A presentation from the launch of the Police Foundation's report 'The future of neighbourhood policing'.

1. THE FUTURE OF
NEIGHBOURHOO
D POLICING
Report launch event
24th May 2018
#PFNeighbourhoods

2. A brief history of British community policing
1829
1950s
1967
2000s1970s/80s 2025s
1979
?
2017/18

3. The future of neighbourhood
policing
• How and why has neighbourhood
policing in England and Wales
changed since 2008 – and what
does it look like in 2017/18?
• Models and consequences
• Prioritisation
• Enablers, barriers and innovations
• Systems
• How can proactive preventative local
policing be achieved?
• Stakeholder engagement
• 10 year’s workforce data analysis
• 22 force information returns
• 8 force lead interviews
• 14 practitioner focus groups
• 37 online survey responses
• 43 open source force profiles

4. The ‘neighbourhood’ workforce 2008-2017
% of workforce in ‘neighbourhood’ roles
PCSOs(andstaff)as%of‘neighbourhood’function

5. PCSOs(andstaff)as%of‘neighbourhood’function
% of workforce in ‘neighbourhood’ roles
The ‘neighbourhood’ workforce 2008-2017

6. Typology
% of workforce in ‘neighbourhood’ roles
PCSOs(andstaff)as%of‘neighbourhood’function
Integrated hybrids
Civilianised rurals
Consistent traditionals
Robust purists
Officer preservers
Outright outliers
• Diversification
• Innovation
• Co-option
• Nebulisation

7. Variation
Case-work
Visibility
Civilianised
‘Tipping point’
Safeguarding
Thematic-risk
‘Collapsed’
Community-focussed
Enforcement
‘Real’
Low-intensity
Mistimed
‘Good news’
Abstracted
Community-focused
Thematic-risk
Case-work
‘Collapsed’
Civilianised
Enforcement

8. Erosion
• Numbers
• Engagement
• Visibility
• Intelligence
• Local knowledge
• Proactive prevention
“We had a police station and there were six officers and sergeant and
now there’s one officer, a PCSO and we’re based in a school.”
“I used to call into my schools once a week…I had one kid who used to
run every time I walked in the door, after about six weeks I got there and
he was dressed as a police officer. That’s the difference now, we haven’t
got time to go and spend that half an hour just saying, ‘hello, how are
you?’”
“They [the public] are constantly passing intelligence, we put the
intelligence in [to computer systems] and it can’t be done and we know it
…when it’s not done we have to face those people again and then some
of them won’t tell you anything else because you’ve not actioned it.”
“Our desire has always been to get upstream and be proactive to identify
crime trends or issues before they become issues, we're nowhere near
that. Everything that we do in neighbourhoods is still reactive to a greater
or a lesser extent.”

9. 2
2
3
3
3
7
8
8
8
8
8
8
9
9
9
10
11
11
11
13
17
17
17
18
19
19
19
21
21
28
Missing people
Customer serv.
Inform public
Victim sat.
Response
Public protection
Not response
Volunteering
Support victims
Accountability
Public confidence
Enforcement
Managing offenders
Accessibility
Investigation
Reassurance
Early intervention
Stronger/cohesive communities
Intelligence gathering/led
Crime reduction
Working with communities
Demand reduction
Local knowledge
Evidence based
Locally adapted
Visibility
Vulnerability/hidden crime
Working with partners
Community engagement
Problem solving Metamorphosis
Police force descriptions of the
meaning, purpose and function of
neighbourhood policing in 2017
(Base: 31 forces)
Vulnerability / hidden crime
Visibility
Demand reduction
Working with communities
Early intervention
Reassurance
“That is a real challenge
now…to balance the need for
problem solving and reducing
demand..[with], what I need
[my neighbourhood officers] to
do, is go to the road traffic
collision before somebody
dies, because we’ve got
nobody from response to get
there at the moment.”
“Most beat-managing PCs…
are now spending between 60
and 90 per cent of their duties
[doing] response work”.
“We are being used as walking
response officers”
Response
Not Response

10. A full bucket…and a difficult mix
+
+
Reassurance
Reduction
Response
“We've got, like, a parallel world going on at the minute where the stuff
that the community and councillors want… is not the same as the stuff
that the force want us to deal with.”
“The purpose of [neighbourhood policing] is to embed the policing
function within the communities to provide the consent…and maximise
the reduction of threat, harm and risk to people who live in those
communities”
“[Response work] has a massive knock on effect to the work that we are
trying to do because if you’re doing neighbourhood policing, you need to
be able to plan. When you can’t do any of that, you’re letting down
people and therefore we’re in a danger of our confidence levels in the
police starting to go down.”

11. Form follows function?
0
20
40
60
80
100
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
%PCSOs
% in ‘neighbourhood’ roles
Wiltshire: neighbourhood policing workforce
Except sometimes function follows form…
2008-2016
2017
Hybrid models
Wiltshire: “Community policing consists of two
complimentary core components community partnership and
problem solving. This will include multi agency working and
initial response to incidents.”
Kent: “There are several teams who collectively service
neighbourhood policing in different ways, but often working
together.”
Semi-hybrid models
West Yorkshire: “Neighbourhood Patrol Teams…work
alongside Ward Officers and PCSOs …Patrol officers are
expected to undertake problem solving activity and
engagement rather than just respond to calls.”
Except sometimes function follows form…

12. 0
20
40
60
80
100
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
An experiment rejected?
%PCSOs
% in ‘neighbourhood’ roles
Essex: neighbourhood policing workforce
Emerging de-hybridisation
Essex: "Neighbourhood Policing has [previously] involved a
combination of proactive and reactive response, however, the
new Community Policing Team model is designed to provided
dedicated Community Policing teams with minimal abstraction”.
South Yorkshire: “In high need communities, PCSOs and police
officers will form a cohesive team to reduce risk and harm,
through problem-solving approaches”.
2012-13
2015-162017
Geographic targeting
“The only way you can do is by prioritising where the highest
need is and the highest harm is; it's got to be about threat, risk
and harm, and you say, let's be honest, we have capability to
extract this much [of the] problem out of the community, where
is the most harm? Target there.”
The end of universal neighbourhood policing?

13. More on…
• PCSOs
• innovation and flux
• Prioritisation
• community priority-setting marginal
• Shift patterns
• aligned to demand
• Corralling resource
• The pull of now
• sergeant protection
• Responding smarter
• and less?
• An unrecognised specialism
• A great job…for the right sort of
person
• Training and professionalisation

14. Towards integration?
• A mixed picture
• Breaking new ground
• Digging in
“Getting help from social services at times is a real
nightmare….getting that help with mental health crises,
long-term care in appropriate living arrangements is
hard work…and I’m sure they’re saying the same thing
when they need our help.”
“The reality is that social care are struggling locally to
deal with demand…so we are scoping what additional
training the partnership funding will buy our local
[police] teams, for them to be able to deal with
vulnerability more effectively.”
“We can't be all things to all people, you know, there
has to be an element of, this is the ship that we're
responsible for …I want neighbourhood policing not just
to be soft and cuddly stuff…but also…the iron fist of it.”

15. Integrating for casework
• Multi-agency process improvement
• Pulling neighbourhood policing
towards case-based approach
• Broader definition of problem
solving
“In the past, if you went to a vulnerable person you
would be emailing people, phoning people, well we’ve
got people in there [partners in the police station]...
We’ve got the help at our fingertips so that combined
approach is actually changing people’s lives”
“This is completely different for me…we’re not being
seen out….we’re dealing with all the vulnerability issues
and repeat demand, which is great, but …we used to
do, ASB and dealing with the community”.
“There's a set of criteria for creating what's called a
problem-solving occurrence…we have a tasking
meeting with partners. Some of them are individual
based; that's graded high, medium or low depending on
the risk to that person. Some are location based, and
some are based on repeat calls for service.”
Incidents
Cases
Class of harm
“Problems”

16. A framework for delivering proactive,
preventative local policing
Principle 1: Everyone should have access to, information about and an
opportunity for dialogue with the police and the other local services that have a role
in improving community safety and quality of life in the place where they live.
Principle 2: In line with the Policing Vision 2025, police forces should seek to
deliver ‘proactive preventative’ local policing. They should do so by adopting
structures and models designed to deliver the types of activities that are known to
be effective in preventing crime, harm and demand. Where the evidence is lacking,
these models should follow a clear preventative logic.

17. A framework for delivering proactive,
preventative local policing
Principle 3: The evidence-base supports selective, targeted deployment of
embedded, place-based practitioners, with a remit to develop and maintain a deep
understanding of the problems that underlie local risk in context, and to develop,
implement and review creative, tailored interventions to impact on them.
Principle 4: Locally embedded preventative proactivity should be delivered by
functionally distinct teams and personnel.
Principle 5: Dedicated, embedded preventative resource should be provided
where it is most needed and to the extent that resourcing allows, while also
maintaining a balanced local policing model that can adequately respond to
reactive demand.

18. A framework for delivering proactive,
preventative local policing
Principle 6: (While adhering to principle 5), police forces and local partnerships
should seek to incrementally shift resources into local proactive prevention.
Principle 7: Multi-agency case-work relating to individuals should be undertaken
in addition to, rather than as a substitute for local problem-oriented proactivity.
Principle 8: Efforts should be made to improve the status of neighbourhood
policing/embedded local prevention as a field of practice; this should begin with
establishing a body of professional knowledge and recognised training packages.
Systems of recognition and reward should be developed that promote on-going
development within the field and, ideally, continued attachment to place.

19. A framework for delivering proactive,
preventative local policing
Principle 9: Police forces should adopt (and inspectors and overseers should
ensure) clear and transparent labels for job roles, teams and units that clearly
convey what those in them spend their time doing.
A final word on resources.

20. www.police-foundation.org.uk
@the_police_fdn
@andy__higgins