Police officers should work under a licence that must be renewed every five years and be subject to strict conditions to boost confidence in policing, an independent review has recommended.
The Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales, chaired by Sir Michael Barber and carried out by the Police Foundation thinktank, contains 56 recommendations urging radical reform to police culture, skills and training, and organisational structure.
Police chiefs said the report was “thorough and thought-provoking”.
The report comes at a time when confidence in policing has been rocked by a series of scandals, predominantly within the Metropolitan police, including the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer and revelations that officers at Charing Cross station shared racist, sexist, misogynistic and Islamophobic messages.
Barber, a former adviser to Tony Blair and an expert on implementation of large-scale systems change, said: “There is a crisis of confidence in policing in this country which is corroding public trust.
“The reasons are deep-rooted and complex – some cultural and others systemic. However, taken together, unless there is urgent change, they will end up destroying the principle of policing by consent that has been at the heart of British policing for decades.
“Policing in this country is at a crossroads and it cannot stand still while the world changes so quickly around it. Now is the moment to move forward quickly on the path of reform. The warning signs if we do nothing are flashing red and we ignore them at our peril.
“This report represents the most comprehensive review of policing for a generation and sets out an agenda for fundamental change.”
Among the recommendations in the report are calls for a “licence to practise” for police officers, administered by the College of Policing, the professional standards body.
The licence should be renewed every five years, subject to an officer demonstrating professional development through achieving relevant qualifications, passing an interview, or presenting a portfolio of activities and achievements, the report said.
Any officer who fails this assessment could receive further support including mentoring, but successive failures would see their licence removed and they would no longer be able to work, the report adds.
Barber also calls for improved training and support for sergeants and inspectors so that they are equipped to provide stronger supervision, tackle poor conduct and call out bad behaviour among officers.
There should also be national targets to improve the diversity of the police workforce, Barber says, arguing that at the current pace of change it will take another 58 years for the police service to achieve a workforce that is representative of England and Wales in terms of ethnicity.
Among other recommendations are the creation of a new Crime Prevention Agency and the merger of back-office functions across the 43 forces of England and Wales, which Barber argues would save hundreds of millions of pounds. Investment in frontline policing is also on the list, as is training and technology to modernise the service from top to bottom.
The chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Martin Hewitt, said: “The emphasis on confidence aligns with a collective recognition across policing for us to rebuild any trust that has been lost. We acknowledge the presentation of wide-ranging factors that may have contributed to that position, and of the differing priorities and resource requirements for policing in society today.
“Investing in the future of the service, with a focus on delivering improved outcomes for victims and strengthening local policing, are priorities for every force.
“We are already hard at work with other law enforcement agencies, external partners and government to better understand the current landscape and ensure we do not further become the service of first resort on matters which are either not crime-related or could be prevented in the first place.”