Home Secretary unveils radical blueprint for police reform
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has announced the largest reforms to policing since the service was founded two centuries ago.
A White Paper titled ‘From local to national: a new model for policing’, outlines a radical blueprint for reform, including a review into dramatically reducing the number of police forces in England and Wales.
The Home Secretary says consolidating the current model will make the police more cost-efficient, giving the taxpayer more value for money, while also ensuring a less fragmented system that will better serve the public and make them safer.
Ms Mahmood said this is a moment to “reset policing’s focus and return to its core principles” – restoring neighbourhood policing and tackling local crime by delivering a structural overhaul to meet the demands of the modern world.
A new nationwide police service will also be established to fight the most complex and serious crimes.
The new National Police Service aims to attract “world-class talent” and will use state of the art technology to fight complex and serious crimes, lifting the burden on overstretched local forces and allowing them to focus on catching local criminals.
The service will bring the capabilities of the National Crime Agency, Counter Terrorism Policing, regional organised crime units, police helicopters and national roads policing under a single organisation.
As one force, it will be better equipped to share technology, intelligence and resources to stop the growing threat from crime that has become increasingly complex, digital, online and with no respect for constabulary borders, said the Home Secretary.
A national police commissioner will be appointed to lead the force and will serve as the most senior police officer in the country.
The aim of the national service is to enable local officers to spend more time supporting victims of crime and delivering neighbourhood policing, rather than navigating the forensics system.
This will give victims confidence as their case will be supported by world‑class specialist expertise, and the latest technology, no matter where they live, Ms Mahmood said.
Part of the new National Police Service’s remit will be to take on responsibility for forensics from the 43 local forces with direction set centrally from the new organisation.
Demand for specialist digital forensics means there are 20,000 devices awaiting analysis at any time. The service will deal with these backlogs and help the police keep up with the ever-increasing pace of change in technology.
Frontline policing will save £350 million by scrapping outdated procurement approaches, which will instead be used to fight crime.
Under the current localised model, each of the 43 forces often procure technology, equipment and clothing themselves, meaning 43 different teams undertaking the same work.
The new National Police Service will end this inefficiency, taking on the responsibility for shared services, equipment and IT.
In another change, ministers will be handed new powers to intervene directly in failing forces, sending in specialist teams to turn them around so they fight crime more effectively.
If crime solving rates or police response times are poor, the Home Secretary will be able to send in experts from the best performing forces to improve their performance, so they catch more criminals.
The Home Secretary will restore the power to sack failing chief constables. New laws will hand ministers statutory powers to force the retirement, resignation or suspension of chief constables if they are poorly performing.
The forces will also be directly accountable to the public, with new targets on 999 response times, victim satisfaction, public trust and confidence. These results will be published and forces graded so communities can compare.
To further reinforce accountability, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) will gain statutory powers to issue directions when forces fail to act on its recommendations.
Alongside these force-wide measures, the Government will also ensure the highest standards from individual officers. To strengthen safeguards and ensure those unfit for policing are kept out of the profession, laws will be introduced to impose “robust, mandatory vetting standards” for all police forces.
These new standards will enable forces to exclude those with a caution or conviction for violence against women and girls offences from policing.
Stronger requirements on forces to suspend officers who are under investigation for these crimes will also be introduced.
Police officers will be required to hold and renew a licence throughout their career so they learn new skills as criminal techniques evolve.
The Licence to Practice will ensure officers are best equipped with problem solving and technological skills they need to catch more criminals.
Drawn from other professions such as lawyers and doctors, officers will have to demonstrate that they have the skills needed to fight crime. Those who fail to reach the required standard, following opportunities to try again, will be removed from the profession.
Under the new reforms, response 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 ten seconds.
These new targets will ensure that all forces provide the same level of police response to crimes.
Currently, data on response times is collected differently across forces, and police are not held accountable if targets are not met. Reforming the system aims to create more transparency and consistency across the country.
Where forces fail to deliver, the Home Secretary will send in experts from the best performing forces to improve their performance, including when unmet response‑time targets are part of broader systemic failing.
The Government will also “ramp up” its pledge to restore visible neighbourhood policing and patrols in communities through an extension of its Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee.
This has already placed named, contactable officers in each neighbourhood. Under the extension, every council ward in England and Wales will have its own named, contactable officers, creating more local points of contact and giving officers a deeper understanding of the issues in their area.
Police forces will also be encouraged to recruit the “brightest and best” from universities in a new recruitment drive to cut crime and catch more criminals.
Modelled on Teach First, the Government is investing up to £7 million to attract top students from universities into specially trained graduate neighbourhood police officer roles in England and Wales.
Retailers across the country will see a major crackdown on organised crime gangs thanks to £7 million in new investment aimed at dismantling criminal networks.
This funding will “supercharge” intelligence-led policing to identify offenders, disrupt the tactics used to target shops, and bring more criminals to justice.
More than £140 million will also be invested in state-of-the-art police technology, with the number of live facial recognition vans increasing five-fold. Fifty vans will now be available to every police force in England and Wales.
New artificial intelligence (AI) tools will also be rolled out to help forces identify suspects from CCTV, doorbell and mobile phone footage that has been submitted as evidence by the public.
Currently, only a small handful of forces have implemented automation processes and AI when filling out forms and just 15 out of 43 forces have access to live facial recognition technologies.
A new national centre – Police.AI – will be set up to roll out AI to all forces. This will free-up officers from paperwork, delivering up to six million hours back to the front line every year – the equivalent of 3,000 police officers.
More tech specialists will be brought in to work in police forces to help uncover ‘vital hidden evidence” on phones and laptops to secure more convictions of professional criminals, particularly in crimes such as child sexual abuse.
A new senior policing role will be introduced to lead the police’s nationwide response to public disorder, and galvanise and coordinate responses to major incidents.
The senior national coordinator role for public order policing will sit within the new National Police Service. They will not be responsible for local public order responses, which remain within the remit of chief constables, and instead sit at a higher strategic level of oversight, with responsibility for decision-making over the most significant national public disorder, such as the widespread disorder seen in the summer of 2024 and the riots that started in London in 2011.
While local policing responses will stay the responsibility of chief constables, the new role will provide national oversight and decision-making on mobilisation and resourcing, with enhanced powers to:
- Direct resources under mutual aid arrangements and require forces to contribute during major disorder;
- Ensure mandatory data sharing between forces;
- Set a national strategy for public order policing; and
- Monitor and implement relevant recommendations from HMICFRS;
The Home Secretary will also expand the roll out of the dedicated Mental Health Crisis Line with long-term funding so that all officers and staff can access mental health support.
Officers and staff in front-facing and high-risk roles will also be offered psychological risk screenings each year so those suffering can be signposted to the best support when they need it most.
Trauma tracker software will be made available to every force and ensure senior leaders can identify and support staff at the highest risk and intervene at an earlier stage.
Mandatory training around resilience and mental health for new recruits and supervisors will be introduced and treated as protected learning time.
With the changing nature of modern crime, experts in cybersecurity and technology are being encouraged to join the Special Constabulary.
Since 2012, the number of special constables in England and Wales has fallen year-on-year to just 5,534 as of March 2025. This is down 73 per cent from 20,343 in 2012.
To reverse this decline, the Home Office will work with policing to streamline the recruitment process for Specials, making it easier for people to volunteer, while maintaining consistent high standards of vetting and training. Steps will also be taken to ensure existing Specials are incentivised to remain in the role, by better integrating them into the wider police force.
Responding to the White Paper, Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said: “This is the most significant change in policing in the last half a century, to get policing ready to fight crime and protect the public over the next half a century.
“The current policing model was designed in the 1960s. The postcode lottery of 43 police forces doing things 43 different ways, alongside a complicated mesh of regional collaborations, national agencies and funding streams, is both inefficient and ineffective.
“The need for significant police reform has been there for more than a decade and is now urgent, in a world where 90 per cent of crime has a digital element.
“We are grateful to ministers for clearly listening to the views of policing and putting together a package of ambitious and far-reaching measures which reflect the voice of our service.
“Police leaders are clear that police reform must have empowering neighbourhood policing at its heart. These reforms will free local crime fighters from admin, bureaucracy and national distractions so they can focus on protecting the communities they serve, with access to high quality regional and national services to support them when they are needed.
“Communities will still have their bobby on the beat – and the bobby on the beat will be better equipped to fight crime in their local area.
“Policing is committed to working with ministers and other partners to bring this ambitious vision for reform to life over the coming years, alongside our core mission of fighting crime and keeping our communities safe.”
Chief Constable Sir Andy Marsh, chief executive officer of the College of Policing, said: “Policing is one of the most dangerous jobs you can do, and officers put themselves in harm’s way every day managing life-and-death situations.”The College of Policing supports officers who followed our guidance and training and later come under scrutiny. A licence to practice provides officers with an even stronger defence if they follow the robust standards set for them.
“In no other profession would we expect those doing the job to be trained without a licence which ensures they are given the most robust training and support available.
“The most trusted public professions in the UK already have some form of licensing so that the public know who they are dealing with and what standards to expect. The inclusion of a licence to practice for policing gives reassurance to the public and the service that they can be confident officers are highly trained and fit to serve.
“The College of Policing already issues licences in the area of firearms where officers receive world-class training and have been rightly praised for preventing the loss of life, most notably during terror attacks.
“This is a welcome measure by the Government which recognises the excellence officers perform at and reassures the public that they will receive a consistent level of service regardless of where they live.”
HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Sir Andy Cooke, said: “The police reform White Paper marks the most significant changes to policing in decades. This ambitious set of reforms is welcome and required.
“I have consistently highlighted the need for stronger national decision-making, better collaboration and more consistent standards across forces. The Government has clearly listened and I look forward to working with the Government and the policing sector to help make sure these proposals deliver real benefits.”
Gloucestershire Constabulary T/Chief Constable Maggie Blyth said this was a “landmark moment for policing in England and Wales”.
“The plans laid out by the Government provide the investment in policing that the public and our workforce need. They are wide ranging and ambitious and will get us ready to fight crime and protect the public in the years to come,” she said.
“The current model of policing is outdated, ineffective and inefficient and as a result, the public face a ‘postcode lottery’ of the policing services they get.
“This financial year, Gloucestershire Constabulary has had to make savings of more than £12 million to balance its budget, which is proportionately the most any police force in the country has had to make. The forecast for the next few years looks equally challenging and regrettably, further cuts seem inevitable.
“A National Police Service could take away a lot of the financial responsibilities on forces, such as the procurement of vehicles, uniform, IT and forensic services.
“We are currently investing in our IT but compared to other forces, our systems are extremely dated and are incapable of running the latest software, such as facial recognition, or some Artificial Intelligence. This is frustrating and exposes communities to unnecessary risks.
“Our officers, staff and volunteers are working tirelessly to protect the public. But the nature of crime is becoming more and more complex – evolving quicker, taking longer to investigate and requiring more specialist skills. Criminals cross borders and increasingly operate online, with 90 per cent of crime now having a digital element.
“Even with the upgrades we’re implementing, I am not confident Gloucestershire Constabulary will have the technology or the specialist capabilities to be able to meet future expectations of us.”
She added: “Creating a national force which takes responsibility for tackling the threats faced by every community – things like serious organised crime, fraud, terrorism and violence against women and girls – will be hugely beneficial.
“Knowing these threats are being managed will allow neighbourhood police teams to relentlessly focus on the everyday needs of their communities – apprehending shoplifters and burglars, tackling anti-social behaviour and keeping vulnerable people safe from harm.
“I will be working alongside other police leaders with the Government on the plans laid out in the White Paper and look forward to seeing how a more streamlined policing service might be structured.
“Appreciating reform will take several years to implement, should there be an opportunity for Gloucestershire Constabulary to have an early role in a new look police service, then I would also be keen for us to be involved.
“Reform is urgently needed to ensure all communities, including Gloucestershire, are provided with policing services which are capable of tackling modern day crime, which are focused on their needs and which are delivered cost effectively.”
Police Federation of England and Wales national chair Tiff Lynch said: “Policing is broken and is breaking the officers who give everything to keep their communities safe: our members have copped enough.
“The case is clear for ending the postcode lottery of funding, policy and support for officers but fewer forces alone will not guarantee better policing. Skills, capabilities and equipment all need big investment.
“How this change is achieved will be crucial and the experience of police officers working at the sharp end must be heard and listened to.
“We are particularly concerned about the concept of a ‘licence to practice’. Everyone wants professional policing delivering more for communities, but that means investment in training, time and support. As things stand, training is routinely cancelled to plug gaps elsewhere in policing. These issues need to be fixed.
“We have today published five tests that reform must pass if it is to deliver. Any proposals must be driven by evidence, not lowest cost, and must strengthen the front line. We are in favour of reform, but it must serve both the public and our members.”
Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, Claire Waxman OBE, said the policing White Paper was a “substantial document with laudable ambitions for the future of our police forces”.
“It will take time to digest and grasp its full implications for policing and for victims of crime,” she said.
“Too often, victims are at the mercy of a postcode lottery. Compliance with the Victims’ Code remains poor, and many are still not receiving the service and support they are entitled to from the police. We must ask if a more victim-centric approach is possible.
“Ministers have shown real ambition for victims in other areas of the justice system; we now need to see that same bold approach applied to policing. Crucially, we also need clarity from government on how these proposals will impact on everything from the commissioning and funding of independent support services to how we hold police forces to account for delivering victim rights.”
While the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) welcomed the commitment to strong police governance and accountability in the White Paper on police reform, it cautioned against the “over-centralisation of policing”.
Emily Spurrell, chair of the APPC and police and crime commissioner (PCC) for Merseyside, said: “PCCs have worked hard to ensure that accountability is central to policing modernisation. Whilst I am pleased the Government has signalled its commitment to independent oversight of the new central policing body, we need more detail on plans for governance of the wider policing landscape.
“The government’s plan to replace PCCs with local Police and Crime Boards reminiscent of the former Police Authorities risks severely weakening accountability at a time when we need to do more to build public trust and confidence in policing.
“The planned National Police Service will help deliver savings and get rid of unnecessary duplication, but if it just operates top-down, it could reduce forces’ ability to respond to the needs of different areas and communities and stifle local innovation.”
PCCs have also warned against the creation of large regional forces, loosening the link between police and the communities they serve. They also question if the cost and complexity of their creation has the potential to far outweigh any savings and could even derail wider reform plans.
PCCs remain concerned about the safeguarding of critical services, currently led by PCCs in partnership with local agencies. These vital schemes provide support to victims, prevent crime and rehabilitate offenders. These are critical to delivery of the Government’s Safer Streets mission.
The APCC said the announcement places “unprecedented power” in the hands of just two people at the centre – the Home Secretary and the Commissioner of the new National Police Service. PCCs and deputy mayors say this concentration of policing power in England and Wales is “constitutionally alien and brings enormous risks”.
“Change of this magnitude comes with inevitable costs which must be supported by realistic and adequate funding,” the APCC said.
Ms Spurrell added: “Many of the White Paper proposals are about delivering savings, including the costs of public scrutiny. While everyone in policing is committed to deliver further efficiencies, the overriding objective of police reform must be to raise standards and improve the public’s trust and confidence.
“This can only be achieved through realistic funding and the provision of robust and independent governance.”
She said PCCs support modernisation to make policing more efficient but warn against change that “distracts from delivering an effective service that keeps the public safe”.
Leicestershire PCC Rupert Matthews, meanwhile, said the Home Secretary appeared to be on a “power-grab of monstrous proportions” in a bid to “conceal the Government’s ineptitude when it comes to tackling crime and disorder”.
“She has given herself the power to fire chief constables, effectively eradicating the opportunity for challenge and operational independence for fear of a P45,” he said.
“Her proposals for force amalgamations will leave towns and villages hopelessly exposed to crime, while policing will lose its identity. These plans place too much power in the hands of too few people. Real policing works when local officers are on the beat, accountable to local communities, and trusted to respond to local problems. This reform is proposing the very opposite.
“The Home Secretary is effectively throwing the baby out with the bath water, with an unproven plan that will cost an absolute fortune to implement.
“It’s quite clear that the Government believes announcing change is the same as delivering it. It will be interesting to see what the promised consultation looks like, and who is consulted, because I think the public want to keep their local police. Fewer forces do not mean better policing.”
Jane Hutt MS, Welsh government Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, said the White Paper proposals were “significant, far-reaching and require detailed consideration”.
“I recognise, for example, that there may be advantages in the centralisation of some operational functions,” she said. “However, it is important that the mechanisms for achieving this ensure that funds raised in Wales are retained in Wales.
“Similarly, the introduction of centrally devised targets and changes to the oversight of police force performance may have merit, but it will be essential that any targets and oversight arrangements that apply in Wales are designed for the Welsh context, from the outset. The White Paper notes that funding reform is required; it is important that police funding is safeguarded to enable communities to be safer and victims supported.
“Likewise, on a reduction of police forces, it is right that such decisions are not rushed and are subject to an independent review. The Welsh government will engage with that review fully and consider its findings. To support the review, at a minimum, we would expect to make the case to that review that, given the difference in laws and working practices between Wales and England, no single regional police force should operate across both sides of the Anglo-Welsh border.
“Finally, I welcome the consideration being given to vetting processes and to the maintenance of professional standards for police officers. The great majority of Wales’s police officers are brave and committed public servants, dedicated to the communities they serve. However, trust and confidence in the police remain too low, especially among women and some minority communities. Unfortunately, this is sometimes for good reason.
“I hope that through working with the UK Government on these reforms we can improve the effectiveness of policing in Wales. We are proud of the partnerships we have built with policing partners in Wales, and we continue to work collaboratively with the united purpose of keeping Wales safe.”
Unison national officer for policing Ben Priestley said any effective reform of police services will need “significant investment”.
“Forces are on course to be £1 billion short of their current budget needs by 2027, which means vital police staff jobs are already being cut,” he said.
“Mergers are expensive and won’t bring about short-term savings. Police staff and the public will want reassurances vital local services and democratic accountability of the police aren’t going to be weakened by the changes.
“Proposals for a strategic workforce plan, an end to police officer number targets and the rebuilding of neighbourhood policing are good news. There’s a real opportunity here to improve the training, development, career prospects and pay for police staff.”