Nothing reveals the paucity of government policy more than the Home Office when it comes to an effective policing strategy. Not just my opinion, consider the report from the National Audit Office of 11th September, 2018:
“The Home Office’s light touch approach to overseeing police forces means it does not know if the police system is financially sustainable. It lacks a long-term plan for policing and significant gaps remain in its understanding of demand for police services and their costs. The way the Department chooses to distribute funding has been ineffective and detached from the changing nature of policing for too long, and it cannot be sure overall funding is being directed to the right places.”
Can anything be more damning? So, when the Prime Minister says the police do not need more funding to deal with knife crime in seven police areas, and the police say they do, how do they know? None of them have an effective analysis on which to base their claims. It is in effect a scandal that the government has allowed this situation to occur. You have to go back to the Royal Commission on the Police, 1962, for a well considered analysis of the issues, and especially the minority report which recommended the setting up of a national police service.
