There have been many reports recently of the potential for 25% cuts across the Home Office and Policing in the UK. But where should cuts be made and what is the impact?

The Home Secretary announced this week that the Government wish to protect frontline policing as a policy and through the cuts that need to be made there is a view that Frontline policing should even increase. So with this push for visibility of the police in the community, where can you cut?

Undoubtedly, the answer will be within areas of policing that conduct specialised tasks. There is no doubt that, with the Uniformed element of policing being somewhat protected, the axe will fall on those departments that have been looking at major crime, serious and organised crime, counter terrorism and other areas of specialised operations. John Yates of Scotland Yard has already warned of the threat posed by reducing the work being conducted on anti terrorist operations and no doubt that others will also cite areas of concern, such as serious and organised crime. It is still unfortunate that the true relationship between these specialised areas and the impact these have on communities is not fully appreciated. Reducing the effectiveness of these specialised areas will only have the impact of increasing issues in the community relating to drugs, violent crime, identity fraud and the myriad of other community based activities that go to funding these organisations. John Yates is also right in his assessment of the increased threat of terrorism. Terrorist organisations will be watching and looking for the weak points in countries where financial issues are reducing the state’s ability to respond.

So in conclusion, we have to be very careful where we focus cuts and make sure that we do not specifically focus on politically expedient areas such as frontline visibility. At the end of the day, the majority of the public are not particularly bothered as to whether they see a police officer on the beat or not. What they really care about is that an officer comes to their assistance quickly at that very rare time of most need.

Alastair Luff in Law enforcement, UK Police

Tags: bureaucracy, law enforcement, police, serious organised crime, UK, value for money

This entry was posted on Friday, July 2nd, 2010 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Law enforcement, UK Police. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.