Police face a “massive challenge” meeting government targets on cutting crime without more funding, a watchdog has warned the new home secretary.
Sir Andy Cooke, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, said progress has been made across many areas of policing, but “many more improvements are needed”.
Speaking to journalists ahead of the publication of his organisation’s annual report on the state of policing in England and Wales, Sir Andy stressed that planned reforms present a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to secure lasting change and greater efficiency.
But, in a direct message to home secretary Shabana Mahmood, he said: “That reform needs funding. It needs to be very clearly expressed as a priority for not just the Home Office but the government.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get the reform that police need to be as effective as it possibly can. Because at the moment, with the 43-force model, it is not as effective, under the current constraints it has and with the current funding that it has… It will be a missed opportunity if it’s not properly funded from the start.”
The annual report from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services highlighted the need for adequate funding to achieve government aims that include reducing knife crime and halving offences against women and girls.
When it was put to Sir Andy that there is a danger Labour’s manifesto pledges on policing and crime might not be met, he said: “These are all big asks on police forces – without the requisite investment, it’s going to be a massive challenge.”
In response to who would be to blame for those targets being missed, the police or the government, he said: “To some extent, fault will lie with both sides. Policing is not as effective as it could be in some ways – some aspects of police leadership need to be improvised, there needs to be a real drive on performance and performance management. But at the moment, policing is trying to do that with one hand behind its back if that investment doesn’t come forth.”
Sir Andy, who has been chief inspector since 2022 and was previously chief constable of Merseyside Police, also called for police to “separate the offensive from the criminal” and to stop recording non-crime hate incidents, which are used to gather intelligence on increasing tensions, with the aim of spotting any signs of future violence or unrest.
He warned officers are placed in an invidious position by current legislation and that “discretion and common sense don’t always win out in these issues”.
Sir Andy went on to concede that the recent arrest of Father Ted creator Graham Linehan by five police officers over comments about trans women made online “does seem heavy-handed”.
Results of inspections of all 43 police forces in England and Wales have now been released, with almost a third graded as requiring improvement (26 per cent) or inadequate (6 per cent). Although 68 per cent of the 368 judgments were graded as adequate or better, Sir Andy said the results show that still “many more improvements are needed”.
He highlighted that crime figures are down, and yet the public does not necessarily feel safer because the “police still need to get the basics right and focus on the issues that matter to the public”.
Concerns over the decline in public confidence in the police service have been raised in previous reports, with trust and confidence this year remaining “stable but far too low”.
He said claims of two-tier policing are baseless, with his organisation’s investigations not finding any evidence of this approach.
He was also vocal about his support for facial recognition technology, insisting that he has “been reassured time and time again that racial profiling is not an issue”.
He added: “If high-profile mistakes are made, they become the focus and detract from good policing.”
Earlier this month, a row erupted over the arrest of Mr Linehan, who was stopped by officers at Heathrow Airport and questioned over X posts he had made about trans issues.
Asked about the arrest, Sir Andy said: “Was it a great public optic? No, it wasn’t. Is there individual criticism from me in relation to the officers who were there? No, there isn’t.
“Lessons I’m sure will be learned in relation to it, but it does make policing’s job harder when these things occur, because this becomes the focus of attention.
“Not the great arrests going on, the great compassion, the bravery that police officers exhibit on a daily basis.”
Mr Linehan has vowed to sue the Metropolitan Police over his arrest.
Sir Andy stressed that he was not referencing any specific case when speaking of high-profile mistakes, but he said: “People make their own view on what is appropriate in a certain situation. I wasn’t referring to that – it does seem heavy-handed, but those teams work together in fives, which is probably why those five were there.”
Debate over how non-crime hate incidents are used flared last year when officers from Essex Police visited Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson to arrange an interview about an entry on X.
Sir Andy said: “I’m a firm believer that non-crime hate incidents are no longer required, and that intelligence can be gathered in a different way, which would cause less concern to the public and would make recording of such issues much easier for policing.
“I think we need to separate the offensive from the criminal. We need, at times, to allow people to speak openly without the fear that their opinion will put them on the wrong side of the law.
“Don’t get me wrong, there’s some exceptionally distasteful things that are said, there’s some offensive things that are said.
“The job of the police is to deal with criminality across the board. That does mean dealing with some issues that occur online and some of the threats to life and other issues and the serious issues that are there.
“It can be a fine line, and that’s one of the reasons why we need to look again at the policy and the legislation that sits around this because it places the police in an invidious position and, as we know, discretion and common sense don’t always win out in these issues.”
