Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is set to announce a comprehensive overhaul of policing standards and an additional £500 million in funding to address growing public distrust in police forces.
The reforms, described as a “fundamental reset” of government-police relations, will include the creation of a Police Performance Unit and a new performance framework aimed at improving accountability and effectiveness.
Cooper will outline the changes during her keynote address at the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) annual conference on Tuesday.
A central feature of the reforms is a new Police Performance Unit that will track data across all police forces on issues like knife crime and violence against women and girls. This central database will allow the Home Office to closely monitor performance and intervene when necessary. Isabelle Younane, Head of External Affairs at Women’s Aid, said:
“There is no doubt that policing reforms are urgently needed to rebuild public trust in the institution that is supposed to protect us and instil confidence in their responses. However, today’s announcement does not do enough to address deep-rooted cultural issues nor to attend to the need for funding commitments in other areas that support survivors of domestic abuse.
The Government has pledged to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) in the next decade, and while there are positive steps being taken to achieve this ambitious goal, such as a commitment to refresh the Tackling VAWG Strategy and invest in domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms, there continues to be silence on whether specialist VAWG services – which provide a lifeline to women and children experiencing abuse – will secure the urgent funding they need beyond March 2025. Specialist services continue to be chronically underfunded and unable to provide all survivors with the support they need.
The funding commitments to policing made today confirm our concerns that the Government’s approach to their VAWG mission relies too heavily on criminal justice responses and ignores the importance of specialist services in not only supporting survivors but also in ensuring long-term recovery and preventing the reoccurrence of abuse.”
A Police Performance Framework will also be developed to uphold national standards and provide greater oversight of local policing.
Funding for Neighbourhood Policing and Safer Streets
The £500 million funding boost will support Sir Keir Starmer’s Safer Streets Mission, which aims to tackle neighbourhood crime and antisocial behaviour. The funds will be allocated to rebuilding neighbourhood policing teams and improving local public safety.
Cooper will highlight the erosion of public confidence in recent years, citing cuts to neighbourhood policing and outdated systems as major issues. Abigail Ampofo, interim CEO of Refuge, said:
“Refuge welcomes the Home Secretary’s plans to restore confidence in police forces through a major overhaul, which is long overdue. We know firsthand that police have been failing survivors and victims of domestic abuse and male violence against women and girls (VAWG) for far too long.
Despite VAWG being named as a strategic policing priority, women’s confidence in the justice system is currently at a crisis point and we continue to see shocking levels of abuse perpetrated by police officers themselves.
It is essential that the police’s handling of VAWG is scrutinised, but this alone isn’t enough. Any powers the new Police Performance Unit has to tackle failing forces must be effective, robustly implemented, and focused on improving outcomes for those who have experienced VAWG. Without any measures to introduce accountability and change outcomes for survivors, monitoring is meaningless.
The safety of women and girls must be placed at the heart of policing, and we will continue to call for funding to go towards mandatory and quality staff training on domestic abuse and VAWG. Many survivors are too fearful to report these crimes to the police, and all too often those that do are failed by the system supposed to protect them. The 2023 Casey Report illustrated how misogyny is culturally ingrained within policing, but this still hasn’t been properly acknowledged, let alone changed.
Following on from Refuge’s ‘Remove the Rot’ campaign, which exposed the shocking magnitude of police forces’ failure to tackle misogyny and police-perpetrated VAWG, Labour committed to the suspension of all officers accused of domestic abuse or sexual offences pending an investigation. The government must make good on this manifesto pledge as a matter of urgency, and we keenly await further details of plans to improve police vetting, which is integral to rooting out police perpetrators, protecting survivors, and restoring police confidence in the justice system as a whole.”
The reforms will also see the establishment of a new National Centre of Policing, aimed at centralising backroom services like forensics, aviation, and IT to reduce inefficiencies. The scope of the unit is still being finalised, with full details expected in a white paper in spring. Younane said:
“Several reports and investigations into police forces across the country over the last few years have found evidence of institutional misogyny and racism, which is leading to a failure to protect women and children, particularly those from Black, minoritised and migrant communities. Police forces must urgently accept Lady Angiolini’s recommendation to commit to being anti-sexist, anti-misogynist and anti-racist, including through mandatory training and involving specialist services in their recruitment and vetting processes.
Women’s confidence in the police, and the wider criminal justice system is extremely low, with only 1 in 5 women reporting their experiences of abuse. As specialist domestic abuse and other VAWG services battle to plug the needs-gap this presents for some of the most vulnerable women in our society, we urge Government to recognise their importance and invest in their future.”
