Imagine the following:
- A Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) whose only job is to serve Londoners by preventing, detecting and solving crime in London. Its current national responsibilities, such as combating terrorism and protecting the royal family, would have been taken on by a separate, national organisation.
- The politician accountable to Londoners for the performance of the MPS being the Mayor of London and only the Mayor of London, whoever that Mayor may be. It would no longer also be accountable to whoever is home secretary, a national politician, as at present.
- The Mayor alone having the power to hire and fire the MPS Commissioner. At the moment, the home secretary decides who that will be and is required only to “have regard” for the Mayor’s views before making a recommendation to the King. And although two past Met chiefs have stepped down because Mayors were unhappy with them, officially only the home secretary can give them the sack.
- The Mayor’s statutory police and crime plan being the defining strategy document for MPS policies and priorities, just as the Mayor’s statutory transport strategy defines the policies and priorities of Transport for London. Although the Met itself will run its operations day-to-day, they would have to be in line with what the Mayor wants and was elected to deliver.
- A police service for London that, because of the changes imagined above, is better focussed on protecting Londoners – and others who work in or visit the city – against crime and better at catching those who perpetrate it too.
That, I think, is a reasonable summary of what Nick Bowes, former head of policy for Sir Sadiq Khan, would like home secretary Shabana Mahmood to bring about as she develops her ideas for reforming and reorganising police services nationally.
Following his recent article for On London about these issues, Nick has elaborated on some of its themes in the latest True London podcast, which you can listen to here or watch below.
There are several other dimensions to this issue, and Nick’s article touched on those. On London and True London will return to them another day.
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