The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police will warn today that British policing is heading for failure unless it undergoes the most significant reform in more than half a century.
Sir Mark Rowley is due to deliver the warning in a major speech in Manchester, alongside four other police chiefs, in which he will argue that the current structure of 43 separate forces can no longer cope with the scale, complexity and sophistication of modern crime.
He will say that the choice facing the country is stark. “I believe this is a choice between the third greatest revolution in British policing or the inevitable decline and fewer bobbies on the beat,” he will tell the audience.
The commissioner’s central proposal is to replace the 43-force model with eight to ten regional forces, supported by hundreds of local policing commands and a new National Police Service. It would be the biggest reorganisation of policing since the 1960s.
Under the plan, the fragmented system he describes as a “top heavy spaghetti model” would give way to a simpler three-tier structure: local policing teams, capable regional forces and a national service. Removing duplication that currently exists 43 times over, he will argue, would free up thousands of roles and allow the money to be reinvested in the frontline services the public want to see.
He will draw a comparison with the NHS, arguing that Britain would never expect dozens of separate hospital services to each provide every specialist capability on their own — and that public safety should be organised in the same way, so that every community has access to the same expertise and resources wherever they live.
The warning is built on two figures. Positive outcomes nationally are now less than half what they were 12 years ago, while public confidence in policing has fallen by nine per cent. Communities, he will say, are right to be worried about the service they are getting.
At the heart of the argument is a mismatch between the criminals and the system built to stop them. Victims and communities are increasingly targeted by offenders operating across the globe, while the policing response was designed for local threats. Organised crime groups, fraud networks, online child abuse, cyber criminals and hostile states all operate across regional, national and international borders. Policing, by contrast, remains organised around structures designed for a different age.
“Criminals have adapted, organised crime has adapted, technology has adapted and hostile states have changed,” he will say, “while the fundamental structures of British policing have remained largely stagnant.”
Money is a central part of the case. Spending on policing has fallen from around 0.9 per cent of GDP to around 0.7 per cent since 2010, he will say, and years of underinvestment have left forces paying to maintain ageing systems while criminals exploit rapidly advancing technology. Officers are increasingly being diverted from neighbourhood policing to manage growing demand created by pressures elsewhere in society, particularly in mental health and social care.
“Policing has tried to keep up, made do as best it can to patch over our broken model,” he will say. “But the model is creaking. We have 43 overstretched forces trying to do too much, with too little.”
The public, he will argue, can see the consequences every day: fewer officers visible on the streets, stretched services and many victims waiting too long for justice.
Why 43 forces?
England and Wales is policed by 43 territorial forces, a structure that took shape in the reorganisations of the 1960s and 1970s. The Metropolitan Police is by far the largest, responsible for London, while the rest range from big urban forces to small county constabularies — each running its own specialist teams, systems and back-office functions.
That duplication is the target of Rowley’s proposal. Instead of 43 forces each maintaining their own version of every capability, specialist work would sit at regional or national level, with local teams focused on the neighbourhoods they serve. The commissioner will also stress that policing must remain accountable to the communities it serves — something, he will say, policing has never questioned.
Reform or decline
The speech comes as policing approaches its 200th anniversary in 2029, and Rowley will frame the debate as a choice between reform and decline. The intervention also lands against a backdrop of mounting pressure across the wider criminal justice system.
His conclusion is that the greatest risk is not reform itself, but failing to reform while the threats facing the public continue to evolve. “The real danger is not change,” he will say. “The real danger is standing still.”
The Metropolitan Police has published details of the speech on its newsroom, ahead of the address in Manchester today.
What it means for London
For the capital, the stakes are direct: the Met is London’s force, and its own recent record shows both the scale of demand and the scrutiny it faces. More than 8,000 domestic abuse offences were recorded across London in September alone, according to the force’s published data.
Its standards have also been in the spotlight this week, after an officer was dismissed for gross misconduct for throwing a handcuffed homeless man face-first to the ground. And its major investigations have included some of the most high-profile cases in the country, among them the prosecution of Russell Brand, who was found guilty of rape and sexual assaults at Southwark Crown Court.
