Police tactics will have to change in future, says report. Photograph: Getty
Calls for wholesale reform of British policing are gathering steam. Following last week's recommendations from Denis O'Connor, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary, about the nature of policing, thinktank Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has published a call for radical reform of the way the police work, including strengthening local involvement in setting policing priorities.
Rick Muir, senior research fellow at the IPPR and author of the report, says that years of investment in the police by successive governments has failed to improve police performance significantly.
"Given that spending looks set to be cut, if the police are to effectively tackle crime in the years ahead, they will need to change the way they work," he comments.
"Unless the way the police are organised and governed is transformed, any substantive programme of reform will suffer the same fate as those that preceded it: opposition within different parts of the service followed by a government 'U-turn' for fear of a politically costly conflict with the police."
Muir says the first priority for reform must be improving police governance. He wants to see a system that provides value for money, is "more coherent and less fragmented and that empowers local and national leaders to deliver change in the public interest".
Last week's inquiry into the policing of the G20 protests in London by O'Connor resulted in what has been described as "a blueprint for wholesale reform of British policing".
The IPPR report says all local crime priorities should be set locally, by strengthening the role of local elected authorities, with councils directly commissioning police services.
It also calls for the National Policing Improvement Agency to be merged with parts of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), to form a new National Policing Agency. Acpo came under severe fire in O'Connor's report for its role in "unaccountable" operational matters.
The publication of two influential reports so close together will help fuel continuing debate about the role of elected officials in policing, something that has been controversial in this country.
Whether the next government, whichever party is elected, will want to tackle a fundamental rethink of policing, remains to be seen – it's previously been shied away from, as the IPPR report makes clear.
