Labour has launched a ‘heavyweight’ independent review of the future of policing in England and Wales as forces face up to 20% budget cuts.
It will be headed by former Metropolitan Police chief Lord Stevens, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper told the party conference in Liverpool today.
She said the review was necessary as the government had ‘refused’ to set up a royal commission, which both the Superintendents Association and the Police Federation have called for.
‘There is a need for a ‘heavyweight review… to look at the crime challenges of the 21st century and how policing needs to adapt and respond’, she said, as budgets are cut by an average of 14% in real terms by 2014/15.
‘Now is the time for a serious vision for the future of policing. Building on the best of British and international policing, vigorous and challenging on the changes needed,’ she told delegates.
Stevens retired as commissioner of the UK's largest police force in 2005. He will be joined on the panel by Tim Brain, a former chief constable of Gloucestershire Police, along with Kathleen O'Toole, a former police commissioner in the US city of Boston.
Cooper said the independent review would report back before the next general election in 2015. The party will then respond to its findings.
Derek Barnett, president of the Superintendents Association, said he ‘fully supported’ the review, which senior officers have been demanding for the past decade.
Police Federation chair Paul McKeevor also said it was ‘a very good idea’.
