GWENT Police has been quite rightly praised for turning round its performance over the past year.

Credit where credit is due.

The inspection by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) marks a significant turn around for the Gwent force which last year was identified as one of those needing improvement.

The PEEL (police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy) assessment is an annual check of policing across all forces in England and Wales.

It looks at several areas of the force’s performance.

Gwent received a ‘good’ rating across the board, with HMIC highlighting that inspectors were impressed with the quality of work in making sure that the force has managed to put more police into frontline roles.

This is despite the severe financial pressures facing all forces, something which the HMIC is at pains to point out.

The report makes for very welcome reading and gives Gwent Police a really solid base from which to plan for the future.

These are still uncertain times for police forces and it is highly likely that there will be more spending cuts on the way.

It is good to see that our Gwent force is well placed to deal with those pressures.

Police forces have a tough balancing act in trying to maintain a high police presence at a time when budgets are under so much sustained pressure.

We are lucky in Gwent that our force seems to be managing that pressure so well.