Now the election is over we have a new Home Secretary, Teresa May and we await the details of future funding levels which will come from the emergency budget. I hope we can get the Home Secretary up to Greater Manchester soon to show her a little of what we do.

Over the past week I have had the usual range of meetings including a performance meeting with the Police Authority, a promotion parade with officers and visits to various force units. It has been a busy week with a number of serious incidents and crimes now under investigation. I had the BBC with me for a whole day for a programme they are making on a day in the life of a Chief Constable, gave an interview to a Muslim television station and to a number of other journalists on the subject of police overtime. We had a lunch for all the mayors from across Greater Manchester to thank them for the support they had given to the force and a dinner for a group of German officers who have been visiting the force.

One of my visits around the force involved the Tactical Aid Unit - a group of highly trained officers that are a back up to local officers to deal with serious disorder, carry out searches or deal with major events such as the big football matches or protests. Some of the officers were understandably concerned about a recent incident where an officer had been partially blinded by a coin thrown at a football match. This puts pressure on forces to provide more protective equipment for officers and undertake more training.

A further visit was to Longsight Police Station and a meeting of the Independent Advisory Group (IAG) there. We have IAGs set up across the force and they are made up of a cross section of community members who are there not to present the community as such but to challenge the police on the basis of their own experience as to whether we are meeting the needs of local people.

The Longsight IAG is a diverse mix including members of local clergy and people active in the local community from Pakistani, Somali, Polish, Iraqi and other backgrounds. They were asking questions about local operations, raising concerns about incidents which has caused concern among some sections of the community but also praising officers when they felt they had dealt with situations well. They were certainly prepared to be critical when they thought it necessary but overall felt that policing had much improved over recent years. Longsight has a reputation for gang issues but the number one challenge presently is the level of house burglary which hasn't experienced the level of reduction seen in the rest of the force.

On Thursday I spent some time with our surveillance unit which essentially is out there gathering evidence on organised criminals using a variety of methods. Clearly we don't talk openly about what they do but its not like its shown at the cinema and often involves long hours and constant attempts by the criminals to discover and defeat our methods. The nature of the territory is such that our detectives are some of the most expert and experienced in the country and often have to take considerable personal risks. Tackling organised crime involves long term complex operations all unseen by the public. Officers on surveillance duties may not be bobbies on the beat but they are just as important in protecting the public.

On Sunday I took part in the Greater Manchester Run. There were 36,000 runners and it was a great event in the City showing how Manchester does so well at putting on the big occasions. From my point it was very well organised. There is some depressing news about at the moment but also a tendency to say that everything is getting worse and nobody cares. When you see so many people putting themselves out to raise so much money for so many charities you think things can't be that bad. There are so many decent folk out there just trying to do their bit.

Peter Fahy
Chief Constable