What Watson has to say

Who is going to be the most influential figure in policing?

Shabana Mahmood would like to appoint the head of the new National Police Service by Christmas, I’m told, though adverts have yet to go out. It’s a weighty role; whoever is successful will have the ear of the Home Secretary, as well as leading the most powerful law enforcement organisation in the UK.

Sir Mark Rowley remains the front-runner, as his impressive term at the Metropolitan Police, where he has led them out of special measures, comes to an end next year. But Sir Stephen Watson, current chief constable of Greater Manchester Police (GMP), is in the frame too - especially because of the high regard in which he is held by the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham. The former Greater Manchester Mayor brought him in to shake up GMP, which he’s done with vigour. 

Other potential candidates include Jon Boutcher, who currently leads the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and Jo Farrell, Police Scotland chief. If applications are open to former police officers (it apparently hasn't been decided yet), Neil Basu, who was once the country's counter-terrorism policing lead, Sir Stephen Kavanagh, the former Interpol executive director and Serena Kennedy, recently departed from Merseyside Police, could be in the running too.

Arrangements for the establishment of the NPS are well underway with a team at the Home Office expanding every week. One insider described it as a “colossal” task with so many different changes being planned at once. “If we just did central procurement first that would be better,” the official told me.  But that’s not the way it’s happening. Civil servants are working simultaneously on moving the NCA into the NPS, transferring the responsibilities of the College of Policing into the new body and bringing together multiple other functions, such as air support; it’s a hugely complex piece of work. Legislation paving the way for the formation of the NPS is expected in the next few months, though some believe nailing down the precise design of the service should come before that.

Alongside all this, the Home Office is bracing itself for a backlash when Lord (Sir Bernard) Hogan-Howe’s review on police force mergers is published. The former Met Commissioner has re-formed the ‘band’ that led Scotland Yard for six years (Hogan-Howe, Deputy Commissioner Sir Craig Mackey, comms chief Martin Fewell and others) to come up with a blueprint for how many of the 43 constabularies in England and Wales should be combined.  He will present a detailed report with recommendations which is due to land on Mahmood’s desk by the end of August.  Twelve was the magic number last time this was attempted, in 2005. 

The merger of police forces is by some distance the most contentious of all the measures in the Government’s police reform White Paper, published in January, which is one reason why chief constables were briefing crime reporters this week about the benefits. The Conservatives and Reform UK are likely to be opposed and will doubtless play on fears that local policing in rural and isolated communities will suffer if smaller constabularies are amalgamated or gobbled up by bigger ones. Ministers have tried to pre-empt that by claiming that local policing will be at the heart of the new system.

Three policing leaders - Gavin Stephens, the National Police Chiefs’ Council chair, Catherine Roper, Wiltshire Police Chief Constable, and Watson - laid out the arguments for merging forces into larger, regional, entities, with a number of chiefs and police and crime commissioners already exploring the possibility. About three-quarters are believed to be in favour of restructuring. Watson was particularly forthright.

“We are paying for 43 chief constables, 43 deputy chief constables, 43 headquarters, 43 IT departments, 43 means of procurement 43 different times - there is no planet in which policing will have been designed this way,” he said.

It wasn’t about bigger necessarily being better, but what the “optimal” size of a force was in order for it to be sustainable and deliver effective results.

“There are too many forces who cannot sustain effective neighbourhood policing, there are too many forces that whilst they understand the principle of being proactive are forced onto their haunches and therefore reactivity is too often a feature of their method of operation, which is why they're constantly playing catch-up,” said Watson, who’s served in six police forces during a decorated 38-year career.

“What they don't know is potentially that serious and organised crime is almost going untouched in their area because their local force simply do not have the capacity even to turn over the stone to be able to determine what then needs to be done, and even if they could do that they wouldn't have the capability or the capacity to do anything about it,” he added. 

The prospect of organisational reform was “exciting”, said Watson, but he warned that it could not be achieved on a “shoestring”. Treasury ministers and officials would need to be convinced that mergers would provide savings and improvements in order for them to invest the “couple of billion quid” needed to get the plans off the ground: "pump priming,” he called it. 

“Without reform we are just going to get nothing and we are going to continue to go backwards with the sub-optimal system that we have and outcomes will continue to fall away and that cannot be right for the public,” said Watson.

It was a compelling pitch from the GMP chief who I’m sure also made his views crystal clear to Burnham during the five years that they worked together, in Manchester. A prime minister who understands how the outdated model of policing hampers performance and productivity will be a huge advantage for Mahmood as she tries to steer through these once-in-a-generation plans.  Police reform may not be the story of the moment - but in weeks that will all change.