The Home Office has published a White Paper, From local to national: a new model for policing, that sets out a new model for policing in the UK, says the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood. She described the proposed reforms as wide-ranging to a system of policing that ‘has remained largely unchanged since the 1960s’, she said. “It is no longer designed to meet the scale, pace, and complexity of today’s challenges.”
She said that the ‘reformed system will be more effectively geared to deliver better policing services for local people and better support to those officers and staff closest to communities’. In a foreword to the White Paper, she described the reforms as overdue and ‘the most significant modernisation in nearly 200 years’, that is, since the founding of the Metropolitan Police by Sir Robert Peel in 1829 and the first county-based police forces.
While she in a statement to the House of Commons denied that policing is ‘broken’, she wrote in the foreword: “We face an epidemic of everyday crime. The crimes that tear at the fabric of our communities – like shoplifting, theft and anti-social behaviour – often go without consequence.” She quoted rises in phone theft and theft from shops since 2010 – that is, when the previous Labour government was voted out for a Coalition and then Conservative governments until 2024.
While the document stresses neighbourhood policing – promised are ‘more officers on the beat’ – it also proposes a National Police Service that ‘will handle all national policing responsibilities, creating a world-class force focused on counter-terror, serious and organised crime and fraud’. In other words, that national service will pull in the current National Crime Agency (NCA). As for the UK’s 43 police forces, that the previous Labour government in the mid-2000s made moves to reduce, the document says that the ‘precise number and nature of each force will be subject to a review’, due to report in the summer. As for performance, the Home Office will set national targets for forces, and minimum standards. In reply to the reply, Shabana Mahmood said she would ‘take no lectures on policing from the Conservatives’.
Tech
Also proposed is more use of technology, such as Live Facial Recognition, because it’s argued that ‘policing has fallen behind the criminals’ due to ‘radically changing threats’.
Police Federation
For the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW), the rank and file police body, National Chair Tiff Lynch said: “Policing is broken and is breaking the officers who give everything to keep their communities safe: our members have copped enough. The case is clear for ending the postcode lottery of funding, policy and support for officers but fewer forces alone will not guarantee better policing. Skills, capabilities and equipment all need big investment.
“How this change is achieved will be crucial and the experience of police officers working at the sharp end must be heard and listened to. We are particularly concerned about the concept of a ‘licence to practise’. Everyone wants professional policing delivering more for communities, but that means investment in training, time and support. As things stand, training is routinely cancelled to plug gaps elsewhere in policing. These issues need to be fixed.” More on the PFEW website.
In Parliament
In the House of Commons, the Home Secretary described policing as ‘the last great unreformed public service’. In time, she told MPs, a new national police service, besides setting standards and lifting administrative tasks off local forces, ‘will draw in all national crime-fighting responsibilities, including counter-terrorism policing, serious organised crime, and fraud’. Replying for the Conservatives, the Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp, a former Home Office minister, complained that ‘we have a crime crisis today. Shoplifting and phone theft are surging under this Government, with shoplifting now at its highest level ever.’ He said that if the 43 forces were reduced to ten or 12, ‘such huge forces will be remote from the communities they serve, and resources showing location owill be drawn away from villages and towns towards large cities’. He noted that what’s proposed will not come in fully until 2034, ‘but action is needed today’. For the Liberal Democrats, Max Wilkinson asked whether the new national force ‘will be properly resourced and integrated with local forces, so that counter-terrorism and intelligence work are not undermined’.
Photo by Mark Rowe: street art, Fish Island, east London.
