HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMIC) published its State of Policing 2022 report in June 2023. The Home Secretary responded (‘by email only’) in January, and that reply has just been made public.
For two documents that should be similar, one replying to the other, they have little in common. The HMIC one is substantial enough; the core of it about 15,000 words; it speaks of ‘widespread systemic failings’ in the criminal justice system (CJS), besides the police. The Home Secretary’s reply is about 1300. It’s a masterpiece of sounding supportive (‘I agree that there are areas where we can better drive improvements in policing performance, address trust and confidence issues, and ensure that policing is getting the basics right’) without actually offering anything of substance (‘legislative change in this Parliament is not a possibility’).
Even the Home Secretary’s offer of nothing new is impeccably well dressed (‘many of the issues you have raised could be addressed through collaborative sector working and I am pleased to hear that there is emerging consensus’). On the need for more or new governance around police and crime commissioners, the Home Secretary is unbending. He acknowledges that arrangements for PCCs responding to HMIC recommendations (in other words, inspectors pointing out things that need improving), are ‘sub-optimal, and that PCC responses to recommendations can be inconsistent. However, irrespective of this I still fully expect PCCs to fulfil their statutory duties’. In other words, the PCCs as set up a dozen years ago by the Conservative-led Coalition stay as they are. Anything that would call for ‘legislative change’ is out of mind.
The State of Policing report doesn’t ask for as much change as it might. Who would divide England and Wales into 43 police forces, starting with the proverbial blank piece of paper? But you’ve got to draw lines somewhere. The report does asks for some formal way for HMIC to make what it says to forces, stick (‘On too many occasions, forces have either failed to act or not acted quickly enough to address our recommendations …. there are only so many times we can say the same thing in different words’).
For all his words of ‘welcome’ this and ‘agree’ that and ‘I would like to thank you’, the Home Secretary offers nothing more specific than an invite to HMIC Andy Cooke, ‘to work with my officials to set up a working group’. Mr Cooke (in his first report as HMIC) in June wrote of public trust and confidence as ‘unacceptably low’, ‘some obvious and truly atrocious reasons’ for that decline in public trust, such as the murder of Sarah Everard; failings that need acting upon, that ‘won’t be fixed solely by issuing glossy strategies,
mission statements, visions, concordats or the like’. Or, presumably, by more talk in a working group.
Beyond anything said or not said, part of the problem is the length of time, five months, between the report and the Home Secretary’s reply, although the Home Secretary in June was different (Suella Braverman) to the one now (James Cleverly), then the two months before it’s made public. Ahead of the May 2 elections for PCCs, and a likely general election later this year, the looming question is beyond how and why to act on what the HMIC raised last year; it’s whether Labour would be any better placed to act on the national malaise and malfunctioning institutions than the Conservatives, or whether there lies precisely the decline; that it’s gone beyond political answers.
