I tend to agree with this Policing Insight article that moving to a national police force will solve many of policing's problems. However it will likely be the largest piece of transformation policing has seen in this country - No easy task to manage at a time of great political change in the UK. I suspect conflicting priorities between individual forces will ensure this never happens. But some strides can be made and perhaps policing will end up meeting somewhere in the middle by implementing initiatives such as; standardised IT across the forces, closer cohesion and resource sharing at regional level (perhaps regional mergers?) and improved data sharing and integration to name a few.
The UK’s complicated policing landscape of 45 territorial forces alongside specialist services and other national law enforcement agencies has often been regarded as one of the challenges to improving police efficiency and effectiveness; resilience expert Robert Hall, former Head of Analysis at the National Criminal Intelligence Service, argues that now is the time to revisit the potential of a centralised UK police force. ❝While the picture is mixed with both national and local forces operating in tandem, it has long been recognised – by senior police officers themselves – that operating so many separate police forces is outdated.❞ ❝Most chief constables are naturally reluctant to surrender turf and operational independence. They – together with their many deputy and assistant chief constables, all who earn six-figure sums – are unlikely to sacrifice their own positions.❞ ❝With a forthcoming general election, the time is right to begin a review of the police structure across the UK so that a new government begins with the plan and impetus to consider a national police force, which is long overdue.❞ https://lnkd.in/e7GBPRXB #lawenforcement #policing #police #policereform
Simon B.
9mo
Remember reading that there were 15 different shades of blue police trousers a few years back! A (credible) national IT system and shared major/ critical resource teams would solve many problems. Also create the ability for short/ medium term secondments to different regions to share good working practices.
Principal Cloud Architect, UK Gov & Defence, Views My Own
9moCertainly needed national procurement even 10-15 years ago. I’m personally advocating for building blocks, with a national data schema at the heart of much of it - it will increase interoperability, accelerate sharing and analytics, and also lead to reduced development costs to improve police tech. Enables big world and small world change, but would make both easier to deliver, more consistent, and more consistently durable.