On breaking up the Metropolitan Police and localism

Yesterday I left the following comment on F211:

As for of the future of the Met, I'd suggest putting all the Specialist Operations (royal protection, counter terrorism, etc) under the national crime agency, and breaking up the rest into separate forces for each of London's 32 boroughs.

It looks like I'm not the only one to suggest this: Is it time to break up the Met?

It would involve a structural overhaul of policing in London, to create a new service with a fresh identity, ethos and mission, focused on the capital, and a separate body responsible for national counter-terrorism and security.

To expand on my comment from yesterday, one of my guiding principles is that individuals are the best equipped to make decisions about their lives, so power should be exercised at the lowest level possible and flow up from the bottom, not from the top. Additionally, it is easier to hold officials to account locally and has more influence when there are fewer voices clamoring for their attention.

One of the main problems in Britain over the past century has been the growing centralization of everything, combining small local organizations into fewer larger groupings has reduced accountability and led to administrative bloat.

Therefore I would like to reverse this trend with a real localist agenda, developing most governmental functions at the county or borough level.

Returning to the topic of the met, it has over 40,000 staff covering a population of over 8 million people. Each borough has a population of between 150-400,000, equivalent to a small city so a good case could be made for splitting Frontline policing and Operations into a separate force for each bough. A topic for debate would be whether each force should have its own PCC, or if the control should rest with the bough council as elsewhere. 

The Specialist Operations should be split off and come under the remit of the NCA, while support services should be either split up or run jointly.

Finally, and this is an idea for a nationwide rollout, the Japanese Koban (police box) concept should be looked into for increasing police presence in town centers and building links with the local community.


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