Can coppers cope with 'modern crime'?

0:02Sky News, the full story first.

0:08Coming up, the government claims it's the biggest shake-up in policing since Robert Peel first put Bobbies on the beat. But will it go any way to restoring public confidence?

0:22Policing is getting a reboot. Again, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood wants a hard reset. Little wonder, after years of misconduct scandals, collapsed confidence and accusations of two-tiered justice. Her plans include reducing the number of forces and the creation of a British FBI. And a heavy emphasis on modernisation suggests she's of the mind that whilst crime has changed, the police have not. So, is it all as revolutionary, as the Home Secretary suggests? And just when might we expect to see these sweeping changes? Martin Brunt is Sky's crime commentator. Martin, just remind us, what exactly is the way in which policing is currently set up?

1:04Martin Brunt:Well, for many years, we've had a policing set up of 43 regional forces in England and Wales, and they are largely predicated on county boundaries, not all of them, because there are a number of metropolitan police services like London, Birmingham, Manchester. They are in charge of the operation as a chief constable. So you've got 43 chief constables, but they're governed by police and crime commissioners. They set budgets and they set priority targets and so on. We also have the National Crime Agency, which is, as it sounds, a national body whose core function is to tackle organised crime. And much of its time is spent pursuing people and drug traffickers.

1:50But it does appear that the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has gone back to the drawing board on the structure of policing.

1:55Martin Brunt:She wants to merge those 43 police forces into what's been described as mega constabularies. And the argument for that is that they all have their own methods of procurement and their use of funds. And it would be much more efficient to have fewer, bigger forces that could be equally resourced. The National Crime Agency is going to be expanded. Apart from its current core functions, it's going to take on counter-terror. So that's quite a big move. It's going to be called the National Police Service, we understand, will just cover the whole country. And it will let those big regional forces get on with the kind of specialist crime investigations like murder, rape, county lines, drug supply and so forth.

2:39And the third thing we're going to get are local policing areas. And this is where we are going back 20 years to the old, more or less same model as neighbourhood policing. The idea is that you need locally focused police teams to tackle what the Home Secretary has called everyday crimes like shoplifting, antisocial behaviour, phone theft. The sort of crimes that the public think go largely unpunished because policing at the moment is too busy looking at what they feel are more serious crimes. But it's those everyday crimes that really annoy people. And given that, you know, we have a long-running low confidence in policing, the Home Secretary believes that if police are on the ground in local communities tackling those kind of issues, it will increase the feeling about the confidence in policing.

3:30One of Shabana Mahmood's arguments appears to be that policing has not adapted to the times, that it has not moved with the changes in patterns of crime and criminality. What does she mean by that? I think she means that crime isn't restricted, as perhaps it once was, to within county borders. Criminals are much more mobile. They're operating in cyberspace. Fraud is one of the big issues that the new National Police Service will look at. It's perhaps a crime committed in the UK from outside the UK. So the idea of having these kind of county fiefdoms sounds rather old-fashioned, and I think most people would agree with that.

4:08There's also going to be a big boost to cybersecurity policing. experts in cyber security and technology more of them are going to be encouraged to join the police

4:18Martin Brunt:force presumably as civilian workers but they also want cyber experts to sign up as volunteer special constables as well the message from the home secretary is that 90 percent of crime leaves a digital footprint and she wants a police service that is better equipped to deal with that we are being told by the government that this is the most significant reform to the police service almost since its creation. You haven't been around the 200 years since we've had Bobby's on the beat, Martin, but you've been around a while. I mean, is it, really? She says it's the biggest change. I don't know about that.

4:50Martin Brunt:I mean, it's certainly wound up a lot of people who are being tasked to deliver it, certainly the Superintendents Association. And superintendents are the kind of last line in operational policing, and they all have to deliver all this. And they say that it's a huge change. They've not been consulted, and they're beginning to wonder how they're going to manage it. So I suppose they're seeing it as a huge fundamental change, the sort that they've never seen before. There is a perception that too often coppers are running around doing things other than, you know, solving crimes, recording non-crime hate incidents, for example.

5:27I mean, is there anything in what we are hearing from the government that goes some way to making sure there are bobbies on the beat again and police officers catching criminals? Well, this is where the local policing areas that are promised come into it.

5:40Martin Brunt:And you made the point about, is this all entirely new? Well, I can remember the introduction of neighbourhood police teams 20 or so years ago, where you would have very specific teams of, I think, four officers sitting in local police stations who were seen to be out and about in the local community and people got to know who they were. They saw them on the streets. The theory is the public is more encouraged, if they know police officers, to come and tell them what's going on and help them become the eyes and ears, if you like. So the Home Secretary's argument is that, you know, we've lost that.

6:14And I suppose we lost it through those years of austerity. It became a very difficult system to fund. And this is another issue, of course.

6:24Martin Brunt:Police superintendents and others have said that, you know, all these changes are very, very well, but where's the funding going to be? I think the Home Secretary is kind of broadly working on the idea that you do need to have a better connection between local police teams and the public, as I said, to encourage people to come forward and talk to police and tell them what they know is going on and perhaps help them solve crimes. But confidence in policing has been so low over so many years. It's going to take an awful long time for that to be re-established. Why do you think that is, Martin? Because if you look at crime, not across the board, but large swathes of it, for the past few years, criminality has been going in one direction, down.

7:10If you talk to people, there is this disproportionate fear of crime. And I don't know quite why that is, because you're right, it does fly in the face of a lot of crimes that have fallen over several years. But people feel less safe. But the confidence in policing, I think, again, is to a degree driven by media coverage.

7:31Martin Brunt:So there have been some big cases of bad behaving cops like Wayne Cousins, the abductor and killer of Sarah Everard, David Carrick, another Met police officer who was convicted of multiple rapes. And there have been others. There's the Charing Cross scandal where BBC's Panorama exposed some very bad behaviour, homophobic behaviour, racist behaviour by a big team of officers in one of the big police stations in the centre of London. I think all of those help drive that low confidence in policing. Does this then, in your mind, go far enough to try and restore that lost confidence? Structural reform doesn't set the heather alight and probably doesn't capture the public's attention.

8:17And of course, all of this, this white paper, follows pretty closely on the heels of the Labour decision to scrap the police and crime commissioners that we mentioned before.

8:25Martin Brunt:I suppose you can understand why it's the association of police and crime commissioners who are particularly critical of what's going on. They're the people who have the power to sack chief constables. It was announced that their jobs are going to be lost over the next two or three years. I mean, their criticism of these new measures are that it's going to be a very long process of, as they say, merging functions and disrupting local policing. They believe that it's going to go on for so long that it will damage recruitment. I was talking to a Met cop who I know very well the other day, and he told me his experience at the Met these days is there are an awful lot of people who are coming into the service and signing up for five years.

9:09They don't want to do any more than that.

9:11Martin Brunt:They don't see it as a long career. They think they would enjoy it. They clearly feel they've got something to offer, and they think it will look good on their CV for whatever they go on to next. But there is this feeling that we don't have, perhaps, that cohort of idealistic young people who see policing as a longer term career. We do, though, have an example of structural reform of this type that we can have a bit of a closer look at. Police Scotland essentially brought together a number of forces in the way in which it's being promoted here in England and Wales. I mean, how's it gone? Mixed results, I think.

9:51what was it 12 13 years ago that the eight forces in scotland were merged into one body police scotland on the idea that big is better and i suppose that's part of what the home secretary is doing now i think in scotland crime has fallen but you know whether that's because they have one

10:12Martin Brunt:unitary force or because it's just following trends that have happened in england and wales For all the money-saving promises of turning eight forces into one in Scotland, I think there are still budget concerns that have resulted in fewer cops being employed. Another concern here is that, you know, these all sound great on the surface, but will there be enough money to pay for it? And it is going to be a very, very long process and it'll go over potentially a changing government. And, you know, will the enthusiasm for these changes still be there in a government of a different shape and colour?

10:50Martin, you have viewed policing up close for a number of years. In your mind, is it just the case that the police force is resistant to modernising or is incapable of innovating? One of the things that Shabana Mahmood is talking about is using data to drive policing. I mean, if no one in a police force up and down England and Wales hasn't come up with that as an idea already, I'd be surprised.

11:12Martin Brunt:Cops tend to be rather traditional people. I'm sure there is an element of resistance to change. But I think this is such an overwhelming series of changes that people are either going to have to put up with it or get out. And that, I suppose, brings us to another measure that police officers will have to have a license to work, much like doctors do. they will have to on a regular basis show that they are keeping up with the changes and the training and the guidance that they got and I suppose if they followed the way that this happens with doctors and the doctor's model then maybe every five years they will have to submit to some kind of written exam or interview and if they don't come up to scratch if they can't demonstrate that they've learned changes over the previous five years then they're very likely to lose their jobs There's been a degree of criticism of Shabana Mahmood's plans from a variety of directions.

12:14But what is your view?

12:16Martin Brunt:I think I've long been convinced that having 43 police forces in England and Wales, what some people describe as fiefdoms with all powerful chief constables, it doesn't really make sense to have 43 bodies who are procuring technology and equipment in so many different ways. Some forces have, for the last probably a dozen years or so, begun to share resources. And I think, I suppose you could argue there was an acknowledgement there that it made sense for forces to combine resources, particularly when crimes crossed their county borders. And as far as I know, that has worked very well. But there are examples where police forces have rather clashed over operations that, again, cross those borders.

13:04Martin Brunt:I suppose I'm particularly thinking of the investigation into Levi Belfield, who's the killer of Millie Dowler in Surrey, but also the killer of two women and the attempted murder of a third young woman in the Metropolitan Police area. And I do know from discussions I've had that there were clashes between senior officers from both forces who ultimately were pursuing the same suspect and just couldn't agree on the right approach. And you could argue that that delayed the arrest of Levi Belfield. What does this do for accountability of policing in England and Wales? There are police forces that have historically had significant problems.

13:47In subsuming those into a larger whole, I just wonder whether we will be able to criticise the police as accurately as we've been able to do in the past. Accountability, of course, is hugely important.

14:00Martin Brunt:The Home Secretary and I think other ministers are going to be taking on the powers of removing chief constables. I suppose some people will argue then, you know, is that going towards some kind of politicization of the police? I mean, I'm sure there will be a very distinct line to ensure that politicians do not get involved in operational policing. But I think that is some concern. I wonder though, Martin, if perhaps a problem with this scheme is that it does look like two-tier policing in the sense that you'll have it taking place at the national level, but also at the local level and perhaps even the ultra-local level, given what we've already discussed.

14:41I mean, I suppose that whether or not it works depends entirely on funding and ensuring that everyone at each level of that policing structure actually has the ability to do what they want to do. I suppose the Home Secretary is trying to pull off a very clever trick to make police bigger and smaller at the same time. Who knows if it will work? I mean, she clearly has to commit the funding to begin with. You know, will she be there in four years' time, general election time? Certainly one of the critics today has said that this is such a long process for all of those reforms to be implemented, that it's going to be terribly disruptive.

15:20And that can't be a good thing. Martin, many thanks. Full details of Shabana Mahmood's white paper are available over on the website. Thanks for listening.