High Peak Liberal Democrats

Liberal Democrat Spring Conference today endorsed Trusted, Professional and Effective: British Policing at its Best. It proposes a number of changes to police forces in England around three key areas, which will change the culture of police for the better:

• More trusted - listening to local people and making policing much more responsive to communities' priorities.
• More professional - setting up the new police professional body with a key responsibility to recommend detailed national minimum recruitment standards for the police.
• More effective - making evidence based policing the defining feature of 21st century policing by establishing the world's first Institute for Policing Excellence.

The proposed reforms including measures to:

• Make Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) more accountable to the public between elections
• Create safeguards against the expansion of the role of PCCs
• Create an Institute for Policing Excellence
• Create a Police First development scheme based on the success of Teach First
• Encourage Police and Crime Panels to veto plans to cut police numbers unless all measures to cut bureaucracy have been exhausted

Commenting, Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Policy Committee on Home Affairs, Justice and Equalities, Tom Brake said:

"As an organisation, the police suffer from a lack of confidence and trust despite the fact that we have fantastic police officers who are dedicated, able and trying to do their best by the community they serve.

"Labour's legislative assault on our civil liberties has been disastrous for the reputation of the police who enforced it. The Coalition Government is doing the right thing to undo the damage Labour did and restore public confidence.

"But we must do more. It is essential that we clear up Labour's legacy and end people's feeling that they are both over-policed and under-protected. Conference has today backed the Liberal Democrats' vision on what is the right thing to do to restore public confidence in our police services."

Please find the full motion, as passed, below:

Trusted, Professional and Effective: British Policing at its Best

Conference notes that

1. This country has a highly effective police service, with dedicated and able officers doing their best for the communities they serve.
2. Some groups, however, such as many young people and some ethnic minority communities, have a less positive view of the police.
3. Wider public confidence in the police has been shaken recently by the riots, by phone hacking, and by the way that protest marches have been policed.

Conference believes that:

1. I. Policing by consent is at the heart of our approach to policing - it is essential to restore public confidence and address the sense that some parts of the public feel over-policed and under-protected.
2. II. The rapport built by visible police presence on the streets is an essential part of policing and should be supported as a core activity by all police officers and all ranks, whether formally in neighbourhood policing, responsive policing or specialist roles.
3. III. Recruitment and promotion processes need to be reviewed to increase diversity in the police service at all ranks.
4. IV. Action is needed to ensure that we have a police service that is more trusted, more professional and more effective.

Conference calls on the Government to work with Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners to ensure that:

1. Trust in the police increases because they listen to local people and make policing much more responsive to communities' priorities.

1. Police and Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables set up genuine consultative mechanisms to listen to the public and use that feedback to drive what the police do and how they do it. Such mechanisms should:

a) Be very local.

b) Reach out to all sections of community and not be confined to vocal minorities.

c) Provide effective feedback relating to both force-wide and more local issues.

1. The police become more professional by ensuring the new police professional body is established on schedule in 2012 and within its first year:

a) Recommends detailed national minimum recruitment standards for the police.

b) Considers additional entry routes, such as Police First, based on the highly successful Teach First scheme.

c) Makes recommendations on how to make promotion processes more objective, including 'blind marking' of written papers and assessments carried out by a number of different assessors, to avoid any personal bias.

d) Works on a strategic framework that provides guidance to Police and Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables on civilianisation and outsourcing of policing activities.

1. The police become more effective by making evidence-based policing the defining feature of 21st century policing and establishing the world's first Institute for Policing Excellence.

1. Police and Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables do everything possible to protect spending on front-line policing, both response policing and neighbourhood policing.

1. Police and local authorities collaborate to bring together neighbourhood policing and local authority crime prevention, enforcement and regulatory roles into a joint service.

1. Police and Crime Panels are able to act as an effective check and balance on the powers of individual Police and Crime Commissioners by having:

a) Regular access to experts in policing and crime matters, people from the voluntary and community sector and from those groups who are most often victims of crime and anti-social behaviour.

b) Access to the Chief Constable and other senior police officers when they require it.

c) Sufficient dedicated independent organisational and financial support, including access to data and independent financial advice and analysis.

Conference further calls on the Government to ensure that:

1. A systematic and independent evaluation of the new structure of Police and Crime Commissioners and Police and Crime Panels is commissioned, which should:

a) Begin immediately, in line with the new arrangements put in place inLondonfrom the start of 2012, and look at the preparations being made for the changes in other areas.

b) Consider whether Police and Crime Commissioners and Police and Crime Panels have achieved the objectives set for them across their crime and policing remit.

c) Report by the summer of 2014, the mid-point of their term of office.

2. There is no expansion of the role of Police and Crime Commissioners until the independent review has reported.

Conference calls on the Government to ensure, using primary legislation if necessary, that the principle of accountability in the police is not eroded by any move to offer services for tender by the private sector. Conference calls on Liberal Democrats in Government to oppose any relaxation of the rules that prohibit frontline services from being offered to tender.