Forces should cut officer numbers and use tech to fight crime, police chief says

Police forces should be allowed to cut officer numbers and spend more money on technology to boost crime fighting, a police chief has said.

Chief constable Paul Sanford, who leads for police chiefs on finances, said there was an obsession with officer numbers, even though it would often be more effective to have fewer officers supported by better technology.

Sanford, who is the chief constable of Norfolk constabulary, said forces cannot afford new technology that could help them solve crimes more quickly and serve victims better.

Police chiefs in England and Wales have said they need £3bn extra to fight crime properly, but there is little immediate prospect of them getting a real-terms increase in their budgets.

Both the Labour government and previous Tory government have told the 43 local forces the minimum number of officers they each should have, and they lose £50,000 per officer below the target.

Sanford said that ending the rule on the minimum number of officers forces must employ could actually put more on the streets.

“If I had flexibility, I’d be employing more staff instead of officers, and I’d be making better use of technology,” he said, adding “that would free up the time of my police officers, make them more visible and deliver the policing that the public expects of us.

“Recent [financial] settlements have repeatedly followed a trend where funding is directed towards either officer numbers or the funding of pay bills.

“And all chiefs now have a significant proportion of their budget ringfenced so that they receive approximately £50,000 per police officer. To reduce their officer numbers beneath a baseline figure, they would receive £50,000 less per officer.

“In that same period of time, policing has failed to invest in the new technologies and infrastructure which would improve our service,” he said.

“I would rather have 90 police officers with the right capabilities, the right technologies … than I would have 100 officers who are spending a disproportionate amount of time in the police station using yesterday’s technologies to police today’s threats.”

Police officers cannot be made redundant, so forces have balanced budgets by cutting civilian staff or community support officers, and receive in some years nothing to keep up or renew their technology.

Sanford said: “I don’t think that police officer numbers should be the yardstick against which you measure police effectiveness.

“Our current approach is akin to running a supermarket and putting more people on the shop floor, but having no one in the warehouse and having better software to ensure that the goods are delivered on time. And that’s what we’re doing within policing. We’re in the middle of a digital revolution … Yet policing is still doing the equivalent of putting more farmers in the fields.”

He said his own force lacked the money to widely adopt software that would on average save six minutes from the 20 minutes taken to deal with non-emergency 101 calls.

Norfolk gets 360,000 of those a year and the software would automatically transcribe the call and enter the details into the force’s computer systems, saving time as a human call handler would not have to manually type the details while speaking to the caller.

Both main parties appeal to voters by pledging more officers. Labour in its 2024 general election manifesto promised 13,000 more on the frontline, made up of fully warranted officers, community support officers and volunteer specials.

The Conservatives from 2010 cut budgets and officer numbers by 20,000 as part of their austerity programme. Then in the run-up to the 2019 election they announced a hiring spree of 20,000 new officers, the so-called uplift.

Few argue with the Labour government’s claims that money for public spending is tight. Sanford said some forces were on the edge of crisis, and just hanging on, with the next budget round in 2025 crucial to whether they stop providing key policing services.

“There are some forces that are facing significant financial challenges,” he said. “I think that they’re moving close to only being able to provide or deliver the core policing roles, ie the attendance of emergency calls and the investigation of the most serious crime.”

Other sources name three forces in grave crisis, with one faced with finding savings of £13m out of £80m of discretionary spending.

In the settlement announced by the government in December, police got about a 3% budget rise, the vast amount of which will be eaten up paying for the rise in national insurance which they as employers pay.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “In addition to the extra 13,000 personnel we will put into neighbourhood policing roles, we are committed to ensuring officer numbers are protected in order to effectively tackle crime and keep our streets safe.

“Next year, £376.8m will be available to forces to maintain staffing levels, and forces in receipt of additional recruitment allocations will also be able to access further funds.”