Plans to bring in thousands more neighbourhood police ‘will take years’

Plans to bring in thousands more police officers to tackle a surge in neighbourhood crime will take a number of years, the Home Secretary has said.

Yvette Cooper told a policing conference in Westminster that the number of people who never see a police officer on the beat has doubled since 2010.

There are plans in place to bring in 13,000 more neighbourhood officers, including police community officers and specials, “over the next few years”.

She told delegates at the event in central London: “Even after the previous government reversed the reduction in the overall number of officers, policing has not returned to our streets.

“There are still fewer officers in neighbourhood teams, the proportion of the public who say they never see an officer on the beat has doubled, and the number of PCSOs has halved.

“Little wonder then that the types of crimes and conduct that neighbourhood policing used to tackle have soared.”

Shop theft is at a record high, street theft has risen 40% in a year and town centres see persistent anti-social behaviour, she said.

The Home Office has set out plans to reform the police, with closer monitoring of how the 43 geographical forces in England and Wales perform.

Police chiefs have said they will argue strongly against the use of league tables, with chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council Gavin Stephens saying: “A simplistic league table approach only takes you so far.”

Speaking at the same event, he said a new national police body should be set up to move the service on from a model designed in the 1960s before the internet and mobile phones.

He told the conference in Westminster there are too many decision makers in the current structure of 43 geographical forces in England and Wales, that leads to inertia.

He told delegates at the policing summit: “The world around us has changed beyond recognition yet we remain rooted in a system designed in the early 1960s, before mobile phones, the internet, even the M25 which came along two decades later.”

Mr Stephens went on: “We need to redefine who’s accountable at which level for which issues, as at present there are too many decision makers, which leads to inertia, indecision or as I’ve heard it described, undecision.”

UK police chiefs are looking at countries including Australia, Japan, Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark as models for a new structure, and have been in discussions for a year over the plans.

The Home Secretary said she foresees a national body taking responsibility for IT, forensics and the police air service, but that this may be expanded in the future.

The Metropolitan Police currently has national responsibility for counter-terrorism policing, and City of London Police is the lead for fraud.

Yvette Cooper also said that public confidence in policing has been “badly eroded” in recent years and outlined reforms to offer a “fundamental reset” in the relationship between policing and government.

She confirmed more than half a billion pounds of additional funding from central government next year to neighbourhood policing, the National Crime Agency (NCA) and counter-terrorism.

Police forces will be “compensated” for the rise in employer national insurance contributions separately from the funding boost.

Ms Cooper set out her plans on Tuesday in her first major speech at the annual conference hosted by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners.

She told journalists after her speech that the increase in neighbourhood officers will take time.

Ms Cooper said: “When the proportion of people who say they never see the police on the beat has doubled since 2010 that’s had a really big impact on confidence.

“That has a really big impact on those kinds of local crimes, like town centre crime in particular.

“So that’s why we’re so determined to get neighbourhood police back onto the beat, back into communities.

“But we do recognise that it will take time.”

The Home Secretary said: “We’ve set out plans for 13,000 more neighbourhood police, PCSOs, specials over the next few years, and we will set out more information in the coming weeks around funding.”

The policing reforms will be set out in a White Paper, due to be published in the spring.

A full breakdown of the additional funding will be published as part of the police settlement in December.