See the December magazine out at the end of November for more about the policing reform latest from the Government. Meanwhile:
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis has dismissed the Government’s latest police policy package as a revamped propaganda exercise – financed by taxpayers.
He went onto the attack after David Blunkett unveiled a new White Paper on policing, which includes another set of performance targets and plans to provide local people with the mobile telephone number of their local police officer.
The Home Secretary said he wanted to return to the time when the public expected the police "to be part of the community and the community to be part of policing; where people were joined together in partnership making it work".
But Mr Davis declared: "There is nothing new or radical in this paper. It is little more than a taxpayer-funded PR exercise in the run up to a General Election."
He went on: "The fact is that detection rates are down by a fifth since 1997. Only half the cases of violence against the person are detected compared to 80 per cent in 1997. Sexual offences detected have halved since this Government came to power. This is the single most important issue facing the police today, yet this White paper offers nothing to deal with this."
Mr Davis told conservatives.com: "If the Government was serious about dealing with crime it would give the police the time and the ability to deter and detect criminal activity. Only the Conservatives will put 40,000 extra police officers on the streets and free from the burden of bureaucracy to do this."
