Policing enters a new era: technology at the heart of reform

Policing in England and Wales is undergoing its most significant reform in almost 200 years. The Government has unveiled its new white paper From Local to National: A New Model for Policing, which sets out a sweeping transformation designed to rebuild trust, modernise police forces, and equip officers for a world where crime is evolving at unprecedented speed.

At its core, the message is simple: local policing should protect communities, and national policing should protect the country. These changes aim to close the gap between what the public needs and what policing currently delivers.

1. Better policing for local communities

The plan aims to strengthen local policing by deploying 13,000 additional neighbourhood officers, cutting bureaucracy, and modernising outdated laws. AI tools will be introduced to automate manual tasks, allowing police officers to focus on local issues.

Governance will change by replacing Police and Crime Commissioners by 2028 with elected mayors or local Policing and Crime Boards, aligning policing more closely with local government for better coordination and service.

2. A stronger policing system. Creation of a National Policing Service.

The proposals recommend replacing the 43-force model with fewer, more efficient forces and Local Policing Areas (LPA) to ensure consistent service. This change is intended to allocate more resources to frontline policing, while keeping local operations responsive to community needs and defining performance targets for responding to calls for service. The details of the ‘end state’ of force reorganisation will not be reported until the summer of 2026 and an inevitable amount of bid and counter bid for structure may be anticipated.

A new National Police Service (NPS) would bring together bodies such as the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC), the College of Policing, the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) to provide unified strategic leadership and stronger national standards, particularly in technology, data, training and professional practice. The interdependencies of the forthcoming Fraud Strategy and how the organisation of policing response to economic crime, may be better defined after publication of that strategy.

A significant amount of detail will need to be forthcoming around the actual structure and leadership of the National Policing Service as its headline functionality suggests pulling together already complex organisations which have varying degrees of dependency with existing police forces and ROCU (Regional Organised Crime Unit).

The NPS would centralise procurement of technology and equipment, accelerate the development and rollout of new tech tools, deliver a national forensics service, and enhance intelligence and technology‑sharing to better combat terrorism and organised crime. Intentions to reduce bureaucracy and ‘buy once’ for an entire service as opposed to the current 43-force market represents both an opportunity but a situation where previously acknowledged issues of vendor lock in and SME exclusion will need to be considered.

Previous announcements with references of a National Centre of Policing or NCOP seem to have been dropped and the responsibilities for procurement now lying within the broad powers of the NPS. A review of police structures and funding would support the transition to this more modern, tech‑enabled policing system.

3. Consistently high standards

The Government plans to boost policing standards nationwide by improving data use through a new Police Performance Framework. This framework will collect reliable, standardised data to spot trends early and support evidence-based decisions, ensuring consistent service levels and targeted performance measures across all locations.

Policing will improve through unified performance data that enables quick detection and intervention for poor results. Turnaround teams will aid underperforming forces, while enhanced powers for oversight bodies will increase accountability.

The role of the National Data Integration and Exploitation Service is outlined as being key to driving consistency and standards.

4. Modern capabilities

Technology and efficient use of data is a core thread throughout the white paper document. The importance of breaking down ‘data silos’ and data sharing between forces in standardisation of national datasets, effective centralised leadership and tackling the legal and technical barriers to data sharing where appropriate reflects an acceptance that modern crime is both borderless and digital.

Policing will be modernised through major investment in data and technology. A new National Centre for AI in Policing (Police.AI), backed by £115 million, will test, evaluate and scale AI tools to speed up investigations, reduce admin work, and improve services for victims.

Forces will also receive 40 new Live Facial Recognition (LFR) vans to identify dangerous offenders in high crime areas. The white paper refers to a national strategy for the deployment of Live Facial Recognition, and this must be intrinsically linked to the current Home Office consultation period on this topic due to close on 12 February.

Modern technology will link and analyse data across systems in seconds, helping spot patterns of offending and enabling a next generation national intelligence service. The proposal to deliver an integrated crime mapping system will provide support visibility of crime types and patterns across a future structurally altered landscape.

The government will also strengthen efforts to combat online crime, fraud and cyber‑enabled threats through a new Fraud Strategy, due to be published next month.

The overall ambition is to reform policing to meet modern threats, ensuring that the police service can deliver effectively in the 21st century.

This white paper presents a bold, systemic overhaul of policing. Its success will depend on cultural change, technological transformation and effective collaboration between national bodies, frontline officers and the supplier industry.

techUK and the Justice and Emergency Services (JES) Programme are dedicated to enhancing collaboration between members and public sector stakeholders within the policing sector. The Policing Reform white paper will serve as a central focus area for the JES programme during its implementation.

If you would like to find out more about the work of the JES Programme on the Policing Reform white paper, please contact the team below.

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