Policing UK 2013 - Police Federation

OVERVIEW
A singular focus
on cutting crime
The Rt Hon Theresa May
outlines the police reform agenda
The Rt Hon Theresa May is
Home Secretary and Member
of Parliament for Maidenhead
The changes we’re making to
policing amount to the most
wide ranging and fundamental
reform in 180 years. They are ambitious,
and they are working. Crime is falling
and the front line is being protected –
and we’ve achieved that despite policing
taking its share of budget cuts.
Our reforms touch on every aspect of
the policing landscape; and each of them
means real and lasting change, whether
that’s putting victims at the centre of
the justice system or helping to foster a
policing profession that rewards talent,
prizes integrity and uses evidence based
policing to fight crime.
We often debate the merits of each
of these changes in turn, but we rarely
get the chance to discuss how they fit
together as a whole. Our reform agenda
is comprehensive, and our reforms are
complementary. So it’s useful to have
the opportunity to comment on how,
collectively, they contribute to the core
mission of policing: to keep cutting crime.
Unlike the previous government’s
approach, that doesn’t mean meddling in
local policing. Nor does it mean creating
an artificial divide between the local
and national responsibilities. Rather,
our reform agenda is crafting a policing
landscape in which everyone has a clear
and complementary role in fighting crime.
Within that landscape, future Home
Secretaries will remain accountable to
Parliament for the totality of policing
and crime in England and Wales.
But Whitehall will no longer have an
automatic right to involve itself in
day-to-day local policing – 13 years of
top-down management under the last
government proved that approach just
doesn’t work.
Instead, we are focusing our efforts on
supporting the police by driving through
those reforms that only government can,
whether that’s strengthening the policing
profession and ensuring a premium is
placed on both skills and experience,
cutting bureaucracy to free up police
time and put more officers out on the
front line, or ensuring a comprehensive
response to both local and national
threats.
“We are focusing our efforts on
supporting the police by driving
through those reforms that
only government can.”
12 | POLICING UK