Policing UK 2013 - Police Federation

POLICING CHALLENGES
“The National Counter Terrorism
Network has developed a repository of
skills, knowledge, experience, resources
and interagency relationships.”
restaurant, seriously injuring himself and
causing serious damage. Once again the
potential for the loss of innocent life was
very real.
In the period since the National
Counter Terrorism Network has been
established there is evidence to suggest the
security agencies have been more effective
in getting ‘upstream’ of this threat and
no attacks have been delivered outside of
Northern Ireland since the Haymarket/
Glasgow attacks in 2007 and the Exeter
bomb in 2008. In Northern Ireland a
serious threat remains for dissident Irish
republican terrorist groups who, although
small in number, have taken several
lives in recent years and are believed to
harbour ambitions to bring a campaign
back to mainland Britain.
There have been a number of major
investigations in the years since the
National Counter Terrorism Network was
established and many have resulted in
convictions in British courts. Many in the
counter terrorism community believe that
it is no coincidence that the agencies have
been able to intervene earlier in recent
years to avoid imminent threats to life and
they credit the investment in the National
Counter Terrorism Network, the greater
integration of resources and working
practices, the use of new technologies and
harnessing the network of the whole of
UK policing in order to prevent terrorism.
Long-term strategies
It seems clear that the ambition of some
in the UK and some outside of the UK
to attack us remains resolute but their
capacity and capability to do so is being
effectively suppressed as longer term
and more holistic preventive strategies
hopefully pay off. It is also obvious that
UK military operations in Afghanistan
and elsewhere alongside our allies
has seriously suppressed the ability of
organisations like al Qaeda to operate
effectively to inspire, task and co-ordinate
attacks in the UK as they have in the past.
In light of the relief that the London
Olympics and Paralympics passed off
as a safe and secure games and with a
backdrop of severe financial pressures
on policing it is inevitable that some will
come to question whether the level of
protection needs to be sustained at its
current level.
Current strategic intelligence
assessments may give us some insights
to this, but not the answer. History has
demonstrated the resilience of terrorism
as tactics have evolved to become ever
more sophisticated and the willingness
of people to use terrorism to prosecute
their cause has grown. The police service,
along with the security service and the
other agencies in the front line against
terrorism, has much to be proud of in
terms of its achievements in recent years.
A critical decade
However, new threats will almost certainly
emerge along with reconstituted old
threats. The National Counter Terrorism
Network has developed a repository of
skills, knowledge, experience, resources
and interagency relationships that now
leaves it flexible and able to adapt quickly
to new threats.
The next decade will be critical for
UK national security as we will begin
to see whether the deeper and longer
term aspects of our national counter
terrorism strategy deliver lasting results.
Will changes in foreign policy, with the
planned withdrawal from Afghanistan,
result in the self-maintenance of a stable
country where the rule of law prevails
and terrorists cannot operate as they once
did, unchecked? With various aspects
of police reform playing out somewhat
unconvincingly, it is also tempting
to default to the national pastime of
‘restructuring’ and transfer the police
counter terrorism capability away from
the Metropolitan Police and ACPO TAM
and switch it to the proposed National
Crime Agency.
I for one would think carefully
before switching a key national security
capability into a newly established
organisation that will inevitably have
teething troubles and growing pains of its
own in its early years.
Professionalism and resources
The strength of the UK counter
terrorism capability rests mainly in the
professionalism and resources of the
security service and the police and the
way in which the current arrangements
have, in an evolution over 40 years,
harnessed the whole UK police service
to play a role within their communities to
defeat terrorism.
On a recent visit to India I was
interested to follow the national counter
terrorism debate, where centralised
approaches to counter terrorism have
been perceived by many to have failed
and there is a widespread call to emulate
the UK approach and ‘mainstream’
counter terrorism activity within the
1.4 million officer-strong police forces
of India.
The business case for any change in the
UK needs to be very strong and I cannot
help think that the adage ‘if it ain’t broke,
don’t fix it’ is the start point.
POLICING UK | 91