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To:
Chief Constables
Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs)
Deputy Mayors for Policing and Crime

Cc:
Sir Andy Cooke QPM DL, His Majesty鈥檚 Chief inspector of Constabulary
Sir Andy Marsh QPM, Chief Executive Officer, College of Policing

10 April 2025

Dear all,

Today the Prime Minister has made an announcement to the public on what the commitments made in December鈥檚 Plan for Change will mean to communities across England and Wales. These measures will make a considerable difference to the service communities receive from their neighbourhood policing teams. They will ensure consistency across England and Wales so that everyone receives a first-class service in their area, reversing the damaging cutbacks in neighbourhood policing seen in recent years.聽聽

This progress would not have been possible without collaboration between the Home Office, National Police Chiefs鈥� Council (NPCC), His Majesty鈥檚 Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) and the College of Policing. I extend my sincere appreciation to all those who have worked to help refine and shape this so far. Collaborative working will be a fundamental element of the work moving forward and I am delighted that a new NPCC delivery team is being appointed, under the leadership of DCC Catherine Akehurst to provide an effective link between the programme and forces, representing views, championing change and driving programme design and delivery.

This letter outlines the foundations of the programme which we will build upon over the next four years, and we will set out our vision for neighbourhood policing in full in an upcoming white paper on wider police system reform.

Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee聽

The Government is committed to a strong neighbourhood offering to everyone in England and Wales, no matter where they live. We have worked closely with the NPCC and other sector leads to develop the following Guarantee for the public:聽

By July:

• Every community will have named, and contactable, officers dedicated to tackling the issues facing their communities.
• Guaranteed response times to neighbourhood queries from communities and businesses of 72 hours. There will be a clear process in place for the public to seek recourse if this response time is not met.
• Local communities and businesses will also have ongoing opportunities to engage with neighbourhood teams and raise local concerns and priorities through regular local beat meetings.
• Information about your neighbourhood policing teams local priorities and how local communities and businesses can feed into them will be displayed online and kept up to date.
• Every force will have an ASB lead, who will be starting to develop an ASB action plan addressing the local issues faced in communities and town centres.
• Forces will have increased patrols in town centres and other hotspots based on local demand and intelligence, tackling key local issues such as anti-social behaviour, shop theft and vandalism and giving the enhanced visibility and presence that our high streets have been crying out for.聽聽
• 3,000 more officers, PCSOs and special constables by 31 March 2026 providing a visible and engaging police presence, building relationships with local communities and working together to problem solve.
• Started the national roll out of the College of Policing鈥檚 Neighbourhood Policing Pathway, providing specialist training to police officers and PCSOs, with the first part of this training being launched in June.
• Every force will ensure that neighbourhood teams spend the majority of their time in their communities providing visible patrols and engaging with local communities and businesses.

By the end of Parliament (2029):

• 13,000 additional police officers, PCSOs and special constables in neighbourhood policing roles across England and Wales.聽 Neighbourhood policing areas will consist of a team of officers and PCSOs dedicated to covering that area.
• We will have worked with forces to define and implement neighbourhood areas to ensure they are a size聽that makes sense locally and are recognisable to local communities.聽We will expect neighbourhoods to be linked to council wards, but we will work with police forces and local councils to define and implement neighbourhood areas that make sense locally, are recognisable to local communities and workable for forces.
• Neighbourhood policing performance framework with published online metrics of police performance enabling the public to hold their force to account, including on abstraction rates, visible police presence and town centre crimes solved.
• Specialised and effective neighbourhood officers - every neighbourhood police officer and PCSO to complete enhanced additional training under the Neighbourhood Policing pathway, covering themes such as community engagement, problem solving and tackling ASB.
• New national standards in place so that neighbourhood officers are not routinely abstracted to other areas, ensuring they are protected to be present and visible.
• New public contact approaches, adopting new technology to facilitate more interactive engagement between neighbourhood officers and communities.
• Neighbourhood team patrolling in every local area

As an immediate next step, I will separately write to all PCCs across England and Wales, copied to Chief Constables and local authority Chief Executives, asking them to use the new focus on neighbourhood policing to maximise available funding, existing initiatives and powers and to work closely with local partners and Government.聽This is to deliver coordinated action to tackle rising town centre crime and on shop theft, street theft and anti-social behaviour this summer.

As we move into the delivery phase of the Guarantee, the Government will work closely with all Chief Constables across England and Wales to ensure the successful implementation of the commitments.

Commencing delivery of the 13,000 and plans for growth in 25/26

I would like to thank all those who have assisted in correcting police workforce data for March 2024 which will provide the public with an accurate picture of how many officers and PCSOs are working in neighbourhood policing so that we can clearly demonstrate national growth in neighbourhood policing numbers.聽聽Reliable data is vital to the success of the Guarantee, and it is important that robust systems are in place to stop further errors in capturing accurate numbers of neighbourhood police officers and PCSOs.聽聽

Yesterday we published details on how many neighbourhood police officers, specials and PCSOs each force will be putting into their neighbourhood teams by the end of March 2026 as they use their share of the 拢200m funding boost. It is vital that your plans are delivered. This can be accessed here: /government/publications/neighbourhood-policing-grant-allocations-and-projections-2025-to-2026

To access funding, police forces must demonstrate progress against their agreed delivery plan. Alongside quarterly financial reporting, forces will also be required to provide monthly monitoring information. This data will be used to track progress against delivery profiles and support quarterly grant payments made in arrears, based on financial actuals.

Performance framework聽聽

Attached to this letter is the final Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee performance framework that reflects feedback from 41 forces and four cross-sector working groups. The Performance Framework will play an important role in measuring the success of the Neighbourhood Policing Programme and ensuring the investment in neighbourhood policing provides the public with tangible change that they can feel in their communities.聽 Alongside the framework we are developing a dashboard which will be available for sector use from July and will be available to the public later in 2025.

The Performance Framework uses a tiered approach to tracking performance:聽

• Headline measures are the key measures that have been announced and the Home Office will commit to tracking them publicly. The measures will tell us if the commitments and desired outcomes of the NPG are being achieved and direct the public where they can expect to see progress.

• Contextual measures which will be monitored internally. These measures give us confidence we are working towards the outcomes that will help to achieve the NPG.

The APCC will also produce a supportive scrutiny tool to underpin the role of PCCs and Deputy Mayors in the oversight of the delivery of the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee by local forces. This will include suggested scrutiny questions that PCCs may wish to use in their existing holding to account exercises to aid assurance that their force is working to meet the commitments set out by the Prime Minister and the expectations communicated to their local communities.

I hope that you will join me in welcoming these important first steps, to restore public confidence in policing and to deliver a safer country for all. I look forward to continuing to work with you as we implement and deliver the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee.

Yours sincerely,
Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP
Home Secretary