Expect to see more of the wider police family, according to a Home Office policy paper setting out the future direction of policing.
A drive to increase neighbourhood policing; ensuring the police service has a stronger customer focus; and increased visibility, accessibility and accountability of officers are among proposals published by the Home Secretary, David Blunkett.
The policy paper, ‘Building Communities, Beating Crime’, sets out plans for a new neighbourhood policing fund to support the development of dedicated neighbourhood policing teams across the country. These community-focussed teams of police officers, backed up by police community support officers (PCSOs) and police support staff will use community-based intelligence to tackle local crime, according to the Government. They will be embedded in their local community, tackling the issues of concern to local people and being held to account by those local people, with the community getting new powers to ‘trigger’ action where their police force, local authority or other community safety partners are not delivering.
The paper also stresses the crucial importance to public confidence of the police service getting contact with the public right. It introduces ten key commitments to ensure high standards of customer service, and sets out a number of measures to sharpen the customer focus of the police service – including a new national three-digit non-emergency telephone number to be in place by the end of 2006, national minimum standards for call handling and more information for victims and the wider community.
According to the Home Office, the reform programme will maximise the effectiveness of the country’s record number of police officers – nearly 140,000 – backed up by more than 4,000 PCSOs. Numbers of PCSOs and wardens are set to expand to 25,000 by 2008, with an extra 2,000 PCSOs being recruited this financial year alone.
What they say
Mr Blunkett said: “The Government and the police service have worked hard to ensure that our country is safer and better policed, with the chance of being a victim of crime now at the lowest in 20 years.
“But policing cannot stand still and we need to continue to reform and modernise to respond to the challenges of our rapidly changing society.
“Key to this vision is bringing in dedicated neighbourhood policing teams across the country. They will be supported by continued substantial investment that will maintain record officer numbers and also provide 25,000 community support officers and wardens.
“We will also improve the way the police deal with the public by embedding a genuinely responsive customer service culture and making the police more accessible, visible and accountable. A new improvement agency will ensure that policing is driven by intelligence and good performance information.
“Public satisfaction with the police – which overall is high compared to other public services – will become part of how police performance is measured, and where inaction has led to disillusionment and frustration in the community, local people will be able to trigger action.
“Reform is essential if our police service is to continue to cut crime and protect and empower law-abiding citizens and communities. Our policy paper sets out an ambitious and radical agenda, one that I hope will have the support of both the public and the police, and which can make a real difference to the strength and safety of our communities.”
