New Staffordshire Police website to cost £194k
Staffordshire Police will spend £194,000 on a new force website - with the force defending the investment on the need to improve communications.
The first phase of the new web page will be launched in January and more features will be added in the coming months.
It will enable people may be able to pay fines online, report and track crimes and find out about incidents in there area.
The investment comes despite the force likely having to save £38million by 2020.
A force spokesman added: "We appreciate that this seems a lot of money to spend but in order for us to offer the services our communities need online and really interact with us then these improvements need to be made so that the technology supporting the website can handle such features.
"We want people to be able to interact with us, report a crime online, talk to us in the way they do already on our social media pages and improve the service we provide."
He added: "We haven't invested in our website in a number of years and we recognise that it is static and does not allow our communities much opportunity for interaction with the police.
"We have asked for feedback from the public and found out what people expect to see on our website and we hope to deliver those features.
"The plan is to provide access to more of our services online to help advise people. And this will also help direct people to other organisations who can help if their query is not a police matter."
