𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s radical police reforms could actually hurt the fight against crime, top cops and experts have warned. Key changes include replacing the patchwork of 43 police forces across England and Wales with a much smaller number, with new boundaries to be confirmed, and creating a full-blown national police service for the first time to work alongside regional forces.

Police leaders welcomed many of the changes but also warned MPs the plans could harm neighbourhood policing, which is a vital tool in the fight against organised crime gangs involved in drug dealing, mobile phone theft and more. In a paper submitted to a Commons inquiry, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services, the official inspection service, said: “Further measures are needed to make sure police reform strengthens the local approach to serious and organised crime rather than creating new gaps. The new model should explicitly protect neighbourhood policing.”

“Forces need to maintain enough neighbourhood capacity, making sure officers aren’t regularly pulled away from duties to cover other work. This will mean local teams can continue to identify vulnerability, respond to antisocial behaviour and build the trusted relationships that help officers gather information from the community.”

And it warned that a move to create larger regional forces could damage this work.

“These functions are critical to early SOC [serious organised crime] detection and can’t be substituted by regional or national units,” the inspectorate said.

Highlighting the importance of local policing in the fight against organised crime, it warned: “Neighbourhood policing plays a critical role in preventing and tackling serious and organised crime because it operates closest to communities, sees harm first and gathers much of the intelligence that exposes organised criminal activity.

“In the forces we inspected, neighbourhood teams routinely acted as the eyes and ears of the serious and organised crime approach … neighbourhood officers’ familiarity with local communities and their trusted relationships helped stabilise high-harm locations after enforcement and reduced the risk of organised crime groups re-establishing control.”

London’s Metropolitan Police warned that “everyday crimes such as robbery, theft, burglary and shoplifting” were often linked to organised crime networks. It said in a submission to the Commons Home Affairs Committee: “Phone theft is an example of what can often be seen to be a lower-level crime that is linked to Organised Crime Groups, who are operating overseas and exploiting children, to steal phones from across London.”

But it said the Home Office had promised to deliver 13,000 additional neighbourhood policing personnel before the next election, without explaining how they would all be funded.

“Meeting this commitment as currently described would require us to find an additional 1,900 to 2,100 full-time equivalent neighbourhood personnel in later years, in addition to 399, in 2026-27,” it said.

“This scale of shift would significantly destabilise our operating model and force us to make another round of cuts to deliver the commitment as it currently stands.”

The force said: “The Met is supportive of the White Paper, however, there are a set of issues that present some challenges and if implemented, could be contentious, complex or risky.”

The National Police Chiefs’ Council told MPs: “A further aim of the White Paper is to strengthen the local tier of policing, with a particular focus on neighbourhood teams and delivery of the additional 13,000 neighbourhood personnel by 2029 and wider Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee commitments.

“Policing welcomes this, but to deliver this in an effective and meaningful way requires sufficient, consistent and enduring funding.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Home Secretary has unveiled the biggest overhaul of policing structures in 200 years, giving officers the tools they need to catch criminals, cut crime and protect the public.

“The reforms have been welcomed by stakeholders across policing. They will help to boost neighbourhood policing, guarantee response times and increase patrols.

“We have put more than 3,000 extra officers and PCSOs into neighbourhood roles in less than a year and remain committed to rolling out 13,000 neighbourhood officers by the end of this parliament.”