In 2010 the then chairman of the Police Federation predicted that budget cuts would result in “Christmas for criminals” and that fewer officers on the street would mean the reversal of the great crime decline of the previous 15 years.
In fact, the opposite happened. Over the course of the last parliament the number of police officers fell by almost 12%, while the number of offences recorded by the Crime Survey for England and Wales fell by more than 26%. According to the latest data, crime is at its lowest level since the survey began in 1981, and importantly this downward trend applies across most offence types, from burglary through robbery to violence.
But this does not tell the full story. Data on sexual offences, offences against children and new cybercrimes are not yet captured by the survey. As the College of Policing has highlighted, serious and complex crimes account for an increasing proportion of police time – and coping with it requires a new model of policing.
Critics of the cuts to police budgets talk of the death of neighbourhood policing, of reducing visibility leading to a fall in the public’s confidence in the police. This ignores the fact that confidence in the police has continued to rise at the same time that visibility has fallen. More fundamentally, it ignores the fact that universal neighbourhood policing is not just unaffordable, but ineffective. Even if demand wasn’t shifting, there is little evidence that untargeted neighbourhood policing has any impact on crime. In the context of changing demand it is an inexcusably costly waste of resources.
West Midlands Police chief constable Chris Sims has said that the familiar cry of “protect the frontline” should not be about maintaining numbers of uniformed officers”. Bobbies on the beat are not going to stop rings of cyber criminals or deal with complex, cross-border child sexual exploitation cases. Crime, as many senior officers will point out, is increasingly happening in private spaces.
There is a new frontline and tackling it requires a new approach. Chief constables need to be able to shape their workforce to meet local and national demands. This may mean getting rid of traditional officers and hiring more police staff with specialist skills such as cyber forensic analysts.
But simply changing the workforce is not enough. A reformed operating model is also needed. This means setting out a clear vision for the police service – its purpose and priorities – from which structures can be built. To answer this a much better understanding of demand is needed. HM Inspectorate of Constabulary found that fewer than one in four forces really understand their demand. This is woeful.
Much of the current debate is focused on the number of forces, rather than the best way to meet changing demand. This needs to change. Creating a smaller number of much bigger forces spanning multiple local authorities will make tackling violent crime harder, whereas more devolved powers offer greater potential to redesign police services than arbitrary mergers.
In her first speech of this parliament, home secretary Theresa May stated that “if we want policing in this country to be the best it can be, then we must reform further”. The next five years must be about delivering a smaller, smarter and more flexible workforce, and a service model fit for tackling the more serious and complex crimes that account for an increasing share of police time.
Charlotte Pickles is senior research director at independent thinktank Reform. Read Reform’s report on crime and policing here.
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