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The Home Office has published its long-awaited white paper setting out a substantial overhaul of policing in England and Wales that will reduce the number of police forces, centralise functions under a National Police Commissioner, put more money into AI and see police officers compelled to achieve a ‘licence to practise.’
Pledging to “go carefully” with the approach to reorganising police forces, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told MPs that the government will “radically reform” the structure of policing over the course of this Parliament and the next (up to 2034).
The structural change would see local policing – through the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee – focused on local people’s concerns. Other functions would be provided at a regional and national level. This will lead to the creation of local policing areas sitting under local policing commanders. The exact shape and number of forces is unknown, but the Home Secretary is commissioning a review “to examine the optimal configuration of police forces and the best approach to implementation.”
Gavin Stephens, Chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council called it the most significant change in policing in 50 years and that the need for reform was urgent “in a world where 90 per cent of crime has a digital element.” Bemoaning the “postcode lottery of 43 police forces doing things 43 different ways, alongside a complicated mesh of regional collaborations, national agencies and funding streams,” he said he was grateful that the government had listened to the views of policing and put forward “ambitious and far-reaching measures.”
A new National Police Service (NPS) will be established bringing together existing national policing bodies including the NPCC, the College of Policing, the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP). The National Police Air Service and a national forensics function will also come under the NPS. The NPS, will have “a clear mandate and the powers to get things done” and will be led by a new, operationally independent National Police Commissioner.
In a joint statement issued by the NPCC, CTP and the Met Police, they said that they supported the creation of the NPS in the face of complex, digitally enabled dangerous terrorism and hostile state crime that demands “a policing model that is agile, capable and resilient.” They cautioned that it must be delivered with care and that its success depends on “maintaining strong connections with local policing” and communities. The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) called the approach “constitutionally alien,” as it concentrates power in the hands of the Home Secretary and the National Police Commissioner.
Police Superintendents’ Association President Nick Smart said that the PSA had long called for “radical change” and criticised the “outdated structure on which policing is based, but had not been consulted on the announcements. He added: “it is essential our views are taken into account alongside those of chief constables and external advisors.”
The 100 page white paper sets out a raft of proposals, many of which had been heavily trailed in the press in recent weeks, including the abolition of police and crime commissioners and revision of powers for the Home Secretary to sack a chief constable. PCC Emily Spurrell, Chair of the APCC said that the replacement of PCCs with local Police and Crime Boards “risks severely weakening accountability at a time when we need to do more to build public trust and confidence in policing.”
HMICFRS has called for – and will now be given – powers to take action with failing forces. HMI Andy Cooke said that the government had “clearly listened” to the inspectorate where it had highlighted “the need for stronger national decision-making, better collaboration and more consistent standards across forces.” HMICFRS will be given a new power of direction “when police forces do not adequately act upon HMICFRS’ recommendations” and police forces will be compelled to include updates on their work to address recommendations as part of their annual reports.
There is a promise of a new national workforce strategy, which comes after the former Home Secretary David Blunkett was asked to carry out a review of police leadership. In a list of reforms in this area, police officers will be expected to achieve a ‘licence to practice’ reflecting professionalism and skills. Sir Andy Marsh, CEO of the College of Policing welcomed the license to practice “which recognises the excellence officers perform at and reassures the public that they will receive a consistent level of service regardless of where they live.”
The Police Federation said it was “particularly concerned about this concept “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.”
With recent expansion of live facial recognition technology across seven more forces in England, the white paper boosts the national capability with funding for a further 40 vans although doesn’t provide detail on which forces will receive them. This investment is part of a wider push to use artificial intelligence in policing where a new national centre for policing AI – Police.ai – will see £115m spent over three years “to create a platform for identifying, testing and then scaling AI technology, as well as enabling Chief Constables to deploy AI responsibly and in a way which builds and maintains public consent.”
Read in full – From local to national: a new model for policing.
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