You might have read about Wiltshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) making a significant admission to Wiltshire’s Police and Crime Panel, who hold him to account for the delivery of policing.
The PCC is reported to have told the local councillors on the Panel that, without extra funding, he could “no longer, hand on heart, tell you that we can provide the same level of service.”
He added, “We’ve trimmed just about all the fat out of the system that we can. We are going over contracts line by line to identify savings.”
In resolving the financial shortfall, he urged for “radical solutions”. There is no doubting the sincerity of this admission, which has finally been made public.
What the PCC did not elaborate on was what the cost-cutting measures have required over the years. Salisbury and other police stations have been closed. More recently, civilian police staff posts are being cut with a round of redundancies. It is unlikely that these measures have improved the quality of policing.
The finger is invariably pointed at the funding formula used to finance individual police forces. As part of this arrangement, Wiltshire Police is reported to receive £127 per head of population, compared to a national average of £164 per person, with some London boroughs receiving more than £400.
One of the challenges for Wiltshire Police is the rural nature of the area of Wiltshire and Swindon. In putting the critical mass of resources in and around centres of population, rural policing will suffer.
In addition, policing has become an increasingly complex task with the rise of specialist units to address terrorism, cybercrime, and other threats to public safety.
Comparing the funding of Wiltshire Police with the Metropolitan Police Service is misleading as there is no requirement to regularly police mass, and sometimes violent, protests or Presidential state visits.
The PCC is understandably quick to highlight that we currently have low crime levels. Wiltshire Police report only 48 crimes per 1,000 people, the lowest in England and Wales, but it remains uncertain whether this can be sustained.
While our PCC has questioned the way policing is funded, other senior police leaders have taken a different approach. The pressure on Wiltshire Police reflects challenges across England and Wales, prompting calls for systemic reform.
Earlier this year, Gavin Stephens, chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, was quoted as saying, “Police reform is about restructuring policing so that it can keep up with modern criminality, retaining the bedrock of community policing whilst modernising our workforce to deal with national threats such as organised crime and violence against women and girls.”
The solution he offered was to reduce from 43 individual police forces across England and Wales, with the intention of facilitating greater investment in technology and achieving other efficiencies.
Sir Mark Rowley, the Met Commissioner, has opted for as few as 12 regional police forces. He described the current model of policing as being designed for the 1960s rather than the 21st century.
A concern for rural communities across the country will be a reduction in access to the police. A popular adage is that “the cap badge matters.” Residents will understandably want to feel a shared affinity for the sense of place with their local police.
Maintaining the current policing structure is unsustainable, though reform will incur significant costs. For instance, standardising the use of IT across the 43 forces will demand considerable funding.
I believe reform will occur due to financial necessity. An important first step would be for our PCC and Chief Constable to engage in an open discussion with national police leaders to explore how this can be achieved. The last thing we want is a postcode lottery when it comes to the quality of local policing.
Health & Wellbeing Group Open Day at the Leisure Centre
