‘Officers would love nothing more than to focus on fighting crime’
2 May 2023
West Midlands Police Federation chair Rich Cooke said he agreed with calls from the Home Secretary for a focus on common sense policing.
But he said years of cuts had undermined the service as he called for greater long-term investment in the police service and officers’ pay and conditions.
Rich was responding to a speech by Suella Braverman at the Public Safety Foundation think tank in which she set out what she described as her common sense approach to law enforcement.
Ms Braverman said: “Common sense policing means more police on our streets.
“It means better police culture and higher standards.
“It means giving the public confidence that the police are unequivocally on their side, not pandering to politically correct preoccupations.
“It means measuring the police on outputs such as public response times, crimes solved, and criminals captured.
“It means police officers freed up to spend their time on proper police work.
“It means police prioritising the highest harm crimes and those that matter most to the public.
“It means the police making use of powers like stop and search that have proven effective in taking weapons off our streets.
“And above all else, common sense policing means officers maintaining a relentless focus on fighting crime, catching criminals, and keeping the public safe.”
Ms Braverman added: “Now I believe in the police. But the policing in which I believe isn’t riven with political correctness, but enshrined in good old fashioned common sense.
“The perception – however unjustified or unrepresentative – that some police are more interested in virtue signalling, or in protecting the interests of a radical minority engaged in criminality, than they are protecting the rights of the law-abiding majority – is utterly corrosive to public confidence in policing. The police must be more sensitive to this and work harder to counter it.
“If police chiefs approached instilling a culture of political impartiality, with the same dedication which they approach instilling a culture of diversity and inclusion, I have no doubt that public confidence in policing would be materially improved.”
Rich said police should focus on tackling and preventing crime but needed support from the Government and police chiefs.
He said: “I think most police officers would love nothing more than to focus on fighting crime.
“We join to lock up the bad guys, to help protect the public, and to deliver criminal justice. I can totally see why we get criticised for seemingly indulging in discussions and debates around social justice, but it always has been an irrelevant sideshow, and hasn’t been created by ordinary rank and file officers in the main.
“In order to focus on what’s being described as common sense policing, we need to be properly funded, trained and resourced.
“Long term declines in funding, led to significant loss of infrastructure and vital facilities, such as numerous station closures. That’s had a massive impact, particularly on the quality of vocational training, on getting criminals into custody and we need investment now. It's why it's great to see the re-opening of two local custody blocks in Bloxwich and Stetchford this week.
“But with a near 200 per cent increase in voluntary resignations in the last decade, mostly experienced, highly skilled colleagues, a one-off, significant above inflation pay correction is required to stop the exodus into the private sector and places like Australia. This combined with an urgent rethink of the way police pay is determined in the long term with a fair mechanism including collective bargaining and independent arbitration is vital. Only with these ingredients can we can recruit and retain officers long term, and enable them to concentrate on their roles rather than worrying about their own financial wellbeing.
“It means more officers, more training, investment in equipment, and being locally based in our communities.”
Read Ms Braverman’s speech in full.
