Home Secretary praises police at Superintendents’ Conference
Good police leadership is vital in delivering the government’s radical policing reforms, the Home Secretary told a police conference today.
Speaking at the annual Superintendents’ Conference on Tuesday (10 September), the Home Secretary praised officers for helping to cut crime throughout the course of this parliament.
But she said effective leadership, increased transparency and better accountability would all be crucial in ensuring the government’s police reforms continue to drive down crime.
Cutting crime
She told the superintendents:
As leaders, you are expected to have extremely high standards of integrity. Your responsibility to be truthful, ethical and effective – as leaders, police officers, and as human beings – underlies all of what you do.
You cannot hope to retain the confidence of the public unless you are, and are recognised as being, honest and effective crime-fighters. Increasing transparency and accountability are critical to our reforms.
The Home Secretary set out the benefits of the reforms the government has introduced, including elected police and crime commissioners and the College of Policing. She said she was determined to carry on cutting away the red tape that keeps officers behind desks instead of out on the streets.
She also called on superintendents to ensure their officers use the crime-fighting potential of stop and search efficiently and effectively to avoid damaging community relations.
The Home Secretary then went on to promise further modernisation to ease unnecessary burdens on police officers by improving IT services and ensuring that police officers are not called upon to deal with people suffering mental health difficulties when medical attention was more appropriate.