Policing UK 2013 - Police Federation

THE ROLE OF POLICE
Policing murder,
major disaster
and mayhem
Does the strategic policing requirement
counter today’s threats? By Peter Neyroud
Peter Neyroud is former Chief
Constable of Thames Valley;
former CEO of the National
Policing Improvement Agency;
and Editor, Policing UK 2013
The riots in the summer of 2011
were a vivid illustration why a
police service that can be local
for most purposes has to be able to act
nationally to meet some challenges.
Without the ability of the forces most
affected by the riots to call down support
from around the country, quelling the
disorders and restoring normality – a
crucial task for the police – would have
taken a great deal longer.
Moreover, the ‘mutual aide’ system that
enabled that support to appear depended
on a complex set of national standards
in practice, equipment, communications
and tactics. Ever since the lessons of the
riots in 1981, forces have mutually bound
themselves to a national agreement on
the number of trained officers, the core
tactics and levels of training and the
qualifications of their commanders.
These are expensive investments for
local forces in rural areas to sustain, but
they are vital for modern policing.
The strategic policing requirement
(SPR) is a recognition of the importance
of national coherence in policing. In the
debates over the introduction of police
and crime commissioners (PCCs), the
coalition government agreed the need
for a mechanism to bind local PCCs to
collaborate and invest enough to secure an
effective national policing response.
The SPR has been created as a Code
of Practice, to which PCCs have to have
“regard”. It remains to be seen how
enforceable the Code will be. However,
its creation is a crucial recognition of the
need for a national approach.
The SPR starts from a ‘national
threat’ assessment. The threats outlined
– terrorism, civil emergencies, organised
crime, large scale public disorder and
cyber crime – are difficult to argue with.
However, even since the issuing of the
SPR in July 2012, events have illustrated
the difficulty of defining the scope of the
SPR.
The Savile affair has demonstrated
that there are other threats – in this case
serious allegations of child abuse and
sexual assault – which also demand a
national response and require local forces
to maintain a level of specialist capability
which can contribute to a national
response.
In many ways the SPR can be seen
as a continuing Home Office response
to the HMIC thematic report in 2005,
which identified the weaknesses of
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