Recommendation 1

HM Government Not Addressed

The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Framework, as part of wider reforms to the police performance system described in From Local to National: A New Model for Policing, the Police Reform White Paper. The Framework sets out key metrics of police force performance. Analysis and reporting against the framework will enable better assessment of how a force is performing in its delivery of policing priorities. The Home Office has committed to developing the Framework iteratively with a specific commitment to incorporate measures of force productivity and financial resilience in future iterations. The Home Office will write to the Committee by July 2026 setting out the key metrics it will incorporate in future iterations and our plans for public reporting of performance data to support greater transparency and strengthen accountability by publishing data on the performance of police forces. The Home Office is currently working to improve and standardise the way in which financial information is provided by forces and developing a proposal to build on the Office for National Statistics’ forthcoming update on police productivity to provide a measure of force- level productivity. This work is being undertaken in collaboration with the policing sector and other external experts. billion, an increase of £1.3 billion compared to 2025-26. Of this, total funding to police forces will be up to £18.4 billion, an increase of up to £796 million. 3.4 As part of that settlement, the government is focused on what officers are doing rather than purely on officer numbers. For 2026-27, the Home Office is introducing a neighbourhood policing grant and has allocated £363 million of ringfenced funding to incentivise forces to grow neighbourhood policing teams towards the aim of 13,000 additional personnel in neighbourhood roles across England and Wales by the end of this Parliament. 3.5 The expectation is that forces will prioritise redeploying officers from roles where their warranted powers are not required, into neighbourhood policing teams in 2026-27. This moves away from setting total officer headcount targets. Prioritising neighbourhood policing may place some limitations on workforce flexibility which the Home Office will keep under review. 3.6 Ensuring that policing has the right people and skills to deliver an efficient modern service aligned to current and future demand is important as the Home Office moves forward with our police reforms. The Police Reform White Paper outlines proposals to improve leadership, professional development and create a new national workforce strategy which will support this aim.