How the ‘British FBI’ will work

A new National Police Service dubbed the “British FBI” will be tasked with tackling the most serious crimes, enabling strained local forces to concentrate more resources on everyday offences, the Home Office has announced.

The announcement comes ahead of a series of reforms that will be “the biggest shake-up to the crime-fighting structure” in more than half a century, according to The Telegraph.

How will the new unit work?

The National Police Service will target terrorism, fraud and organised crime. Despite the “British FBI” nickname, the NPS will only operate in England and Wales, as policing is devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The new organisation, details of which are expected to be set out in a government white paper this week, will bring together the responsibilities of existing agencies such as the National Crime Agency, Counter Terrorism Policing, Regional Organised Crime Units and National Road Policing. The NPS will also be in charge of setting professional standards and training requirements and purchasing new equipment for all forces. This includes overseeing the nationwide roll-out of controversial facial recognition software.

The NPS will have its own uniform and a new national police commissioner will be appointed to lead the force, serving as the most senior police officer in the country.

The establishment of the new body will be accompanied by a reduction in the number of police forces in England and Wales, “with some merged to create bigger regional constabularies tackling complex crimes, such as murder, drugs and county lines gangs”.

What is the goal?

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has insisted the radical overhaul is urgently needed because the “outdated” and “fragmented” current model is “buckling under the strain” of tackling complex modern crime, leaving “serious offending unpunished”.

“The current policing model was built for a different century,” she said. The “British FBI” will deploy “world-class talent and state-of-the-art technology to track down and catch dangerous criminals”. Ministers claim the NPS will be better placed to tackle criminals whose activities increasingly cross local constabulary and national borders.

Another of the “main aims” of the new service is to “boost the 43 local forces’ ability to spend more time fighting crime in their communities, such as shoplifting, drug dealing, phone theft and anti-social behaviour”, said Sky News.

How have the plans been received?

The establishment of the NPS “reflects a widespread consensus” among law enforcement experts that “more specialised officers are needed to combat threats such as online fraud and international organised crime, and that only larger forces can support the level of expertise required”, said the Financial Times.

The heads of Counter Terrorism Policing, the Metropolitan Police, the College of Policing, the National Crime Agency and the National Police Chiefs’ Council have all welcomed the move, writing jointly in The Telegraph that the current system is “messy and complex, and neither as efficient nor as coherent as it should be. That is why reform is needed – not as an ideological exercise, but as common sense. National crime demands a national response.”

While the policing world is “almost giddy” about the plans, “amending police structures, processes and institutions won’t affect people’s lives in the short, or even the medium, term”, said crime expert and former BBC journalist Danny Shaw. The white paper “is not intended as an urgent plan of action to address our immediate concerns about safety on the streets, crime and anti-social behaviour”, but rather “a roadmap towards a more efficient and effective police service in the decades to come”.