From the mouths of babes came a subtle but significant change.

The New Westminster Police Service will officially become the New Westminster Police Department later this month, with the launch of a revamped website.

Chief Const. Dave Jones said the change will bring the police department in line with all other city departments, but the idea for the change actually came from kids.

"At our popular summer soccer camp, the kids would look at their bags and wonder what NWPS stood for," said Jones. "We kept on hearing that New Westminster Police Service didn't resonate with them, so we decided to look at a change."

Jones said that when the department went to "police service" in the 1990s under former police chief Jack Fordham, the change was noticed, but as time has gone by, the name became less of an identifying marker.

In fact, on the shoulder flashing that officers wear, there's no denoting service or department, which made it even easier for the police to make the change.

"We surveyed our membership, and we also looked at what the costs would be to make the change," said Jones. "The membership liked the change, it doesn't cost much, and it just makes sense."

The New Westminster Police Board has approved the change, and the only thing still to be done is to time the name change with the redesign of the police department's website later this month.

"We were already looking at a new website design, so doing these things at the same time makes sense," said Jones.

Police have already been using "police department" in most of their correspondence, and one of the few things left is to use up the last bit of office supplies with the "police service" name on it.

alau@royalcityrecord.com