Addressing the challenges facing neighbourhood policing

The National Intelligence Model (NIM) is synonymous with intelligence management across policing. Devised for the Home Office by the National Centre for Police Excellence, it was introduced in 2000. It is a business process that is designed to take ‘information from a wide variety of sources relevant to policing, from community intelligence at neighbourhood level to intelligence on serious and organised crime and terrorism at a national and international level’. NIM (3.3.1.3.)

The pressure on neighbourhood policing teams will rise inordinately in order for them to satisfy expectations. Increased governmental financial support, new primary legislation, College of Policing’s professional training programme, and protected duties for officers, are arguably the most significant package of measures introduced for decades.

It is a quarter of a century since Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) produced its ‘Winning the Race – Embracing Diversity. Consolidation Inspection of Police Community and Race Relations’.

In it, the then HMIC stated: “Community intelligence may be defined as local information, direct or indirect, that when assessed provides intelligence on the quality of life experienced by individuals and groups, that informs both the strategic and operational perspectives in the policing of local communities.”

In the application of the NIM, issues relevant to all areas of diversity and culture, such as race, religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and age, will be taken into account. NIM (1.3.1.)

The expected outcomes are improved community safety, reduced crime and the control of criminality and disorder leading to greater public reassurance and confidence. NIM (3.1.1.)

A reality is manifesting itself as the Neighbourhood Policing Pathway programme’s enactment approaches. The practical application of the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee has far reaching consequences for the forty-three county forces, whereas compromise is not an operational option, local strategies may offer innovation, interpretation, and foresight when it comes to implementation.

NIM should enable police forces to trace the continuum between anti-social behaviour and the most serious crime and then to identify those local issues in most urgent need of attention. NIM (3.1.4.)

The majority of police interventions in the lives of citizens is predominantly post-incident: from the violence of assault, murder, road traffic offences, drunkenness, theft, burglary and rape; even dealing with anti-social behaviour can be retrospective.

Likewise, operational uniformed patrol officers are conditioned to attend complaints post incident. Occurrence reports last year to use a colloquialism were at: 47,000 vehicle-related offences, 363,000 thefts from persons and 409,000 burglaries across England and Wales. They deal with, victim, perpetrator, breach of the law and provide action resolutions.

Neighbourhood policing is the opposite.

It is going to be far from business as usual for those officers identified for the Neighbourhood Pathway Programme. These selected officers will have successfully completed their initial training programme embedded in a two-year probationary period; accordingly, they will become experienced, proficient and effective officers having served as sector policing’s response officers for a further number of years.

It should be emphasised that for the authorities, the importance of neighbourhood policing lays at the very heart of confronting the levels of crime in the UK. Consider for one moment, the initial Neighbourhood Policing Pathway course is being delivered directly by the College of Policing; this indicates how significant it is seen as being because it is designed to provide skills sufficient to:

1. Reduce crime and anti-social behaviour;
2. Increase public trust and confidence;
3. Solve complex problems in partnership; and
4. Target those who cause harm.

This is not an examination on the application of an innovative alien policy or the implementation of new tactics, it is not even the introduction of technological advances as with facial recognition software or artificial intelligence.

Neighbourhood policing reform may only present as one small characteristic, but I acknowledge it as the predominant public debate in current policing vernacular. Nonetheless it is only one aspect of service delivery for chief constables and PCCs. Similarly, it is no more significant to victims of violence, or sexual abuse than the right to free legal advice for perpetrators, but, for policing’s rank and file, innovative it is not; ground-breaking may be a more apt descriptive.

The Home Office’s Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee (NPG) support has five pillars of associated commitments:

1. Police back on the beat;
2. Community-led policing;
3. Clear performance standards and professional excellence;
4. Crackdown on anti-social behaviour; and
5. Safer town centres.

The praiseworthy advocated research undertaken by the College of Policing in development of the programme, ‘agreed six substantive guidelines’:

1. Engaging communities;
2. Solving problems;
3. Targeting activity;
4. Promoting the right culture;
5. Building analytical capability; and
6. Developing officers, staff, volunteers.

The benefits are there for the whole of society to observe, but achieving the results is the onerous burden being placed on to the shoulders of neighbourhood policing – the fight against 1,972,843 violent crimes; almost 200,000 sexual offences, two million theft offences and 100,000 robberies, and victims of fraud out-of-pocket to the tune of £64 million across England and Wales each year. Authenticated figures of more five million recorded crimes is the reality facing police officers this coming year.

The NPG has a balance, an equilibrium, there’s even a symmetry. We are looking at a political perspective contrasted against historical policing methodology; That said, the doctrine of the ‘Safer Streets Mission’ is complex as it appears inconsistent to contrast the balance of guidance and support against political interference and domination.

The NPG promise is impressive, an obligation of public funding dedicated to making local communities safer balanced against the deceptively innocuous sacrifice of merely having to ‘published online metrics of police performance enabling the public to hold their force to account’.

The guarantee includes enactment of a national standards protocol for neighbourhood duties designed to protect officers from abstractions, ensuring a visible presence and guaranteeing clear-up rates. These are commendable ambitions, but that said, familiarity of government policy announcements and parliamentary debates are all too common.

Prior to exploring police intelligence’s contribution to NPG, it is worth recapping on the centralised structural enhancements planned for by the end of this Parliament, which will enable forces to far better understand the dominions under their protection: £200 million of government funding, a performance framework and ‘in-house’ contextual measures; 3,000 more officers in this next year, defined geographical neighbourhoods, plus new national standards, including technological advances.

By 2029 police neighbourhoods will be aligned with council wards, neighbourhood areas will have dedicated teams allied to each area, every neighbourhood assigned officer having completed the enhanced Neighbourhood Policing Pathway programme from a cohort of 13,000 extra personnel.

Policing, per se, must have supporting voices preparing society for its forthcoming struggles not just promoting successes but emphasising the depth of the challenges.

Over the past year I have presented opinion on a number of aspects of law enforcement endeavouring to improve awareness while highlighting a progressive strategy that can be embedded in neighbourhood policing, that of a community intelligence-led methodology (CILPM).

Presentations thus far have contributed to discussions on the broad aspects of neighbourhood policing and that of community safety oversight. I have focused attention on single operational necessities as with missing persons, alternatively expanding the debate to emphasise the depth community intelligence’s adoption would contribute to operational infrastructure, eg, the EU’s Serious Organised Crime Threat Assessment. I have compared rural and urban intelligence requirements within the range of neighbourhood responsibilities, whether discussing the summer riots of 2024 or similarly contrasting missing persons to the demise in trust and confidence in UK policing.

We approach a crossroads in expectation.

Statistics are a fact of life no matter how much contempt Benjamin Disraeli had for them. They are both the justification for and persecution of policy as public attention is not going to wane, neither will demands on policing.

Crime is not going to miraculously disappear, if anything it will increase as policing implements reimagined reporting requirements. Police partnership and business engagement will dramatically address shop theft and the protection of shop staff from violent assault, likewise anti-social behaviour will come front and centre in all neighbourhoods where public prioritisations will determine local resource reconfiguration.

Community safety has been in policing vocabulary for some time, dating back to the primary legislation of the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998 and the Morgan Report of 1991 before that.

Evolution will require commitment; where communities may remain apprehensive is comparing lived experiences to that of statistical data as publicly tracked headline measures will report local police performance.

I am excited by the prospect of Neighbourhood Policing Pathway officers directly contributing to addressing local criminality, because what the average member of the public endures has a far more significant impact on their opinion, being that it is reinforced by their local experiences; what must be recognised is that the public are exposed to all the negative aspects society has to offer, in its many forms on a regular basis.

I designed CILPM specifically to address a shortfall in law enforcement provision, but just as importantly to make it accessible and easy to use for officers, analysts, statisticians and ultimately forces alike. An emphasis on capturing intelligence in the routine of everyday policing is an attention-grabbing idiom, it is clearly not just a romantic notion but I see it as a pragmatic approach in the cause.

Ensuring abstractions are protected in order to maintain a visible police presence implies prevention and deterrence are in direct competition with crime reduction through the ‘town centre crimes solved’ promise.

New monthly monitoring performance data in addition to quarterly financial reporting will no doubt raise debate over unwarranted burdens on forces. Accountability is a further reality: the Government has ambition to dictate the size of each forces’ neighbourhood team; to steal from the Gettysburg Address of 1863: policing “of the people, by the people, for the people”.

The Government undoubtedly will be cognisant of the contradiction of these instructions, but it may have an inverted benefit that is attractive in combating a woke populism subconscious.

It needs firm, positive action on behalf of its citizens. All cities, towns, villages, treated equally; each county across England and Wales having its council wards linked to a neighbourhood team.

Strong political leadership and direction is needed; the Government directly confronting issues without having to pander to political correctness and addressing crime as the general consensus would aspire.

Furthermore, passing responsibility to county chief constables to oversee implementation is representative; it is idiosyncratic local knowledge guiding the application of insight.

Policing understands its responsibilities; it knows its funding limitations and is cognisant of its public’s expectations. Territorial interoperability, demographic profiles, rural expanses and urban conurbations are the mere tip of the iceberg. Restorative innovation, be it strategic, tactical or technical, is being developed in an ever-evolving vacuum of communities.

Neighbourhood policing is not one intervention, it is the application of the recommended pillars of the NPG, plus, by including a pathway for the collection of first-hand information and its subsequent, assessment, appraisal, analysis, sharing a deeper preventative and investigatory insight will be formed through community intelligence policing.

As I touched upon earlier, a community intelligence-led framework must now be implemented across England and Wales. Police interoperability is evidence enough of justification for the argument as the singularity of neighbourhood officers identified with only a local borough is as incongruous as the absence of access to national community intelligence.

Community intelligence is a proactive weapon; it is a pre-emptive strategy. The octahedron principle of CILPM maintains top-down instruction invoking bottom-up action while fostering bottom-down intervention permitted through top-up authority.

A House of Lords briefing for the UK Parliament in 2020 stated 90 per cent of England is made up of rural areas, and that 71 per cent of UK landmass is agricultural. The briefing further stated the Welsh government estimated 78 per cent of land in Wales is used for agriculture. Putting further context to the debate, ten years ago 20.9 per cent of England’s population lived in local authority areas defined as predominantly rural; in Wales the figure was 32.8 per cent.

In tactical policing terms, Lake Windemere has visitor numbers of seven million a year, policed by the Cumbria force of 1,383 officers. Dyfed Powys Police has 1,294 officers yet covers two-thirds of Wales’s landmass.

It is no surprise then that Brian Booth, deputy national chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales warned on March 31 this year, “pay down 21 per cent in real terms since 2009, resignations up 142 per cent since 2018 and nearly a quarter of officers planning to leave”.

There are many elements to neighbourhood policing; the embodiment of intelligence-led policing is assimilation, the practical application of observation, it is understanding the elements of cohesion within a collaborative picture. Where police intelligence is corroborated information, community intelligence is vigilance of patrol, emphasis on communication, integration, local knowledge, while cognisant of the new, unknown, unattributed, indistinguishable, undefined, or irrelevant – this is community safety, this is intelligence-led policing, a structured framework for information capture, recording, process, analysis and sharing.

A CILPM will sit equally as well for independent forces as it will for those with interoperability arrangements in place. Sharing of information or perhaps more accurately, accessing material is essential in confronting rural and urban crime alike.

Obtaining the data in the first place is the greatest problem for policing as evaluation of online community incident logs, crime complaints, occurrence reports and graded intelligence submissions do not provide sufficient depth for insightful community analysis.

The pooling of information or disclosure of specific knowledge across specialised units and forces similarly has revolutionised the fight against opportunist criminal gangs and organised crime alike, where development is required is in a laminated all-encompassing protocol at grassroots level across England and Wales to confront crime.

Moving into the second quarter of the 21st Century, North Cornwall’s Ben Maguire, MP presented a Rural Crime debate in the House of Commons on February 27 this year. Alex Brewer MP for North East Hampshire, informed the House that 22 active organised crime gangs operated across the country specifically involved in rural crime, inclusive of 6,600 active ‘County Lines’ criminal enterprises.

There is hyperbole when presenting community intelligence, this is because at its core it is a pragmatic, proactive, transformative methodology. The principle is not just a programme for policing, it is a doctrine of change – one of improvement, accountability, evidenced based practice, putting community safety at the heart of policy by protecting all sectors of the public from harm

The integration of community patrolling within an intelligence-led policing policy will build a collective relationship, a unifying bond of citizen and neighbourhood officer; restored through agreement, built upon trust, instilled with confidence, reinforced by reliability, security and rewarded in community.

Community intelligence-led policing’s foundations are constructed on the ability of police forces to obtain grassroots word-of-mouth information live-time; corroborated by officer’s own evidence.

Community intelligence will be able to contribute to a better understanding of criminal aetiology, providing forces with the requisite data for an in depth understanding of its crime. The correlation of the consequence of an offence on the victim to that of the economic impact of crime on a retailer is an ambition at the heart of crime reduction; furthermore, appreciation of complex relationships across the extent of criminology will only be truly made possible by the proficient insight of community intelligence.

The significance of vision and comprehension, of observation and perception are fundamental to community intelligence understanding the perpetuation of criminal offending determined by the structure of the crime. Simply put: drug offending is a relationship between supplier and user/burglary is an association between thief, victim and ‘fence’ as in shop lifting/assault is personal between assailant and victim, eg, VAWG, Domestic abuse, child sexual abuse or rape.

The structure of a community intelligence supported data base will enable analysis of criminal intelligence identified interactions and the connections and associations of enterprise exposing criminal activity and co-operation.

The efficacy of neighbourhood policing will be determined by the relationship between public and police, and State and police; in this context, the impact of crime can also be assessed as a consequence of offender action on the victim. Where intelligence enters the picture is regulated by the structure of the information, its manipulation, and the attribution of data in context of community.

Neighbourhood and community imply an esoteric term of social control imposed at a far more local level than the concept of civil society; consequently, the relationships between the factors affecting crime intelligence require a business framework along the lines of CILPM to manage the material data.

Steve Dodd is a retired South Wales Police detective. He is a subject matter expert on police intelligence having authored the force’s Community Intelligence Force Policy. An adviser on the College of Policing’s Intelligence Professionalisation Programme, he was deployed on the Government’s working group on the Western Balkans Serious Organised Crime strategy. An international liaison officer, he is an international airline certified extradition officer, plus National Financial Investigator qualified. He is currently writing his ‘Community Intelligence-Led Policing Methodology’ including the octahedron pyramid, a transtheoretical approach, and an inverted strategy thesis.