Home Secretary has shown an apparent lack of understanding of frontline policing operations

30 August 2023

Claims by Home Secretary Suella Braverman that police have all the resources necessary to meet a pledge to follow “reasonable lines of inquiry” when investigating crime reports have been rejected by Suffolk Police Federation.

Branch chair Darren Harris said more than a decade of cuts had left the service in crisis and that Ms Braverman had shown an apparent lack of understanding of frontline policing operations.

He warned her comments could further damage officer morale and did little to restore public confidence in policing.

“Our members always do the very best they can to deliver the service the people of Suffolk would expect,” he said.

“But many years of austerity-driven cuts to funding, resources and infrastructure have taken their toll and the impact on policing has been inevitable.”

Darren said Ms Braverman’s comments bore little relation to the experience of officers on the frontline.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman.

He added: “The Home Secretary should focus on making sure the police service is properly funded and that officers are properly recognised and rewarded for the difficult jobs they do rather than offering advice on how Forces should deploy the resources they have. Her comments will do nothing to improve the morale of our overworked members and could cause yet more division between police and public.”

Ms Braverman’s comments came after the College of Policing published guidance for officers in England and Wales to consider all potential evidence such as footage from CCTV, doorbells and dashcams, as well as phone tracking.

The College of Policing said members of the public would then know what they can expect from police when they report a crime such as burglary or theft and that the service would become more consistent across regions and solve more crimes.

Ms Braverman said no crime was “minor” and implored officers to act on leads for phone or car theft, shoplifting and criminal damage.She said: “The police have a record number of men and women working on their front line than ever before. So they have the numbers of people who are there.

“This is about ensuring that those resources are properly diverted to what I call common sense policing, back-to-basics policing, that they don’t dismiss certain crimes as unimportant or minor.

“It's about ensuring that they are freed up from doing other time-consuming tasks.

She said that Government efforts were “about freeing up police time from needless bureaucracy”.

Ms Braverman insisted Government crime policies were working but warned members of the public were often dissatisfied by the police response.

She said: “The police have made progress in preventing crime across the country with neighbourhood offences like burglary, robbery and vehicle theft down by 51 per cent since 2010.

“Despite this success, since I became home secretary I’ve heard too many accounts from victims where police simply haven’t acted on helpful leads because crimes such as phone and car thefts are seen as less important – that’s unacceptable.

“It has damaged people’s confidence in policing. Criminals must have no place to hide.”

Ben Hudson, Suffolk Police Federation Secretary and PFEW lead on the #SimplfyDG6 campaign, said that if the Government was really serious about freeing up police time from needless bureaucracy it would support the amendment to the Data Protection and Digital Information bill that Jane Hunt MP and Peter Aldous MP are supporting on behalf of the Police Federation.

He said: “The amendment would result in cutting thousands of hours from police officer workloads and save valuable resources where we have officers spending incredulous amounts of time meticulously reviewing and redacting material, even before the CPS makes a charging decision.

“The suggestion that policing should review even more digital evidence without the amendment to the Data Protection and Digital Information Act would only create more desk based work from officers and keep them physically away from policing their communities.”

The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has dismissed Ms Braverman’s pledge as unrealistic given the squeeze on police funding at a time of rising crime and urged her not to interfere with police independence.

In an open letter written in response to the Home Secretary’s announcement, NPCC chair, Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, said: “To see trust in police return to where it used to be, an effectively staffed and properly funded police service is essential.”

Mr Stephens said 21 of the 43 forces in England and Wales “still have less officers than in 2010” and added: “It is therefore right that police chiefs have operational independence and are responsible for making difficult decisions around how best to respond to the breadth of priorities of local communities.”