Strong local accountability matters
Reforming police governance and force structures could bring opportunities: stronger specialist capability, greater operational resilience, improved data sharing, and more effective responses to serious and cross-border crime. But the policy does not come without significant risks.
Improvements cannot simply be about creating larger institutions. Police reform must deliver better outcomes for residents and victims while strengthening, not weakening, local accountability and partnership working.
As Chair of the LGA’s Safer and Stronger Communities Committee, I have been leading our engagement with the Government and Lord Bernard Hogan-Howe’s Independent Review of Police Force Structures.
Lord Hogan-Howe previously led the Met Police. In May, committee members met him to discuss the review’s emerging thinking before agreeing the LGA’s formal response. Our message was clear: policing must remain rooted in place.
Visible, responsive neighbourhood policing is fundamental to public confidence. Any move towards larger force structures must not dilute the connection between communities and the police officers and leaders who serve them.
Emerging plans for larger police forces could see the creation of what are being called ‘local police areas’ (LPAs) – the smaller building blocks of police forces.
LPAs should align, wherever practical, with upper-tier or unitary council boundaries. Doing so supports stronger partnership working between police, councils, health services, safeguarding partners, fire and rescue services, and local resilience arrangements.
At the same time, police reforms must retain enough flexibility to reflect local geography and operational realities. Strong local accountability matters just as much as operational capability.
Councillors are democratically elected community leaders, with deep local knowledge and relationships. Engagement with council leaders is important, but it should complement – not replace – wider engagement with councillors and local communities. We should avoid creating parallel structures that confuse accountability or duplicate the representative role councils already perform.
In my own ward, we have a dedicated PC who covers the same four parishes. We work well together to identify problems and how the police and council can work to resolve them. That model should be replicated everywhere.
We also stressed that every principal council within a force area must have a meaningful voice in shaping priorities, scrutinising performance and influencing commissioning decisions.
Councils work with policing every day through community safety partnerships, safeguarding arrangements and wider public service networks. Reform must strengthen those relationships, not disrupt services supporting victims, tackling antisocial behaviour, protecting vulnerable people or responding to mental health crises.
The review also needs to address the growing complexity of future governance arrangements.
In non-mayoral areas, foundation strategic authorities could become the default body for police governance, yet there remains insufficient clarity around accountability, scrutiny and voting arrangements.
At the same time, mayors (where present) will oversee policing across multiple force areas.
Without careful design, there is a real risk of creating overly complex and fragmented governance structures. The LGA is therefore arguing for police reform that is evidence-based, financially transparent and co-designed with local government from the outset.
Successful police reform must strengthen neighbourhood policing, preserve democratic accountability and support the partnerships that keep communities safe every day.