The Guardian view on policing and cuts: something has to give | Editorial

Promising to spend more money on policing has repeatedly proved politically popular and effective in modern Britain. Nearly 40 years ago, Margaret Thatcher’s promise to pay the police more helped her to win her first election victory. In the 1990s, John Major and Tony Blair conducted a political auction over which of them could promise voters more police. In the 2017 general election campaign, Jeremy Corbyn made political hay from Labour’s promise to recruit 10,000 new officers, forcing Conservatives on to the back foot about cuts in police budgets at a time of anti-terror security concerns.

Whether extra spending on police is actually an effective use of public money is a different question, however, especially when resources are tight. As prime minister in the 1980s, Mrs Thatcher lavished money on policing, yet crime rose consistently throughout her period in office and policing controversies over issues such as complaints, violence, race and accountability soared. Under Mr Blair in the 2000s, crime declined at its steadiest rate since the second world war, but without any attempt to consider reducing police numbers as a result. In 2010, the new home secretary, Theresa May, grasped that nettle, overseeing an 18% cut in police funding and a reduction of around 20,000 officers between 2009 and 2016. Yet police warnings of a “Christmas for criminals” mostly failed to materialise and crime has continued to fall to the present day.

Although there are very real and justifiable concerns about increases in particular types of crime, notably gun and knife attacks (mainly in Greater London), and although the Office for National Statistics has highlighted some massive increases in cybercrime and fraud in recent reports, it is the terror threat that largely explains the current turn in the political argument about policing.

Four attacks in three months (Westminster, Manchester, London Bridge and Finsbury Park) have inevitably heightened public concern. These have been amplified by the general election campaign and the election’s fragile outcome. Police chiefs on the front line in both Manchester and London have expressed worries about the strain on resources and the impact on other policing tasks. Scotland Yard’s former counter-terror chief blames budget cuts. The West Midlands chief constable says police would struggle to deal with riots like those of 2011. Rank-and-file officers talk again of a service in crisis.

The home secretary, Amber Rudd, admitted last week that there is indeed a problem of stretched resources. This is the truth – and an admission with implications for the struggling May government. These are formidably demanding times for the big urban forces that bear the brunt of prevention and investigation. Concerns about the decline in the number of firearms trained officers on Mrs May’s watch, and now on Ms Rudd’s, are real. Something is going to have to give. But it is important not to leap to the conclusion that turning on the police spending tap is the only solution. Ms Rudd was right to make that point. Labour’s 10,000 officers pledge is not a serious answer. Some changes can probably be made to policing priorities within existing budgets and contingency funding. But Ms Rudd doesn’t have long to sort the issue in the current febrile atmosphere.

Yet the larger issue of police effectiveness is not going to go away either. Long before the current counter-terrorist concerns and the intense recent politicisation, the police watchdog, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, was pointing to the impact of spending cuts on the “cornerstone” areas of community and neighbourhood policing. In its March 2017 survey of effectiveness, HMIC also warned about police forces that were artificially and arbitrarily reclassifying demands for police action in order to safeguard resources. “In some forces, the police are not doing some of the basic things they should do,” the inspectors concluded. Activities like arresting, investigating and questioning were being skimped on.

It is a mistake to think about police cuts in exactly the same way as other cuts in public services. There are similarities but also differences. As home secretary, Mrs May was right to confront police over high costs and poor efficiency. But as prime minister she faces the reality that police effectiveness is being stretched too far, first on the headline issue of counter-terrorism, then on the fundamental issue of neighbourhood policing, and now on the threat from cybercrime. All these are issues in which the state has core responsibilities to protect the public that cannot and must not be shirked.