Issue 373  23rd November 2024

In her first major speech at the annual conference hosted by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, the Home Secretary set out her plans to deliver major policing reforms, including:

• a new Police Performance Unit to track national data on local performance and drive up standards
• a Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee to get policing back to basics and rebuild trust between local forces and the communities they serve
• a new National Centre of Policing to harness new technology and forensics, making sure policing is better equipped to meet the changing nature of crime

The Home Secretary also announced more than half a billion pounds of additional central government funding for policing next year to support the government’s Safer Streets Mission, including an increase in the core grant for police forces, and extra resources for neighbourhood policing, the NCA and counter-terrorism. A full breakdown of the funding will be published as part of the police settlement in December. In her speech, the Home Secretary said that without a major overhaul to increase public confidence, the British tradition of policing by consent will be in peril. The reforms will restore community patrols with a Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee and an enhanced role for Police and Crime Commissioners to prevent crime. The changes will also ensure that policing has the national capabilities it needs to fight fast-changing, complex crimes which cut across police force boundaries...

Hooligans who wreak havoc on local communities will face tough restrictions under new powers announced by the Home Secretary today. Meeting a manifesto pledge to crack down on anti-social behaviour, the new Respect Orders will give the police and local councils powers to ban persistent offenders from town centres or from drinking in public spots such as high streets and local parks, where they have caused misery to local people. These will be piloted prior to national rollout to make sure they are as effective as possible.

Perpetrators can also be required to address the root cause of their behaviour by being mandated to undertake positive rehabilitation, such as attending drug or alcohol treatment services, or an anger management course to address the underlying causes of their behaviour. Failure to comply with Respect Orders will be a criminal offence. Police will have the ability to immediately arrest anybody who is breaching their Respect Order.

Police will also be given stronger powers to seize vehicles involved in anti-social behaviour will also be strengthened, with officers no longer required to issue a warning before seizing the vehicles which bring misery to local communities. This will allow police to deal more swiftly with the scourge of off-road bikes in public parks and dangerous e-scooters on pavements, street racing and cruising. It will also assist the police in tackling car meets, which can see hundreds of cars gather in public spaces that often include loud aggressive engine revving and intimidating music...

The Home Office underestimated how many zombie knives and machetes would be surrendered ahead of a recent ban, documents show. Research by the BBC also suggests some owners may have been offered more in compensation than their knives cost. An MP said there were "huge flaws" in the government's original impact assessment for the scheme, while another queried why compensation was not capped. The Home Office said the scheme had taken dangerous weapons "off our streets" and that compensation claims had "undergone stringent review"...

The Home Office opened a month-long surrender and compensation scheme before it became law on 24 September. It offered to pay a minimum of £10 per knife to retailers and individuals handing in three or more. But BBC research suggests knives of the type banned could be bought far more cheaply than this. An impact assessment shows the Home Office thought owners would hand in 472 blades, resulting in compensation of about £14,000. Officials would not reveal the actual total but said the results of the scheme would be published "shortly". However, partial data from several police forces in England and Wales shows at least 39,000 knives were surrendered.

One retailer in the West Midlands handed in more than 100 blades. Nottinghamshire Police said it saw 455 knives surrendered while Avon and Somerset had more than 1,000. On 9 September, Luton-based Sporting Wholesale delivered 35,871 blades to Bedfordshire Police and made a claim for compensation. There is no suggestion the firm did anything illegal or intended to profit from the scheme. Among the knives it surrendered were hundreds of a blade known as k-mach-165... A knife very similar to k-mach-165 was offered to us for $5.58 if we ordered 1,000 of them. Using an exchange rate from 25 January, and adding shipping costs, import duty of 8% and VAT at 20%, the knife would land in the UK for about £6.15...