Met Police chief warns 'policing will fail' without major reforms

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has warned that “policing will fail” without major reforms, including reducing the number of regional forces.

In a speech delivered on Friday, he warned that the "fragmented, bureaucratic, top-heavy spaghetti model" comprising 43 forces should be reduced to as few as eight or 10.

These police forces would comprise local policing commands, and would be overseen by a new national police force that takes over the "fragmented responsibilities" shared by the National Crime Agency and the City of London Police.

Due to the increasingly globalised and sophisticated nature of crime in the 21st century, Sir Mark said there was a "very real risk to the public" if urgent "radical reforms" weren't implemented.

"We can't keep asking people to meet new threats with ageing systems and too little investment in their skills," he said in his speech in Manchester.

"The result isn't just fragile balance sheets, it's a police service unable to protect the public as well as we should, and as well as we wish."

Sir Mark argued that a national police service would help equip police forces with the latest technology necessary to tackle organised crime and terrorism.

He added that under the current system, forces were organised around boundaries that were "too small to sustain". Eight forces in the UK did not carry out basic undercover operations, he said.

Sir Mark said police forces across the country are "solving less crimes", with positive outcome rates now less than half of what they were 12 years ago.

The best performing police force in the country only solved 22% of crimes and just 58% of the public believe police are doing a good job, he said.

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He added that police funding has fallen from 0.9% of GDP to 0.7% in 15 years, the equivalent of a deficit of £3bn today.

Britain also has fewer police officers per person than France, Germany, Italy and Spain, he said.

He said officers were now carrying the burden of the numerous strains on the service themselves.

"The reason police succeed as often as it does, is entirely because of them," he said. "Increasingly they are carrying a burden that should be carried by the system itself.

"The public see professionalism. They don't always see the pressure.

"And perhaps that's part of our challenge, because policing has become very good at absorbing pressure, very good at absorbing risk, very good and accepting growing demand, and very good at quietly finding a way or pretending that everything is working."

He said that policing was made more complex in the modern world because of technology that allowed abusers to target victims from another continent and fraudsters to steal someone's life savings without entering the country.

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