Only five weeks after the publication of the report of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland (covered in the October issue of these Notes), the UK Parliament’s Home Affairs Committee (HAC) has published a report on Policing for the Future in England and Wales. However, the context and content of the two reports are strikingly different. The HAC report makes sobering reading. It calls into question the capacity of the police to cope with the alarming increase in ‘volume’ crimes (such as robbery and theft), and the very sustainability of our current policing model. Severe financial cutbacks are combining with an exponential rise in cybercrime (most notably online fraud and online sexual offences involving children) to overwhelm police capacity which is hampered by systems, structures and methods that have barely changed over the past 50 years. The HAC warns alarmingly that policing is at risk of becoming irrelevant to most people.
A failure to provide a funding uplift for policing will, in the Committee’s words, have dire consequences in that the police will not be able to fulfil their duties in delivering public safety, criminal justice, community cohesion and public confidence. Equally, however, the Committee cautions that more funding will not be sufficient in itself. More radical innovation and surgery will be needed in the form of cyber-technology skills and capacity, enhanced inter-agency cooperation, more buy-in from the private sector and major structural and governance reform.
Lack of digital capabilities is identified as a systemic problem throughout the police service. Investment in and adoption of new technology is described as “a complete and utter mess”, and a contrast with criminals who are exploiting new technology to the full. Innovative responses could include the recruitment of young cyber experts from outside policing, the development of distinct cyber units within forces and even the transformation of the special constabulary to include “cyber specials”. The HAC, however, emphasises the need for greater cooperation with, and reliance on the tech giants and other private sector operators.
Taking their lead from counter-terrorism policing and the GCHQ, the HAC proposes the establishment of a National Digital Exploitation Centre for serious crime, including online fraud and online sexual child abuse. It envisages that such a body would be better able to attract and retain talent and would have the purchasing power to invest in innovative methods of digital forensics and analysis from which all forces could benefit. Surprisingly, perhaps, the HAC does not advert to the implications of this for the mainstreaming and normalisation of counter-terrorism policing, or the civil liberties and accountability challenges that it would inevitably pose.
Inter-agency cooperation is now a standard and essential aspect of policing in the community, especially for promoting community safety, safeguarding and neighbourhood policing generally. Nevertheless, the HAC found that its potential is being seriously hampered by fragmentation, duplication and a practice of relying on the police as an emergency social service. It recommends that the government should undertake a review of models that enable the police to pool resources with other public agencies to deliver a more joined-up, effective and cost-efficient response to the safety and safeguarding issues. No mention is made of the knock-on consequences for a blurring of the police role and the associated implications for transparency, democratic scrutiny and accountability.
The most radical aspect of the HAC report is its vision for tackling the structural and operational weaknesses presented by the fragmentation of police technology and data systems across the 43 forces in England and Wales. The Committee comments that “[i]t is astonishing that, in 2018, police forces are still struggling to get crucial real-time information from each other, and that officers are facing frustration and delays on a daily basis.” It also asserts bluntly that the current allocation of police responsibilities at a national, regional and local level is broken and in dire need of review.
The HAC stops short of advocating the merger of police forces or the development of a national force. However, it does propose a fundamental reallocation of responsibilities at local, regional and national levels. Local policing should focus on community relations, and local crime and safeguarding issues. At national and regional levels, forces need to pool resources and capabilities, especially in response to cybercrime and cross-border crimes such as organised crime, county lines and modern slavery. Once again, it identifies the current structure for counter-terrorism policing as a model that could serve other areas of policing.
Critically, the HAC signals a switch from the current policy of devolving responsibility to local, directly elected, Police and Crime Commissioners, to a greater concentration of power and responsibility in the hands of central government which must demonstrate clear ownership of policing policy and funding. The Home Office, in particular, must step up to the plate and take a much stronger lead in policing policy to deal with the threats of the 21st century. To this end it must move swiftly to launch “a transparent, root-and-branch review of policing”. In addition, the government should establish a National Policing Council, chaired by the Home Secretary, to formulate reform proposals on key policy areas which would be put to a National Police Assembly for adoption as binding on all forces.
Several aspects of the HAC proposals are not entirely new. In total, however, they signal a radical departure in how policing has been delivered in this country since at least the 1960s. The Committee’s vision for responding to the enormous and rapidly changing threats posed by cybercrime could result in: much greater flexibility and innovation in police recruitment, education and training; the adoption of national standards on police digital technologies and databases; and much more emphasis on collaboration with, and reliance on, the private sector as a policing resource. The proposals for addressing the police role in safeguarding vulnerable persons (and in neighbourhood policing more broadly) will entail a blurring of lines between the police and some other public services. Most dramatic of all is the envisaged switch from local to central direction and the extension of the counter-terrorism model to the policing of a much wider range of crime. Surprisingly, and disappointingly, the HAC report makes no attempt to engage with the knock-on consequences of these changes for transparency, democratic scrutiny, accountability and how we conceive of police and policing. The report will undoubtedly trigger a debate that will rage among the police and policymakers. It is vital to ensure that it is not confined to those vested interests.
Download the November 2018 edition of Criminal Justice Notes