The Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales, chaired by Sir Michael Barber and carried out by the Police Foundation, contains 56 recommendations urging radical reform to police culture, skills and training and organisational structure.

These include:

• Creation of a new Crime Prevention Agency.
• Expansion of the role of the National Crime Agency so it in effect becomes a new FBI for the UK.
• Introduction of a new licence to practice for all police officers that is renewed every five years and subject to strict conditions.
• Merger of back office functions across the 43 forces that would save hundreds of millions of pounds.
• Investment in front line policing, training and technology to modernise the service from top to bottom.

Launching the Review’s final report at an event in London, Sir Michael Barber will say: “There is a crisis of confidence in policing in this country which is corroding public trust. The reasons are deep rooted and complex – some cultural and others systemic. However taken together, unless there is urgent change, they will end up destroying the principle of policing by consent that has been at the heart of British policing for decades.

“Policing in this country is at a crossroads and it cannot stand still whilst the world changes so quickly around it. Now is the moment to move forward quickly on the path of reform. The warning signs if we do nothing are flashing red and we ignore them at our peril. 

“This report represents the most comprehensive review of policing for a generation and sets out an agenda for fundamental change. It is the product of over two years of work and engagement with the police and a range of different stakeholders. Everyone recognises the need to shift the odds, which too often are stacked in favour of the criminal. We need a modern police service fit for the future which is at the cutting edge of technology and training. And we need it urgently. I believe the will is there and that the talented police officers who work tirelessly for the public would be the strongest champions of change.”

The Review found that the police service has not kept pace with the changing patterns of crime while also having to deal with a huge rises in non-crime related demand:  

• In 2021, 53% of all crime affecting people in England and Wales was fraud and cybercrime. Despite this, just 0.1% result in a charge or summons. 

• There has been a 240% increase in the numbers of rapes reported to the police and yet the percentage of rape cases resulting in a charge fell from 8.5% in 2015 to just 1.5% in 2021.  

• Detection rates generally have almost halved in the last seven years, falling from 17% all reported crimes resulting in a charge or summons in 2014 to just 9% today.  

• There was a 28% increase in mental health related incidents between 2014 and 2018 across 26 forces.  

• Around three million ‘investigation hours’ are dedicated to missing persons reports very year, the equivalent of 1,562 full time police officers per year or the number of police officers needed for North Yorkshire.

As a result, the report argues that the public is losing confidence:

• The proportion of crime victims who were ‘very satisfied’ with the police response declined from 42% in 2014 to 32% in 2020, while the proportion ‘not satisfied’ rose from 26% to 34%.

• Between 2016 and 2020 the proportion of people saying they thought the police did a good or excellent job fell from 63% to 55%. 

To tackle this crisis of confidence and ensure the police service can meet the challenges of the future, the report calls for radical reform to three broad areas of police-public relations, skills and training, and organisation.

Police-public relations

There needs to be an improvement in the relationship between the police and the public.  The report includes a series of recommendations including:

• An increase in visible neighbourhood policing in every police force.

• Improved training and support for sergeants and inspectors so they are equipped to provide stronger supervision, tackle poor conduct and call out bad behaviour.

• National targets to improve the diversity of the police workforce.  At the current pace of change it will take another 58 years (until 2079) for the police service to achieve a workforce that is representative of England and Wales in terms of ethnicity. 

Skills and Training

Police training needs a complete overhaul so that the police are equipped to take on new forms of crime.  40% of police officers say they had not received necessary training to do their job well. The report includes a series of recommendations to improve this including:

• Action to tackle a shortage of 6,851 detectives across the country, including expanded direct entry schemes to attract mid-career applicants from other sectors and a new pay supplement to attract more officers into investigatory roles.

• Every officer should be entitled to a minimum set of hours per year reserved for learning and development.

• The Home Office should introduce a Licence to Practice for police officers, administered by the College of Policing. This should be renewed every five years, subject to an officer demonstrating professional development through achieving relevant qualifications, passing an interview or presenting a portfolio of activities and achievements. Any police officer who fails this assessment could receive further support including mentoring. After successive failures they would have their licence removed and would no longer be able to practice as a police officer.

Organisation

The way the police service is organised has not changed significantly since the 1960s.  Local police forces should focus on local crime, emergency incidents and visible community policing. They are however poorly equipped to tackle surging levels of fraud and cyber crime.  It is neither effective nor efficient for every police force to run its own HR, finance and other support functions.  

The report makes a number of recommendations to reform the way the police service is organised including: 

• To tackle surging levels of fraud and cyber crime, the government should introduce a dedicated Crime Prevention Agency that would be responsible for ensuring crime is designed out at source.  This new Agency would have powers to enforce a new statutory duty on large companies to prevent crime.  

• To tackle increasing levels of cross border crime there should be a major expansion of the National Crime Agency (NCA), to make it more like a British FBI.  Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCUs), which currently sit with local police forces, should be transferred over to the National Crime Agency.  This would put these units on a firmer financial footing and would make sure they were housed within a national network that prioritises tackling serious and organised crime.

• The College of Policing should be reformed and expanded to become a powerful agency for police improvement.  It should have powers to set mandatory professional standards for all police officers, to require police forces to address skills gaps and to require police forces to develop common IT standards so data can be properly shared between forces.

• Specialist and back office functions, currently largely operating in each of the 43 forces, should be merged into Regional Police Support Units, which would ensure they were delivered more effectively and would save hundreds of millions of pounds in reduced duplication. 

The full details of all 56 recommendations can be found in the full report which will be published at 10am today.

Ends

Notes to editors:

1. Launched by the Police Foundation in September 2019, the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales set out to examine how crime, fear of crime and other threats to public safety are changing and assess the ability of the police to meet these challenges, as part of a wider strategic response.

• This far-reaching independent review, the first of its kind in many years, was chaired by Sir Michael Barber and guided by an Advisory Board of former senior police officers, politicians and leading academics.

• The overall aim of the Review was to set a long-term strategic vision for English and Welsh policing. This concluding report presents substantial recommendations for a modern police service capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century.

• More information about the Review can be found at: https://policingreview.org.uk.

• Media enquiries should be directed to mediaenquiries@police-foundation.org.uk

He warned that without reform, the British tradition of policing by consent is at serious risk.

The event, also attended by the Minister for Crime, Policing and Probation the Rt Hon Kit Malthouse MP, comes two weeks before the Police Foundation publishes the Strategic Review’s final report, which will make 56 recommendations for the future of policing in England and Wales. They will be based upon three central themes: capacity, capability and organisation. The report will be the most comprehensive review of policing for a decade and has been over two years in the making.

Sir Michael Barber shared a panel with the Rt Hon Kit Malthouse MP and Lisa Townsend, Surrey PCC and spoke to an audience of representatives from national and local police forces, criminal justice bodies, agencies and the government.

Sir Michael made clear that the excellent police officers in this country are doing great work every day to keep the public safe despite, rather than because of, the system they are operating within. However, he  set out some stark statistics to illustrate why the crisis goes deep:

• Over 40% of all crime now is online fraud, the vast majority of which goes undetected, never mind prosecuted.
• Violent crime, often drug-related, has risen, with “homicide by sharp instruments” doubling between 2015 and 2021.
• Crime detection has fallen dramatically and the percentage of crimes now being detected has fallen below 10%.
• Detention of a person under the Mental Health Act increased by 33% between 2017 and 2020 and three million ‘investigation hours’ per year were devoted to missing persons.

He also noted however that there have been improvements in other serious crime rates, including knife-crime, neighbourhood crime such as burglary and firearms related offences which are all down since 2019.

Sir Michael Barber concluded by outlining how the police service must move forwards if it is to emerge from the current crisis:

“There’s a capacity challenge; there aren’t enough police, they haven’t got the best technology…There’s a capability challenge; police training and career development need to be addressed as part of changing the culture in a positive way. And finally, there’s an organisational challenge. While we want the 43 police forces to effectively tackle local crime, challenges like fraud, international crime and serious and organised crime need to be addressed strategically from the centre.”

“These are three big challenges facing policing right now. If we can get these things right over the next few years, we can address the crisis in public confidence”

The Rt Hon Kit Malthouse MP, Minister for Crime, Policing and Probation said that the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales “came at an opportune moment to think about what the next stage of policing should look like.”

He said we should remember that overall, current levels of crime are still significantly below where they were in the late 1990s and early 2000s, even if new crimes like fraud and cybercrime are included. However there is a “moral imperative to drive further improvement.”

He said that the government’s Beating Crime Plan had established clear priorities for addressing neighbourhood crime and violence which have gone some way to giving the clear and prioritised mission the police deserve.

‘We need to think about mission, leadership and technology to drive us to the next stage” he concluded.

Too many crimes are being committed that could be prevented through simple precautionary steps to make products and services safer and through measures that would steer potential future offenders away from crime. Given the UK’s research expertise in crime science it could become a world leader in crime and harm prevention but only if it takes a systematic approach with strong leadership and coordination from the government.    

The report, published by the Police Foundation, sets out interim findings from the Strategic Review of Policing.  The report contains compelling evidence that the best way to reduce crime is to prevent it from happening in the first place.  For example, it is now clear that it was improved home and vehicle security measures, more than tougher prison sentences or changes to policing tactics, that led to a 74% fall in burglary and a 79% fall in vehicle theft since 1995. 

The report argues that new ‘volume crimes’, such as online child sexual abuse could be tackled in similar ways. With over 17 million reports of online child sexual abuse imagery reported globally in 2019, the growing number of offences could be significantly reduced through improved use of technology. For example, website warnings and pop ups could be used more systematically to deter potential viewers of abusive imagery and greater use of identity verification could create safer spaces for children online.   

With many new crimes growing faster than the criminal justice system can deal with them, the Police Foundation today presents four recommendations that would enable the UK to become more strategic in its approach to crime and harm prevention. The government should:  

• Create a lead national agency which would take responsibility for crime and harm prevention.  This could work to systematically prevent crime in the same way that the Health and Safety Executive has worked successfully to prevent accidents at work and the Civil Aviation Authority has worked to prevent accidents in the air. 
• Establish a new cross departmental government strategy on crime and harm prevention, under the direct leadership of the Prime Minister. 
• Impose a “duty to prevent crime” across the private sector so that companies are asked to invest upfront in making sure their products and services are secure.  
• Repurpose the cluttered landscape of crime prevention agencies at the local level, for example by widening the remit of Violence Reduction Units to include all local crime and by giving Community Safety Partnerships a new role and additional resources. 

Rick Muir, Director of the Police Foundation and author of the report said “Politicians of all parties agree on the importance of preventing crime and yet we lack a proper strategy to achieve this. While the police own the problem of crime detection, no one owns the problem of crime prevention.  We need a single national body to take responsibility for preventing crime and to coordinate a truly cross government approach.  Given our unrivalled research base in crime science the UK could be a world leader in crime prevention.  We should aim to take the same kind of systemic approach to preventing crime that we take to preventing accidents at work or in the air.”  

Download the report

Rather than specifically looking at new technology, the event will focus on the value of flexibility, originality of thought and human relationships for fostering innovation. In this way policing can get ahead of the changes taking place in society so that the service is capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century.

Experts in their fields will offer insight in a number of key areas including using police intelligence, the smarter use of data, Restorative Justice, police diversity and police legitimacy.

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We welcome responses from all interested respondents from within and outside policing, including members of the public.

We are inviting responses to ten questions which cover capabilities the police will need to meet the specific challenges defined in Phase One of the Review. This will include the workforce, their relationship with the public, accountability mechanisms, structures, and resources. 

Find out more…

Delegates will have the opportunity to make a contribution to the Review through their input in Q&A sessions.

The programme features some of the UK’s leading thinkers and practitioners on policing, including Leroy Logan MBE, former Superintendent, Metropolitan Police and author of ‘Closing Ranks: My Life as a Cop’ and Deputy Mayor of London Sophie Linden who will look at how to improve diversity in the police workforce; Professor Cary Cooper CBE and Chief Constable Andy Rhodes will focus on wellbeing at work; NPCC Chair Martin Hewitt will look at Operation Uplift; Professor Gloria Laycock OBE and Professor Lawrence Sherman will focus on the future of evidence-based policing, and President of the Police Superintendents’ Association Paul Griffiths and author Tom Gash will focus on the policing skills of the future.

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Crime and other threats to public safety have been transformed in recent years, but policing has not caught up with the scale and nature of this change.  

In a wide-ranging survey of the landscape in which the police now operate, the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales found that while traditional crime such as burglary and car theft has fallen since the turn of the millennium, in its place there has been a huge rise in online crime and in sexual offences reported to the police. The police also have to deal with many more incidents involving people who are multiply disadvantaged. 

The Review found:  

• Since 1995 crime (excluding fraud and cybercrime) has fallen by 70% (this includes a 72% fall in violent crime, a 74% fall in burglary and a 79% fall in vehicle theft).
   
• Cybercrime and fraud have however increased rapidly and made up 44% of all crime in 2019. Fraud is now more common than theft (33%) or violent crime (12%), making up 36% of crime.  
   
• There has been a big increase in online child sexual abuse, with 8.3 million unique images being added to the UK’s Child Abuse Image Database in the four years to 2019.
   
• Reported domestic abuse crime increased by 77% between 2016 to 2019; stalking and harassment by 792% between 2012 to 2019; rapes by 260% between 2013 and 2019 and child sexual offences by 204% between 2012/13 and 2017/18.
   
• The police are now called to many more incidents involving multiply disadvantaged people: mental health related incidents increased by 28% between 2014 and 2018 and incidents involving missing people rose by 46% between 2013/14 and 2016/17.
   
• Social tensions have heightened in recent years, causing increased demand on the police. The number of protests involving confrontational tactics rose from 7 in 2000 to 126 in 2019 and in the last six years there has been a 144% increase in hate crimes reported to the police.  
   
• Although 75% of the public say that they have confidence in their local police, confidence is lower among black people (70%) and those of mixed ethnicity (68%). 40% of black people and people of mixed ethnicity do not agree that the police are likely to treat them fairly, compared to 33% of white people and 26% of Asian people who say that.  

Policing is struggling to keep pace with these changes, with local forces unable to deal effectively with internet enabled crimes like fraud and cybercrime. More complex crime investigations are hampered by a national shortfall of 5000 detectives and up to 6 month waits for examinations of digital evidence.   

The report concludes that the scale, variety and complexity of the challenges now facing the police mean that we need a radical re-think of how we go about tackling crime and promoting public safety. The second phase of the Review, which will conclude next year, will look at how policing needs to be reformed to meet these challenges.  

The Chair of the Strategic Review of Policing, Sir Michael Barber said:  

“We welcome the promised 20,000 extra police officers and the early recruitment of them. We believe these additional officers are necessary, but we also know that policing will need to be provided differently to tackle the new landscape of crime and harm that we have identified in this report.” 

For some time now policing has been wrestling with a tension between the rise of more complex crimes and social challenges and an operating model that was built for a different time. Whereas in the past the police could deal relatively straightforwardly with bringing offenders to justice they are now presented with a variety of problems, many of which require a social rather than a criminal justice solution and most of which cannot be tackled by a single agency but require extensive collaboration.” 

Cybercrime affects millions of people every year and yet policing is not set up to deal with a world in which so much crime is committed online rather than in the public street.  The scale and complexity of these challenges mean we need to think radically about the role the police play, how they work with others, the skills they require and the way the police service is organised.” 

Notes to editors 

About the Review 

The Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales is chaired by Sir Michael Barber and hosted by the Police Foundation, the UK’s independent policing think tank. The Police Foundation’s Chair, Sir Bill Jeffrey, former Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence is Vice Chair of the Review.  

The first phase of the Review has assessed and defined the challenge the police should be prepared to face over the coming decades. The second phase will look at the capabilities the police service will need to meet these challenges. 

The work of the Review is being guided by an Advisory Board which includes former senior police officers, politicians and leading academics. 

The Review is funded by charitable donations from the Dawes Trust, Deloitte and CGI. On behalf of CGI, Nick Dale, Vice President, Consulting Services, Police, said:  

“As a member of the Advisory Board supporting this important and timely review CGI recognises the need to effect a major programme of change in policing. This programme must be designed to ensure clarity of purpose in light of the changing landscape of crime, and that through modernisation the future police service will be equipped to fulfil that purpose efficiently and effectively. 

Our expert international policing community with long standing operational law enforcement experience has welcomed the opportunity to input into the first phase of this review, and is looking forward to supporting Phase 2. In particular, the need for increased collaboration, public-private partnerships, innovation and technological advancement to deliver a police operating model with accountabilities and resources that are better aligned to demand.” 

Download ‘Public Safety and Security in the 21st Century: the first report of the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales’.

About Sir Michael Barber 

Sir Michael Barber is the chair of the Office for Students and one of the leading education and government experts of the last 20 years. He served as chief adviser to the Secretary of State for Education from 1997, before setting up the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit in 2001, which worked to ensure the successful implementation of the Prime Minister’s priority programmes, including those in education, health, transport, policing, criminal justice and immigration. Michael now runs his own company, Delivery Associates and took up his post as chair of the Office for Students in March 2017.

About the Police Foundation 

The Police Foundation is the only independent think tank focused exclusively on improving policing and developing knowledge and understanding of policing and crime reduction. Its mission is to generate evidence and develop ideas which deliver better policing and a safer society. It does this by producing trusted, impartial research and by working with the police and their partners to create change.  

About CGI  

Founded in 1976, CGI is among the largest independent IT and business consulting services firms in the world. With 78,000 consultants and other professionals across the globe, CGI delivers an end-to-end portfolio of capabilities, from strategic IT and business consulting to systems integration, managed IT and business process services and intellectual property solutions. CGI works with clients through a local relationship model complemented by a global delivery network that helps clients digitally transform their organizations and accelerate results. With Fiscal 2019 reported revenue of C$12.1 billion, CGI shares are listed on the TSX (GIB.A) and the NYSE (GIB). Learn more at cgi.com. 

The launch will be chaired by Sir Michael Barber and the Police Foundation’s Director, Rick Muir, will present key findings. Martin Hewitt, Chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council will speak in response to the findings as part of an expert panel.

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The report finds that the public want the police to focus on tackling sexual and violent crime rather than being stretched into covering the work of other agencies.

The research is based on an analysis of public opinion surveys and 28 focus groups undertaken in seven different police force areas. The Police Foundation found that when the public are asked to choose between competing priorities for the police, they consistently prioritise tackling areas such as sexual and violent crime, organised crime and terrorism, which are seen as causing serious harm and as core police business. The public tend to deprioritise areas such as dealing with anti social behaviour and illegal parking, which are seen as less harmful. They also give less priority to activities such as dealing with mental health crises and welfare concerns, which they think should mainly be dealt with by other agencies.

The report has been prepared to inform the work of the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales, a major independent enquiry into the future of policing, which is hosted by the Police Foundation and chaired by Sir Michael Barber. Commenting on the report, Sir Michael Barber said: ‘This new research shows that there is a strong bedrock of support for the police but there are also high expectations which are not, currently, being met. The public feel that the police have withdrawn from the street as resources have become more stretched. It is good that the government has begun to address this problem with the commitment to 20,000 extra police officers. More positively, we found that the more fully citizens are engaged in discussion about crime, the challenges facing police and the need to prioritise, the stronger their understanding of, and respect for, the police becomes.’

Drawing on a number of recent surveys and the Police Foundations own qualitative research, the report concludes:

• Most people retain a positive opinion of the police service. 5 times as many people said their local force had a good reputation than reported a negative one, twice as many people said they would speak highly of their local police than would be critical and nearly 9 in 10 people said they had a favourable opinion of the police as an institution.

• Trust and confidence in the police is markedly lower among some population groups. Black and mixed ethnicity groups are at least five percentage points less likely to agree that local police would treat them fairly, with respect and that they could be trusted. They also trail white people by six and eight percentage points (respectively) on overall public confidence in the police.

• Crime and policing have risen up the national agenda and ratings of local police are declining. In the last year public ratings for police understanding and acting on local concerns, being reliable, treating people fairly and of confidence in local police all declined. This appears to reflect a widespread perception of police ‘withdrawal’ across multiple aspects of service. In 2019 just 16% of the public said they saw a police foot patrol once a week, compared to 39% in 2010.

• The public want more visible policing and there are some specific reasons for this at the current time. Our qualitative research suggests the current call for greater police presence is linked to a widespread sense of local town centre deterioration and concerns about knife crime.

• When asked to rank policing priorities, the public do not tend to prioritise ‘low-level’ local crime and disorder issues. In the focus groups the public’s top priorities were tackling sexual crime, violent crime, investigating serious crime, responding quickly to calls for help, tackling terrorism and taking action on organised crime.

• The public have a ‘traditional’ view of the police role. People’s priority decisions also draw on assumptions about what the police (relative to other agencies and actors) do and should do. Traditional ideas about police remit are in tension with the current trend towards responding to acute welfare and safety demand (such as dealing with people in mental health crisis or other concerns for welfare).

• When people have more information and opportunities for deliberation, their priorities adjust and they become more positive towards the police. As people learn more about the police operating environment and discuss priorities with their peers they tend to move towards consensus, take on a longer term perspective, recognise complexity, see that they have a part to play themselves and view the police in a more positive light.

Commenting on the research the Director of the Police Foundation Rick Muir said:

‘While wanting a good ‘all round’ service from the police, when the public are asked to choose between different priorities they consistently prioritise tackling sexual and violent crime. They are concerned that as other public services have pulled back the police are increasingly be asked to do too many things that are not core police business, such as dealing with mental health crises or other welfare concerns. They are also concerned that the police have pulled back in recent years and want to see police officers visible on the street, particularly in town centres.’

Note for editors:

Published today, Policing And The Public: Understanding Public Priorities, Attitudes and Expectations is the first in a series of Insight Papers informing the Police Foundation’s Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales. It focuses on the public’s perceptions of, and priorities for, today’s police service. The paper draws on two sources: first, representative surveys of public opinion, and second, the Police Foundation’s own recent, qualitative research, that sought to understand what lies behind the attitudes captured by opinion polls in greater depth. The paper aims to contribute to the Review’s thinking about the challenge the police face in maintaining public support.

Launched by the Police Foundation in September 2019, the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales sets out to examine how crime, fear of crime and other threats to public safety are changing and assess the ability of the police to meet these challenges, as part of a wider strategic response. This far-reaching independent review, the first of its kind in many years, is being chaired by Sir Michael Barber and guided by an Advisory Board of former senior police officers, politicians and leading academics.

The overall aim of the Review is to set the long-term strategic vision for English and Welsh policing. It will conclude in summer 2021 with a final report presenting substantial recommendations for a modern service capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century.

More specifically, the Review will consider:

• What the police mission should be, looking in particular at the public’s expectations of the police.
• The capabilities and resources the police service needs to achieve this mission.
• The future police workforce, including the roles, responsibilities, skills and knowledge of police officers and staff.
• How the police service should be structured and held to account, locally, regionally and nationally.
• How the police service should work with other sectors to deal with complex social problems.
• How much funding the police service requires and how this should be allocated.

More information about the Review can be found at: https://policingreview.org.uk

The Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales is being generously funded by the Dawes Trust, Deloitte and CGI.

The Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales aims to have a similar impact to the 1962 Royal Commission that laid the basis for today’s police service.

Today the Police Foundation launches the first independent and comprehensive review of policing for many years. The Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales aims to have a similar impact to the 1962 Royal Commission that laid the basis for today’s police service.

The Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales will be chaired by Sir Michael Barber, Chair of the Office for Students and former head of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit. The Review will be carried out by the Police Foundation, the UK’s independent policing think tank.

The Review will look at how crime, fear of crime and other threats to public safety are changing and assess the ability of policing to respond. It aims to set a long term strategic direction for the police service so that it is better able to tackle a crime landscape that is being transformed by new technology and wider social change.

This far-reaching review will set out substantial recommendations for a modern police service capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century. The Review will consider:

How crime and the wider demands on the police are changing and the implications of these changes for the police service;

What the police mission should be, looking in particular at the public’s expectations of the police;

The capabilities the police service needs to achieve this mission, including its use of technology;

What the police officer of the future should look like, looking at their role and responsibilities, skills and knowledge and career pathways;

How the police service should be structured and held to account locally, regionally and nationally;

How the police should work with other sectors such as health, local government and schools to deal with complex social problems;

How much funding the police service requires and how this should be allocated to different parts of the country.

The Review will focus on policing in England and Wales, but will look to learn lessons from the rest of the UK and from the best police agencies internationally.

The Police Foundation’s Director Rick Muir said:

“It is the right time to take a strategic look at the future of policing in England and Wales. The government is rightly focused on the immediate resource pressures the police face, including officer numbers, but we also need to think about the long term. Crime has been transformed by new technology, with half of all crime now being cybercrime and wider social change means the police are spending less time dealing with theft and burglary and more time investigating sexual crime and responding to mental health incidents.

“The Review will first map out these changes in the nature of the challenges facing the police and then go on to ask what needs to be done to respond. We will ask what we, the public, want from the police, explore what skills and knowledge police officers will need in the future and look at the way the police service is organised and held to account.”

Sir Michael Barber said:

“The British police service is rightly highly regarded around the world. The demands made on it are constantly changing. Developments such as cybercrime, serious and organised crime, modern slavery, gang-related crime and big increases in the reporting of sexual crime all pose new challenges. In this context, it makes sense to undertake a strategic review and to establish firm foundations for the police service into the middle of the 21st century and beyond. I look forward to working with all interested stakeholders, not least police officers themselves in taking forward this work.”

Sir Mark Sedwill, the Cabinet Secretary said:

“Crime is changing and so too must our response to it. In that context I welcome the launch of the Police Foundation’s Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales and look forward to engaging with Sir Michael and his colleagues as they take forward this work over the next two years.”

Martin Hewitt QPM, Chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said:

“I welcome this independent review. In the last decade, the policing environment has changed profoundly in many ways and the policing mission has expanded in both volume and complexity. This has taken place against a backdrop of diminishing resources. As we enter a period of growth it is timely to take an objective and rigorous look at the role that the police play in policing, and how we can most effectively keep the public safe.”

Lynne Owens, Director General of the National Crime Agency, said:

“I welcome the Police Foundation’s independent review looking at the long term direction of policing. The NCA’s Strategic Assessments continue to highlight the changing and growing threats from serious and organised crime, including cyber, CSAE and illicit finance. It is the right time to assess what this means for capabilities across policing at local, regional and national level, so we are in the best position as a system to protect the public.”

Sir Thomas Winsor, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary said:

“A comprehensive review of policing is overdue. The Police Foundation is an excellent organisation to lead such a review, and I am confident its conclusions will be of enormous authority and value.”

Chief Constable Mike Cunningham, College of Policing CEO, said:

“Today’s announcement of a strategic review will be supported with evidence from the College. The nature of demand for policing services is changing rapidly and this review will have an important place in determining what policing needs to focus on now to be best prepared to meet future challenges.”

John Apter, National Chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales said:

“An independent and wide-reaching review into policing is long overdue and something I support. A holistic, independent assessment of what society expects from its police service is something we have been calling for some time and I am pleased to back Sir Michael and his team. They must shine a light into every corner of policing and ask the questions that need to be asked. My colleagues are facing unprecedented demand as they deal with criminality increasing in terms of volume and complexity as well as being expected to deal with more and more non-crime related incidents, picking up the pieces as other public services struggle to cope.

“In order for policing to be able to best serve the public, and to meet the demands the future will bring, society must decide what they want their police to do. We simply can’t continue being all things to all people.

“The Police Federation look forward to contributing to this review and I encourage everyone – the public, police officers, and politicians – to do the same to ensure this review is fully able to evaluate what is needed to enable our police service to be the very best it can be now – and in the future.”

Paul Griffiths, President of the Police Superintendents’ Association said:

“We have consistently called for an independent review of the Police Service, as it is abundantly clear that the Service in its current form, is unable to deliver to the expectations of the public. We therefore welcome the news that this important work will now take place.

“Our members are experienced, senior operational leaders with a passion for policing, and we will do all we can to contribute our years of evidence and learning towards the review. I hope that this important work will also play an integral part of the wider reform agenda, which must take account of the entire policing landscape.”

Richard Hobbs, lead Partner for Policing at Deloitte said:

“UK policing is under the microscope. A rise in serious violence and falling detection rates in some parts of the country have brought political focus onto the resilience of a model of policing that has long been the envy of the world. Rising demand and budget restraints have forced UK Police forces to evolve but questions remain as to whether policing has yet fully adapted to address the profound and continuing shifts in patterns of crime, society, policy and technology. Building on our work at a local, regional and national level, and our Policing 4.0 report, we are delighted to be able to support this timely and critical review.”