‘Best money ever spent’: Police chief defends £20k on ‘Matrix’ rebrand amid ‘phenomenal’ impact

The £20,000 cost to rebrand Cleveland Police teams using the name ‘Matrix’ has been described as some of the best money ever spent by Chief Constable Mark Webster.

Mr Webster commented on the changes at a meeting in which Police and Crime Commissioner Steve Turner was quizzed by Middlesbrough councillor Janet Thompson about the bill which resulted for the force. Mr Turner said the rebrand, which cost £20,020 in total, came from within an existing budget and was not extra spending.

Last month the force announced several of its operational teams would come under the Matrix name as “one team” and employ new ways of working to reduce and eradicate emerging threats of serious and organised crime, as well as protecting communities, while attempting to support force priorities. This includes the tactical disruption team and the likes of firearms, the dog unit, roads policing, road safety and casualty reduction, search, football and public order teams.

Mr Webster said the Matrix concept, which originated with Merseyside Police, was “really good”. He said: “It has got brand recognition and actually it has really impacted with the public and people are really noticing it. Twenty thousand pounds is 0.01% of the force’s budget and it has been probably twenty thousand pounds among the best we have ever spent.”

Vehicles carrying the Matrix logo, which includes a large ‘X’, have adopted a bright yellow colour in order to provide what the force says is a highly visible deterrent to criminals and a reassuring presence for the public. The chief constable said the increase in visibility of the vehicles was “phenomenal” and “you can’t miss it”, and the Matrix team was “incredibly active and motivated”.

Mr Turner, whose job it is to map out a strategic direction for the force, said: “I am not going to hide away from the fact that we spent £20,000 on the overall branding, which included the signage of the building where the base is and the vehicles that were wrapped.

“We would wrap every new vehicle that we have got and we have got quite an ambitious capital programme around fleet so whenever we bring in a new vehicle it does not cost us anymore to brand it as Matrix as it does a Cleveland Police vehicle.”

The PCC, speaking at a meeting of the Cleveland Police and Crime Panel, which scrutinises his work, added: “We didn’t actually spend anything outside of our existing fleet budget.

“The Matrix rebranding all come from within that. We didn’t go and splash a load of money to try and rebrand something, it was all factored in and the entire cost of the Matrix rebrand came from this year’s existing budget.”

In a separate update the force said “significantly positive results” had been seen since the Matrix launch on January 22. This included

• More than a hundred arrests made for offences including suspected drugs offences, sexual offences, burglary, robbery and serious violence
• More than £100,000 cash seized after warrants were executed and vehicles stopped
• Class A and B drugs, including amphetamine, crack cocaine, heroin and cannabis worth a combined total of around £36,000 seized
• 13 stolen vehicles recovered.

The Matrix team had also assisted with a number of critical investigations, missing people enquiries, fatal and serious road traffic collisions, and delivered casualty reduction inputs to local schools and colleges to raise awareness of road safety to help prevent incidents.

Superintendent Rachel Stockdale said: “Within less than a month of the launch of the Matrix team, we are already seeing great results and sending a message to criminals that we won’t tolerate their activity.”

Following the launch last month Assistant Chief Constable David Felton said: “We hope the stand-out Matrix branding will provide reassurance to communities across Teesside that Cleveland Police is continuing to reduce and eradicate emerging threats of serious and organised crime.

“It should also send a message to criminals that there is no hiding from us and we hope this will deter them from committing offences.

“The streamlined approach of the Matrix team will allow us to be more agile so we can provide our specialist capabilities to both spontaneous and planned events as effectively as possible, to tackle criminals and make the communities and roads of Cleveland as safe as possible.”

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