Why I welcome the Government's new ‘Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill’

Today we have seen the new ‘Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill’ introduced in the Queens Speech. As someone who has been involved with local Policing for a number of years this as taken far too long to become reality.

There have been times when I’ve wondered if we still had a Police Force that my parents generation could recognise from when they were my age - or had it been replaced by a bureaucratic machine, the product of a centralist, target driven, tick box culture controlled by unelected, unaccountable chief constables and police authorities who didn’t have the weight to impart their will against the Socialist central control we’ve seen for the past 13 years.

With central control came empire building and the Police becoming more distant, small stations have closed and bigger and ‘more efficient’ massive offices appeared, meaning the local touch, and local knowledge is confined to often overstretched Local Policing Teams, who are then shackled with bureaucracy, red tape and Health and Safety.

Could we ever have imagined there would be so many targets; central targets, locally agreed (?) targets, satisfaction and confidence targets within the Policing Pledge, and not forgetting those shared National Indicators? If these targets are taken as a whole it contains so many contradictions to make the whole thing both ridiculous and untenable.

This is why this centralist agenda had to be stopped and why I welcome the Governments new ‘Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill’ which is detailed as follows:

The purpose of the Bill is to:

Make the police service more accountable to local people, create a dedicated Border Police Force and set out measures to tackle alcohol-related violence and disorder.

The main benefits of the Bill would be:

• Increased police accountability through directly elected individuals.
  
• Improved relationships between police and local residents.
  
• Amended health and safety laws that do not stand in the way of ‘common sense’ policing.
  
• Enhanced national security.
  
• Improved immigration controls.
  
• Stronger powers to tackle alcohol-fuelled crime and disorder.
  

The main elements of the Bill are:

• Directly elected individuals to hold the police to account. They would ensure that local policing activities meet the needs of the local community, help build confidence in the system and bring communities and the police together.
• Amended health and safety laws that do not stand in the way of ‘common sense’ policing.
• Dedicated Border Police Force, as part of a refocused Serious Organised Crime Agency, to enhance national security, improve immigration controls, and crack down on the trafficking of people, weapons and drugs.
• Strengthened relations to deal with serious crime and extended collaboration between forces to deliver better value for money.
• Overhaul of the Licensing Act to give local authorities and the police much stronger powers to remove licenses from, or refuse to grant licenses to, any premises that are causing problems. Banning the sale of alcohol below cost price. Also allowing local councils to charge more for late-night licenses to pay for additional policing, giving them powers to shut down shops or bars persistently selling to children and doubling the maximum fine for selling to children to £20,000.