UK policing is under the microscope. A rise in serious violence and falling detection rates in some parts of the country have brought political focus onto the resilience of a model of policing that has long been the envy of the world. Rising demand and budget restraints have forced UK Police forces to evolve but questions remain as to whether policing has yet fully adapted to address the profound and continuing shifts in patterns of crime, society, policy and technology.
In recent years, Deloitte has helped many police forces, both here in the UK and overseas, to respond to the changing operational and organisational pressures and challenges they face. In doing so, it has developed deep expertise in the mission of policing, and an understanding of and respect for the people who deliver it.
Policing 4.0: Deciding the future of policing in the UK is a distillation of Deloitte’s expertise, designed to assist police leaders – primarily Chief Officers and senior staff – and policymakers by offering thoughts on some of the strategic choices they face, and the frameworks they might use for making them. The report explores the challenges facing policing today and the powerful trends and forces that will influence crime and policing over the coming decades.
The report is informed by commentary on the policing sector, analysis of UK and international police data and interviews with chief officers from UK police forces, leaders of national policing organisations and leading academics.
Published in September 2018, Policing 4.0 is sector-level thought leadership that has had a real impact receiving significant recognition at a local, national and international level. In the moment, it captured the voice of policing leaders and provided a practical means for helping them to make tough choices about the Future of Policing. It continues to be a touchstone for policing leaders and was cited as the “policing Minister’s favourite report” (senior Home Office official, May 2019).
In the words of Dr Rick Muir, Director of the Police Foundation: “Policing 4.0 is a genuinely ground breaking piece of work. It combines rigorous analysis of the current challenge facing policing with a look ahead to the challenges coming down the track. It then presents a series of major choices that the police service, and indeed society, will have to confront if the police are to continue to keep us safe in the years ahead. I have no doubt that [the report] has helped to lay the ground for future public debate and policy making regarding the future of the police service.”
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