GovWire

Its a pleasure to be here this morning. Its not, of course, my first time at this conference, but my first time as Home Secretary.

So it is my chance to thank all of you for the phenomenal work that your officers and staff do each day to keep us all safe.

Ive been in the job for just five months, but within five days of being appointed, I had already met officers from across the country who had shown the most extraordinary courage in the face of extreme danger.

Officers who ran towards men armed with knives, or guns or explosive devices when most of us would just run for cover.

Officers who had plunged into flood waters to save the life of a trapped motorist.

And an off-duty officer who had put aside all thought of his own safety aside to try to save the life of a 9 year-old girl.

Officers from across the country nominated for the Police Bravery Awards.

Awards that Ive attended for more than a decade, but this time I had the honour of welcoming the winners to Downing Street.

What every one of them always says is as many of you will know is: I was just doing my job.

But of course, as we know, this isnt an ordinary job. It is a job where every officer sees those dangers and knows that tomorrow it could be them.

A remarkable public service calling that unites the longest serving Chief Constable and the newest recruit. So as we award the very first Elizabeth Emblems.

Something for which many of us here have campaigned for many years.

I want to pay special tribute today to Bryn Hughes, to Paul Bone, to all those across policing who have led the campaign, and especially to Bryn and Pauls daughters Nicola Hughes and Fiona Bone and to all the brave officers who gave their lives in service to keep the rest of us safe.

So those who put themselves in harms way deserve our constant respect and support, and thats why it is a total disgrace that attacks on police officers in recent years have gone up.

We must never tolerate attacks and abuse against police officers and staff for doing their job, and we will always seek the toughest penalties for those guilty of assault against the police.

And, rightly, we talk about how the police run towards danger, when everyone else runs away. But we should also talk about how police officers, PCSOs, and police staff also walk towards the toughest of troubles when everyone else turns their back. How they step in and face the problems that the rest of us cant solve.

The forensics officers who walk towards a disturbing murder scene to find the evidence that might bring a killer to justice.

Or the PCSOs who walk towards an elderly man with dementia who needs to be taken home.

Or the digital investigation teams who have to examine the most horrific images of child abuse online to track down dangerous perpetrators.

And the family liaison officers who have the heart-breaking task of knocking on the door to tell a family that their loved one will never be coming home.

Those are the jobs that no-one else wants to deal with but, when everything else is broken, its the police we turn to, to pick up the pieces and keep people safe.

And that is the dedication lies at the heart of policing in our country.

Our proud British tradition of policing by consent a tradition rooted in our values of community, justice, respect for the rule of law.

It has been almost two hundred years since the development of Robert Peels founding principles.

Premised on the belief that the police are the public and the public are the police; preventing crime and disorder; policing without fear or favour; and maintaining the mutual respect between officers and the local communities they serve.

Traditions and values that we should never take for granted

Because they underpin the rule of law, the very cornerstone of our democracy.

But its because I believe so strongly in our British way of doing policing, and in the vital work that you and your forces do every day, that I am also clear we need to face some difficult truths about the way policing works today.

Because over the last decade or more, policing across England and Wales has started to buckle under the strain.

Weve seen visible neighbourhood policing decimated in communities across the country, with fewer police on the beat, breaking the vital link between local forces and the people they serve.

Weve seen crime evolving at breakneck speed, policing struggling to keep pace, with fewer crimes solved and more victims let down. Officers increasingly burdened by bureaucracy and stuck behind desks instead of out on the frontline. Confidence falling, among victims and among communities, as too often people fear that no one will come and nothing will be done. Governance systems failing to maintain standards or prevent abuse by rogue officers. And outdated technology holding policing back. I mean the Police National Computer is now 50 years old. It was cutting-edge when I was 5.

While policing in our country has been through that perfect storm, forces have struggled to keep up because of cuts, conflict and fragmentation.

And instead of clear leadership from government to help you navigate those difficult waters, the opposite has usually been true.

Too often the government just walked away or made the job harder. Too many politicians including predecessors in my department have stood on the sidelines shouting at the police when things have gone wrong Instead of rolling up their sleeves and working in partnership with the police to tackle these challenges head on.

The result is that at present, our police officers cannot do the job they signed up for in the way they want to, and cannot deliver for the public as they should. Leaving our precious tradition of policing by consent in peril. Leaving victims and communities feeling let down.

Im not prepared for us to carry on like this. Our police officers deserve better, and the public deserve better. Which is why the government has set out our mission for Safer Streets, with our unprecedented ambition to halve violence against women and girls, and to halve the knife crime that devastates young lives in a decade and our essential task to rebuild confidence in policing and the criminal justice system, and to restore the public sense of safety on our streets.

Reducing harm, rebuilding confidence. A mission rooted not just in the responsibility any government has to keep people safe but rooted in our values; that security is the foundation of opportunity. That families cant thrive if they dont feel safe. That communities cant be strong if they dont feel secure.

That is a mission for the whole of government, for institutions across the country, and for every one of our communities.

But I am clear that policing must play a central part in that mission. In the coming weeks, in the normal way, we will set out the full funding settlement for policing, including the precept and government grants.

But I can tell you today that direct central government funding for policing will increase by more than half a billion pounds next year, including over 260 million pounds for the core grant and additional funding for neighbourhood policing, counter-terrorism and the National Crime Agency.

But we will need to go further to make every penny of new investment count.

That is why we have already begun working with you on a new collaboration and efficiencies programme.

Working across police forces, starting with energy contracts, IT contracts, fleet contracts with the potential to save you hundreds of millions of pounds over the next few years to put back into front line policing.

And working with you on tackling the bureaucracy that drags policing down including reforms on redaction, and use of new technology to free up more time for officers to get back on the frontline.

But we all know funding and incremental change wont address all the challenges that policing faces.

Over many years I have heard calls from across policing for new and positive reforms including from many of you in this room today.

So today I am setting out a new road map for policing reform across England and Wales, which I am determined that policing and government must drive forward together.

An ambitious programme of change to create a police service fit for the future.

Next year we will publish a new white paper on policing.

It will cover issues from technology to the future workforce, from how the policing system can work better to tackle fast changing crime, to leadership and culture.

But today I want to highlight four of the key areas for reform: neighbourhood policing, police performance, structures and capabilities, crime prevention

First, I am determined that neighbourhood policing must be rebuilt. Many of you warned over a decade ago of the damage that austerity was doing to neighbourhood policing. Ministers said you were crying wolf. Now we know who was right.

Even after the previous government reversed the reduction in the overall number of officers, policing has not returned to our streets.

There are still fewer officers in neighbourhood teams, the proportion of the public who say they never see an officer on the beat has doubled, and the number of PCSOs has halved.

Little wonder then that the types of crimes and conduct that neighbourhood policing used to tackle have soared.

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