WIREDGOV

UK Home Secretary Mahmood presented a long-awaited police reform plan. Still at the starting line, here is what the plans entail – and what they do not.

As policing faces a more sophisticated and resilient criminal threat picture, administrative and budgetary pressures have been deepening the policing crisis – and undermining public safety and trust. Recent RUSI research has confirmed the trend of growing criminal organisation and technological sophistication in some of the public’s most frequently encountered crimes. Criminal supply chains have evolved as organised criminals seamlessly operate across the UK and internationally. To give one example, fraud has surged, representing an estimated 41% of all crimes against individuals in the UK – the majority of which is cyber-enabled. Police forces have thus been stretched attempting to respond to the estimated 4.1 million annual fraud incidents, increases in acquisitive crime and anti-social behaviour while leading the country-wide focus on reducing knife crime and violence against women and girls.

The Case for Reform

Spread across 43 police forces, 9 Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCUs), the National Crime Agency (NCA) and a variety of specialist forces, structural rigidity has hamstrung an effective police response. To pursue crime across force lines, police leaders are faced with often self-defeating incentive structures. Likewise, the intelligence and vital information for investigations and crime prevention often remains in siloes along the decentralised policing architecture.

Fiscally, the crisis for UK policing appears existential. The Metropolitan Police continue to face ‘eye watering’ decisions to reduce police staff as pressure to fill budget shortfalls intensifies. The Met are not alone. In July 2025, MPs appealed to the Home Office to rescue Lincolnshire Police from bankruptcy, despite a previous 6.2% budget increase for the force. Across England and Wales in 2025/26, 37 of 43 police forces reported a budget shortfall – totalling £450 million. According to police forces’ medium-term financial plans, this shortfall is set to increase to £966 million by 2027. Forces are thus looking for ways to balance the books, all while demands across the system increase.

In strengthening policing without commensurate attention paid to reforming UK courts, prisons, probationary services and healthcare, well-intentioned reforms risk facing roadblocks left by crumbling sister-criminal justice services

The under-resourced, inflexible policing system, faced with increasingly sophisticated and agile organised crime, has struggled to meet demand and public expectations. As of 2023, the charge ratio (number of charges divided by volume of recorded crime) lay at approximately 7%, down from 15% a decade prior. Charge rates for victim-based offences saw particularly steep decreases. Today, only 4% of British adults have ‘a lot of confidence’ in policing to deal with crime, and populist clamours of ‘lawlessness’ have become increasingly prevalent in public discourse – despite record lows in violent crime. It is in this context that the Home Office, under Yvette Cooper, launched the most significant reform of policing in 80 years. The objectives are three-fold: enhancing police performance, improving cost-efficiency and reducing jurisdictional and bureaucratic friction.

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