A spokesman for Hertfordshire Constabulary said: “For a wide variety of reasons, including people being more willing to come forward with reports of historical and domestic abuse, as well as improvements in the accuracy of crime recording, recorded crime levels both within the county and nationally are rising.

“However, when officially compared with our Most Similar Group of eight forces, Hertfordshire’s levels of crime remain the lowest at 52.5 crimes per 1,000 population compared to an average of 58.6.”

Hertfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner David Lloyd said: "I am very disappointed that my Liberal Democrat opponent, has chosen to start his campaign with an unjustified attack on the quality of Hertfordshire Constabulary and the policing it provides. 

"Hertfordshire is one of the safest parts of the UK in which to live and we have one of the highest performing police forces.  That is not just my view - its what Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary says and it’s why we have such high levels of public satisfaction with the police. 

"To say that “Herts policing is being held together by sticking plaster” is not only palpable nonsense but a slur on the integrity of our Chief Constable and his team. 

"I look forward to a vigorous and challenging PCC election campaign but let’s have it on the basis of the facts and not knocking our police force which is the envy of most parts of the country.