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People across Britain know that something has gone wrong with policing.
They feel it when a burglary is treated as routine, when shoplifting goes unanswered, when disorder is tolerated, when protests appear to be policed by different standards, and when ordinary people are told that what they can see with their own eyes is not happening.
The loss of confidence is serious. It goes to the heart of the relationship between the citizen and the state.
The police are given exceptional powers. In return, the public are entitled to expect those powers to be used fairly, firmly, and impartially. No immigrant population, pressure group, political movement, religious interest or activist cause should receive special treatment. No officer should be afraid to enforce the law because of politics, ideology or the background of those involved.
Restore Britain would ensure there is one law for everyone and that it is enforced without undue influence, fear, favour or prejudice.
That principle is easy to affirm. It is more difficult to restore a culture of fairness in an institution that has strayed so far from it. This plan sets out how that restoration can be done.
We do not pretend that the answer is simply to recruit more officers or spend more money. It is not. Numbers matter, but policing is also about principles. Officers need to know what they are for, what powers they hold, who commands them, what standards guide them, and whether the institution will support them when they act lawfully.
Restoring British Policing addresses those questions.
It restores the Office of Constable. It removes ideological doctrine from policing. It protects operational independence. It rebuilds police-controlled training. It restores intelligence, custody, forensics, investigation, public order, and neighbourhood policing as core police functions. It returns proper status to the uniformed officer serving the public.
It also deals with the danger created by the abolition of Police and Crime Commissioners and that of the transfer of their powers to mayoral or council-led political structures. Policing needs democratic scrutiny, but operational policing must not be driven by politicians, councils, campaigners, sectarianism or interests related to those things.
The British people deserve police who are visible, confident, disciplined, impartial, and properly supported.
They deserve policing that protects the public and enforces the law without fear or favour.
That is what Restore Britain intends to deliver.
Rupert Lowe
Leader, Restore Britain
Restoring British Policing will return professional, competent, impartial, and trusted policing to the United Kingdom.
Public confidence in policing in England and Wales is in crisis. Across the country, many people have come to believe that the police no longer apply one clear set of standards. They have seen, with their own eyes, case after case of inconsistency in the policing of protests and disorder, public events, sexual offences, and serious violence.
The public perceive increasing efforts by the police to accommodate and appease ethnic and religious sensitivities and cultures while foreign national offender rates rise. They have watched politics and ideologies infiltrate policing and do not see it as equitable.
On the streets, the public see police officers who no longer respond adequately to common criminality such as shoplifting and burglary, who often appear to lack confidence and skills, who often appear scruffy, uninterested or poorly turned out, and who commonly wear badges to show affiliation to, or support for, minority interest groups, all in contradiction of basic principles and standards of policing.
Policing has become overly managed, politically captured, ideologically constrained, poorly supported, insufficiently visible, and hesitant in the face of public disorder, community pressure, and cultural difference.
Inconsistent policing has led to justified grievances of 'two-tier policing' - in other words, inequitable policing. Inequitable policing is seen as unfair policing. Unfair policing loses the trust and consent of those believing they are treated unfairly.
Markedly different approaches to the policing of, for example, Black Lives Matter (BLM) as compared with anti-lockdown protests, the immense failure in relation to grooming gangs, and the horrific circumstances surrounding the murder of Henry Nowak, among many other examples, have all exacerbated public concern.
More recently, government statements and statements made by senior police officers have been at odds with the evidence of the public's experience, adding to the perception of political influence, cover-ups, and operational failure. When politicians and senior officers lay the blame at the door of those already feeling unfairly treated, rather than recognising that the source of the problem is their own interference in policing, mistrust and anger only grow.
It is also important to note that these concerns now go beyond criticism of individual decisions. They indicate a deeper series of systemic and structural problems that have led to a loss of confidence in the impartiality, integrity, competence, and independence of policing as a whole.
The degradation of British policing can essentially be divided into three phases:
PHASE ONE: The 2002 Police Reform Act and the Degradation of the Office of Constable.
The Police Reform Act 2002 was the turning point. It disrupted a constitutionally balanced approach to independence. Before 2002, British policing relied on the unique status of the Office of Constable. Police officers were not employees of the state or of a political body. They were an independent officer of the Crown, personally accountable for the use of their powers and discretion to the law alone, nobody and nothing else.
The 2002 Act broke this model by introducing external influences.
The Act dramatically extended the powers of the Home Secretary to issue mandatory codes of practice and statutory guidance. This shifted power away from the Chief Constable's independent discretion and handed it to central bodies which crystallised into the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC). This process also led to senior police officers having to be politically smooth operators - rather than effective police officers - if they wished to reach higher ranks. Political operators became favoured of hard nosed, frank talking, no nonsense police officers.
The Act also led to managerial capture. Instead of focusing on the core, impartial duty to preserve the King's Peace, policing became captured by corporate, target-driven doctrine. Police forces began to cater to Whitehall politically driven performance metrics, rather than the impartial application of the law without fear or favour, prejudice or animosity. These changes were interpreted by the public and politicians alike as resulting from a deficit of democratic control, whereas they were in fact symptoms of the loss of clarity of purpose and strict impartiality caused by the 2002 Act and its implications. The 2002 Act fundamentally broke the independence of British policing.
PHASE TWO: The misguided 2012 Fix - Police and Crime Commissioners.
Because the Coalition government in 2012, misdiagnosed the problem, believing the issue was one of lack of public accountability rather than the erosion of the Constable's legal independence and discretion, they introduced Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs).
This did not correct the problems caused by the 2002 Act, it institutionalised them. By introducing a single, often partisan politician to oversee the budget and having the power to hire and fire Chief Constables, the 2012 reforms invited electoral interests, party politics and individual interests directly into police stations. Chief Constables became acutely aware that their jobs depended not so much now on keeping the King's Peace, but on keeping politicians happy. This subtly but significantly compromised their operational independence, priorities and decisions.
PHASE THREE: The Present Labour Government Plan - Deepening the Crisis.
The current government plans to abolish PCCs and hand powers to Metro Mayors or local political boards will not undo and correct the crisis. They will deepen and accelerate it.
By moving oversight directly into the domain of highly politically loaded mayoral and local authority politics, policing will be moved further away from independence and explicitly tied to local politics and factional voter dynamics.
Policing in Britain has traditionally been founded on the principles of English common law, and thereby public consent. This contrasts with European models of policing founded on codified, directive law and the enforcement of that law by employees of the state.
Consent depends upon public trust and confidence that the law is enforced impartially. There are two preconditions to the granting and maintenance of that consent: one is that policing is applied in all cases without fear, favour, prejudice or animosity, and the other is that the police are themselves drawn from the citizenry.
When the public believes that enforcement changes according to race, religion, politics, identity, status or fear of accusations from community lobby groups, or that non-citizens are involved in the policing of citizens, the moral authority of policing is fundamentally weakened and consent is eroded.
Once that happens, the public and victims lose confidence. A sense of unfairness develops. Officers lose clarity of purpose. Morale suffers. Offenders gain confidence. Community and local political leaders learn that policing can be manipulated to suit sectarian agendas. Society becomes increasingly divided. Frustrations, animosities, and anger all grow. Public order becomes harder to maintain. The rule of law is placed under strain. Public safety is undermined.
This is why the present crisis must be addressed with tremendous urgency.
British policing was built on the idea that the police exercise lawful authority only because we trust them to do so impartially. The police are granted exceptional powers because they are expected to serve the law, the Crown, and the public without fear or favour. That trust requires consistency. It requires restraint. It requires courage. It requires courtesy. It requires the protection of all and the favouring of none.
Those ideas were expressed most clearly in the principles associated with Sir Robert Peel and the foundation of the Metropolitan Police in 1829. They proceeded from the principles of common law recognition that the police could preserve the peace only if the public believed them to be impartial servants of the law rather than instruments of political interest, sectional pressure or arbitrary force.
Police historian Charles Reith describes Peel's approach to policing as 'unique in history and throughout the world because it derived not from fear but almost exclusively from public co-operation with the police, induced by them designedly by behaviour which secures and maintains for them the approval, respect and affection of the public.'1 His success in forming such an effective police force won him the admiration of four-time Prime Minister William Gladstone, who described him as the greatest man he ever knew.2
For nearly 200 years, those principles formed the solid foundation of the world's premier police force. More recently, however, they have been diluted and undermined by statutory changes, managerial doctrine, politicised 'guidance' and language, activist influences, identity-based activism, administrative burdens, and institutional caution.
If Peel's principles had continued to govern policing as they did until the turn of the century, the present crisis of confidence would not exist. The task now is to reassert them.
Peel's principles may be summarised as follows:
The basic mission of the police is the prevention of crime, not punishment after the event.
Police authority depends on public respect, confidence, and acceptance.
The police need willing public cooperation in observing the law.
The more the police rely on force, the less public cooperation they command.
Police must not serve public opinion, political pressure or sectional interest. They must apply the law impartially.
Physical force is justified only when necessary and only to the extent required.
Police officers are citizens in uniform, paid to give full-time attention to duties that belong to every citizen.
Police must enforce the law, not judge guilt or punish offenders.
The test of policing is not arrests, activity or visible force, but the absence of crime and disorder.
Of particular relevance to Restoring British Policing is Peel’s fifth principle:
'To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion; but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour; and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.'3
That principle goes to the heart of the present problem. The police must serve the law impartially. They must not serve public opinion, political pressure, community pressure, activist pressure, reputational fear or sectional interest.
Society's consent to be policed means that public respect for, and confidence in, the police to maintain the peace without fear or favour is such that the public agrees to submit to policing authority. That consent is consent to lawful and impartial policing under one law. Consent does not mean operational approval from local government, political structures, activist organisations, religious bodies, identity groups, community intermediaries or sectional interests.
The police must consider local conditions and maintain public trust. However, they must not allow ethnic or religious pressure, political pressure, reputational fear or allegations of prejudice to influence enforcement thresholds, public order decisions, arrest decisions, safeguarding decisions, investigations, custody decisions or the lawful discretion of constables.
Their inviolable guide must be Peel's principles, coupled with the powers invested in each individual constable and the duty incumbent upon them to exercise those powers equitably.
Owing to mass immigration, Britain today contains all sorts of minority diasporas with conflicting assumptions about authority, justice, religion, family, honour, protest, public order, women, children, the state, the police, and justice. That reality strengthens, rather than weakens, the requirement to establish and enforce consistent policing principles, equitable law, constant and unyielding standards, one enforcement threshold, and one duty of protection for every person in the country.
Different cultural expectations must not lead to different policing standards or policing adapted to the wishes of any tribal pressure group. The law must be consistently and equitably applied, without fear, favour, malice or prejudice, regardless of race, religion, culture or gender. If it is not, policing will lose consent and there will be a breakdown in the rule of law.
The Office of Constable exists to protect policing from the political, ideological, and sectarian interests that have now been permitted access to policing.
The constable was an independent holder of lawful authority, sworn to serve the Crown, the law, and the public; to preserve the peace; to protect life and property; to prevent and detect offences; and to act without fear or favour. The powers of the constable were vested in the individual office holder, not delegated by the state, a police authority, a local council, a mayor, a board or a political structure. That independence mattered because the constable's duty was to the law and to the public peace, not to political direction or sectional pressure.
The past tense is used deliberately, because those foundations have now been weakened.
Over time, policing has drifted away from its core purpose. Political language, DEI structures, activist-aligned doctrine, contested social objectives, administrative burden, fragmented accountability, and excessive caution have entered the policing system. The Office of Constable has been obscured by managerial control and institutional risk aversion. Training has moved away from police-controlled formation. Core functions such as intelligence, custody, forensics, and investigation have been weakened, outsourced or fragmented. Visible frontline policing has lost prestige. Experienced officers have been drawn away from public-facing roles. Public order policing has become vulnerable to allegations of inconsistency. National policing bodies have accumulated influence without always delivering clear operational effect.
Misguided and unwise legislation has accelerated that drift. The Police Reform Act 2002 changed the statutory and institutional environment of policing. It altered the attestation of constables, widened the exercise of policing powers by those who are not constables, assisted the growth of managerial and political influence, created the situation in which foreign nationals may now police British citizens within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom, and contributed to the fragmentation of policing functions. It also introduced language that shifted policing away from the older constabulary tradition and towards a broader rights-management and values-delivery model.
Police officers must obey the law. They must act lawfully, proportionately, and impartially. They must respect the legal rights of all people. But policing should not be a human rights advocacy function as it has become. Its task and purpose is the preservation of the King's peace, the protection of life and property, the prevention and detection of offences, the apprehension of offenders, support in prosecution efforts, and impartial enforcement of the law.
The abolition of Police and Crime Commissioners under current government plans creates additional danger, because those plans involve their functions passing to elected mayoral structures or council-led Police and Crime Boards. That would place policing deeper inside party-political local government and will create direct routes for local political, religious, activist or identity pressure to influence and undermine policing even further. Democratic scrutiny is necessary, but political control of policing at the local level is unacceptable.
This plan is titled Restoring British Policing because that is its purpose.
The aim is not cosmetic reform, managerial adjustment or a new layer of guidance.
The aim is the restoration of policing as an impartial, disciplined, confident public service rooted in Peel's principles, the independence of the Office of Constable, equality before the law, policing by consent, operational independence, public order, public safety and the preservation of life and property.
The plan begins from one principle: there must be one law, one standard, one policing duty, and one enforcement threshold for every person in the country, all delivered without fear, favour, prejudice or animosity
Reassert Peel's principles as the core of operational police ethics and doctrine.
Restore the status, independence, authority, and discretion of the holders of the Office of Constable.
Remove politicised and ideological policing by withdrawing all identity-specific national programmes and replacing them with a single Equality Before the Law and Impartial Policing Standard.
Restore the Strategic Policing Requirement to a purely operational purpose, removing elements of political influence.
Reassert the Office of Constable and restore the constable's oath to constitutional, legal, and operational language.
Replace the relevant provisions of the Police Reform Act 2002 with a Police Restoration Act.
Establish Police Accountability Boards to provide democratic scrutiny while protecting day-to-day independence.
Rebuild police training through a National Police College and regional police training colleges.
Restore police ownership of intelligence, custody, forensics, investigation, and training.
Restore the National Criminal Intelligence Service and refocus the National Crime Agency.
Reform the National Police Chiefs' Council, reject unnecessary central bureaucratic control, and ensure that every national policing body serves operational policing.
Restore police training standards, public order policing, neighbourhood policing, professional standards, leadership development, and monitoring.
Support officer safety through enhanced use of force training and statutory protection for Constables lawfully employing reasonable and justifiable force.
Restore visible policing. Uniformed patrol, response policing, neighbourhood policing, and public order must again become high-status, career-valued functions. Officers who serve the public directly must be properly trained, properly equipped, properly supervised, physically capable, professionally turned out, and institutionally respected. The public must interact more or less daily with police officers who are disciplined, confident, lawful, courteous, firm, and impartial.
Restoring British Policing is not optional, but directive. Those involved will be obliged to comply with it.
It is designed to drive change in government and across British policing. Unlike policies and plans developed by others, it sets out what must be done, why it must be done, when it must be done, who must do it, with what it must be done, how it must be done, and who will drive it.
The end state will be a restored British policing model: impartial, disciplined, locally visible, nationally coordinated, intelligence-led, operationally confident, rooted in the Office of Constable, and both trusted and respected by British society.
This plan directs the restoration of policing in England and Wales as an impartial, disciplined, operationally confident public service.
The purpose of policing is the preservation of life, property, public order, and the King's peace through the impartial application of the law.
Every person stands equal before the law. Every community receives the same protection. Every offender faces the same enforcement threshold. Every police officer serves the law, the Crown, and the public through the Office of Constable.
This reform plan restores policing to its proper purpose. It removes politicised agendas, reasserts the Office of Constable, rebuilds police training, restores police-controlled operational capability, strengthens frontline authority, and returns prestige to visible, public-facing, and thus more trustworthy police work.
The strategic intent is to restore a police service that is effective, visible, impartial, disciplined, nationally coordinated, and has the consent, trust, confidence, and support of the public.
Policing must become once again a vocation of impartial public duty, lawful authority, courage, judgement, service, and restraint.
The public must see officers on streets, in their neighbourhoods, at police stations, in custody suites, in public order formations, in investigative teams and in specialist units who act without fear or favour but with professional confidence, courtesy, consistency, and fairness.
The officer on uniform patrol must once again become the visible core of British policing and public security, not the lowest-status role in the organisation. Uniformed public-facing policing must carry prestige, career value and adequate reward. It must also be supported by experienced supervision, adequate equipment, improved training and leadership attention. They must be freed from political interests or influences.
The broader, ancillary functions of policing must be returned to police ownership. Intelligence, custody, forensics, investigation, public order, training and neighbourhood policing are all integral to policing architecture. The public rightfully expects them to be subject to police command, training, standards, discipline and police accountability.
Following the abolition of Police and Crime Commissioners, police governance must not be transferred to elected mayors or council-led Police and Crime Boards. That model would deepen, not reduce, the politicisation of policing by placing police governance inside wider party-political and local government structures. It would thereby create direct routes for increased local political, religious, activist or identity pressures to influence policing. This plan rejects that model. Dedicated Police Accountability Boards will scrutinise performance, budgets, visibility, public confidence and equal enforcement while having no authority over operations, investigations, arrests, public order tactics, custody decisions, intelligence operations or constabulary discretion.
HMICFRS will remain and there will be no change to parliamentary oversight.
The 1998 Crime and Disorder Act was the starting point of the drift away from police independence and impartiality. It established statutory Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (later Community Safety Partnerships), requiring police and local authorities to work together. This seemingly sensible step was permitted to expand. It grew from usefully facilitating operational cooperation in crime reduction to having a normative influence where external organisations increasingly lobbied for changes in policing priorities, profiles, and approaches. They were then gradually asked for their guidance and help in responding to their concerns and provided input into policing ethics and culture.
This evolution was able to occur - encouraged to occur - by Home Office policies, public appointments, statutory consultation, through the later establishment of the College of Policing, a raft of imposed reporting duties imposed, the increasing use of external advisory groups and managerial guidance, much of which was arguably driven by political rather than operational considerations.
Crucially, senior Police Officers adapted to this new environment and felt increasingly compelled to accept advice from and respond to lobbying by non-policing 'partner organisations.' These were and are frequently politicised community groups with sectarian interests. The police perceived this as a collaborative process, but it had the effect of eroding their independence and that of their constables. The police, as a result, also become increasingly accusation-averse. They perceived career and reputational risk, and the risk of creating a rift with community groups - losing policing consent - if they did not acquiesce to requests or demands from political or interest groups for changes to operational policing.
In this way, the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, while having a common sense and well-intentioned aim in the form of enhanced operational coordination, was fundamental in creating an environment that began a drift away from independent, equitable, and impartial policing towards accommodating or appeasing political and sectarian interests.
The Police Reform Act 2002 then marked a decisive statutory step, not in addressing the drift, but in institutionalising and accelerating it and moving policing away from constabulary independence, police-owned capability, and operational clarity. It is the point at which policing became managerial and partnership-driven, rather than centred on the independent Office of Constable.
The Act altered the legal and institutional architecture of policing. It expanded central supervision, introduced new national planning mechanisms, created new complaints structures, enabled the wider exercise of police powers by persons who are not constables, formalised Police Community Support Officers, supported accreditation schemes, changed the attestation of constables, and opened the door to non-British citizens policing British citizens in Britain.
Those changes altered the character of British policing and opened the door to numerous political and activist-led interests and influences that have diluted policing independence, distracted policing away from its core functions, undermined operational policing and, thereby, compromised public safety, and public trust.
The traditional model of policing rests on the Office of Constable, Robert Peel's policing principles, local accountability, operational independence, discretion, common law authority, professional judgement and the direct responsibility of sworn officers for the protection of the public. The 2002 framework moved policing towards a managed public-service model shaped by central planning, administrative compliance, national targets, reporting, civilianisation, partnership structures, and political language.
The statutory change to the constable's oath was particularly significant. The attestation of a constable carries constitutional and institutional meaning. Prior to the 2002 Act, the Oath defined the office into which the individual officer was sworn and conveyed powers on that officer individually. The revised oath introduced language that shifted the tone of the office from its older constabulary tradition towards a more ambiguous political and administrative vocabulary. The practical consequence was the opening of a conceptual door through which political language, activist interpretation and institutional caution entered policing culture and the office of constable became susceptible to direction rather than remaining the independent responsibility of the office holder, on whom the discretion and judgement of policing powers rests.
The central duty of a constable must be to keep and preserve the peace, prevent offences against people and property, and discharge the duties of the office faithfully according to law. That duty must stand at the centre of the oath, the doctrine, the training system, and the operational culture of policing, as it did before the 2002 Act.
The pre-Act oath was:
'I solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that I will well and truly serve Our Sovereign Lady the Queen in the office of constable, without favour or affection, malice or ill-will, and I will to the best of my power cause the peace to be kept and preserved and prevent all offences against the person and properties of Her Majesty's subjects, and that while I continue to hold the said office I will to the best of my skill and knowledge discharge all the duties thereof faithfully and according to law.' (Attestation of constables: schedule 4, Police Act 1964 & 1996)
The 2002 Act changed it to:
'I (name) of (town) do solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that I will well and truly serve the Queen in the office of constable, with fairness, integrity, diligence and impartiality, upholding fundamental human rights and according equal respect to all people; and that I will, to the best of my power, cause the peace to be kept and preserved and prevent all offences against people and property; and that while I continue to hold the said office I will, to the best of my skill and knowledge, discharge all the duties thereof faithfully and according to law.' (Attestation of constables: as amended by section 83, Police Reform Act 2002)
With the change, the 2002 Act embedded a new conceptual emphasis on human rights protection as an express element of the constable's attestation. That change shifted the language of policing away from the older constabulary tradition of preserving the peace, preventing offences and acting without favour or affection, malice or ill-will, and towards a broader rights-protection vocabulary.
Police officers must act lawfully, proportionately and impartially. Those duties arise from law and from the disciplined exercise of the Office of Constable.
Policing is not a human rights advocacy or values-delivery function. It is the preservation of the peace, protection of life and property, prevention and detection of offences, apprehension of offenders, support to prosecution, and impartial enforcement of the law.
The insertion of human rights language into the oath altered the centre of gravity of policing. It encouraged the development of policing as a values-delivery and rights-management institution rather than a common law constabulary service grounded in consent, discretion, public peace and equality before the law.
That shift opened the door to political contest over the meaning of rights, competing claims of vulnerability, identity-based demands, differential treatment, activist pressure and operational caution. It weakened the older principle that the police serve the law and the public by applying the law equally, without fear or favour.
The 2002 Act also, importantly, removed the wording 'Our Sovereign Lady…' from the oath. This deliberate amendment opened the door for those for whom the Queen - or King - is not their sovereign to be sworn into the office of Constable. In other words, people who are not British citizens.
This change was to facilitate implementation of Section 82 of the Police Reform Act 2002 which widened eligibility for police service to persons of any nationality. At Section 82 (1)a it states:
' Irrespective of his place of birth, a person of any nationality may be - a member of a police force maintained for any police area in England and Wales. '
Our assertion is that British citizens in Britain can only be legitimately policed by other British citizens holding the Office of Constable.
The Police Restoration Act will correct that drift. It will restore the attestation of constables to constitutional, legal, and operational language. It will reaffirm that the police comply with the law by enforcing the law impartially and preserve the public peace through the Office of Constable. It will remove the concept of policing as a human rights delivery institution and restore policing by consent as a common law constabulary function.
'Restoring British Policing' will restore the oath and doctrine of constabulary service to language grounded in citizenship, the Crown, the Office of Constable, the preservation of the peace, the prevention of offences, impartial enforcement and personal responsibility according to law.
The 2002 framework also assisted the fragmentation of policing functions. By enabling the exercise of policing powers by non-constables and by embedding a broader concept of police functions being carried out by others, it contributed to a culture in which core policing activity could be civilianised, contracted, accredited, outsourced or removed from police command. That development weakened police ownership of custody, intelligence, forensics, neighbourhood presence, reassurance activity and operational support functions.
The Police and Justice Act 2006 further strengthened the statutory obligation on police to cooperate with local partners and the 2011 Police and Social Responsibility Act, as well as creating Police and Crime Commissioners, reinforced partner expectations even further.
In 2014, the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act established the College of Policing as being responsible for developing doctrine, standards and ethics. It is through the College of Policing that, arguably, stakeholder consultation became institutionally embedded and external non-policing organisations acquired their greatest influence over policing culture, doctrine and behaviour. That influence has grown organically and continually grown since.
Other legislation, not directly aimed at policing, but further shifting the operating environment, increasing the need for or diverting resources, and undermining operational police independence includes:
This shifted policing priorities away from discretionary employment of independent powers to preserve life, property, and the King's Peace towards protecting human rights. The HRA 1998 led to the Police Reform Act 2002.
All this has led not only to statutory drift, but also to a flow of guidance and codes of ethics that have not been statutory. This has created a context and a fear of criticism has made them effectively compulsory, even though they have moved almost entirely away from centuries of policing experience, Sir Robert Peel's policing principles and the independence of the Office of Constable. This is unsurprising given the dominant influence of partners who have possibly never heard of these things and, in any case, are involved precisely because they are not police organisations.
Separately, the recent announcement by the government of its intention to abolish Police and Crime Commissioners by 2028 and transfer their duties to elected mayors or council-led Police and Crime Boards would deepen the politicisation of policing. Restoring British Policing rejects that model. Instead, Restoring British Policing will replace PCCs with dedicated Police Accountability Boards whose statutory role is to scrutinise performance, budgets, visibility, public confidence and equal enforcement while having no authority over operations, investigations, arrests, public order tactics, custody decisions, intelligence operations or constabulary discretion.
Policing requires statutory restoration.
Administrative guidance can remove some burdens. Training reform can rebuild some culture. Inspection reform can change some incentives. Command direction can restore some confidence. However, the deeper Restoration of Policing requires a Police Restoration Act.
A Restore Britain government will Restore Policing with such an Act.
The Police Restoration Act will repeal and replace the relevant provisions of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, the Police Reform Act 2002, the Police and Justice Act 2006, and the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, and any other Acts necessary. It will re-establish the legal foundations of independent, impartial British policing centred around the independent powers invested in holders of the Office of Constable, operational policing independence, equality before the law, police-owned capabilities, local accountability, national coordination for serious threats, and the preservation of life, property, the public peace and public order.
It will assert the principle that only British citizens holding the Office of Constable can legitimately police British citizens in the United Kingdom.
Restoring British Policing has fourteen Strategic Objectives:
Restore policing to its core purpose.
Reassert the Office of Constable.
Remove politicised and ideological policing.
Rebuild the senior national policing architecture.
Establish Police Accountability Boards and restore operational policing independence.
Restore equality before the law.
Rebuild police training under police control.
Restore prestige to frontline public-facing policing.
Return and reintegrate key police functions to police ownership.
Rebuild criminal intelligence.
Restore investigative effectiveness.
Strengthen public order policing and provide statutory protection for constables using lawful force correctly.
Build a reserve police force.
Replace relevant legislation with a Police Restoration Act.
Policing will be redirected to the prevention of crime, preservation of life and property, maintenance of the public peace and public order, investigation of offences, arrest of offenders, support to prosecution and maintenance of public confidence.
All policies, guidance, reporting systems, training requirements, targets and inspection frameworks will be tested against operational effect.
The Strategic Policing Requirement will be replaced by an Operational Strategic Policing Requirement focused solely on national threats, operational capability, interoperability and resilience.
The outcome will be a police service focused on public safety, enforcement, investigation, order and confidence.
The Office of Constable will be restored as the foundation of policing.
The holder of the Office of Constable possesses legal powers of arrest and control of the public. These powers are granted directly by a sworn oath and warrant. The powers they hold are invested in them as individual office holders by the Crown. They are personally responsible to the law, and answerable to the courts, for the proper exercise of those powers.
Constables are not agents of the police force, any police or political authority or government. They are servants of the Crown.
Each sworn constable is an independent legal official. They hold their own powers and each constable has personal liability for the use of those powers, for their actions or their inaction.
Political interference in policing has compromised the integrity of the Office of Constable. That integrity will be restored.
Restoring British Policing will restore the common law foundation of policing by consent. The police will protect rights through impartial enforcement of the law, not through political, activist or identity-based interpretation of rights.
Constables are independent holders of lawful authority. They require judgement, discretion, courage, restraint and impartiality.
The outcome will be officers who understand their independent authority and responsibilities, exercise lawful discretion, are individually responsible for their actions and inaction, intervene confidently and lawfully, apply the law and their powers equitably without discrimination, fear or favour, prejudice or animosity.
DEI structures, activist-aligned training, contested ideological language, political signalling and operationally irrelevant internal programmes will be removed from policing.
The only lawful and operational concerns of policing will be public safety, crime prevention, investigation, law enforcement, maintenance of the public peace and public order, evidence collection, protection of the vulnerable, and equality before the law.
The Police Race Action Plan, Anti-Racism Commitment, National Policing Culture and Inclusion Strategy and associated local force plans will be withdrawn and replaced by a single Equality Before the Law and Impartial Policing Standard.
The outcome will be an impartial police force trusted to protect the public, deter and apprehend the guilty and in all cases apply the law equally, without discrimination fear or favour, prejudice or animosity.
The senior national policing architecture will be rebuilt around clear functions, distinct mandates and the delivery of operational effect.
The NPCC will be reformed as the national coordination and lessons learned forum for chief constables, focused on operational coordination, mutual aid, interoperability and professional operational judgement.
The proposed National Policing Directorate will be rejected in its present form. A National Policing Capability Office will be established within the Home Office to deliver national capability, procurement, technology, data interoperability and equipment standards without operational command authority.
The College of Policing will be abolished in its present form and replaced by a National Police College responsible for professional doctrine, training standards, instructor standards, leadership development and the institutional formation of constables.
The National Crime Agency will be refocused on national enforcement and disruption.
The National Criminal Intelligence Service will be restored to own the national criminal intelligence picture.
Regional Organised Crime Units will remain regional police-owned capabilities, and will bridge local forces, NCIS and the NCA
The outcome will be a coherent national policing structure in which every body serves operational policing, no body duplicates another, and no structure weakens chief constable command, local policing, constabulary independence or equality before the law.
Following the abolition of Police and Crime Commissioners, dedicated Police Accountability Boards will be established for each force area.
Police Accountability Boards will provide democratic scrutiny while restoring the clear separation between public accountability and operational command.
Police governance will be dedicated, transparent and separated from general central or local political control and influences.
Police Accountability Boards will scrutinise budgets, force performance, visibility, public confidence, custody resilience, investigative outcomes, neighbourhood policing, public order readiness, operational resilience, equal enforcement and use of resources.
Chief constables will retain full operational command.
Constables will possess independent powers and discretion in the employment of those powers, as holders of the Office of Constable.
The Police Restoration Act will define the boundary between oversight and operations. That boundary will protect chief constable command, constabulary discretion, impartial enforcement and equality before the law.
Police Accountability Boards will hold forces to account for outcomes. They will have no authority over investigations, arrests, charging pathways, deployments, custody decisions, intelligence operations, use of force, public order tactics, protest policing or the discretion of constables.
The outcome will be democratic police accountability that restores operational independence, protects policing from party-political and local identity pressure, ensures consistent enforcement, and places the rule of law, public safety and the public peace above political or sectional interest.
Restoring British Policing will restore accountable policing without party-political control, local identity pressure, inconsistent enforcement or operational interference.
In policing, the same law will apply to every person, group, protest, neighbourhood and community equally.
Cultural, religious, political, ideological, ethnic, social or identity-based considerations will carry no operational exemptions and will not influence operational policing decisions. All people in the United Kingdom will be subject to the principle of equality before the law, regardless of their social status or cultural, religious, political, ideological, ethnic, social or identity-based background.
The outcome will be consistent enforcement, restored public confidence and an end to two-tier policing or the perception of policing as such.
National and regional police training colleges will be reestablished.
Training will be moved away from academic institutions outside the police and into police colleges. These colleges will once again become the centres of gravity for standards, discipline, operational skills, teamwork, constabulary ethos, and junior leadership development.
This will require the establishment of the National Police College, a regional police college network, a national training estate, a rebuilt instructor cadre, Army-supported train-the-trainer provision where required, the possible inclusion of former-university academic staff, and a police-owned curriculum rooted in the Office of Constable.
Peel's principles, the Office of Constable, common law discretion, policing by consent and equality before the law will form the foundation of recruit training, refresher training and leadership development.
Degree-level accreditation, on successful completion of training, will be delivered through police-controlled institutions accredited for that purpose.
The outcome will be a unified and consistent professional policing culture rooted in law, well-established policing principles, improved skills, discipline, operational competence, and public service.
Restore prestige to frontline public-facing policing, including patrol, response, neighbourhood policing and public order.
Experienced officers will be retained on the frontline. Remuneration and promotion will better reflect the value of public-facing service, operational skills, arrests leading to successful prosecutions, neighbourhood knowledge, public confidence and command under pressure.
Uniform, smartness, physical fitness, and professional bearing will be restored as core elements of police discipline and public confidence.
A warranted officer exercising powers over the public must present as disciplined, capable, fit, alert and professionally turned out. Uniform standards, clean boots, properly worn headgear, appropriate hair standards, physical readiness and personal bearing are not cosmetic matters. They are part of command presence, deterrence, officer safety, public reassurance and institutional pride.
The public cannot be expected to place confidence in officers who appear unfit, untidy, poorly equipped, badly dressed or indifferent to professional standards.
A return to smart turnout inculcated by the institutional police training system within the colleges, supported by the issue of smarter while still practical uniforms and standards, will enhance the self-respect of police officers and public confidence in them.
The outcome will be stronger, more experienced, more trusted frontline policing with higher morale and to which the public feel able to turn with confidence in time of need.
Parliament has found that since the closure of the Forensics Science Service in 2012 there has been an extensive backlog in evidential work, lost exhibits, contaminated evidence, and delayed trials.
Intelligence, custody, forensics, investigative capability, and training are integral to effective policing and the quality and timeliness of justice in the courts. They must operate as such, under police command.
Commercial outsourcing and civilianisation will be reversed where they have weakened quality, resilience, command control, evidence handling, investigative momentum or public safety.
The outcome will be restored integration of the policing, more coherent, consistent, and integrated evidence storage and related standards nationwide across force areas, a more resilient and effective investigative and evidential chain, enhanced and safer evidential quality, faster investigations, better prosecutions, and fewer delayed trials.
The National Criminal Intelligence Service will be re-established as the United Kingdom's national criminal intelligence capability and centre of expertise.
Force-level intelligence collection, collation, fusion and analysis will also be rebuilt. NCIS officers and analysts will be embedded at force and divisional level to ensure one complete system with all parts working in unity of effort to create a comprehensive and integrated criminal activity and threat picture, and provide intelligence products for all levels of policing.
The outcome will be improved detection of criminal intent and activity and improved prevention, targeting, disruption, investigation and national threat awareness, and greater understanding of those threats and their nature.
Police performance will be judged by crimes prevented, crimes detected, arrests made, charges secured, prosecutions supported, convictions achieved, and the ratios between them.
Arrest numbers alone will carry no professional value. The value lies in lawful intervention leading to properly investigated cases and higher rates of successful criminal justice. Arrest targets alone are harmful, not least because they incentivise forms of enforcement that run against the public interest.
Police investigative and detective training will be reviewed, as will the direct route entry into detective roles. Greater integration of forensics and intelligence into the investigative process support this objective.
The outcome will be better case-building, better quality prosecution files, higher rates of successful prosecution, improved victim confidence, and greater offender accountability.
Public order policing will be lawful, firm, disciplined, consistent and risk-based. Current inconsistencies in public order policing will be addressed through improved doctrine, training, equipment, command standards and custody support.
Public order policing profiles and responses will be entirely risk based. The practice of liaising with event organisers, relevant local bodies and communities will continue, however, the practice of collective or consensus based operational decisions will end. Where organisers disagree with policing decisions, authorisation for the event may be withheld or withdrawn.
Operational policing is a matter for the police and operational decisions will be entirely the responsibility of the police to make. Police are not to allow themselves to be held hostage to threats of disruption or non-compliance with lawful instructions. Responses to all events are to be equitable across all force areas.
The outcome will be greater consistency and fairness in public order policing, enhanced individual and team professionalism amongst police officers, greater disorder deterrence effect, enhanced public and police safety, reduced rates of criminal damage, and restored public trust and confidence.
The Special Constabulary will retain its historic name and its role, but be reformed into a true Reserve Police Force, rewarded and modelled on the seriousness, discipline, training standards, attendance expectations, and remuneration system of the Army Reserve.
Police Community Support Officers will be phased out. Recruitment into PCSO posts will cease. Existing PCSOs will be offered routes into regular constable service, the reformed Special Constabulary, suitable police staff roles, or managed exit, according to selection, standards, training, vetting and operational suitability.
The future principle will be clear: uniformed public-facing policing on the streets will be carried out by trained, sworn and warranted constables, whether regular or reserve.
The new Special Constabulary will provide a trained, warranted, deployable, uniformed support and reserve capability for neighbourhood policing, major incidents, public events, search, resilience, visibility and surge operations.
The outcome will be increased operational depth, improved resilience, an end to a uniformed presence lacking the full powers of the Office of Constable, and a stronger civic connection between policing and the public.
Relevant provisions of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, the Police Reform Act 2002, the Police and Justice Act 2006, and the Anti-Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014 will be repealed or amended in whole or in relevant part, and replaced by a Police Restoration Act.
The Police Restoration Act will restore the Office of Constable as the legal and institutional foundation of policing. It will revise the constable's oath, remove statutory routes that have encouraged politicisation and civilianisation, close the door to programmes, training and guidance that undermines the Office of Constable or Peel's Policing Principles, protect operational independence, restrict the exercise of police powers to sworn and warranted constables, and restore integration of core policing functions.
The outcome will be a clear statutory foundation for restoration of impartial, disciplined, police-owned, operationally independent, and effective policing, delivered impartially and equitably, without fear, favour, prejudice or animosity, and in which the public has full respect, trust, and confidence.
The following programmes are implementation workstreams. They give practical effect to the fourteen Strategic Objectives and therefore do not correspond to them on a one-for-one basis.
A Police Restoration Bill will be prepared within the first year of government. The Bill will repeal and replace the relevant provisions of the Police Reform Act 2002 and restore the statutory foundations of British policing.
The Bill will:
Recast the Office of Constable in statute as the foundation of policing.
Restore the constable's oath to common law, constabulary and operational language, removing the framing of policing as a human rights delivery function while preserving the duty of all officers to act lawfully, proportionately and impartially.
Repeal or rewrite provisions to end the enabling of the broad exercise of police powers by non-constables.
Define core policing functions as police-command functions: arrest, detention, custody command, public order command, criminal intelligence, investigation, evidence handling, forensics, neighbourhood policing, officer training and operational tasking.
Replace national target-setting with national capability standards and operational outcome measures.
Place a statutory duty on the Home Secretary, Police Accountability Boards and national policing bodies to protect operational independence.
Limit central direction to national security, serious and organised crime, cross-border threats, failing-force intervention and national capability standards.
Create a statutory duty for equality before the law and enforcement without fear or favour.
Remove statutory, contextual, environmental, and political conditions that undermine the integrity of Sir Robert Peel's policing principles, the independent powers and discretion of constables and impartial policing without fear, favour, prejudice or animosity.
Require police guidance, inspection and performance frameworks to demonstrate operational purpose and effect.
Reform the complaints and conduct framework so that misconduct accountability supports lawful confidence, discipline, honesty and operational courage.
Provide the statutory basis for the new Special Police Reserve, replacing the present Specials model with a disciplined reserve model.
Provide a statutory basis and authority for a restored NCIS.
Restore police-controlled training institutions and allow them to hold accreditation for professional qualifications.
Place custody resilience and forensic capability within statutory policing infrastructure.
Establish Police Accountability Boards.
The present statutory architecture has supported centralisation, political influence, pressure from groups with sectarian or narrow community interests, administrative burden, civilianisation, and dilution of constabulary authority.
The Police Restoration Act will give legal force to institutional restoration.
A statutory review of relevant legislation will begin in the first 30 days.
Drafting instructions for the Police Restoration Bill will be issued within six months.
The Bill will be introduced within twelve months.
The Act will receive Royal Assent within the first two parliamentary sessions.
Commencement will be phased over three years.
The Home Secretary will direct the reform.
The Home Office will lead the statutory review and prepare drafting instructions.
Parliamentary Counsel will draft the Bill.
Chief constables, operational officers, legal experts, HMICFRS, the National Police College, staff associations, CPS, Ministry of Justice, intelligence, and forensic leads will contribute operational and legal input.
The reform will use primary legislation, statutory guidance, commencement orders, revised force regulations, HMICFRS inspection criteria, force-level implementation plans and parliamentary scrutiny.
The Home Office will establish a Police Restoration Legislative Taskforce.
The taskforce will map every provision of relevant legislation and classify it for repeal, replacement, retention or amendment.
The taskforce will identify every provision that has enabled political direction, non-policing influence that compromises policing independence, administrative burden without demonstrable operational benefit, dilution of the Office of Constable, exercise of police powers by non-constables, civilianisation, outsourcing, weak accountability or operational fragmentation.
The Bill will create a new statutory framework for policing based on the following principles:
The Office of Constable is the foundation of policing.
The constable's duty is to keep and preserve the peace, prevent offences against people and property, uphold the law, protect the public, and act without fear or favour.
The police serve the law, the Crown, and the public.
Operational independence is protected by statute.
Democratic oversight scrutinises performance, priorities, and budgets.
No political body directs individual operational decisions.
Core policing functions remain under police command.
Police powers are exercised by sworn constables, with tightly defined auxiliary powers for reserve, support, and specialist roles.
Reporting requirements serve operational effect.
Inspection tests operational performance.
Training forms constables inside police-controlled institutions.
National coordination supports serious threats while preserving local policing.
Following the abolition of Police and Crime Commissioners - under the present government's plans - their functions must not pass to elected mayors or council-led Police and Crime Boards. If that transfer is implemented, it will increase political interference in policing, not reduce it. It will therefore be stopped by a Restore Britain government.
A Restore Britain government will establish dedicated Police Accountability Boards to provide democratic scrutiny while restoring operational independence. The Police Restoration Act will establish dedicated Police Accountability Boards for each force area.
Police governance will be removed from general local political control.
Mayors and council leaders will no longer have influence over operational policing or governance. Budgetary safeguards will be imposed that require any reduction of local spending on policing to be approved by the Home Secretary.
Police Accountability Boards will have a narrow statutory remit. Their function will be to scrutinise budgets, operational performance, visibility, public confidence, custody resilience, investigative outcomes, neighbourhood policing, public order readiness, equal enforcement, operational resilience, and use of resources. They will not set policing objectives or priorities.
Police Accountability Boards will have no authority over operations. Police commanders have sole operational decision making authority respecting the individual powers and independence vested in the Office of Constable.
Police Accountability Boards will have no power to set policing priorities, direct individual investigations, arrests, charging pathways, public order tactics, deployments, custody decisions, intelligence operations, use of force, force deployments, policing of protests, demonstrations, sporting or other events, or the lawful discretion of constables.
Appointment, Reappointment, Suspension and Removal of Chief Constables
Following the abolition of Police and Crime Commissioners, the appointment, reappointment, suspension and removal of chief constables will be placed on a clear statutory footing.
Chief constables will not be appointed, reappointed, suspended or dismissed by mayors, council leaders, council-led boards or Police Accountability Boards.
A National Police Appointments Commission will be established to oversee chief officer appointments. The Commission will operate independently of local political structures and will assess candidates on merit, operational competence, integrity, judgement, leadership, command experience, independence and suitability to hold chief officer command.
Chief constables will be appointed by the Home Secretary from candidates recommended by the National Police Appointments Commission.
Police Accountability Boards will have no power to appoint, veto, confirm, suspend, remove or initiate removal proceedings against chief constables. Their role will be confined to scrutiny of budgets, visibility, public confidence, equal enforcement, operational outcomes and use of resources.
Chief constables may be suspended or removed only through a statutory process. Grounds for removal will include serious misconduct, corruption, incapacity, persistent operational failure, serious breakdown in force leadership, or failure to maintain public safety and operational effectiveness, or failure to protect and preserve the independence and impartiality of the Office they and other Police Constables hold.
Removal will require formal assessment by HMICFRS and decision by the Home Secretary. The process will protect operational independence and prevent chief constables from being pressured, threatened or removed for refusing to accommodate local political, activist, religious, ideological or sectional demands.
This model will preserve chief constable accountability while preventing local political control of police leadership.
Chief constables will retain operational decision making and command authority.
The law and its enforcement is not a matter of compromise or consensus. Operational policing decision making will not be a matter of compromise or consensus either.
Constables will retain lawful discretion and powers as accorded them as holders of the Office of Constable.
Any attempt by an oversight body, mayor, council leader, councillor, official, political adviser or board member to influence an operational decision will be considered unlawful interference and be reportable to HMICFRS and the Home Secretary who shall have powers under the Police Restoration Act to take appropriate action, including sanctions, to safeguard policing independence.
Police Accountability Boards will publish annual public reports on force performance, public confidence, visibility, equal enforcement and operational resilience.
The Labour government plan to transfer PCC powers places police governance inside party-political local government structures.
That creates a direct route for local political pressure, activist pressure, religious pressure, identity pressure, community intimidation, and electoral calculation to influence policing.
The result would be inconsistent policing between areas, pressure-sensitive public order decision-making, deeper public suspicion of two-tier policing, and weaker confidence in equality before the law.
A decision that excludes a lawful group because of anticipated hostility towards them reverses the duty of policing. The proper duty is to protect lawful attendance, lawful movement, lawful assembly, and the public peace. The proper policing response to threats against a group is to control the threat, not remove the threatened group.
The rule of law requires one standard of enforcement.
Public peace requires policing decisions based on law, threat, risk, evidence, proportionality, and public safety.
The police must protect lawful activity and act against unlawful threat.
Democratic oversight has value when it is properly confined. It can improve transparency, scrutinise budgets, expose poor performance, represent public concern, require chief constables to explain operational outcomes, and connect policing to wider crime prevention functions.
Those strengths depend on strict boundaries. Oversight must judge policing performance. It must not direct policing operations or compromise policing discretion, independence or impartiality.
It is necessary to ensure the law and policing are not applied inconsistently across different force areas according to the political composition of local government, local communities or the local strength of activist, religious, ideological or sectional pressure.
A single national doctrine must govern equality before the law, public order, protest policing, operational independence, custody readiness, enforcement thresholds, and the protection of lawful activity.
Within the first 30 days, the Home Office will begin the statutory work required to stop, reverse or replace the transfer of PCC duties to mayors, and council-led Police and Crime Boards.
Within 90 days, the Home Office will identify all provisions, transition plans, and statutory instruments required to prevent the Labour post-PCC model from taking effect.
Within six months, the Police Restoration Bill will include a dedicated chapter on police governance, Police Accountability Boards, operational independence, and political interference.
Within twelve months, the Police Restoration Bill will be introduced.
On enactment of the Bill, the post-PCC transfer model will be repealed, halted or superseded by the new Police Accountability Board model.
Within twelve months of implementation, HMICFRS will inspect the new governance structure against operational independence, equal enforcement, and public confidence. Adjustments will be made if required.
The Home Secretary will direct the reform.
The Home Office will lead the statutory work and prepare legislative instructions.
Parliamentary Counsel will draft the provisions.
Chief constables, HMICFRS, legal advisers, police staff associations, operational commanders and public law specialists will provide operational and legal input.
Parliament will enact the new statutory model.
HMICFRS will inspect and monitor compliance.
Police Accountability Boards will scrutinise force performance without operational interference.
The reform will use primary legislation, statutory guidance, governance codes, HMICFRS inspection criteria, chief constable reporting duties, public performance dashboards, annual Operational Independence Statements, and sanctions for political interference.
The Police Restoration Act will define the permitted and prohibited functions of Police Accountability Boards.
Permitted functions will include budget scrutiny, performance scrutiny, public confidence reporting, crime prevention coordination, visibility scrutiny, custody resilience scrutiny, investigative outcome scrutiny, neighbourhood policing scrutiny, public order readiness scrutiny, equal enforcement scrutiny and public accountability.
Prohibited functions will include operational direction, case-specific pressure, interference in arrests, influence over arrest policy, policing of protests, policing profile, public order tactics, pressure over politically sensitive investigations, direction of custody decisions, influence over intelligence operations, interference in use of force decisions, interference in charging pathways, and any attempts to shape enforcement according to community, political, religious, ideological or identity pressure.
To mitigate any actual, implied or perceived political authority over policing by local government, no Police Accountability Board will be led by, or have as a member, a mayor or council leader.
Board membership will include elected local representation, magistracy representation, independent public members, victims' representation, business and community safety representation, and individuals with relevant operational, governance, financial or criminal justice experience.
Board members will be bound by a statutory duty to protect operational independence and impartiality of the police, the individual authority of the office of constable, and the principles of equality before the law and policing without fear, favour, prejudice or animosity.
Each Police Accountability Board will publish an annual Operational Independence Statement.
Chief constables will report attempted political interference to HMICFRS and the Home Secretary.
HMICFRS will inspect whether the governance structure protects impartial policing, operational independence, equal enforcement, and policing without fear or favour and make recommendations to the Home Secretary accordingly
The required outcome is democratic oversight that strengthens policing without politicising it, restores clear accountability, protects operational independence, prevents local identity politics from shaping policing decisions, ensures consistent enforcement across England and Wales, and places the rule of law and public peace above political pressure, community leverage, and sectional interest.
A Home Office Policing Purpose Directive will be issued within the first 30 days of reform.
The directive will state that policing exists to prevent crime, protect life and property, preserve order, investigate offences, arrest offenders, support prosecution, and maintain public confidence through impartial enforcement.
All police forces will audit internal policies, external communications, training material, staff networks, internal campaigns, reporting structures, partnership commitments, and community engagement practices accordingly.
DEI posts, activist-aligned programmes, contested ideological terminology, and operationally irrelevant internal initiatives will be removed from recruitment, training, ethics guidance, operational planning, promotion processes and exams, and management.
Police communications will use neutral, lawful, and operational language.
Non-crime recording will be restricted to clearly defined operational necessity: credible risk, safeguarding requirement, pattern evidence, repeat offender intelligence, public order relevance or investigatory value.
The existing Strategic Policing Requirement will be withdrawn and replaced by an Operational Strategic Policing Requirement.
The Operational Strategic Policing Requirement will identify national threats, required national policing capabilities, interoperability requirements, public order resilience, serious and organised crime capability, counter-terrorism support, cyber capability, criminal intelligence, custody resilience, forensic capacity, border-related policing requirements, mobilisation standards, and mutual aid expectations.
It will contain no ideological, activist, demographic or identity-based policing commitments.
The Police Race Action Plan, Anti-Racism Commitment, National Policing Culture and Inclusion Strategy, and all associated force-level action plans, maturity matrices, dashboards, training products, policy commitments, and reporting obligations will be withdrawn.
They will be replaced by a single Equality Before the Law and Impartial Policing Standard.
That standard will apply to every person, group, neighbourhood, protest, victim, suspect, officer, and member of police staff.
It will require impartial treatment, equal enforcement thresholds, lawful use of powers, protection of the vulnerable, fair internal discipline, meritocratic recruitment, meritocratic promotion, and evidence-based action against misconduct.
It will not impose identity-specific duties, activist language, 'anti-racism' doctrine, racialised institutional objectives, demographic targets or differential operational treatment.
Policing requires visible impartiality. Political language and ideological programmes damage public confidence, weaken officer clarity, and create perceptions of selective enforcement that undermine public confidence and support.
Depoliticisation will restore trust, reinforce equality before the law, simplify internal systems, release officer and staff time, and return institutional focus to operational effect.
Named national instruments will continue to shape force behaviour until they are formally withdrawn, revoked or replaced. If we are to change that behaviour, we must remove, revoke, repeal or amend those instruments.
The Strategic Policing Requirement is a legitimate national mechanism when confined to threat, capability, and operational readiness. It must be restored to that purpose and its politicised drift reversed.
The Police Race Action Plan and related 'anti-racism' and cultural inclusion programmes embed identity-specific and politically charged doctrine into policing. They create unbalanced and unequal policy obligations, reporting structures, local action plans, and internal activist leverage that will survive unless explicitly removed.
Depoliticisation requires named withdrawal, not simply implied replacement. Legacy influences that drive unfairness or prejudices within policing must be positively removed.
These measures are key to ensuring the police serve all people equally. Equality before the law and Peelite principles will replace identity-specific policing influences, policies, and programmes.
The national directive will be issued in the first 30 days.
Within the first 30 days, the Home Secretary will announce the withdrawal and replacement of the existing Strategic Policing Requirement with an Operational Strategic Policing Requirement.
Within the first 30 days, the Home Secretary will instruct all forces and national policing bodies to suspend implementation of the Police Race Action Plan, Anti-Racism Commitment, National Policing Culture and Inclusion Strategy, and associated local action plans pending formal withdrawal.
Force audits will be completed within 90 days.
Within 90 days, the Operational Strategic Policing Requirement will be issued.
Within 90 days, the Equality Before the Law and Impartial Policing Standard will be issued.
Removal of non-operational political and ideological material will be completed within six months.
Within six months, all force-level plans, dashboards, training material, reporting obligations, and internal policies derived from PRAP or related inclusion strategies will be withdrawn or rewritten.
Revised Home Office and National Police College guidance will be issued within six months.
The Home Secretary will direct the reform.
The Home Office will coordinate implementation through the relevant policing reform programme office.
Chief constables will execute force-level change.
HMICFRS will inspect compliance.
The National Police College will rewrite doctrine and training material.
Primary tools will include Home Office direction, statutory guidance, National Police College curriculum and doctrine, HMICFRS inspection criteria, chief officer accountability, and force policy audits.
Each force will establish a Depoliticisation and Operational Purpose Board chaired by the deputy chief constable.
The board will identify all non-operational ideological content, roles, programmes, training, and communications.
The board will remove, consolidate or rewrite all material inconsistent with the national directive.
HMICFRS will conduct thematic inspection within twelve months.
The Oath of Constable will be amended by the Police Restoration Act. The new oath will be:
' I solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that I will well and truly serve my Sovereign the King in the independent Office of Constable; that I will keep and preserve the peace, protect life and property, prevent and detect offences, uphold the law without fear or favour, malice or ill will, and discharge the duties of the Office of Constable faithfully, impartially and according to law. '
The language of the new oath removes political vocabulary and restores constitutional, legal and operational language. It restores the independence of Constables to employ discretion and the powers invested in them in the service of the public peace, free from political or activist influences. It ensures primacy of the preservation of the peace, life and property, and equitable application of the law free from fear or favour.
Training will support the new wording by emphasising lawful authority, discretion, judgement, common law principles, impartiality, use of force, arrest powers, public order, evidence, professional courage, and personal responsibility.
The Office of Constable will be re-anchored in the common law tradition, policing by consent and Sir Robert Peel's principles. Those principles will be treated as operational doctrine. They affirm that the basic mission of the holders of the Office of Constable is to prevent crime and disorder; that police power depends on public approval and cooperation; that the police must serve the law impartially; that force is a last resort; and that the measure of police success is the absence of crime and disorder, not visible enforcement activity alone.
Every officer will receive mandatory refresher training on the duties, powers, independence, and discretion invested in the holders of the Office of Constable.
Misconduct systems will distinguish clearly between lawful good-faith action under pressure and genuine misconduct.
Officers acting lawfully - including the use of force - proportionately and courageously will receive institutional support.
The Office of Constable is the constitutional and legal foundation of British policing and the principles on which it is based are those required to maintain public trust, confidence and consent. Officers require and deserve confidence in their authority and clarity in their duties.
Reasserting the Office of Constable will restore discretion, strengthen judgement, support public order, improve morale, and rebuild public trust.
National doctrine will be issued within six months.
Refresher training will begin within nine months.
All serving officers will complete training within 24 months.
The doctrine will be embedded into recruit training, promotion processes, and leadership courses within twelve months.
The Home Office, National Police College, chief constables, police training colleges and staff associations will implement the doctrine.
Tools will include legislation, Home Office directives, national doctrine, training curricula, scenario-based training, leadership development, changes to existing guidance and codes, revised misconduct guidance, and force orders.
The National Police College will convene an Office of Constable Doctrine Group (OCDD) including operational officers, legal experts, trainers, investigators and experienced frontline supervisors. Charitable organisations, community groups, and academic institutions (or individuals related to them) will not be included.
The doctrine will be based on Peel's principles, disseminated to constables, taught through practical scenarios, legal instruction and exercises.
The national policing architecture will be rebuilt around clear functions, clear command relationships, clear limits and direct operational effect.
The Police Restoration Act will define the respective roles of the NPCC, proposed NPD, National Police College, NCA, NCIS, ROCUs, HMICFRS, chief constables and local forces.
The NPCC will be reformed as the national coordination forum for chief constables. Its role will be operational coordination, mutual aid, interoperability, national operational learning and the collective professional judgement of chief constables.
The NPCC will not be a national command body above chief constables. It will not issue political doctrine. It will not act as a managerial consensus body detached from operational policing.
The NPCC will not issue policy, ideological guidance, public-facing political commentary, national campaigns, operational instructions or quasi-mandatory guidance to forces. Where national operational coordination is required, the NPCC will express the collective professional judgement of chief constables and identify operational requirements. Doctrine will sit with the National Police College. Inspection and monitoring will sit with HMICFRS. National capability delivery will sit with the National Policing Capability Office. Operational command will remain with chief constables.
The proposed National Policing Directorate will be rejected in its present form. A National Policing Capability Office will be established within the Home Office to deliver national capability, procurement, technology, data interoperability, capital programmes, equipment standards and implementation support.
The National Policing Capability Office will have no operational command authority. It will not direct chief constables, set local policing priorities, issue doctrine, inspect forces or influence operational decision-making.
The College of Policing will be abolished in its present form and replaced by a National Police College. The National Police College will own professional doctrine, training standards, instructor standards, leadership development, recruit formation standards and the institutional transmission of the Office of Constable.
The National Police College will be grounded in operational policing. Its doctrine and training standards will be tested by serving constables, sergeants, inspectors, detectives, custody officers, neighbourhood officers, public order officers and intelligence officers before adoption.
The National Crime Agency will be refocused on national enforcement and disruption against serious and organised crime, transnational organised crime, organised immigration crime, trafficking, fraud, cybercrime, high-harm offenders and criminal networks.
The restored National Criminal Intelligence Service will own the national criminal intelligence picture. NCIS will collect, grade, collate, fuse, analyse and disseminate intelligence across local, regional, national and international sources. It will set intelligence standards and embed officers and analysts at force and divisional level.
Regional Organised Crime Units will be strengthened as the operational bridge between local forces, NCIS and the NCA. They will remain regional police-owned capabilities constituted from the police forces of their region. They will not be absorbed into the National Crime Agency or converted into Home Office regional enforcement bodies. They will support regional enforcement, disruption and intelligence-led operations against serious and organised crime affecting their constituent force areas, while contributing to national operations in support of the NCA where required.
HMICFRS will remain separate from command, doctrine and delivery. Its role will be inspection of operational effectiveness, efficiency, legitimacy, public confidence, custody resilience, public order readiness, investigative outcomes, intelligence capability, neighbourhood visibility and equal enforcement. HMICFRS will have the duty to ensure that policing budgets and resources are allocated only to those things that are justifiable in terms of operational effect. No policing budgets or resources are to be allocated to or expended on political or activist related activities or activities that may be perceived by the public as such.
Local police forces will retain command of neighbourhood policing, response, local investigation, local public order, custody, local intelligence collection, local enforcement and public confidence.
Every national policing body will be required to demonstrate operational effect. Bodies, functions or programmes that duplicate effort, impose burden, blur command, politicise doctrine, weaken the Office of Constable or obstruct effective policing will be abolished, merged, reduced or redirected.
The national policing architecture has become blurred - there is overlap and mission creep and mandates are often indistinct.
Blurred structures weaken command, undermine strategic and operational clarity, obscure accountability, duplicate activity, create gaps, slow decisions and allow national bodies to drift into policy production, managerial consensus, administrative burden and political signalling that all distract and detract from the delivery of operational effect.
Policing requires clear command logic and in the police, because powers are vested not in the organisation but in the individual holders of the Office of Constable, particular emphasis must be placed on clarity.
This hierarchy restores order, authority and clarity of purpose, protects chief constable command, protects the Office of Constable, prevents the NPD from becoming a politicised bureaucratic control mechanism, replaces the present College of Policing model with a professional institution trusted by officers because it strengthens operational competence.
It establishes and integrates criminal intelligence expertise and capability to maximise support to all levels of operational prevention and enforcement.
It ensures every national body serves and supports frontline policing, public safety, investigation, enforcement, public order, public confidence and trust in the police.
Within the first 100 days, the Home Office will establish a Senior National Policing Architecture Programme.
Within six months, the Home Secretary will issue a National Policing Architecture Directive setting out the future roles of the NPCC, National Policing Capability Office, National Police College, NCA, NCIS, ROCUs and HMICFRS.
Within twelve months, the Police Restoration Bill will include the statutory provisions required to reform or replace the College of Policing, reject the NPD in its proposed form, create the National Policing Capability Office, restore NCIS, refocus the NCA and define the limits of national bodies.
Within eighteen months, the new operating model for NPCC, National Policing Capability Office, National Police College, NCIS, NCA and ROCUs will be published.
Within three years, the new national policing architecture will be fully operational.
Within five years, all national policing bodies will be inspected against operational effect, burden reduction and contribution to frontline policing.
The Home Secretary will direct the reform.
The Home Office will lead the Senior National Policing Architecture Programme.
Parliamentary Counsel will draft the statutory provisions.
Chief constables will define operational requirements.
The NPCC will transition into its reformed coordination role.
The College of Policing will be replaced by the National Police College.
The NCA will implement its revised enforcement role.
NCIS transition leadership will build the national criminal intelligence capability.
ROCUs will be aligned to the new local-regional-national tasking model.
HMICFRS will inspect the effectiveness of the new architecture.
Police Accountability Boards will scrutinise local force performance without operational interference.
The reform will use the Police Restoration Act, statutory guidance, revised terms of reference, operating agreements, national doctrine, capability standards, budget controls, shared data architecture, joint tasking arrangements, national procurement mechanisms, inspection criteria, training estate investment and annual operational effect reporting.
The Police Restoration Act will set the legal architecture.
The Home Office will issue a National Policing Architecture Directive.
The NPCC will be reconstituted around operational coordination, mutual aid, interoperability and chief constable professional judgement.
The proposed National Policing Directorate will be replaced by a National Policing Capability Office with delivery functions only.
The College of Policing will be abolished in its present form. The National Police College will be established as the professional institution for doctrine, training standards, instructor standards, leadership development and constabulary formation. It will coordinate training among the regional colleges and will establish itself as the United Kingdom's centre of expertise and learning in the field of policing.
Doctrine will be tested through frontline practitioner panels before adoption. No longer will it be imposed without the input of operational constables.
NCIS will be restored and given statutory authority as the national criminal intelligence capability.
The NCA will be refocused on national enforcement and disruption.
ROCUs will be placed in a clear tasking relationship with local forces, NCIS and the NCA.
HMICFRS will inspect whether national bodies improve operational policing or impose burden.
The Home Secretary will hold Chief Officers directly accountable for addressing concerns raised by HMICFRS.
Each national body will publish an annual operational effect report.
The final structure will be:
National and regional police training colleges will be re-established.
The National Police College will be established as the national centre for police doctrine, training standards, instructor standards, leadership development, curriculum development and control, accreditation oversight and the institutional formation of constables.
Regional police training colleges will deliver recruit training, probationer development, public order training, officer safety training, investigation training, custody training, leadership development, refresher training and specialist operational courses.
The police service will regain institutional ownership of recruit formation, discipline, vocational competence, operational confidence and constabulary ethos.
Police colleges will be accredited to deliver degree-level qualifications where required. Degree-level accreditation will sit inside police-controlled institutions. Universities may support specialist academic content, external validation and research. They will not hold the centre of gravity in the formation of constables.
A national police training estate programme will identify, acquire, reopen, repurpose or build the facilities required to deliver police-controlled training.
The estate programme will include:
The police instructor cadre will be rebuilt.
The present shortage of experienced police instructors will be addressed through a structured instructor-generation programme. Experienced serving officers, recently retired officers, public order trainers, detectives, custody officers, intelligence officers, forensic specialists, firearms trainers, roads policing officers, neighbourhood policing specialists and operational commanders will be identified, assessed and trained as instructors.
The Army will be asked to support the initial rebuilding of instructional capacity through train-the-trainer training for selected police instructors. Military instructional expertise will be used to strengthen lesson planning, instructional technique, discipline, assessment, practical training delivery, scenario design, field exercises, command exercises and instructor quality assurance. Police content will remain police-owned.
A National Police Instructor Course will be established. No officer or staff member will deliver core police training without instructor certification.
Curriculum development will be led by the National Police College and tested through frontline practitioner panels.
The curriculum will include:
The Office of Constable.
The restored oath and constabulary tradition.
Peel's principles.
Common law foundations of policing by consent.
Law, powers, evidence, and procedure.
Arrest, detention, and use of force.
Officer safety.
Public order.
Neighbourhood policing.
Investigation and case-building.
Statement-taking and file preparation.
Digital evidence handling.
Forensic awareness.
Criminal intelligence.
Custody processes.
Safeguarding and vulnerability.
Conflict management.
Roads policing.
Court procedure.
Ethics rooted in law, duty, and impartiality.
Equality before the law.
Professional standards.
Smartness, turnout, discipline, and teamwork.
Leadership at constable, sergeant, and inspector level.
The curriculum will be practical, disciplined, legally grounded and operationally focused. It will produce constables who understand their powers, their duties, their discretion, their personal responsibility and their obligation to act without fear or favour.
Far greater training emphasis will be applied to conflict prevention and de-escalation, arrest and restraint techniques, self-defence and officer fitness than at present. Constables must be supported in the lawful use of force, and for them to be supported they must be correctly and thoroughly trained in the appropriate and useful use of force, and be fit enough to apply that training.
Training is the engine of institutional restoration.
Policing cannot be restored through legislation alone. The Office of Constable must be taught. Discipline must be formed. Judgement must be developed. Operational confidence must be practised. Common standards must be instilled. Public-facing authority must be rehearsed. The professional culture of policing must be rebuilt inside policing.
The loss of police-controlled training capacity weakened common formation, practical competence, confidence, discipline, smartness, teamwork, operational judgement and constabulary identity.
The movement of training into university-centred structures diluted police ownership of professional formation and has weakened the standard of individual and team skills.
The move away from regional police training colleges to universities has severely impacted police training in conflict prevention, arrest and restraint techniques and self-defence has been badly neglected. This has compromised officer and public safety, and when members of the public observe officers struggling to restrain a suspect or unable to defend themselves, they naturally lose confidence in the ability of officers to protect the public.
The reduction of the police instructor cadre has weakened the service's ability to reproduce its own standards.
Rebuilding the National Police College, regional police training colleges, instructor cadre, estate and curriculum will restore common culture, common standards, practical competence, public confidence, and lawful operational courage.
Within the first 60 days, the Home Office will establish the Police Training Restoration Taskforce.
Within 90 days, the National Police College Implementation Team will be appointed.
Within six months, the national police training estate audit will be completed.
Within six months, existing university training contracts and partnership arrangements will be reviewed and action taken to end them as the national police training college network takes the lead for training.
Within six months, the National Police Instructor Course will be designed.
Within nine months, the first instructor train-the-trainer courses will begin, with Army support where appropriate.
Within twelve months, the national curriculum framework will be issued.
Within eighteen months, the first restored regional training sites will begin operation.
Within two years, the first full cohort of recruits will enter institutional and residential, police-controlled training under the restored model.
Within three years, all new recruits will enter police-controlled institutional training.
Within five years, the National Police College and regional police training college network will reach full operating capability.
The Home Secretary will direct the programme.
The Home Office will fund and coordinate delivery.
The National Police College Implementation Team will design the national training model.
Chief constables will provide instructors, operational training staff and subject-matter experts.
The Ministry of Defence and Army training establishments will provide curriculum development and train-the-trainer support where required.
The Department for Education and accreditation bodies will support degree-level accreditation inside police-controlled institutions.
Police training colleges will deliver recruit and officer development.
HMICFRS will inspect training effectiveness and operational impact.
The programme will use the Police Restoration Act, capital investment, reopened or repurposed training estate, new regional training sites, instructor certification, Army-supported train-the-trainer packages, national curriculum design, accreditation frameworks, operational simulation facilities, public order grounds, custody suites, digital training facilities, driving facilities, residential facilities and frontline practitioner panels.
The Home Office will create a Police Training Restoration Taskforce.
The Taskforce will conduct a national estate audit to identify former police training facilities, suitable police premises, military training sites, emergency service training centres, and wider public-sector estate suitable for rapid conversion.
The National Police College Implementation Team will design the national training architecture and curriculum.
A national instructor cadre will be rebuilt through selection of experienced serving officers, recently retired officers, and operational specialists.
Selected officers will attend a National Police Instructor Course. Army train-the-trainer support will be used to accelerate instructional quality and discipline during the initial rebuilding phase.
Regional police training colleges will be opened in phases, beginning with sites that can be made operational fastest.
Police-controlled accreditation arrangements will be established so that degree-level requirements, where retained, are delivered through police institutions.
All recruit training will include classroom law, fitness and physical training, practical drills, operational scenarios, patrol exercises, investigation exercises, custody exercises, public order exercises, officer safety training, evidence handling, and assessed operational placements.
Training outcomes will be measured by monitoring recruit competence, probationer performance, officer confidence, supervisor feedback, public order readiness, investigative quality, use-of-force competence, arrest confidence, file quality, professional standards, and public confidence.
The training system will create constables able to preserve the independence of the Office they hold and exercise their duties, powers and discretion independently, impartially and in the service of the King's Peace confidently.
Recruitment will be returned to merit, suitability, and public safety.
The only two criteria to be applied in selection will be:
Demographic targets will be removed from recruitment, selection, and promotion.
National vetting standards will be strengthened.
Probation will become a genuine assessment period.
Officers lacking integrity, judgement, courage, discipline, discretion, honesty, resilience, fitness, or operational competence will be removed during probation.
The powers of a constable require high standards of character and competence.
The public must know that officers are selected for merit, integrity, judgement, and suitability for lawful authority.
New recruitment standards will be issued within six months.
Vetting reform will begin within six months.
New probation standards will apply to all recruits entering after month nine.
Full implementation will be complete within two years.
The Home Office, National Police College, chief constables, Police Vetting Units, Professional Standards Departments, and police training colleges.
National standards, vetting databases, probation assessment tools, supervisor reports, training records, operational assessments, misconduct intelligence, and independent audit.
Recruitment will assess judgement, integrity, moral courage, communication, skills, personal resilience, physical fitness, practical reasoning, and suitability for public-facing service.
Probation will include practical assessment on response policing, neighbourhood policing, arrest, evidence, conflict management, public order basics, victim handling, statement-taking, and discretion. It will also include in-area training under the supervision of Tutor Constables.
Uniform patrol, neighbourhood policing, response policing, and public order duties will be restored as prestigious, career-valued, and promotion-relevant functions.
A Frontline Service Standard will require officers seeking promotion to demonstrate meaningful public-facing operational experience.
National standards for uniform, turnout, physical fitness, personal conduct, and professional bearing will be restored.
All officers in public-facing roles will be required to maintain uniform, footwear, equipment, hair, headgear, and personal presentation standards consistent with disciplined public service.
Uniform redesign will be undertaken to ensure that it is practical, smart, properly fitted, durable, weather-appropriate, and capable of presenting officers as professional representatives of lawful authority.
Fitness standards will be reviewed and strengthened for all warranted officers, with role-specific standards for response, neighbourhood policing, public order, firearms, roads policing, custody, and specialist duties.
Supervisors will be responsible for enforcing turnout, fitness and bearing standards. Failure to maintain required standards will be addressed through supervision, remedial training, fitness support, and where necessary formal performance action.
The tendency of frontline officers to seek non-shift and specialist roles away from frontline operational policing will be addressed by incentivising experienced frontline constables and sergeants to remain in such roles through pay, recognition, promotion credits, and specialist status.
The internal culture that treats non-public-facing, non-shift, and office-based policing roles as the main route to status will be reversed.
Frontline policing loses capability when experienced officers move rapidly into non-uniformed, non-public-facing and non-shift roles for status, pay, routine, and promotion advantage.
Effective public-facing policing depends largely on the experience and confidence of the officers involved. The loss of those officers to other roles must be mitigated.
Smartness, fitness and bearing strengthen public trust, officer confidence, deterrence, and team discipline. They also signal that the officer respects the office, the uniform, the public, and the powers entrusted to them.
Poor turnout, badly fitted or dirty uniform, unclean boots, unsuitable hair presentation, poor physical condition, and weak professional bearing damage the authority of the office and the public reputation of policing.
A restored police service must look, act, and carry itself like a disciplined public service entrusted with and fully competent to exercise lawful authority.
The public needs and expects experienced, disciplined, and fit officers on the street who inspire trust and deter criminality. New officers need experienced supervisors beside them. Commanders need frontline officers with good training, judgement, moral courage, and confidence. Neighbourhoods need officers who know offenders, locations, families, tensions, patterns, and local risks and do not turn away.
A Frontline Prestige Directive will be issued within six months.
Promotion criteria will be rewritten within twelve months.
Frontline retention payments and specialist recognition models will be designed within twelve months.
Implementation will begin in year two.
The Home Office, Police Remuneration Review Body, chief constables, National Police College, staff associations, and HMICFRS.
Promotion rules, pay supplements, specialist skill recognition, frontline service requirements, performance frameworks, retention incentives, public recognition, and force workforce plans.
Promotion to sergeant, inspector, and chief inspector will require demonstrated public-facing operational competence.
Frontline patrol, neighbourhood policing, response policing, public order command, custody, investigation, and intelligence will receive defined professional status.
Forces will publish experience levels on response and neighbourhood teams.
Supervisory ratios will be strengthened.
Experienced officers will be offered career pathways that keep them in operational roles without forcing movement into office-based posts.
The National Criminal Intelligence Service will be re-established.
NCIS will become the national centre for criminal intelligence collection, collation, grading, fusion, analysis, standards, systems, doctrine, and dissemination.
Force-level intelligence units will be rebuilt.
NCIS officers and analysts will be attached at force and divisional level.
Neighbourhood intelligence, custody intelligence, prison intelligence, border intelligence, immigration intelligence, HMRC intelligence, NCA intelligence, and international intelligence will be fused into usable operational products.
Intelligence detects and improves understanding of criminal activity and characteristics. It enables preventative measures and their design, it allows for operational enforcement, and it protects the public.
Cuts to support functions in the past severely weakened force and area-level intelligence. The loss of a distinct national criminal intelligence capability weakened the national picture.
Rebuilt criminal intelligence capacity will improve detection, targeting, disruption, investigations, public order planning, serious crime response, organised crime enforcement, national security awareness, and public safety.
A National Criminal Intelligence Restoration Programme will begin within 100 days.
Legislation or machinery-of-government changes will be prepared within twelve months.
NCIS will be established in shadow form within eighteen months.
Full operating capability will be achieved within four years.
The Home Office will direct.
NCIS transition leadership will include experienced criminal intelligence officers, analysts, NCA representatives, ROCU representatives, Border Force, HMRC, intelligence community liaison, and chief constables.
NCIS statutory authority, secure data systems, analytical platforms, intelligence standards, embedded analysts, liaison officers, common tasking procedures, and national threat assessment processes.
NCIS will be built around national headquarters, regional hubs, and embedded force-level teams.
It will produce national criminal threat assessments, regional threat products, force intelligence requirements, target packages, and operational briefings.
It will set intelligence standards and support chief constables in building force-level intelligence capability.
The National Crime Agency will be reformed to focus on enforcement, disruption, specialist operations, and national serious crime capability.
NCIS will own the national criminal intelligence picture.
The NCA will act on that picture through operations against serious and organised crime, transnational organised crime, cybercrime, fraud, trafficking, organised immigration crime, high-harm offenders, and criminal networks.
The relationship between NCA, NCIS, ROCUs, counter-terrorism policing, Border Force, HMRC, local forces, and international partners will be clarified and strengthened.
National criminal threats require clear separation between intelligence, tasking, investigation, enforcement, and prosecution support, but close, seamless collaboration.
A clearer model will improve speed, accountability, operational focus, and national coordination.
A National Serious Crime Capability Programme will begin within 100 days.
The new operating model will be designed within twelve months.
Implementation will begin in year two.
Full reform will be complete within five years.
The Home Office, NCA Director General, NCIS transition leadership, NPCC, chief constables, ROCUs, HMRC, Border Force, CPS, and intelligence partners.
Revised statutory functions, national tasking arrangements, intelligence-sharing protocols, operational command structures, funding settlement, digital systems, and performance measures.
The Home Office will issue a National Serious Crime Capability Directive.
NCIS will provide the national intelligence picture.
The NCA will lead or support operations according to threat level, specialist capability, and jurisdiction.
ROCUs will become the operational bridge between local forces and national capability.
Custody will be restored as core police infrastructure.
Every police area will have access to operational custody capacity.
Every force area will maintain reserve custody capability for surge, public order, major incidents, counter-terrorism, mass arrests, and high-demand periods.
Custody closures will require national approval where operational capacity is affected.
Police command over custody will be strengthened.
Custody capacity determines operational choice.
Reduced custody availability raises arrest thresholds, weakens proactive policing, reduces officer availability, constrains public order tactics and undermines frontline confidence.
Spare capacity is essential to enforcement.
A national custody audit will begin within 60 days.
Minimum custody resilience standards will be issued within nine months.
Force-level custody restoration plans will be completed within twelve months.
Priority capacity restoration will begin in year two.
Full resilience standards will be met within five years.
The Home Office, chief constables, Police Accountability Boards once established, Ministry of Justice, HM Treasury, custody inspectors, and HMICFRS.
Capital investment, reopened custody suites, new modular custody facilities, reserve custody sites, trained custody officers, detainee transport plans, public order custody plans, and force resilience budgets.
Forces will map custody demand, cell numbers, travel times, public order needs, detainee processing delays, staffing models, and surge requirements.
Custody command will return to clear police control.
Civilian custody roles will be retained where operationally appropriate and placed under robust police command.
Public order plans will include custody capacity as a mandatory planning factor.
Forensic capability will be restored as core criminal justice infrastructure and police operational capability.
All forensic outsourcing will be audited and restructured where it has weakened speed, evidence quality, resilience, command control or prosecution outcomes. Forensic functions that affect speed, evidence quality, chain of custody, investigative ownership, resilience or prosecution outcomes will be brought back into policing or placed under stronger police-controlled structures.
Digital forensics will receive urgent investment.
Forensics are part of investigations.
Distance between investigators and forensic capability weakens case-building, delays charging, damages evidence quality, compromises prosecutions, and reduces victim confidence.
Police command requires control of the investigative chain.
A forensic capability audit will begin within 100 days.
Digital forensic backlogs will be treated as an urgent operational priority within year one.
Reintegration plans will be completed within 18 months.
Priority reintegration will begin in year two.
The full operating model will be complete within five years.
The Home Office, Ministry of Justice, chief constables, CPS, Forensic Science Regulator, forensic providers, police forensic leads, and digital forensic specialists.
National forensic standards, police forensic units, digital forensic laboratories, capital investment, training, contractual reform, chain-of-custody systems, and CPS-police joint processes.
Each force will identify forensic functions requiring local, regional or national police-controlled capability.
Specialist commercial provision will continue where it provides technical value under police-controlled standards, police operational tasking, and prosecution-focused performance measures.
Forensic advisers will be embedded early in major and complex investigations. Investigators will receive stronger forensic training.
Investigation will be restored as a core police craft.
Performance will measure the full chain from crime report to arrest, charge, prosecution, and conviction.
Case file quality, evidence capture, disclosure, digital evidence handling, suspect management, and victim communication will be strengthened.
CPS advice will be embedded earlier in serious and complex cases.
Public confidence depends on offenders being brought to justice.
Weak investigations, poor files, forensic delays and low charge rates teach offenders that criminality carries limited consequence.
Strong investigation restores deterrence, victim confidence, and public trust.
National investigative standards will be issued within nine months.
Force investigative improvement plans will be completed within twelve months.
Training reform will begin in year two.
Performance measures will apply from year two.
The Home Office, National Police College, chief constables, CPS, HMICFRS, detective leads, frontline supervisors, and police training colleges.
National standards, investigative training, CPS-police protocols, digital evidence systems, file quality audits, forensic support, and supervision frameworks.
Forces will track crimes reported, crimes investigated, arrests, charges, file rejection, victim attrition, prosecution outcomes, and conviction outcomes.
Supervisors will own the investigation quality.
Detective career pathways will be strengthened.
Response officers will receive improved evidence and case-building training.
Public order doctrine, training, equipment, and command will be strengthened.
All officers will receive improved public order training.
Specialist public order units will train regularly and requalify every six months.
Operational policing of protests, disorder and public assemblies will be based solely on law, threat, risk, proportionality, and public safety.
The Police Restoration Act will provide statutory protection for constables who use lawful, necessary, proportionate and reasonable force in good faith in the execution of their duty.
Political and community sensitivities will carry no operational weighting.
Public order failure places officers and the public at risk.
Perceived double standards damage confidence and embolden disorder.
Disciplined, confident and consistent public order policing preserves order, protects lawful protest, and deters violence.
New training standards will be issued within nine months.
Six-monthly requalification will begin in year two.
Equipment audit, capability gap identification and procurement will begin in year one.
The Home Office, National Police College, chief constables, police training colleges, and HMICFRS.
Legislation, revised doctrine, training grounds, protective equipment, command exercises, custody planning, public order intelligence, national mutual aid standards, and inspection.
Public order commanders will record decisions against law, threat, risk, proportionality, and public safety.
Public order plans will include intelligence, arrest strategy, custody capacity, evidence-gathering, officer protection, communications, and command succession.
Every force will maintain trained and equipped public order capability.
Foot patrols and neighbourhood beat officers will be reasserted.
Neighbourhood officers will be assigned stable areas and expected to build offender knowledge, community knowledge, intelligence awareness, location awareness, and local confidence.
Neighbourhood policing will be connected directly to intelligence, response, investigation, crime hotspot, and public order planning.
Local policing depends on presence, knowledge and trust.
Neighbourhood officers identify repeat offenders, vulnerable people, tensions, emerging disorder, criminal networks, intimidation, antisocial behaviour, and locations at risk.
Visible policing deters crime and reassures the public.
Neighbourhood policing standards will be issued within six months.
Force beat plans will be completed within twelve months.
Implementation will begin in year two.
Chief constables, local commanders, neighbourhood inspectors, local policing bodies, and HMICFRS.
The new, reformed Special Constabulary/Reserve Police Force (Programme 16) will play a central role.
Dedicated beat officers, mobile technology, local intelligence products, patrol plans, public contact points, neighbourhood performance measures, and supervision.
Forces will map neighbourhoods, high-harm locations, repeat demand, repeat offenders, and public confidence gaps.
Beat officers will brief response teams and intelligence units.
Neighbourhood performance will be measured through visibility, intelligence submissions, offender disruption, public confidence, antisocial behaviour reduction, and crime prevention.
The Special Constabulary will retain its historic name but will be reformed as the Reserve Police Force.
Reserve officers will have clear attendance requirements, training and attendance obligations, rank structure, standards, equipment, deployment roles, and conditions of service similar in methodology to those applied to the reserve armed forces.
The Reserve Police Force will support neighbourhood visibility, public order surge, major incidents, search, resilience, events, emergency response, and local reassurance.
Policing requires depth.
A properly trained reserve will improve resilience, strengthen public connection, increase visible policing and provide surge capacity during disorder, emergencies, and national events.
Reserve Police Force design will begin within six months.
Pilot forces will launch within eighteen months.
National rollout will begin in year three.
Full capability will be achieved within five years.
The Home Office, chief constables, National Police College, staff associations, local commanders, and Reserve Police Force leadership.
Training standards, attendance contracts, equipment, uniforms, reserve pay or allowance structures, legal powers, insurance, employer support, and deployment doctrine.
Reserve officers will train regularly and deploy under police command.
Roles will be matched to training levels.
Specialist reserve pathways will include public order support, search, rural policing, cyber support, events, emergency response, and neighbourhood reinforcement.
Police performance measures will be rebuilt around operational outcomes.
Forces will be judged by crime prevention, response, investigation, arrest-to-charge progression, prosecution support, public order effectiveness, custody resilience, frontline experience, neighbourhood visibility, intelligence quality, victim outcomes, and public confidence.
Process compliance will carry value only where it improves operational effect.
Police systems shape police behaviour.
A performance framework focused on operational outcomes will drive enforcement, investigation, visibility, and public confidence.
New performance measures will be designed within twelve months.
Pilot reporting will begin in year two.
Full inspection alignment will begin in year three.
Home Office, HMICFRS, National Police College, chief constables, CPS, and Police Accountability Boards.
Performance dashboards, inspection frameworks, force-level operational data, public confidence surveys, prosecution data, custody data, intelligence quality assessment, and victim outcome measures.
HMICFRS will revise inspection criteria.
Forces will publish operational dashboards.
Police Accountability Boards will scrutinise operational outcomes.
Chief constables will be held accountable for delivery.
This plan requires investment, reprioritisation, and institutional redesign.
Resources will be directed first to capabilities that produce direct policing effect: training, frontline visibility, custody capacity, intelligence, forensics, investigation, public order, digital evidence handling, and neighbourhood policing.
Savings will be drawn from the removal of non-operational ideological roles, duplicated bureaucracy, weak training contracts, ineffective reporting burdens, fragmented procurement, and unnecessary managerial structures.
Capital investment will be required for training colleges, custody facilities, forensic capability, intelligence systems, digital evidence systems, and public order equipment.
The financial test is operational effect. Expenditure must increase police capability to prevent crime, protect the public, investigate offences, enforce the law, support prosecution, and enhance public trust, confidence, and support.
Complete force audits of politicised and non-operational systems.
Issue revised non-crime recording guidance.
Issue new recruitment, vetting and probation standards.
Publish national custody resilience standards.
Publish the police training college restoration plan.
Publish public order training and equipment standards.
Publish investigative effectiveness standards.
Design NCIS shadow structure.
Publish frontline prestige and retention framework.
Begin Reserve Police Force design.
The End State is a restored British policing model.
It will be impartial, disciplined, locally visible, nationally coordinated, intelligence-led, operationally confident and rooted in the Office of Constable.
It will enforce the law without fear or favour.
It will treat every person equally before the law.
It will restore policing by consent, grounded in the common law tradition, Peel's principles, the preservation of the peace, the protection of life and property, and the impartial enforcement of the law.
It will remove political, ideological, activist and identity-based doctrine from policing and replace it with equality before the law, operational effectiveness and public duty.
It will restore police ownership of training, intelligence, custody, forensics, investigation, public order and neighbourhood policing.
It will establish the National Police College and regional police training colleges as the institutional foundation for constabulary formation, professional doctrine, leadership development, instructor standards and operational competence.
It will restore the National Criminal Intelligence Service as the national criminal intelligence capability and refocus the National Crime Agency on national enforcement and disruption.
It will maintain local police forces under chief constable command, supported by clear national capability, regional organised crime capability and dedicated democratic oversight through Police Accountability Boards.
It will return prestige to the uniformed officer serving the public.
It will measure success by public safety, crime prevention, visibility, intelligence, investigation, enforcement, prosecution, custody resilience, public order, victim confidence and public trust.
It will restore British policing.
| No. | Task | Purpose / Outcome | Lead | Supporting Bodies | Tools / Resources | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Issue Policing Purpose Directive | Re-centre policing on crime prevention, protection of life and property, investigation, enforcement, public order, public peace and public confidence | Home Secretary | Home Office, chief constables | Statutory guidance, force orders | First 30 days |
| 2 | Withdraw and replace Strategic Policing Requirement | Restore the SPR to threat, capability, interoperability, resilience and mutual aid | Home Secretary | Home Office, chief constables, HMICFRS | Operational Strategic Policing Requirement | First 90 days |
| 3 | Conduct depoliticisation audit | Remove ideological, activist and non-operational burdens from policing | Chief constables | Home Office, HMICFRS | Force policy audit, training audit, communications audit | 90 days |
| 4 | Remove DEI structures and contested political language | Restore impartiality and operational focus | Chief constables | Home Office, HR leads, HMICFRS | Workforce restructuring, revised policies | 6 months |
| 5 | Rewrite non-crime recording guidance | Restrict non-crime recording to operational necessity | Home Office | Chief constables, National Police College | Revised guidance, data rules | 6 months |
| 6 | Suspend Police Race Action Plan implementation | Stop identity-specific national policing commitments continuing as extant force obligations | Home Secretary | Home Office, NPCC, National Police College, chief constables | Ministerial instruction, statutory guidance | First 30 days |
| 7 | Withdraw Police Race Action Plan and associated commitments | Remove 'anti-racism' doctrine, force-level action plans, dashboards, reporting duties and activist leverage | Home Office | NPCC, National Police College, chief constables | Withdrawal notice, revised guidance | First 90 days |
| 8 | Withdraw Anti-Racism Commitment and National Policing Culture and Inclusion Strategy | Remove national ideological and identity-based policing programmes | Home Office | NPCC, National Police College, chief constables | Withdrawal notice, revised guidance | First 90 days |
| 9 | Issue Equality Before the Law and Impartial Policing Standard | Replace identity-specific programmes with one universal standard for all people | Home Secretary | Home Office, chief constables, HMICFRS | Statutory guidance, inspection criteria | First 90 days |
| 10 | Audit local PRAP-derived force plans | Remove local action plans, maturity matrices, dashboards, training products and reporting obligations | Chief constables | Home Office, HMICFRS | Force policy audit | 6 months |
| No. | Task | Purpose / Outcome | Lead | Supporting Bodies | Tools / Resources | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Establish Police Restoration Legislative Taskforce | Prepare statutory replacement for the Police Reform Act 2002 | Home Secretary | Home Office, Parliamentary Counsel, chief constables, legal experts | Statutory review team | First 30 days |
| 12 | Map Police Reform Act 2002 provisions | Identify repeal, replacement, retention and transfer requirements | Home Office | Legal advisers, policing leads | Legislative audit | 90 days |
| 13 | Draft Police Restoration Bill instructions | Translate reform doctrine into primary legislation | Home Office | Parliamentary Counsel | Drafting instructions | 6 months |
| 14 | Prepare revised constable attestation | Restore constabulary oath language | Home Office | Legal experts, police historians, chief constables, National Police College Implementation Team | Draft statutory wording | 6 months |
| 15 | Restore common law constabulary language in police doctrine | Remove the concept of policing as a human rights delivery institution and restore policing by consent, impartial enforcement and the Office of Constable | Home Office | National Police College, chief constables, legal advisers | Revised oath, doctrine, training material | 6-12 months |
| 16 | Audit and restrict powers exercised by non-constables | Restore police powers to sworn officers and tightly defined reserve roles | Home Office | Chief constables, National Police College | Powers audit | 6-9 months |
| 17 | Define core policing functions in statute | Return custody, intelligence, forensics, training and investigation to police command | Home Office | Forces, NCIS, CPS, MoJ | Statutory definitions | 9 months |
| 18 | Insert Office of Constable chapter into Police Restoration Bill | Give statutory force to constabulary independence, lawful discretion and personal responsibility | Home Office | Parliamentary Counsel, chief constables, legal experts | Police Restoration Bill | 12 months |
| 19 | Introduce Police Restoration Bill | Provide legal foundation for reform | Home Secretary | Parliamentary Counsel, Parliament | Primary legislation | 12 months |
| 20 | Commence Police Restoration Act | Implement statutory restoration | Home Office | Chief constables, HMICFRS, National Police College | Commencement orders, regulations | Years 1-3 |
| No. | Task | Purpose / Outcome | Lead | Supporting Bodies | Tools / Resources | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 | Establish Police Accountability Boards following PCC abolition | Prevent police governance moving deeper into political and local government structures, or becoming tied to community activism | Home Secretary | Home Office, Parliament | Ministerial direction, legislation, transition controls | First 90 days |
| 22 | Establish Police Accountability Board model | Create dedicated policing oversight separated from general local political control | Home Office | Parliamentary Counsel, chief constables, HMICFRS | Legislative drafting instructions, governance model | 6 months |
| 23 | Define permitted functions of Police Accountability Boards | Confine oversight to budgets, performance, visibility, public confidence, custody resilience, investigation, neighbourhood policing, public order readiness, equal enforcement and use of resources | Home Office | Parliamentary Counsel, HMICFRS, chief constables | Statutory definitions, governance code | 6 months |
| 24 | Define prohibited operational interference | Bar direction of investigations, arrests, charging pathways, deployments, public order tactics, custody decisions, intelligence operations, use of force and constabulary discretion | Home Office | Parliamentary Counsel, chief constables | Primary legislation, statutory guidance | 6 months |
| 25 | Establish the National Police Appointments Commission | Create a non-political, national body and process for selecting and removing senior police officers | Home Secretary / Home Office | Parliamentary Counsel, HMICFRS, chief constables, staff associations, legal advisers, senior policing experts | Police Restoration Bill, statutory appointments framework, appointment code, HMICFRS assessment input, transition plan | Within an 18 to 24 month window |
| 26 | Insert Police Accountability Board provisions into Police Restoration Bill | Give legal force to the new oversight model and operational independence safeguards | Home Office | Parliamentary Counsel | Police Restoration Bill | 12 months |
| 27 | Establish Police Accountability Boards | Replace PCCs with dedicated statutory oversight bodies without transferring policing into mayoral or council-led political control | Home Office | Local areas, chief constables, HMICFRS | Statutory appointments process, governance code | Before 2028 |
| 28 | Require annual Operational Independence Statements | Expose and deter political, local government, activist, religious or identity-based pressure on policing | Chief constables | Police Accountability Boards, HMICFRS | Annual reporting duty | From implementation |
| 29 | Create political interference reporting duty | Require attempted operational interference to be reported to HMICFRS and the Home Secretary | Home Office | Chief constables, HMICFRS | Statutory duty, reporting mechanism | From implementation |
| 30 | Inspect police governance independence | Ensure oversight protects impartial policing, operational independence and equal enforcement | HMICFRS | Home Office, chief constables | Inspection framework | 12 months after implementation |
| 31 | Publish police governance performance dashboards | Give the public clear accountability for police performance without political control of operations | Police Accountability Boards | Forces, HMICFRS | Public dashboards, operational performance data | Year 2 |
| No. | Task | Purpose / Outcome | Lead | Supporting Bodies | Tools / Resources | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32 | Establish Police Training Restoration Taskforce | Direct the full restoration of police-controlled training | Home Office | National Police College Implementation Team, chief constables, DfE, MoD | Programme board, delivery plan, funding line | First 60 days |
| 33 | Establish National Police College Implementation Team | Create the body responsible for designing the National Police College, regional college network, instructor standards, doctrine and curriculum | Home Office | Chief constables, operational trainers, legal experts, public order leads, investigation leads | Terms of reference, appointments, programme office | First 90 days |
| 34 | Establish Office of Constable Doctrine Group | Restore lawful authority, discretion, personal responsibility and constabulary identity | Home Office | National Police College Implementation Team, legal experts, operational officers, police historians | Doctrine drafting, legal guidance, oath reform | First 100 days |
| 35 | Conduct national police training estate audit | Identify facilities for the National Police College and regional police training colleges | Home Office | Forces, MoD, public estate bodies, emergency services | Estate audit, site assessment, costings | 6 months |
| 36 | Secure training estate | Acquire, reopen, repurpose or build facilities required for police-controlled training | Home Office | Treasury, forces, MoD, public estate bodies | Capital programme, leases, acquisitions, conversion plans | 6-24 months |
| 37 | Establish National Police College | Restore the national professional institution for doctrine, training standards, instructor standards, leadership development and constabulary formation | Home Office | Chief constables, police training specialists, operational instructors | Statutory charter, estate, instructor cadre, curriculum authority | 18-36 months |
| 38 | Establish regional police training college network | Deliver recruit training, probationer development, officer safety, public order, investigation, custody, leadership and refresher training inside police institutions | Home Office | National Police College, chief constables, forces | Regional estate, instructors, accommodation, training grounds | 18 months-5 years |
| 39 | Transfer university-centred police training contracts to police-controlled model | Return the centre of gravity of police formation to police institutions | Home Office | Forces, universities, accreditation bodies, DfE | Contract transition plans, accreditation transfer, funding settlement | 6-24 months |
| 40 | Establish accreditation route for police colleges | Allow police-controlled institutions to deliver degree-level qualifications where required | Home Office | DfE, accreditation bodies, National Police College | Accreditation framework, quality assurance, degree-award ing partnerships | 12-36 months |
| 41 | Design National Police Instructor Course | Rebuild instructional standards, instructor discipline and training quality | National Police College | Army training specialists, police trainers, operational leads | Instructor curriculum, assessment model, certification standards | 6 months |
| 42 | Deliver instructor train-the-trainer programme | Rapidly rebuild the instructor pool using police and Army instructional expertise | National Police College | MoD, Army training establishments, chief constables, retired police instructors | Train-the-trainer package, selected instructor cohort, instructional assessment | 9-24 months |
| 43 | Build national police instructor cadre | Create sufficient instructors for recruit, public order, investigation, custody, neighbourhood, intelligence and leadership training | National Police College | Forces, retired officers, operational specialists, staff associations | Instructor selection, certification, retention incentives | 12-36 months |
| 44 | Establish frontline doctrine and curriculum panels | Ensure doctrine and training are tested by serving operational officers before adoption | National Police College | Constables, sergeants, inspectors, detectives, custody officers, public order officers, intelligence officers, neighbourhood officers | Practitioner panels, doctrine gateway, curriculum testing | 12 months |
| 45 | Develop national police curriculum framework | Restore common doctrine, operational competence, discipline, teamwork, smartness and constabulary ethos | National Police College | Regional police colleges, legal experts, operational leads, frontline panels | Curriculum framework, assessment standards, doctrine | 12 months |
| 46 | Embed Peel's principles in national police doctrine and curriculum | Restore the principles of policing by consent, public cooperation, impartial service, restraint, prevention and public approval | National Police College | Chief constables, regional police colleges, police historians, operational officers | Doctrine framework, recruit curriculum, leadership curriculum | 6-12 months |
| 47 | Include restored oath and Office of Constable training in all recruit courses | Form constables around lawful authority, personal responsibility and impartial enforcement | National Police College | Regional police colleges, legal instructors, operational supervisors | Recruit curriculum, scenario training, assessment standards | 12 months |
| 48 | Include common law and policing by consent in all recruit courses | Rebuild the legal and cultural foundation of British policing | National Police College | Regional police colleges, legal experts, operational officers | Law modules, practical exercises, examination standards | 12 months |
| 49 | Include equality before the law and impartial policing in all recruit courses | Replace identity-specific doctrine with universal impartial enforcement | National Police College | Regional police colleges, chief constables, HMICFRS | Curriculum modules, operational examples, assessment | 12 months |
| 50 | Include smartness, turnout, discipline and teamwork in all recruit courses | Restore pride, public confidence, professional bearing and team discipline | Regional police colleges | National Police College, chief constables, drill and discipline instructors | Uniform standards, drill, inspection, conduct standards | 12-24 months |
| 51 | Include arrest, restraint and officer safety training in all recruit and refresher courses | Improve lawful confidence, officer safety and public safety | Regional police colleges | National Police College, public order trainers, use-of-force instructors | Practical training, scenario drills, assessment | 12-24 months |
| 52 | Include public order training in all recruit and refresher courses | Ensure every officer can operate confidently during disorder and support specialist units | Regional police colleges | National Police College, NPCC public order leads, chief constables | Public order grounds, protective equipment, team drills | 12-24 months |
| 53 | Establish six-monthly public order requalification for specialist units | Improve discipline, safety, interoperability and readiness | Chief constables | Regional police colleges, National Police College, public order leads | Training grounds, instructors, requalification standards | Year 2 |
| 54 | Include investigation and case-building training in all recruit and response officer courses | Improve evidence capture, file quality, charging decisions and prosecutions | Regional police colleges | National Police College, CPS, detective leads | Investigation modules, case studies, digital evidence systems | 12-36 months |
| 55 | Strengthen detective training | Restore investigation as a core police craft and improve prosecution outcomes | National Police College | Regional police colleges, CPS, detective leads | Detective curriculum, mentoring, assessment | Years 2-3 |
| 56 | Include forensic awareness training in recruit and investigator courses | Improve early evidential decisions and investigative momentum | National Police College | Forensic leads, CPS, regional police colleges | Forensic modules, chain-of-custody exercises, case studies | Years 2-3 |
| 57 | Include custody training in recruit, supervisor and custody officer courses | Restore custody as a core policing function under police command | National Police College | Regional police colleges, custody leads, chief constables | Custody training suites, custody doctrine, scenario exercises | Years 2-3 |
| 58 | Include criminal intelligence training in recruit, neighbourhood, investigator and leadership courses | Rebuild intelligence-led policing from neighbourhood to national level | National Police College | NCIS, regional police colleges, chief constables | Intelligence modules, reporting standards, analytical products | Years 2-3 |
| 59 | Include neighbourhood policing and beat knowledge training in recruit and refresher courses | Restore visibility, local knowledge, prevention and public trust | Regional police colleges | National Police College, neighbourhood inspectors, NCIS | Beat knowledge modules, patrol exercises, local intelligence training | Years 2-3 |
| 60 | Include leadership development at constable, sergeant and inspector level | Build command confidence, moral courage, decisiveness and operational judgement early | National Police College | Regional police colleges, chief constables, operational commanders | Leadership curriculum, command exercises, mentoring | Years 2-3 |
| 61 | Establish Reserve Police Force training model | Ensure the Special Constabulary becomes a disciplined, trained and deployable reserve capability | National Police College | Chief constables, regional police colleges, Reserve Police Force command | Training standards, attendance requirements, deployment doctrine | 6-18 months |
| 62 | Launch Reserve Police Force training pilots | Test reserve training, standards, readiness and deployment model | Selected forces | Home Office, National Police College, local commanders | Pilot funding, trainers, equipment | 18 months |
| 63 | Transfer recruit training to police-controlled colleges | Restore institutional formation of constables | Chief constables | National Police College, regional police colleges | Training places, instructors, accommodation, curriculum | 2-3 years |
| 64 | Deliver Office of Constable refresher training to serving officers | Restore confidence, discretion, personal responsibility and impartiality among serving officers | Chief constables | National Police College, regional police colleges | Training days, scenario exercises, legal guidance | 9-24 months |
| 65 | Deliver Peel's principles refresher training to serving officers | Re-anchor serving officers in policing by consent and impartial public service | Chief constables | National Police College, regional police colleges | Refresher modules, leadership briefings, operational examples | 9-24 months |
| 66 | Inspect training effectiveness | Ensure training produces operationally competent, disciplined and confident constables | HMICFRS | National Police College, chief constables | Inspection framework, training outcomes, officer feedback | Year 2 onward |
| 67 | Publish annual police training effectiveness report | Measure whether training improves operational confidence, investigation, public order readiness, officer safety, public trust and frontline competence | National Police College | HMICFRS, chief constables, regional colleges | Annual report, officer feedback, operational data | Year 2 onward |
| No. | Task | Purpose / Outcome | Lead | Supporting Bodies | Tools / Resources | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 68 | Issue merit-based recruitment standard | Select officers by suitability and capability | Home Office | National Police College, forces | Recruitment rules, assessment tools | 6 months |
| 69 | Strengthen national vetting standards | Protect integrity and public safety | Home Office | Vetting units, Professional Standards Departments | Data access, review points | 6-18 months |
| 70 | Reform probation | Remove unsuitable officers early | Chief constables | National Police College, supervisors | Probation standards, assessment records | 9-24 months |
| 71 | Restore national uniform and turnout standards | Improve discipline, public confidence, command presence and professional pride | Chief constables | National Police College, staff associations, procurement leads | Uniform standards, inspection regime, supervisor guidance | 12 months |
| 72 | Redesign police uniform and initiate procurement | Ensure uniform is practical, smart, properly fitted, durable and suitable for public-facing policing | Home Office | Chief constables, procurement leads, frontline officer panels | Uniform design, procurement standards, officer feedback | 12-24 months |
| 73 | Strengthen fitness standards for warranted officers | Ensure officers are physically capable of public-facing policing and officer safety requirements | Home Office | Chief constables, National Police College, occupational health leads | Fitness standards, role-specific tests, remedial support | 12-24 months |
| 74 | Embed smartness, fitness and bearing into recruit and refresher training | Restore professional discipline and public-facing confidence | National Police College | Regional police colleges, chief constables, supervisors | Training curriculum, inspections, assessment standards | 12-24 months |
| 75 | Rewrite promotion criteria | Reward operational judgement and frontline experience | National Police College | Chief constables, staff associations | Promotion rules, assessment boards | 12 months |
| 76 | Introduce frontline service requirement for promotion | Restore prestige to public-facing roles | Home Office | National Police College, forces | Promotion framework | Year 2 |
| 77 | Create frontline retention framework | Retain experience on patrol, response, neighbourhoods and public order | Home Office | Police Remuneration Review Body, forces | Pay supplements, recognition, career pathways | Year 2 |
| 78 | Publish frontline experience data | Measure usable capability | Chief constables | HMICFRS | Workforce data, dashboards | Year 2 |
| No. | Task | Purpose / Outcome | Lead | Supporting Bodies | Tools / Resources | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 79 | Establish Senior National Policing Architecture Programme | Rebuild the national structure around command, doctrine, intelligence, enforcement, inspection and accountability | Home Office | Chief constables, HMICFRS, operational leads | Programme board, statutory drafting team | First 100 days |
| 80 | Reform NPCC as the chief constables' national coordination forum | Turn the NPCC into an operational coordination forum of chief constables | Home Office | NPCC, chief constables | Revised terms, statutory provisions | 12 months |
| 81 | Define NPCC operational coordination boards | Ensure national coordination reflects real policing functions | NPCC | Public order, investigation, intelligence, custody, forensics, neighbourhood, roads and specialist leads | Operating model | 12 months |
| 82 | Reject NPD in its proposed form | Prevent creation of a central bureaucratic or political control route | Home Secretary | Home Office, Parliament | Ministerial decision, Police Restoration Bill | 6 months |
| 83 | Create National Policing Capability Office | Deliver national procurement, interoperability, technology and capability programmes without operational command | Home Office | Chief constables, Treasury, procurement specialists | Capability office, funding lines | 12 months |
| 84 | Define limits of National Policing Capability Office | Bar operational command, doctrine, inspection and local priority-setting | Home Office | Parliamentary Counsel, chief constables | Statutory limits, governance code | 12 months |
| 85 | Abolish College of Policing in present form | End the current managerial, academicised and low-confidence model | Home Office | College of Policing, chief constables, staff associations | Police Restoration Bill | 18 months |
| 86 | Insert national architecture chapter into Police Restoration Bill | Give statutory force to the new conceptual hierarchy | Home Office | Parliamentary Counsel | Primary legislation | 12-18 months |
| 87 | Publish annual operational-effect report for each national body | Prove that each body strengthens policing and does not impose burden | Home Office | HMICFRS, national bodies | Performance reporting | Year 2 onward |
| No. | Task | Purpose / Outcome | Lead | Supporting Bodies | Tools / Resources | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 88 | Establish NCIS restoration programme | Rebuild national criminal intelligence | Home Office | NCA, ROCUs, forces, Border Force, HMRC | Programme team, legislation planning | 100 days |
| 89 | Create NCIS shadow structure | Start national intelligence fusion | Home Office | NCA, ROCUs, forces | Analysts, secure systems, liaison posts | 18 months |
| 90 | Embed NCIS analysts at force and divisional level | Rebuild local-to-national intelligence flow | NCIS | Chief constables | Embedded teams, intelligence products | Years 2-4 |
| 91 | Restore NCIS as intelligence lead | Separate national criminal intelligence from national enforcement | Home Office | NCA, ROCUs, forces, Border Force, HMRC | Statutory creation, secure systems | 18-48 months |
| 92 | Refocus NCA on national enforcement | Strengthen serious and organised crime disruption | Home Office | NCA, NCIS, ROCUs | Revised operating model | 18 months |
| 93 | Reform NCA operating model | Sharpen national enforcement capability | Home Office | NCA, NCIS, ROCUs | Statutory reform, tasking model | Years 1-5 |
| 94 | Define ROCU role | Confirm ROCUs as the regionally-owned operational bridge between forces, NCIS and NCA | Home Office | ROCUs, chief constables, NCA, NCIS | Regional operating model | 24 months |
| 95 | Map agency handover points | Remove gaps and duplication | Home Office | NCA, Border Force, HMRC, CPS, forces | Process mapping | Year 1 |
| 96 | Create joint tasking model | Improve serious crime disruption | NCIS / NCA | ROCUs, forces, Border Force, HMRC | Tasking boards, intelligence packages | Year 2 |
| 97 | Strengthen international policing cooperation mechanisms | Improve operational cooperation, information exchange and joint enforcement | Home Office | NCA, NCIS, Border Force, international partners | Bilateral agreements, database access, liaison mechanisms | Years 1-3 |
| No. | Task | Purpose / Outcome | Lead | Supporting Bodies | Tools / Resources | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 98 | Conduct national custody audit | Establish capacity, geography and resilience gaps | Home Office | Chief constables, HMICFRS | Cell data, demand modelling | 60 days-9 months |
| 99 | Issue minimum custody resilience standards | Ensure operational capacity and spare capacity | Home Office | Forces, HMICFRS | National standard | 9 months |
| 100 | Restore custody capacity | Prevent custody shortages driving operational decisions | Chief constables | Home Office, Treasury, local bodies | Capital investment, estate, staff | Years 2-5 |
| 101 | Establish reserve custody facilities | Support surge, disorder and major incidents | Chief constables | Home Office, MoJ | Reserve sites, staffing plans | Years 2-5 |
| 102 | Conduct forensic capability audit | Identify quality, speed and resilience failures | Home Office | MoJ, CPS, Forensic Science Regulator | Capability review | 100 days-12 months |
| 103 | Prioritise digital forensic backlog reduction | Improve investigations and charging | Chief constables | Home Office, CPS | Labs, staff, technology | Year 1 |
| 104 | Reintegrate priority forensic functions | Restore police control of investigative chain | Chief constables | Home Office, MoJ | Police forensic units, contracts | Years 2-5 |
| 105 | Embed forensic advisers in major investigations | Improve early case-building | Chief constables | CPS, forensic leads | Adviser cadre | Year 2 |
| 106 | Issue national investigative standards | Improve case quality and outcomes | National Police College | CPS, forces | Standards, training | 9 months |
| 107 | Track crime-to-conviction performance | Measure real policing effect | Home Office | Forces, CPS, HMICFRS | Performance dashboards | Year 2 |
| No. | Task | Purpose / Outcome | Lead | Supporting Bodies | Tools / Resources | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 108 | Audit public order equipment and address capability gaps | Improve officer protection and crowd control | Home Office | Forces, NPCC, National Police College | Procurement, equipment standards | Year 1 |
| 109 | Reassert neighbourhood beat policing | Restore local visibility and knowledge | Chief constables | Local commanders | Beat plans, mobile systems | Years 1-3 |
| 110 | Connect neighbourhood policing to intelligence | Improve prevention and targeting | Chief constables | NCIS, local intelligence units | Intelligence processes | Years 2-4 |
| 111 | Design Reserve Police Force | Build disciplined reserve capability | Home Office | Chief constables, National Police College | Legal model, training, conditions | 6-18 months |
| 112 | Launch Reserve Police Force pilots | Test reserve model | Selected forces | Home Office, local commanders | Pilot funding, trainers | 18 months |
| 113 | National Reserve Police Force rollout | Increase operational depth and resilience | Home Office | Chief constables | National standards, equipment | Years 3-5 |
| 114 | Redesign HMICFRS inspection criteria | Align inspection with operational effect | HMICFRS | Home Office, National Police College | Inspection framework | Years 2-3 |
| 115 | Define HMICFRS separation from command and doctrine | Preserve inspection independence and prevent inspection-driven bureaucracy | Home Office | HMICFRS, chief constables | Statutory guidance | 18 months |
| 116 | Publish operational performance dashboards | Improve accountability and transparency | Chief constables | HMICFRS, Home Office | Data systems | Year 2 |
| 117 | Conduct full reform evaluation | Measure delivery and adjust implementation | Home Office | HMICFRS, Parliament | Evaluation report | Year 5 |
| LEVEL / BODY | RESPONSIBILITY |
|---|---|
| HOME SECRETARY | Strategic direction, statutory reform, national strategic requirements, funding settlement, statutory capability obligations, accountability to Parliament |
| HOME OFFICE | Legislative preparation, programme coordination, funding allocation, national strategic requirements, cross-government alignment and delivery oversight |
| NATIONAL POLICING CAPABILITY OFFICE | Delivery of national capability, procurement, technology, data interoperability, equipment standards, capital programmes and implementation support, with no operational command authority |
| CHIEF CONSTABLES | Force-level command, operational delivery, workforce reform, custody, training implementation, public order, investigation, neighbourhood policing, local intelligence collection and public confidence |
| CONSTABLES | Lawful exercise of the powers of the Office of Constable, preservation of the peace, protection of life and property, prevention and detection of offences, impartial enforcement and personal responsibility for action or inaction |
| POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY BOARDS | Budget scrutiny, public concerns, performance accountability, visibility, public confidence, equal enforcement and protection of operational independence, with no authority over operations |
| NATIONAL POLICE APPOINTMENTS COMMISSION | Independent assessment and recommendation of chief officer appointments, reappointments and removal cases, based on merit, operational competence, integrity, leadership, command experience and suitability for chief officer command, with no local political appointment or dismissal authority |
| HMICFRS | Inspection, compliance assessment, operational performance evaluation, effectiveness, efficiency, legitimacy, custody resilience, public order readiness and equal enforcement |
| NPCC | Coordination forum for chief constables, mutual aid, interoperability, operational learning, national coordination and professional operational judgement; no operational command, no policy-making authority, no ideological guidance and no quasi-mandatory direction to forces. |
| NATIONAL POLICE COLLEGE | Professional doctrine, training standards, instructor standards, leadership development, curriculum control, Office of Constable doctrine, Peel's principles and constabulary formation |
| REGIONAL POLICE TRAINING COLLEGES | Recruit formation, probationer development, operational training, public order training, officer safety, investigation, custody, leadership development and refresher training |
| NCIS | National criminal intelligence, intelligence standards, national threat picture, force-level embedded intelligence support, analytical products and local-regional-national intelligence integration |
| NCA | National serious crime enforcement, specialist operations, disruption of high-harm networks, transnational organised crime, organised immigration crime, cybercrime, fraud and trafficking |
| ROCUS | Regional police-owned operational bridge between local forces, NCIS and the NCA; regional enforcement, disruption and intelligence-led operations against serious and organised crime |
| CPS | Charging advice, prosecution alignment, case file improvement, early advice in serious and complex cases, and support to stronger criminal justice outcomes |
| MINISTRY OF JUSTICE | Criminal justice alignment, court capacity implications, custody implications, forensic policy interface and prosecution-system resilience |
| SPECIAL CONSTABULARY / RESERVE POLICE FORCE | Reserve recruitment, training, standards, deployment, readiness, surge capacity, neighbourhood support, public events, major incidents and resilience |
| REFORM AREA | STRATEGIC EFFECT |
|---|---|
| POLICE RESTORATION ACT | Statutory restoration of the Office of Constable, operational independence, police-owned capability and equality before the law |
| OFFICE OF CONSTABLE | Lawful confidence, discretion, personal responsibility, courage and accountability |
| OPERATIONAL STRATEGIC POLICING REQUIREMENT | National policing requirements focused on threat, capability, interoperability, resilience and mutual aid |
| DEPOLITICISATION | Visible impartiality, public trust, officer clarity and removal of ideological burden |
| EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW AND IMPARTIAL POLICING STANDARD | Universal treatment, equal enforcement thresholds and removal of identity-specific policing doctrine |
| POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY BOARDS | Dedicated democratic oversight without party-political control of operations |
| SENIOR NATIONAL POLICING ARCHITECTURE | Clear functions, distinct mandates, no duplication and direct operational effect |
| NPCC REFORM | Chief constable coordination, mutual aid, interoperability and operational learning without policy-making authority |
| NATIONAL POLICING CAPABILITY OFFICE | National capability delivery, procurement, technology and interoperability without operational command |
| NATIONAL POLICE COLLEGE | Professional doctrine, training standards, instructor standards, leadership formation, Peel's principles and Office of Constable doctrine |
| REGIONAL POLICE TRAINING COLLEGES | Common culture, discipline, vocational competence, recruit formation and operational training |
| MERIT RECRUITMENT, VETTING AND PROBATION | Higher standards, public confidence, institutional integrity and early removal of unsuitable officers |
| FRONTLINE PRESTIGE | Experienced patrol, stronger supervision, improved morale and restored status for public-facing policing |
| NCIS RESTORATION | Stronger intelligence, prevention, disruption, national threat awareness and local-regional-national intelligence integration |
| NCA REFORM | Sharper national enforcement against serious and organised crime |
| ROCUS | Regional bridge between local forces, NCIS and NCA for serious and organised crime disruption |
| CUSTODY RESTORATION | Lower arrest hesitation, stronger public order options, frontline confidence and operational resilience |
| FORENSIC REINTEGRATION | Better evidence, faster cases, stronger prosecutions and restored investigative control |
| INVESTIGATIVE REFORM | Improved charge rates, better files, victim confidence and greater offender accountability |
| PUBLIC ORDER REFORM | Same law, same threshold, safer operations and stronger deterrence against disorder |
| NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICING | Visibility, local knowledge, deterrence, intelligence flow and public reassurance |
| SPECIAL CONSTABULARY / RESERVE POLICE FORCE | Surge capacity, resilience, civic depth, improved neighbourhood relations and deployable reserve capability |
| PERFORMANCE AND INSPECTION REFORM | Operational accountability, measurable policing effect and inspection aligned to public safety |
The principles associated with Sir Robert Peel remain the historic benchmark for British policing. They now require reassertion as operational doctrine for the modern United Kingdom.
The purpose of this annex is to preserve the authority of Peel's original principles while setting out their modern application in a society shaped by mass immigration, cultural diversity, political activism, identity-based pressure, contested ideas of law and justice, and statutory changes that have weakened the Office of Constable.
The principles are to be applied through one overriding standard:
One law, one standard, one policing duty and one enforcement threshold for every person in the country.
The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.
The primary duty of policing is the prevention of crime, disorder, violence, intimidation, exploitation and public harm. The police must be judged by public safety, public order, crime prevention, protection of the vulnerable, offender disruption and the absence of disorder, not by activity measures, political satisfaction, visibility of bureaucracy or compliance with ideological programmes.
The ability of the police to perform their duties depends upon public approval of police actions.
Public approval must be secured by lawful, impartial, disciplined and effective policing. It must not be sought through political signalling, activist accommodation, selective enforcement, community appeasement or fear of criticism. The police gain public confidence by demonstrating courage, fairness, consistency, restraint and competence in every community.
Police must secure the willing cooperation of the public in voluntary observance of the law.
The police must seek public cooperation in obeying the law, reporting crime, assisting investigations, preventing disorder and protecting the vulnerable. Public cooperation means cooperation with lawful policing. It does not mean operational permission from local political bodies, activist organisations, religious authorities, identity groups, community intermediaries or sectional interests.
The degree of cooperation of the public diminishes as the necessity for physical force increases.
The police must use persuasion, advice, warning and visible authority wherever these are sufficient. When force is required, it must be lawful, necessary, proportionate and disciplined. Fear of accusation, political sensitivity, race, religion, culture, gender, identity or community pressure must not prevent the lawful use of force where it is necessary to protect life, prevent crime, preserve the peace, arrest offenders or restore order.
Police seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of individual laws; by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to wealth or social standing; by courtesy and good humour; and by individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
The police must serve the law impartially and without fear or favour. They must not serve public opinion, political pressure, activist campaigns, religious pressure, cultural pressure, identity claims, local power structures or sectional interests.
All members of the public must receive the same protection and face the same enforcement threshold regardless of wealth, social standing, ethnicity, nationality, religion, culture, gender, sexuality, political opinion, community affiliation, immigration background, social status or identity. This principle is central to restoring public trust. It requires the police to protect lawful activity, confront unlawful threat, and apply the law equally in every community and every public order situation.
Police use physical force only when persuasion, advice and warning are insufficient, and then only the minimum degree of force necessary to secure observance of the law or restore order.
The police must use the minimum lawful force necessary to achieve the policing purpose. Minimum force does not mean hesitant force. It means controlled, disciplined, lawful and effective force. Public order, arrest, restraint, custody and officer safety training must therefore produce officers who are confident, proportionate, decisive and accountable.
The police are the public and the public are the police; the police are only members of the public paid to give full-time attention to duties incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
The police must be understood as citizens in uniform, entrusted with full-time responsibility for duties that support the safety, peace and lawful order of the whole public.
This principle now requires one civic standard. The police must not be treated as representatives of separate communities, identities, political causes or sectional interests. They serve the whole public through the law.
The public, in turn, has a civic responsibility to support lawful policing, report crime, assist justice, uphold public order and reject intimidation, disorder, criminality and communal pressure that obstructs policing.
In a diverse society, this principle requires integration under one law. Every person protected by the law is also subject to the law. Every community benefits from impartial policing and every community must accept impartial policing.
Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.
The police must prevent crime, preserve the peace, investigate offences, arrest suspects, gather evidence and support prosecution. They must not act as political arbiters, moral judges, social managers, community negotiators of law, or informal dispensers of punishment.
The courts determine guilt and punishment. The police apply the law, protect the public, secure evidence and bring offenders before justice.
The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.
Police success must be measured by public safety, crime prevention, absence of disorder, victim confidence, offender disruption, successful investigations, prosecution outcomes, custody resilience, neighbourhood confidence, intelligence quality and public trust.
The police must not be judged by ideological compliance, internal campaigns, diversity targets, administrative output, public relations activity, arrest numbers alone or visibility of process. The best measure of good policing is operational effect.
The modern operational application of Peel's principles requires:
These principles will guide the Office of Constable, police training, public order, neighbourhood policing, professional standards, leadership development, inspection and accountability.
Their purpose is to restore public confidence by ensuring that the police serve the law, protect the public and act impartially in every community.
1. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/policing-by-consent/definition-ofpolicing-by-consent&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1782303869231392&usg=AOvVaw2tNo30I2aK6KWZFOYpu1pN ↩
2. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Dictionary_of_National_Biography._Sup._Vol _II_(1901).djvu/297&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1782303869232312&usg=AOvVaw0wisdTS3zQ_Pue7TUzTKjc (Harrison note to self: I'll try to find this in Roy Jenkins's Gladstone) ↩
3. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/policing-by-consent/definition-ofpolicing-by-consent&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1782469561276876&usg=AOvVaw1RJVISNdAX33ItJi2xdQFH ↩