Desk job Bobbies heading back out on the beat
Home Secretary pledges faster police response and less red tape in major reforms
Shabana Mahmood has vowed to get more police officers out of back offices and on to the streets as part of her radical overhaul of policing in England and Wales.
In reforms set to be announced on Monday, the Home Secretary will pledge to cut “red tape” and “unnecessary admin” that prevents officers from spending more time on the beat.
As well as cutting red tape, Ms Mahmood will change how staffing levels are funded amid concern the current “officer maintenance grant” encourages some forces to employ uniformed officers in administrative roles such as IT or human resources.
She will also promise faster response times for emergencies by setting a national standard for responding to 999 calls.
Ms Mahmood said: “People are reporting crimes and then waiting hours or even days for a response.
“By the time the police arrive, the perpetrators and witnesses are long gone.
“I will restore neighbourhood policing and scale up patrols in communities to catch criminals and cut crime.”
Police forces will be required to respond to emergencies in urban areas within 15 minutes, and within 20 minutes in rural areas.
Most forces already have targets to respond to incidents within those times, but the Home Office said there was currently no way of holding them accountable if they failed to meet that standard.
John Hayward-Cripps, chief executive of Neighbourhood Watch, welcomed the new national standards as a way to deal with “real variation in how well different forces respond to incidents”.
He said: “It’s a very basic expectation that police will respond when you report a crime, and quickly when it is serious.
“When that doesn’t happen, it’s not just frustrating, it is very stressful and it damages trust.”
The changes are part of a radical shake-up of policing in England and Wales set to be announced on Monday and billed as the biggest reform to the police in two centuries.
Many of the reforms have already been announced, and include slashing the number of police forces across the country, creating a new national service to tackle cross-regional crime and terrorism, and changing how officers are recruited and managed.
Police and crime commissioners will also be scrapped, while the Home Secretary will retake the power to sack underperforming chief constables in a bid to increase accountability in the police.
Ministers hope the reforms, to be set out in a White Paper, will both save money and improve performance, with Ms Mahmood warning that “everyday crimes are on the rise”.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “People all across the country want to see stronger neighbourhood policing and more bobbies on the beat preventing and responding to crime.
“But it’s hard to take Labour’s promises seriously when they have stripped more than 1,300 officers from the front line in our communities, and shoplifting has risen to record levels on their watch.”
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson Max Wilkinson said: “These targets risk being a hollow promise without fixing the shortage of police officers on our streets.
“We need a return to proper community policing, which is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for a police counter in every community and a dedicated rural crime team in every force.
“People want to see the reassuring sight of more police on their streets now, rather than more press releases.”
Published: by Radio NewsHub