Police forces are “up for change” but still carry the “scar tissue” of austerity, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has said in a plea for more cash from the Treasury.
Sir Mark Rowley is one of six senior police officers who, writing in The Times on Wednesday, have publicly called on the Government to provide “serious investment” at this month’s spending review.
The officers, including the chiefs of Merseyside, West Midlands, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire police and the head of the National Police Chiefs Council, argued forces needed more money and more officers to deal with “increasing public demand”.
Speaking to the BBC’s Today programme, Sir Mark said that while the Government’s pledges on law and order were “balanced and sensible”, they were also “very, very ambitious”.
He said: “We’re carrying the scar tissue of years of austerity cuts, and the effects of that. Forces are much smaller when you compare the population they’re policing than they were a decade or 15 years ago.”
However, he insisted that police forces were “not just asking for more money”, but wanted “radical reform” as well.
He said: “We think there should be fewer police organisations across the country that can be more efficient, more capable. We need a proper national police agency that helps co-ordinate things.
“So we’re up for change, we’re up for doing things differently, we’re up for radically reforming. But it also needs more money, because policing is a people game.”
As well as increasing demand and new online threats from organised crime, Sir Mark and the other chiefs said the emergency release of prisoners to alleviate overcrowding and recommendations in the sentencing review would put more pressure on policing.
The policing settlement in Rachel Reeves’ spending review, due on June 11, would directly influence whether forces are able to deliver as many begin to “lose officer numbers and shrink”, they said.
“A lack of investment will bake in the structural inefficiencies for another three years and will lose a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform the service.”
Meanwhile, Sir Mark along with the heads of MI5 and the National Crime Agency are also reported to have written to the Ministry of Justice to warn about the impact of releasing prisoners early.
They argued that, without the “necessary resources” from the spending review, the decision to release more people early could be “of net detriment to public safety”.
During his Today interview, Sir Mark said the policy had been enacted without any assessment of its impact on policing.
He said: “The Government have got a difficult problem to fix.
“For a very long period, sentencing policy and prison building policy aren’t aligned, hence overcrowded, hence they’ve got to fix that, but the solution that they’ve come up with involves many, many more offenders being dealt with in communities rather than being in prison. That’s why they’re spending more money on probation.
“They’ve done no analysis on the impact on policing. No analysis of that whatsoever. So that has been settled without any analysis of the impact on policing, the effect on us.”
The sentencing review released last week recommended measures to tackle prison overcrowding.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has agreed to allow some criminals, including violent and sexual offenders, to be released early for good behaviour.
She also agreed to scrap short sentences of under 12 months and have more criminals serve sentences in the community instead.
The Government has said the changes will ensure prisons do not become overcrowded, blaming the previous administration for failing to build enough prison places.
Conservative shadow minister Helen Whately said Labour “needs to sort this out” and “take responsibility” for ensuring there were enough prison places, adding: “They are the guys who are in government now.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are backing the police to protect our communities and keep our streets safe with up to £17.6 billion this year, an increase of up to £1.2 billion.
“This includes £200 million to kickstart putting 13,000 additional neighbourhood police officers, PCSOs and special constables that the public will see back on their streets and patrolling communities, as part of our Plan for Change.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “This Government inherited prisons in crisis, close to collapse. We will never put the public at risk by running out of prison places again.
“We are building new prisons, on track for 14,000 places by 2031 – the largest expansion since the Victorians.
“Our sentencing reforms will force prisoners to earn their way to release or face longer in jail for bad behaviour, while ensuring the most dangerous offenders can be kept off our streets.
“We will also increase probation funding by up to £700 million by 2028/29 to tag and monitor tens of thousands more offenders in the community.”
