Police reform

This is a summary of the main proposals in the government's white paper.

• Introduce a new National Police Service (NPS) to bring together existing national bodies and deliver specialist capabilities to all forces, including police digital, data and technology infrastructure and forensics, at a national level, to help keep pace with changing threats. In time the NPS will include Counter Terrorism Policing and the National Crime Agency.
• An independent review of the number of police forces in England and Wales, influenced by policing, to design a recommended model which is expected to significantly reduce the number of forces.
• Develop a workforce strategy putting the right support and development in place for officers to uphold the expectations of the office of constable as well as creating new entry routes into policing for those with specialist skills.
• Introduce a Licence to Practise for police officers to raise standards and promote professional development.
• Deliver a set of nationally mandated wellbeing standards including enhanced trauma support and occupational health, wider roll out of the national mental health crisis line, expanded psychological risk assessments, the introduction of national standards on support for those facing investigation and exploring new innovative trauma interventions.
• Appoint a new senior police officer to coordinate the national response to major public order incidents.
• Set a single set of national policing priorities and a new police performance system, introducing tools so communities can see how their police service is performing and providing more support for forces failing to meet nationally set standards.
• Develop new policing guarantees that set out the minimum level of service the public can expect to receive from the police, such as around police response times and responding to public enquiries.
• Implement a centre for AI (police.AI) to provide policing with the evidence and resources it needs to deliver AI technology at scale across the service, ensuring it has proven benefits, as well as bringing in a new legal framework for technologies such as live facial recognition.
• Refocus on prevention through better use of multi-agency data at a local and national level, new initiatives such as an integrated crime mapping system and recommendations to reform community safety partnerships.
• Review the police funding formula to reflect new police structures, remove the officer maintenance grant and explore the structure and scope of the police settlement.
• Reform the police vetting and misconduct system to improve public trust and confidence in the service, the public’s experience of policing and the working environment for those working in it.
• Overhaul police governance – with the removal of the PCC model at the end of the current term.

Day-to-day, the police workforce faces a huge variety of complex situations, including deep-rooted and complicated problems. Whether working in public, within family settings or increasingly tackling online harms, they face significant strains, often at great personal cost, operating in a system that doesn’t currently support them to succeed. Our people are only succeeding in spite of the structures in policing, not because of them.

The current policing model was designed in the 1960s and will not serve us well in the decades to come.

The postcode lottery of 43 police forces doing things 43 different ways, alongside a complicated mesh of regional collaborations, national agencies and funding streams, is both inefficient and ineffective. The need for significant police reform has been there for more than a decade and is now urgent.

Crime that crosses borders and operates online has significantly increased, with 90 per cent of crime today having a digital element. Alongside increasing demand, crime is also now more complex, taking longer to investigate and requiring more specialist skills.

A focus solely on police officer numbers has created perverse incentives where officers end up doing roles which could be more efficiently and effectively delivered by specialist police staff. Outsmarting criminals requires a modern crime-fighting workforce in areas like forensics, data analytics and intelligence,
delivering specialist skills, working alongside warranted officers who are focused on their core policing mission.

The way we are currently structured, with 86 separate decision makers, makes it difficult to get things done across policing, including the rollout of the best technology for everyone.

Public confidence in policing has fallen and we must act now to rebuild trust and ensure the future legitimacy of the British police service.

• A National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection (NCVPP).​
• The Neighbourhood Policing Programme, including 13,000 additional neighbourhood policing officers and PCSOs and the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee. ​
• A Police Efficiency and Collaboration Programme demonstrating the value of buying once and buying well at a national level, driving savings that would not have been possible at an individual force level. ​
• A Police Leadership Commission which aims to strengthen police leadership and equip leaders with the skills and capabilities needed to provide a trusted and effective service that is fit for the future. ​
• Plans to overhaul police governance with the removal of the PCC model at the end of the current term. ​
• Re-introduce powers for the Home Secretary to dismiss Chief Constables in light of significant or persistent failings, with legislation to follow. ​
• Scrapping of the officer maintenance grant allowing forces more flexibility over recruitment and less focus purely on police officer numbers. ​