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.

And yet despite this growing consensus on the need for a preventative approach, public services remain overwhelmingly oriented towards meeting acute need. For example, we spend just £5 billion a year on public health services aimed at preventing illness compared to a total National Health Service (NHS) budget of £160 billion, most of which is spent on treating people once they are sick.

In relation to public safety calls for a greater push on prevention have grown louder in recent years as the police have been faced with a growing number of so-called ‘wicked issues’, such as mental health crises, to which police officers can only ever provide a provisional solution (such as an arrest, a calming influence or a referral to another agency). Faced with this growth in complex demand, police leaders have regularly stated that “we cannot arrest our way” out of these problems. Rather these ‘wicked issues’ are thought to require early action and extensive collaboration between public agencies.

Moreover, there is strong evidence for the effectiveness of a preventative approach to crime. Between 1995 and 2019 the number of burglaries in England and Wales fell by 74 per cent. All of the academic evidence shows that the cause of this drop was improved home security, such as better locks on doors and windows. There is a similar story with the fall in car crime. Vehicle related theft in England and Wales fell by 79.5 per cent between 1995 and 2019. The cause of this decline in vehicle theft was not tougher sentences or new policing tactics, but rather the introduction of improved security measures by the car manufacturers, including immobilisers, intruder alarms, central locking, better keys and tougher doors, windows and boots.

We now face an explosion in internet related crime and harm, from fraud to online child sexual abuse. It is difficult to catch those committing these offences, given that many of them operate from overseas. The best approach to tackling these forms of crime is not by putting more bobbies on the beat but by getting serious about designing these forms of crime out at source, just as we did with car crime and burglary.

The reason we lack a systemic approach to crime and harm prevention is that no one owns the prevention task. We have a policing system and a criminal justice system, but we lack an explicit and institutionally anchored crime and harm prevention system, with clear lines of accountability, defined roles and responsibilities, budgets, priorities and supportive infrastructures.

In a paper published today as a contribution to the Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales I set out what such a crime and harm prevention system should look like. It would have four main features. First, we need a cross-departmental strategy for crime and harm prevention that mobilises work across the whole of government. There is currently a Modern Crime Prevention Strategy, owned by the Home Office, but it is largely aspirational and as one senior police leader told the author ‘it isn’t a strategy’ because it contains no delivery plan. Instead, a strategy is required that focuses the government’s work on priority areas, sets outcomes, articulates how those outcomes will be achieved and by whom. I argue that this should be led by the Cabinet Office under the direct authority of the Prime Minister.

Second, the evidence from other sectors shows that it is important to have a flagship agency that owns the problem of prevention and is responsible for coordinating crime and harm prevention activity to ensure that strategic aims are delivered. We have a Health and Safety Executive responsible for coordinating action across industry and government to prevent accidents at work. Similarly, we ought to have a dedicated agency that would focus on crime prevention and would galvanise the necessary activity across government and wider society. In particular a national agency would be responsible for working closely with the international actors, such as the big tech companies, whose role in preventing online crime is critical.

Third, a general ‘duty to prevent crime’ should be introduced across the private sector. This would reflect the ‘polluter pays’ principle: those whose products and services are currently creating opportunities for crime would be asked to invest upfront in designing crime out at source. This could work in a similar way to the existing duty on commercial organisations to prevent bribery.

Finally, we need to repurpose the existing rather cluttered local landscape of prevention-oriented bodies and partnerships. In particular, the role of the new Violence Reduction Units should be extended to cover all local crime and all parts of the country. They should work alongside revitalised Community Safety Partnerships at town and borough level who should be given new resources and a clearer focus.

There will be resistance to some of the measures that will need to be taken to prevent crime and wider harm. There may be new checks and processes in consumer transactions. Industry will have to think more carefully about the criminogenic potential of new products. Some internet freedoms could be curtailed. All of these matters should rightly be the subject of public debate, in which the gains in terms of safety must be weighed against any losses in terms of, for example, customer convenience or internet freedom.

Whatever decisions are made about particular measures, the most important message from this paper is that we need to get serious about crime and harm prevention. And getting serious means the establishment of a proper crime and harm prevention system, anchored in actors and institutions who own the task and are focused on the job.

Dr Rick Muir, Director, The Police Foundation

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.

Find more more

This is a rise from 0.86% to 1.83% of the total police officer population in England, Wales and Northern Ireland respectively. It appears not to have gone unnoticed by the Home Office. In May 2020, they announced that the ‘retention of experienced police officers has emerged as a concern’ and were considering plans to incentivise retention. However, without knowing why officers leave, the benefits of these efforts may prove limited.

Findings from a small-scale online survey of officers who had resigned voluntarily from one medium sized police force in England between November 2014 and June 2019 (n=46) provide some initial data from a project which will shortly also incorporate interview data with a sample of these respondents (n=27). What we know from existing research is that organisational commitment is likely to be enhanced by strong leadership, social exchange factors and the perceived attractiveness of the organisation. The data from this survey of police leavers suggests a perception of the absence of at least two of these three contributory factors to organisational commitment.

First, poor leadership and management was cited as the most regular theme in answer to why officers left the police service. This was directed at all levels of supervision and importantly support, whether immediate line management, middle management or senior management within the organisation. Perceptions of management are not aided by the inescapably powerful policing occupational cultures, characterised amongst other things, by cynicism and an ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ categorisation. Cultural influences aside however, perceptions of poor leadership and management within the police remain as the most cited reason amongst officers resigning voluntarily from the service.

Second, organisational commitment can be enhanced through social exchange factors which are triggered through perceptions of feeling supported and valued. Our data showed that police officers who had left the organisation felt an overriding sense of organisational ‘injustice’, to such an extent that that the delicate balance between employer and employee had been breached. It was also this sense of ‘injustice’ which proved to be the ‘final straw’ for those leaving the police service, with almost half of respondents referring to features relating to injustice such as a lack of autonomy and a lack of ‘voice’ being the ‘decisive moment’ which led to their resignation. There were also perceptions of a lack of access to promotion and progression opportunities and an unsustainable workload which precluded the ability to maintain a reasonable work/life balance. This was stated to have impacted negatively upon their levels of stress, physical and mental health, caring responsibilities and personal relationships outside of their working environment. This would all therefore suggest an imbalance of the crucial social exchange factors which are so necessary in cementing a bond between employer and employee.

Third, the perceived attractiveness of the organisation has the potential to enhance organisational commitment and it is here where our research data suggests a more positive picture. Police officers demonstrated a strong sense of commitment to immediate colleagues and an enjoyment of the job itself, both aspects which they missed after resigning. Indeed, these work factors which derive the highest levels of satisfaction are broadly similar to the reasons expressed for joining the police service in the first place such as working with the public, working in a team and the work variety.

In conclusion, our data suggests that internal organisational issues are far more relevant to intention to leave decisions than occupational factors. While there are also relevant external factors, particularly in relation to ‘excessive’ workloads, which do clearly impact on levels of dissatisfaction, the focus for change would appear to be in a consideration of how the social exchange factors, which are so crucial to an enhanced sense of organisational commitment can be rebalanced equitably to take account of both the individual needs of staff in addition to organisational demand.

You can read more about the research findings in this article published by Policing and Society.

Dr Sarah Charman and Dr Stephanie Bennett, Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, University of Portsmouth

As part of this are some of the most radical initiatives to increase workforce diversity in recent times. Thus, the MPS is aiming to have Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) officer representation at 16 per cent by 2022, 21 per cent by 2024 and 28 per cent by 2030.

To achieve this, the MPS want 40 per cent of new recruits to be from BAME communities from 2022/23 and the London residency criteria has been re-introduced. Specific targets will be set for the recruitment and retention of black officers.

As of December 2020, 7.5 per cent of police officers in England and Wales are BAME (1.2 per cent black, 3.2 per cent Asian, 2.2 per cent mixed ethnicity and 0.8 per cent other ethnicity), despite the current BAME population being projected at 17.2 per cent. The 2.8 per cent increase in the last decade has mainly been driven by the recruitment of Asian and mixed ethnicity officers.

Black officer representation has increased by a mere 0.3 per cent in the last 10 years; 28 forces have seen no increase in the proportion of black officers in this time, 23 of which saw decreases. Over a quarter of forces do not have a single black officer with almost 40 per cent having one or fewer.

BAME populations are outpacing the rate of change in BAME police officer proportions. If the average annual rate of change between 2015 and 2020 continues, it will take over 90 years for the police service of England and Wales to be representative of the BAME population of 2050.

This is a hugely simplified picture. There is further concern with regard to intersectionality; the proportion of female white officers has increased by 5.9 per cent over the last decade. In comparison the proportion of female BAME officers has increased by just 1.3 per cent.

Additionally, diversity generally decreases with rank. Of the two per cent of Chief Officers that are BAME, just two are female. Home Office data indicate that there are no BAME female Chief Superintendents, although the author is aware that this data may contain inaccuracies

It is of course necessary to assess workforce diversity at the local force level considering the huge regional variation in population diversity. However, no forces are currently representative of their communities in terms of ethnicity.

For ‘policing by consent’ to be effective, all members of the community must feel that the police are there to serve them and that the police will treat them fairly and with respect. Black (in particular black Caribbean) and mixed ethnicity communities have much lower levels of confidence in the police than white British people do. Having a police service that is more representative of the communities it serves is one important way of addressing this lack of trust and confidence.

There are significant barriers facing BAME police recruits and each of these need to be addressed.

Before even applying to join there are of course pre-existing perceptions of the police that can put many people off from considering a career as a police officer. Alongside this is the very real potential for backlash from one’s family, friends and community, a fear of an unwelcoming culture within the police and a lack of black police role models in influential positions to aspire to.

Even passing the initial assessment to join the police is more difficult if you are from an ethnic minority. Recent figures from the Day One Assessment Centre trial show the pass rate for BAME candidates was 48 per cent compared to 81 per cent for white British candidates (74 per cent including white minorities).

Data from Police Now show that if a BAME candidate does receive a job offer following the Police Now assessment centre trial they are twice as likely than white counterparts to have an offer rescinded by a force. BAME candidates are six times more likely to fail vetting, four times more likely to fail a fitness assessment, 21 times more likely to have an offer rescinded for ‘other issues’ and one percentage point more likely to fail a medical assessment.

If a BAME candidate is successful in the recruitment process, further barriers stand in the way of smooth career progression; retaining BAME officers is equally as vital as recruiting them.

BAME police officers are less likely to be promoted than white officers. Last year just 4.9 per cent of police officers promoted were BAME. BAME officers are also disproportionately subject to internal conduct allegations.

It is unsurprising then that BAME officers are 50 per cent more likely to voluntarily resign than their white counterparts (29 per 1,000 officers, compared to 18 per 1,000) and more than twice as likely to be dismissed or have their contract terminated.  

So BAME police officers face considerable challenges. Making progress can require great patience, resilience and tenacity. But many more police officers from ethnic minority backgrounds are urgently needed.

Positive action initiatives are sporadic across England and Wales but have gone some way to increasing police officer diversity. But it is not enough.

In 1981, Lord Scarman said ‘vigorous action is required if the police are to become more representative of all the community they serve’. In those 40 years, the proportion of black officers has increased by 0.9 per cent. In 1999, Macpherson echoed Scarman’s concerns and none of his targets for the following decade were met. Since then, the 2016 Home Affairs Select Committee described police officer diversity as ‘shameful’, ‘pitiful’ and that ‘many police forces seem to have no better grasp of how to increase diversity than they did decades ago’.

Radical action is necessary. It is hard to imagine how and when the police will be representative if substantial progress is not made during the current uplift. The MOPAC Action Plan is a step in the right direction for London and we will soon see whether it is sufficient or if we may need to go further and consider positive discrimination, as was used in Northern Ireland to successfully increase the proportion of Catholic officers.

There must also be radical reform of accountability, retention, progression and training. We need racial and cultural literacy throughout the workforce and throughout the service.

Yesterday the Police Foundation’s annual conference, which formed part of the Strategic Review of Policing hosted a panel discussion on workforce diversity with Sophie Linden, Deputy Mayor of London, and Leroy Logan MBE, former Superintendent in the Metropolitan Police and author of ‘Closing Ranks, My Life as a Cop’, who had his life in the police depicted in Steve McQueen’s recent BBC series, ‘Small Axe’.  A replay of the event is available and you can purchase access here.

Stephen Walcott, Researcher, The Police Foundation

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.