Federation chair opposes league tables

12 May 2021

The Home Secretary’s plans to bring back league tables for forces will lead to a return to the target-driven culture that damaged the police service, according to the West Midlands Police Federation chair.

And Jon Nott is calling on the Government to reconsider the move.

“It has been confirmed today that Home Secretary Priti Patel is drawing up plans to measure forces’ performance on six crime types including homicide, serious violence and cyber-crime with the Home Office then comparing them against national benchmarks,” says Jon.

“The Home Office calls this a ‘relentless focus on cutting crime’ but I firmly believe these league tables will see us return to a damaging target-driven culture. Scrutiny and accountability are already a huge part of the police service and I just don’t see that these plans are going to do anything to improve the service we already provide to our communities.

The national chair of the Police Federation has also called on the Government to re-think its plans.

“Scrutiny and accountability are already a large part of policing, so these proposals for league tables would risk a return to a very damaging and target-driven culture,” John Apter explained, “Mechanisms for holding individuals and forces to account are in place, and we are already among the most scrutinised professionals in the world.

“My message to Government would be to stop and think before returning to the mistakes of its predecessors. Reintroducing targets in policing would be a damaging and retrograde step. In previous years when they have been used we have seen forces focus on targets to the exclusion of other issues. This is not good for the public and certainly no good for the victims of crime.

“These league tables would also restrict the ability of forces to focus on local issues, because chief officers would be chasing targets which were judged on criteria set in Whitehall. If, despite these warnings, this is pursued it will fail, and it will be damaging.”

In 2007, when targets were introduced by the previous government, the Federation successfully pressed for them to be scrapped after they led to “ludicrous” decisions.