Integration over separation

Neighbourhood policing has captured the limelight; the Government’s ‘From Local to National’ White Paper is unequivocal in its directive – focus of attention has been restored. Legislation will be introduced, central funding has been re-directed, neighbourhood officer numbers enhanced and the College of Policing has produced the Neighbourhood Policing Programme.

The case has been categorically made, as all the while, opportunities within and outside of the sector have been vociferously declared. Community intelligence-led policing methodology presents its own interpretational insight; a juxtaposition to neighbourhood policing’s literal application, that of, integration over separation.

Assign neighbourhood officers within each shift

A first step on the road to reform; for the nature of recorded crime is changing, but criminals will always be criminals irrespective of modus operandi. The character of their crimes will be as varied as their residencies. Criminals live within general society, among us, in our local communities, neighbourhoods, be they rural, urban or a city centre metropolis.

A generalised introduction begets a case for honest introspection in light of publication of the Southport Inquiry Report.

https://southport-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws. com/2026/04/31.236_HO_Southport-Inquiry_Volume1_WEB.pdf

Further concerns come into focus by the announcement of an IOPC gross misconduct investigation of the handling of the Wimbledon school crash in July 2023. This article is no pseudo-review or theoretical discussion, it is an offering of advancement, one of openness, integration, involvement and progress.

Confidence and trust are essential to ‘policing by consent’. Two-way communication is consequently indispensable as face-to-face interactions become obligatory in sharing the human characteristic of community cohesion.

Rebuilding neighbourhood policing by reinforcing its independence, its self-sufficiency, and the professionalisation of its officers through the Neighbourhood Policing Pathway is central to the Government’s From Local to National policy.

Protecting neighbourhood officers from abstraction, designing a Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee dashboard, and implementation of a performance framework to ensure standards are defined and met, are most welcome across all communities. This approach is essential in ensuring the continued autonomy of neighbourhood policing; however, the deal is not done and I advocate we do not wait a further half-a-century before reviewing, applying adjustments and implementing improvement; start the planning now.

The Government has timetabled its policy’s completion for the end of its next parliamentary term. Accordingly, modification should be a continuous cycle: identify potential pitfalls, canvas opinion, research alternatives, have flexibility embedded in. Let us be ahead of the criminals but more importantly, dictate what modern policing looks like.

One premise is that of selective advancement, prioritisation of when the time is right – not when it is convenient. An abstract application of neighbourhood policing is inconsequential: the provision for identifiable law enforcement contacts within neighbourhoods, of guaranteed response times and intelligence led policing that delivers visible, accessible, community-focused policing is tangible. This includes the suggested additional support through subsidiary multi-agency intervention [mental health, SSD, probation, education].

The Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee ensures continuity, a recognisable provision of service, delivered through named, ring-fenced, Neighbourhood Policing Programme qualified officers.

I argue against retention of the existing system or for a full introduction of the White Paper hidden under the blanket of ‘worsting’ – a case of the proposed and the present being worse than what is its potential.

What I am promoting is a progressive approach, tabled in preparation for the next iteration of From Local to National. One where an impotent police service does not offer a promise of attendance within three days of an incident’s occurrence; nor where ineffectual merely means moving an ASB problem to an alternate location only for it to return after the tour of duty is concluded.

These are a familiar scenario in many towns, cities, housing estates, villages, city centres and across our many and varied communities.

Local Policing Areas will in all but name replicate existing Basic Command Units and will be configured against council wards or by population.

The Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee presents itself as innovation, that is its ambition. I suggest an adjustment; one of proactively utilising the conventional 4-shift system as a singularly integrated response facility.

The proposal is inclusive of the community policing ethos, it is deliverable across the uniform provision, materialising as a neighbourhood specialism embedded within each shift, providing 24-hours a day, 365 days a year, local policing.

The big step has been made, the Home Secretary declaring, “the country has outgrown her police institutions”, in the foreword to her White Paper; she is calling the current structure out for what it is: antiquated and old fashioned.

The inclusion in the Government’s announcement of a national police service, while being dramatic, will not have the same impact on frontline policing as the forthcoming amalgamation of neighbouring forces into ROCU-sized organisations.

Consequently, attention is rightly being focused on uniform provision. The White Paper identifies that a Local Policing Area’s standard responsibility will be the management of their ‘patches’, with clear governance in three main areas: emergency response, local crime investigation and neighbourhood security, (plus, halving knife crime and violence against women and girls).

Consensus is unanimous – reduce crime, make communities safer

Community intelligence-led policing methodology has its focus on crime prevention, cognisant that the protection of people and property is its foremost priority in each and every instance. Therefore, I unilaterally advocate adopting a 24-hour neighbourhood policing structure.

There are a number of duties inherent of neighbourhood policing that are also present across frontline uniform provision. However counterproductive to my position as this is – they simultaneously and conversely reinforce the case for 24hr provision, for it is abundantly clear that both communities and the police service alike recognise neighbourhood policing’s independence as being beneficial.

Furthermore, recent publications of ‘Anti-Social Behaviour, Action Plans’ by forces is the clearest indication yet that the argument in principle has been won – that neighbourhood policing is in and of itself, a professional specialism.

It further emphasises that ground-up reform of frontline services running in tandem with structural changes in preparation for a federalised national police service is both favourable and attainable.

The goal is community safety, based upon orthodox values of integrated local policing provision; it is one of uniform contingents ensuring safeguarding, maximising presence, utilising resources and guaranteeing communication in the common aim.

Confidence and foresight are required. Reiterating the point, neighbourhood policing is vital to the safety of individuals, business and communities alike; what has not yet been presented is the context of how this is to look for rank and file officers.

Protected neighbourhoods  

Local Policing Areas delivering protection for all through proactive prevention.

All four shifts of a conventional roster-pattern working in unison; each shift possessing identified, dedicated, ring-fenced ‘neighbourhood’ officer(s) patrolling in accordance with regulations, role protected within their tour-of-duty.

Consequently, neighbourhood policing provision will be further expanded throughout the dayshift rota by the additional cohort of police community support officers, thereby increasing efficiency, reinforcing police presence by multiplying service delivery, aided by the Special Constabulary amplifying an impressive community provision.

For the purpose of illustration, I present an overly simplified discussion piece, a philosophical (re)invention of a 24-hour Neighbourhood Policing service.

‘Protected neighbourhood duty time’, incorporated in the around-the-clock, roll-call of each shift, be it, rural, urban, metropolitan, and even for remote communities. Neighbourhood tasks undertaken by NPP qualified officers within each shift, continuity of duty-of-care compliant with the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee.

Proactive neighbourhood policing: Morning, high visibility patrolling, outside schools, rush-hour road junctions, reassuring OAP shoppers on high streets and that for supermarket employees. Afternoon shift: foot patrol parks, town centre squares – where youths congregate, [who is present]. Evening – youth congregation locations, confront ASB behaviours [persons and vehicles], who is going where and why [drug dealing, ASB]. Night shift – probable cause and vulnerable corner shops.

The benefit for all is that the Safer Streets Mission is a constant; delivered consecutively by each shift not just a daytime provision, but a staple of around-the-clock protection. The mantle of delivering a police service to each community being maintained by each subsequent shift, not leaving a feeling of being dismissed for “neighbourhood to pick up” when next on duty.

Maximising neighbourhood policing’s presence will be an inheritable challenge facing Local Policing Areas, as will be utilising assets and partner agencies. Moreover, understanding the nuances of local idiosyncratic requirements, as with comparing and contrasting distinctions between environments and how to best achieve pre-determined goals.

Furthermore, differentiating between that of police support versus community support in any given circumstance is a fundamental quality of service delivery. The subtle difference being: community is one of actions that add to cohesion within local communities, contrasted with that of police support being one to uphold duty.

The third element of the neighbourhood support trifecta running alongside that of ‘community’ and ‘police’ is; intelligence support. The College of Policing’s, Authorised Professional Practice’s guideline definition is: Intelligence is collected information that has been developed for action.

Intelligence support: being the collection and organisation of pertinent information sufficient to confront criminality and protect society.

The laminated structure of Community Intelligence-Led Policing maximises intelligence potential through the collation of thin layers of frontline community information which in turn is optimised by its pyramidal octahedron methodology: top-down direction – bottom-up action/bottom-down activity – top-up authority. Inter-connected within shift pattern timelines, the active submission of information material by frontline officers into the LPA’s intelligence hubs will provide comparative, live-time actionable intelligence data.

Familiarity with violent hostility across society rightly continues to draw attention; take the Countryside Alliance’s publication headline in April – ‘10 crimes a day committed at churches across the UK, new figures reveal’. It relates to their investigation that disclosed nearly 4,000 crimes were committed against church properties in 2025.

https://www.countryside-alliance.org/news-content-type/10-crimes-a-day-committed-at-churches-across-the-uk-new-figures-reveal

Of a parallel concern, Project Servator is a dozen years old. Originally a City of London Police initiative, it is ostensibly a high visibility deployment tactic aimed at confronting criminal and terrorist activity. Adopted as a national tactic, its latest initiative announced on April 10 is a £5,000,000 funding boost. Minister of State at the Cabinet Office, Dan Jarvis MBE MP introduced the Government commitment: “This new funding will back the police with the resources they need to step up patrols, protect communities, and keep people safe in the places where they live, work and worship.” Note: £73,400,000 is the annual budget for protective security at Jewish, Muslim and other faith sites.

Community is intelligence

Community intelligence is not quasi-intrusive observation, neither is it invasion of privacy.

Sympathetically, the term ‘community intelligence’ generates a natural concern in respect of invasion of privacy, which is perfectly understandable in our social media age:

‘If privacy were valuable and surveillance were not, there wouldn’t be ethical dilemmas regarding privacy. Its only because we can derive benefits from surveillance and exposure that privacy is constantly put into question’.

Carissa Véliz, The Ethics of Privacy and Surveillance. Oxford University Press. 2024.

The importance of information is not known until it becomes intelligence; analytically, the benefit of 24-hour neighbourhood policing will not be understood, appreciated, even trusted upon until it is an operational reality.

The dichotomy of what neighbourhood policing provides is a two-way communication portal; what communities require is access to officers; what policing requires is intelligence; what community intelligence-led policing methodology provides is information – unfiltered, germane, up-to-the-minute, local, multifarious, recorded.

Neighbourhood policing ‘is’ the protection of life and property, prevention and detection of crime, the preservation of peace, the apprehension of offenders. It is accountability, consultation, holding deference to each community, whilst being cognisant of the Neighbourhood Guarantee’s six pillars.

Progress is having rostered NP identified officers on each shift; protected from routine abstraction, delivering visible, accessible, community-focused policing. Surrey police officers live in Epsom, as do PSNI officers in Toome, or Northumbria’s in Newcastle, Merseyside’s in Southport or Dyfed-Powys’ in Newtown and Carmarthenshire. The picture is the same across the whole of the country, officers reside in communities.

Neighbourhood policing ‘is’ policing: it is the democratic rule of law. It is applicable every hour of every day, it is above the semantics of promises and bureaucracy, it is listening to communities and to their police officers in equal measure. The Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee [paragraph 67 of the White Paper], ‘increased patrols in town centres and other hotspots based on local demand and intelligence’.

HMICFRS defined community intelligence 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.”

https://www.college.police.uk/app/major-investigation-and-public-protection/hate-crime/intelligence#community-intelligence

Intelligence and Community Intelligence-Led Policing Methodology are two distinct disciplines.

‘Telling is NOT reporting’

Consider for one moment bringing domestic abuse and Violence Against Women and Girls into consciousness; more than 3,000,000 adults in England and Wales have experienced sexual abuse before they reached the age of 16. Professor Alexis Jay OBE, says the average length of duration of sexual abuse a victim experiences is four years and the average time before disclosure is 26 years.

The Report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse|IICSA Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

On the other end of the neighbourhood spectrum – Shopkeeping: 750,000 incidents of violent abuse, 45,000 incidents of physical violence, 25,000 incidents involve a weapon – note, only 32 per cent reported to police. Overall cost of retail crime £4,200,000,000.

British Retail Consortium. Crime Survey Report, 2025 file:///C:/Users/Steve/OneDrive/Documents 2025/BRC%20crime-survey_2025_final.pdf

Community intelligence presents a realistic insight; a juxtaposition to neighbourhood policing’s literal involvement.

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.