Shabana Mahmood is to get new powers to sack chief constables and other senior police officers in the aftermath of the row over West Midlands Police’s move to ban Israeli football fans.
Under new measures, police will be made directly accountable to the home secretary and ministers will be handed new powers to send specialist teams into failing forces to help them fight crime more effectively.
New laws to impose mandatory vetting standards for all forces will also be brought in, following repeated failures to weed out rogue officers, including David Carrick, one of the UK’s most prolific sex offenders, who received 37 life sentences, was improperly vetted in 2017.
The move is part of a series of reforms set to be unveiled by the home secretary on Monday to overhaul failing police forces and “make communities safer” and are the biggest changes to policing since the service was founded two centuries ago.
In a white paper titled “From local to national: a new model for policing”, Mahmood is expected to outline a radical blueprint for reform, so local forces protect their community, and national policing. Underpinning the reforms are simple aims to catch criminals, cut crime, and protect the public.
But top of the change is restoring the home secretary’s power to sack chief constables – a power surrendered by the Tories in 2011 when they created elected police commissioners.
Ms Mahmood said: “The police are the public, and the public are the police. It is essential that the people can determine what they expect from their forces.
“I will make police forces accountable to parliament – driving up standards so they fight more crime in their communities.”
Ms Mahmood made it clear how frustrated and furious she was not to be able to sack former West Midlands police chief Craig Guildford after declaring she had lost confidence in him over his handling of the Aston Villa match against Maccabi Tel Aviv, which sparked global outrage.
A damning independent report found that the police under his leadership had manufactured evidence suggesting Maccabi fans had caused problems to justify its decision to ban them from the Europa League clash last Novemver, when the real issue was that extremist community groups in Birmingham were arming themselves to attack the Israeli football supporters.
This included using AI on Google to create information about a fictitious Maccabi game against West Ham as well as misrepresenting fans behaviour at an actual match in the Netherlands.
With Ms Mahmood unable to sack him, Mr Guildford was instead allowed by the Labour police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands Simon Foster to take early retirement.
To strengthen safeguards and ensure those unfit for policing are kept out of the profession, the government will also introduce laws to impose compulsory vetting standards for all forces.
It comes after a review found that more than 130 officers and staff within the Metropolitan Police, including two convicted serial rapists, had committed crimes or misconduct due to significant failures in the force’s vetting processes.
Also included in the new measures are powers to send experts from the best performing forces to those with poor crime solving rates or police response times, to help them catch more criminals.
Forces will also be directly accountable to the public, with new targets on 999 response times, victim satisfaction, public trust and confidence. These results will be published and forces graded so communities can compare.
The turnaround model has proved effective in local government to drive improvements in failing councils.
The failing Liverpool council was transformed by experts being sent to help the council and as a result they achieved a balanced budget after facing bankruptcy.
To further reinforce accountability, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary Fire and Rescue Services will gain statutory powers to issue directions when forces fail to act on his recommendations.
In its own paper, the Tony Blair Institute, has said that the government white paper is a “defining moment” for the government and policing.
Ryan Wain, senior director of politics and policy, argued in his paper ‘Policing That Makes Britain Safer – Not Just Better at Counting Crime’ that the white paper must “deliver visible order, real capability and consistent competence”, public confidence can start to return, but if “it settles for incrementalism, it will not” – that “this is the choice Britain now faces.”
He also called for a UK-wide police force to lead on serious and organised crime, cybercrime and terrorism, and a national digital forensics agency that boosts capability in tackling digital crimes and recognises that digital evidence now sits at the heart of investigations.
Source: UK Politics - www.independent.co.uk
