Policing UK 2013 - Police Federation

THE ROLE OF POLICE
not only for criminality but the means
available to combat crime that will have
procurement, inter-operability and
training implications. Weisburd and
Neyroud (2011 4 ) talk about the blue line
being blue chip if the police service is to
manage itself and place its efforts into
what works, ie, operational innovations,
which have been the subject of systematic
review rather than rely on the good faith
of traditional working practices.
6. Widening of provision of policing
from a plurality of sources that will be
a natural extension of what Leishman,
Loveday and Savage predicted in
1996 5 . We already have an extended
police family consisting of warranted
officers, civilian support staff, police and
community support officers, volunteer
special constabulary. New members
from the private sector are already being
admitted and there are likely to be other
coalitions linking public and private
sectors.
Principles
It is accepted that the police service in
the UK derives its legitimacy from a
model of policing by consent, which is
held as a sacrosanct principle. It is this
that underpins the cycle of trust and
confidence whereby the public co-operate
with police through reporting crime,
providing intelligence and remain willing
to appear as witnesses in court and
complying with lawful instructions from
officers.
The other principles governing a
democratic police service are taken
from the template offered by the Patten
Commission (1999 6 ) namely:
Professional – continually striving to be
effective and efficient
Impartial – free from bias and from
partisan political control;
Accountable – under the law for its
actions and to the community it serves
operationally, managerially, financially
Representative – of the society it
polices;
Human rights compliant – fair and
protective of the public.
These represent the yardstick by which
to judge the future shape of the police
service.
Themes
The Commission has identified seven
themes that will form the basis of its
evidence gathering and conclusions.
These are represented in Figure 1.
When designing an organisation
it is helpful to have some clarity of
purpose. We fondly talk of the Peelian
principles as the historical and enduring
underpinning of the British police
service. It is worth re-visiting these as
their provenance is somewhat suspect as
deriving from Peel himself.
They are more likely an invention of
the historian Charles Reith (Lentz and
Chaires, 2007 7 ). While the sentiments of
the nine principles may well stand the
test of time, there clearly has been some
shift of emphasis in what is held to be the
main purpose of policing.
Peel’s direction to the police
emphasised the prevention of crime
and maintenance of public tranquillity.
As codified by Patten in the case of
Northern Ireland, modern concepts such
as human rights should be considered
when defining purposes of the police.
Similarly the question might usefully be
asked how far back the police should be
involved in the causes of crime argued to
be rooted in deprivation, unemployment,
poor parenting and welfare dependency.
Issues of legitimacy and accountability
are highly-contested areas according to
Reiner (2010 8 ), the last 20 years has seen
movement towards more local control
culminating in the elected police and
Figure 1: Commission themes
Legitimacy
Governance and
accountabilities
Purpose
(Reviewing the Peelian principles)
Delivery
Operational style
Infrastructure
support
Resources
(Sources, spending how much and on what)
crime commissioners (PCCs). PCCs
will have powers to direct local police
priorities in response to local needs.
However there is also a requirement
set out in the strategic policing
requirement document (Home Office,
2011 9 ) to engage in policing of national
threats such as terrorism, organised crime
and public order, which it is recognised
a single force may not be able to handle
alone. Forces are required to have the
capacity and consistency to respond
to such threats as and when they arise.
Thus the Commission is interested in the
structural arrangements that might ensue
to deliver these protective services.
The Commission is also interested
in models of delivery of policing tasks,
which links in the advocacy of evidencebased
practice through the newlyproposed
College of Policing. This also
links with the workforce in terms of who
we want to be the police officers and staff
working for the police.
Finally, all of this is underpinned by
resources and the Commission will take
a view on financial aspects of delivery
policing.
Mapping the problem space
At this stage a picture is emerging of
some of the key issues which might be
described as a problem map. Clearly there
are potentially different demands being
made on and of the police by the state in
Organisation
Structures, systems
Relationships
Agencies, diverse communities,
general public
Workforce
Professionalism
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