Since retiring from Sussex Police, when speaking or writing, I have been careful not to imagine the force as it was when discussing its current burdens.

Demand is far greater than before and, given the uplift programme to make good the savage cuts only started in late 2019, overall officer numbers and experience are much lower. According to Home Office figures, there are still around 200 fewer full time equivalent police officers in Sussex than in 2010, a marked improvement than the nearly 800 shortfall in 2018. While numbers are improving, it will take years before the service is anything close to being as robust as it was.

That said, I was saddened to learn that burglaries across Sussex had increased by 13 per cent and solved rates were just 5.7 per cent. I share Deputy Chief Constable Dave McLaren’s assessment that this is not good enough.

Many longer serving and retired officers will remember the laser focus on burglary forces used to have. Throughout my latter years, the solved target for dwelling burglaries was 18 per cent and woe betide any commander who failed to meet that in their area. Even so, that was hard to justify when residents and politicians would rightly ask why it was acceptable for 82 per cent of such crimes to go undetected.

Throughout my service, it was unthinkable that police did not attend any dwelling burglary. In most cases, a scenes of crime officer would too. That was a given, to not only identify and capture potential evidence before it disappeared but to send a strong message to victims that we regarded burglary as among our highest priorities, considering the traumatic effect on them of having their home invaded.

This basic service provision had clearly faded away as it was with great gusto that politicians and senior leaders announced in March this year that police would now attend all such burglaries, as if it was some fresh out-of-the-box initiative that had never been tried before.

Warwickshire’s Deputy Chief Constable Alex Franklin-Smith, the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for burglary, described it as a “milestone”. To be heralded in such terms shows how seriously austerity has diminished bread and butter policing functions. In Brighton and Hove in the 1990s we had a dedicated burglary unit headed by a detective inspector and staffed by detective sergeants and constables, augmented by police constables and support staff.

While that became unsustainable as other demand soared, it showed the force’s commitment to tackling burglary.

In its place, mainstream detectives were routinely allocated burglary investigations once response officers had completed the initial enquiries and I or one of my senior colleagues, would oversee crime levels and solved rates daily.

If we were hit with spates of burglaries in neighbourhoods or with similar hallmarks, we would pull together staff and commit other resources to stamping down on it and catching the culprits.

In Brighton and Hove, despite all this, it was infuriating that we rarely managed to maintain a detection rate much higher than 20 per cent for any sustained period. Catching burglars is difficult, especially if they are transient, but at least we had the staff, experience and flexibility to throw at the problem.

I have absolutely no doubt that every officer and member of police staff is totally committed to reducing burglary and catching burglars. It must be an intense frustration for everybody, from the newest recruit to the chief constable, that they can’t do more around this. DCC McLaren’s desire to free up officers from unspecified other demands, together with his assertion that they have “the structures and governance to drive improvements” is heartening. What those plans are remain to be seen but I trust they will have been well thought through. However, if the force had more skilled and experienced officers, freed up to focus on policing rather than other agencies’ overspill, they would have a better chance of implementing those plans, catching burglars and thereby reducing crime.

I just hope that now police numbers are creeping back up, and skills and experience is hopefully strengthening, officers are given the freedom to do what they operationally know works and be supported in saying “no” to anything that detracts them from their core mission – to cut crime, catch criminals and protect the public.

Former Brighton and Hove police chief Graham Bartlett’s Jo Howe crime novels, Bad for Good and Force of Hate are now published in paperback