Shabana Mahmood to announce major police reforms including 'British FBI' and officer attendance deadlines
Police will be expected to arrive at serious crime scenes within 15 minutes in cities and 20 minutes in rural areas, under new reforms being announced today.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will unveil a radical overhaul of policing in England and Wales in a white paper dubbed “From local to national: a new model for policing”, explaining that the current model was “built for a different century”.
This includes a new National Police Service, dubbed the “British FBI”, that will investigate terrorism cases, fraud and criminal gangs, with a new commissioner becoming the most senior officer in the country.
The Metropolitan Police, Counter-Terror Police and the National Police Chiefs’ Council all welcomed the creation of a single national service.
It is hoped the new NPS will lift the burden on local forces, which the Home Office believes are diverting resources away from tackling day-to-day crimes to deal with national policing issues.
Ms Mahmood said that some forces lacked the “skills or resources they need to fight complex modern crime”, explaining the NPS would allow local police “to spend more time fighting crime in their communities”.
As part of this, officers will be expected to reach the scene of the most serious incidents within 15 minutes in cities and 20 minutes in rural areas, and forces will be expected to answer 999 phone calls within 10 seconds.
This will be paid for with an 11 per cent real term increase in funding compared with 2023-24, according to the Home Office, and the reforms will help push officers onto the frontline.
It is hoped that this will help provide a standard level of services across the country, and if forces fail to hit these targets the Home Secretary will send in experts to improve their performance.
Ms Mahmood said: “Everyday crimes are on the rise across the country and too often there seem to be no consequences.
“People are reporting crimes and then waiting hours or even days for a response. By the time the police arrive, the perpetrators and witnesses are long gone.
“I will restore neighbourhood policing and scale up patrols in communities to catch criminals and cut crime.”
The Home Secretary will also announce a review into the number of police forces, with an expectation that reforms will create fewer, larger constabularies.
This has long been called for from senior police officers, from Scotland Yard Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley to NPCC chair Gavin Stephens.
There was speculation that Yorkshire’s four forces could be combined into one super force, however Home Office sources pushed back on this as a possibility.
However, it is understood that should the pan-Yorkshire force be on the table, local and regional leaders would push back on this proposition.
One Yorkshire Labour source told this paper that the super force “would be too big” and the different “areas’ challenges are unique and nuanced”.
West Yorkshire is the fourth biggest force in England, after the Met, Greater Manchester and West Midlands Police, with more than 6,000 officers.
While North Yorkshire Police is one of the smallest forces in the country, with around 1,500 officers each, it covers the largest area of any force in England.
Ms Mahmood said the review would end the “postcode lottery”, having described the current 43-force set up as irrational.
In her announcement today, the Home Secretary will also aim to slash policing red tape and try to reduce the recording of non-crime incidents.