My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jacqui Smith) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

In July 2008 I was privileged to be able to announce that the British Crime Survey had shown that the police service, working with its partners, had achieved an 18 per cent reduction in crime over the past three years. On the same day, I published From the Neighbourhood to the National, the Government’s policing Green Paper, which set out a radical new vision for policing in the 21st century.

The Green Paper set out proposals for the Home Office to take a much more strategic role in policing by moving to a single top-down numerical target for police forces in England and Wales, with the removal of all others set for forces by central government. This target focuses every force on whether they have the public’s confidence that they are identifying and addressing the crime and ASB issues that matter most to their local diverse communities. In addition, building on the reviews of Sir Ronnie Flanagan and Louise Casey, we outlined proposals for reducing bureaucracy and introducing a new policing pledge so that police officers could focus on the public’s priorities and provide an accessible, transparent and consistent service that meets public needs and expectations.

It is in this context that I am today putting forward my strategic priorities to the police service for 2009-10. Under the provisions of the Police Reform Act 2002 I am required each year to set out strategic policing priorities (SPPs) for the police service; these provide the national framework within which police authorities then set their local policing plans. This year I have moved away from prioritising specific crimes and I emphasise the strategic context in which local accountability and planning should be undertaken so that forces tackle the issues that matter most locally and get best value for money for the public from the resources devoted to policing.

The move to a new approach has been highlighted in a number of national strategies (such as the National Community Safety Plan 2008-11, Cutting Crime: A New Partnership 2008-11 and the National Security Strategy, as well as the PSA cross-government priorities for 2008-11, especially PSA23, PSA24, PSA25 and PSA26). In addition, a set of local priorities will underpin the new policing pledge, which will also set out a common national entitlement for what people can expect from the police. It should be emphasised that neither the pledge nor these national strategies contain additional specific top-down numerical targets for forces and are intended to support forces and authorities in responding to the local priorities that are agreed with local people.

Forces will work collaboratively with local partners (including through crime and disorder reduction partnerships and community safety partnerships) to meet shared local objectives. In England this includes those objectives that are agreed through local strategic partnerships within local area agreements.

I have laid great emphasis on the need to focus on local priorities in the Green Paper but, as its title, From the Neighbourhood to the National, suggests, it also delivers an equally vital message on the importance of delivering the national priorities. I have set out a vision that sees policing delivering a high-quality service to the public at all levels, from the local to the regional and on to the national.

For serious and organised crime, I believe that there is a continuous line stretching between these levels. This means that forces need a continuum of effective policing in response, which relies on effective collaboration and co-ordination among relevant partners. That means, in turn, forces and authorities working outside and across individual force boundaries.

Our expectation is that forces and authorities will work in the interests of regions and the country and to collaborate to achieve improvements. Collaboration takes various forms, from tackling serious and cross-border crime to the development of the national counterterrorism network in bringing together intelligence, investigative and operational activity against the terrorist threat. This relies heavily on confidence in policing. The success of a key component of our counterterrorism strategy—“Prevent”—depends, in part, on the confidence that local communities have in their police service.

There must be a priority on the cohesive view of all aspects of policing, through building confidence in the service and leading to a more effective police service at all levels. There is little benefit in increasing public confidence through local policing and ignoring protective services. These may be services with less of a public face and more uncertain demand, but they have the potential to impact heavily on public confidence if they fall short.

The Green Paper emphasises that greater collaboration across the police service is essential to mitigate this risk and to realise the necessary improvements in protective services. The same emphasis should apply for specialist crimes.

In summary, the SPPs for 2009-10 are to:

continue to increase public confidence in the police through tackling local priorities; also to reduce and prevent crime and anti-social behaviour and help to tackle the problems caused by drug and alcohol misuse, in line with PSA23 and PSA25, and in a co-ordinated approach with other CJS partners to deliver an effective criminal justice response in line with PSA24;

work jointly with police forces and other agencies, such as SOCA and UKBA, to ensure that the capability and capacity exists across England and Wales to deliver effective protective services, including tackling serious and organised crime;

work with and through partners and local communities to tackle terrorism and violent extremism in line with the counterterrorism strategy (CONTEST) and PSA26; and

work in all of the above, in line with the efficiency and productivity strategy for the police service, to ensure the best use of resources to deliver significant cashable improvements and more effective deployment of the workforce; and to realise benefits of new technology.