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Terms of reference

THESE TERMS OF REFERENCE DESCRIBE THE PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF THE STRATEGIC REVIEW OF POLICING IN ENGLAND AND WALES

Purpose

  • To consider the challenges to public safety the country will face in the 2020s and beyond.
  • To consider what kind of strategic response is required to meet those challenges.
  • To determine what role the public professional police service should play as part of that strategic
    response.
  • To consider what changes may be required to the police service in order that it can play its part in
    meeting those challenges, with a view to improving the effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy of the police.

    In doing so the Review will:

  • Describe the changing nature of crime and the non-crime threats to public safety.
  • Understand the implications of those changes for how both state and non-state actors should
    respond to better keep people safe.
  • Consider what the mission of the police service should be in the 21st century, with reference to how
    the police mandate has changed over time and to public attitudes and expectations of the police.
  • Describe the main capabilities the police service will require if it is to meet the mission set for it.
  • Consider what the police workforce of the future will look like and what changes will be required
    so that police officers and staff have the skills and knowledge required to deliver the capabilities
    identified.
  • Consider how the police service ought to be organised at the local, regional and national levels,
    balancing the need for the police to meet both local and national priorities.
  • Consider how to ensure the police are best held to account at these different levels.
  • Consider the efficiency of the police service and how it ought to be resourced in order to meet the
    challenges of the 2020s.

    Scope

  • The Review will focus on policing in England and Wales, although it will refer to evidence from
    Scotland and Northern Ireland and indeed to international evidence.
  • The Review will be strategic in that it will think about the long term challenges facing policing and public safety and will aim to set a strategy for policing that is designed to take it into the 2030s.
  • The Review will consider all of the different elements required to keep the public safe and secure, many of which are not within the control of the police service. It will consider the role of non-state actors, as well as other parts of public service, in achieving the outcomes identified. It will focus on the role and capabilities of policing but understands that policing alone cannot achieve the outcomes sought.
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