“My Ministers will push
forward with significant reforms
to the police”
- The Government is determined to restore the public's trust
in policing by driving down waste, cutting bureaucracy and
empowering officers to focus on issues that matter most to
their communities, turning around years of decline in
neighbourhood policing.
- The Bill will deliver the biggest reform to policing in
decades, strengthening local policing, improving standards, and
equipping the police with the technology and skills to keep
pace with criminals and tackle rapidly changing threats.
- It will create a police service that is more rooted in
local communities and focused on their needs, more coherent in
the way it is organised, more consistent in achieving high
standards, and more capable in terms of its workforce,
technology, and use of data.
What does the Bill
do?
-
Ensure responsive and accountable local
policing, by making sure that in every force there
are Local Policing Areas headed by a senior officer and
responsible to the public for delivering the policing their
community needs. The Government will deploy more officers
into local neighbourhoods, tackling everyday crime and
antisocial behaviour impacting local communities. Local
Policing Areas will form the foundation of fewer, larger
police forces, which will have the resilience to manage
complex investigations and deliver specialist services that
protect the public.
-
Create a
new national
police force,
the National
Police Service, that will
deliver a unified response to the most serious crime, set
stronger national standards, and ensure a more consistent
service is received by the public regardless of where they
live. The National Police Service will bring together the
National Crime Agency, Counter Terrorism Policing, regional
organised crime capabilities, the College of Policing and
other
national operational functions and specialist capabilities.
-
Abolish Police
and Crime
Commissioners and put in place successor
arrangements. This will bring better outcomes for the public
and policing, promoting collaboration across services and
driving a whole-system approach to crime prevention.
-
Establish clear national priorities, from a
more active Home Office. Establishing a single set of
‘National Strategic Policing Priorities' will give policing
clarity on core priorities, align policing towards a single
vision, and enable the Government to drive progress in
halving violence against women and girls and knife crime.
-
Set and
enforce standards
for policing to ensure that
all police forces across England and Wales are delivering
high quality and consistent services for their local
communities. The new policing performance system will provide
greater grip and oversight of policing, driving improvements
to ensure the public get the service they deserve.
-
Establish a new legal framework to underpin law
enforcement use of facial
recognition and similar technologies, making
it clear when use of these technologies can be justified,
including creation of a single, expert regulatory body to
provide independent advice and oversight. This will be
world-leading and is essential for boosting public and
policing confidence in the use of these innovative
technologies, which has the potential to transform crime
outcomes while also generating major efficiencies.
Territorial extent and
application
- The majority of measures in the Bill will extend and apply
to England and Wales.
Key facts
-
The Government is already delivering for
communities. Knife crime is down, homicides are at
their lowest levels in almost 50 years, and tens of thousands
of dangerous weapons have been taken off our streets.
-
The Government will deliver 13,000 additional
neighbourhood policing personnel into roles across
England and Wales by the end of this Parliament. By February
2026, more than 3,100 additional police officers and police
community support officers had been delivered into
neighbourhood roles.
Neighbourhood policing has been deprioritised, leaving
communities exposed to crime, disorder and a declining sense of
public safety, with officers too frequently covering
shortfalls elsewhere. The percentage of people reporting that
they never see the police or police community support officers on
foot patrol in their local area has risen from 25 per cent in
2010-11, to 54 per cent in 2023-24.
-
Overall confidence in local police in 2024-25 is 67
per cent, up two percentage points from 65 per cent
in 2023-24 and down 12 percentage points from 79 per cent in
2015-16.
-
Trust in police in 2024-25 is 71 per cent,
up two percentage points from 69 per cent in 2023-24 and down
nine percentage points from 80 per cent in 2015-16.
-
The Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC) model has
not achieved the connection to local communities that was
intended. 41 per cent of the public are not aware
their PCC even exists.
-
Police performance has declined and is inconsistent
across the country. In 2024-25 the proportion of
people who thought their local police force was doing a good
or excellent job ranged from 39 per cent to 62 per cent
across England and Wales.
-
The National
Police Chiefs'
Council said “This is
the most significant change in
policing in the last half a century, to get policing ready to
fight crime and protect the public over the next half a
century. The current policing model was designed
in the 1960s. 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, in a world
where 90 per cent
of crime has a
digital element. We are
grateful to ministers for clearly listening to the views of
policing and putting together a package of ambitious and
far-reaching measures which reflect the voice of our
service.”
