Policing faces 'inevitable decline' without major reforms

Sir Mark Rowley said ‘the model is creaking’ with forces trying to do too much reports Kumail Jaffer, Local Democracy Reporter

Police will continue to fall behind criminals without a complete overhaul of the way forces are organised in England and Wales, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner warned last week.

Sir Mark Rowley claimed that the current model – where England and Wales are divided into 43 forces – is no longer able to compete with the complexity and sophistication of modern criminality.

In a landmark speech in Manchester yesterday alongside four other police chiefs, he called for a move to merge organisations to create eight to ten regional police forces, supported by hundreds of local policing commands and a new National Police Service, which will deal with counter-terrorism policing and serious and organised crime.

He said that the existing structure is too fragmented and bureaucratic, potentially leading to duplication. Larger police forces, Rowley argued, will free up thousands of officer hours and resources to invest in frontline duties.

“Policing has tried to keep up, made do as best it can to patch over our broken model,” he will say.

“But the model is creaking. We have 43 overstretched forces trying to do too much, with too little.

“This is a choice between the third greatest revolution in British policing or the inevitable decline and fewer bobbies on the beat.

“The moments that define policing are the moments when it has the courage to change. The real danger is not change. The real danger is standing still.”

England and Wales are currently divided into 43 policing areas, including the Met Police to cover most of London, the City of London Police, 37 other police forces in England and another four in Wales.

This sort of model is designed from a different age, Rowley argued, suggesting that increasing fraud, online child abuse, cyber criminals and hostile state actors present new challenges.

The changes have been suggested by former Met Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe, who was ordered to carry out an official government review. It was finished in September but has not yet been published.

Such reforms are understood to be backed by ministers. In January, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood wrote that the current model, “nearly unchanged in 60 years, is no longer fit for purpose.” She added: “Some forces are too small to handle complex investigations or major incidents.

Rowley’s speech came a day after he and the Mayor of London sparred with members of the London Assembly over City Hall’s record on tackling crime in the capital.

The Met Police Commissioner said that the force have not been given enough resources to deal with extra pressures in London compared to other regions, such as regular major protests and football games.

“We’ve shrunk by 4,000 in our headcount – that is very challenging (especially when) we are facing increasingly complex reports of crime. That is primarily caused by financial pressure, decisions of successive Chancellors over many years have created this pressure.

“One of the biggest challenges in this is the absence of sufficient provision for capital responsibilities – all the extra work the Met does on top of day-to-day policing, such as protests and major events.

“It is several hundred million short (of what we need). We need that money to be able to police London properly..”

Challenged by City Hall Conservatives leader Susan Hall over officer numbers, the mayor blamed the previous Tory government for the Met Police budget shortfall and claimed the new Labour administration had boosted funds significantly.

However, he admitted that it will take time to get back to previous funding levels.

“There’s been difficult choices since 2007 – that’s why the previous mayor had to close down police stations,” the mayor noted.

“In the last three years, we’ve had an extra £373million from central government – a nine-fold increase. Although it’s great, it’s not enough to replenish the loss of the previous 14 years.”

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