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divdiv class=story-body readability=44 span class=story-date#13; span class=date23 November 2013/span#13;span class=time-textLast updated at /spanspan class=time21:14 ET/span#13; #13;/span#13;#13; #13;#13;#13; #13; #13; #13; #13; p class=introduction id=story_continues_1Neighbourhood policing is under threat in England and Wales as police retreat to a discredited reactive approach, a report is to say./p#13; pThe Independent Police Commission will say local policing - the building block of fair and effective policing - is disappearing and must be saved./p#13; pThe commission, which will publish its report on Monday, was set up by Labour in 2011 under former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens./p#13; pIt will make a list of recommendations./p#13; pThe report will say bobbies on the beat are disappearing and neighbourhood policing must be saved./p#13; pAccording to the commission, figures from the House of Commons Library show there were 10,000 fewer frontline officers in England and Wales in 2013 than in 2010 - a drop of 8.3%./p#13; span class=cross-head'Beating a retreat'/span#13; pLord Stevens, the Met Commissioner who introduced neighbourhood policing into London, said every local area should be given a guaranteed level of neighbourhood policing./p#13; pa href=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10470439/Put-bobbies-back-on-the-beat-says-ex-Scotland-Yard-chief.htmlWriting in the Sunday Telegraph/a, Lord Stevens warned that officers were beating a retreat from the beat./p#13; pIn the course of our two-year independent commission on the future of policing, we have seen that neighbourhood policing is under threat and the police are at risk of retreating into a discredited reactive model, he wrote./p#13; pThe commission is clear that neighbourhood policing is the bedrock on which the service must be built. /p#13; pLord Stevens also condemned the government's police reform programme as confused, fragmented and unfocused./p#13; #13; pThe report will call for a set of national minimum standards of police service which everyone should be entitled to receive and which police forces must deliver./p#13; pThe neighbourhood remains the key building block of fair and effective policing and it is vital that visible, locally responsive policing is protected in times of fiscal constraint, it will say./p#13; pThe report will recommend that the law should be changed to make clear that the purpose of policing is to promote public safety and community wellbeing, thereby preventing crime as well as reacting to crime./p#13; pAccording to the commission, this was achieved in the legislation creating a single national police force for Scotland./p#13; pThe report will call for stronger links between the police and other organisations, including giving neighbourhoods and councils more say over local police priorities./p#13; pIt will also recommend:/p#13; ulli Electronic submission of case files to courts and prosecutors/li#13; li Mobile access to intelligence, including the Police National Computer/li#13; li Cybercrime experts to be recruited directly into police forces/li#13; li Restrictions on the use of private companies such as G4S and Serco for policing functions/li#13; /ulspan class=cross-head'Non-political'/span#13; pLabour announced the review at its 2011 party conference, saying it was time for a serious vision. /p#13; pCrossbench peer Lord Stevens stressed the commission, which included police figures, academics and judges, would be non-political./p#13; pNick Herbert, then the policing minister, said Labour's decision to establish an inquiry was an abdication of any kind of political leadership and the government had a coherent package of reforms./p#13; pThe overall structure of the police service was last examined by a royal commission in 1962./p#13; pLord Stevens was the head of the Metropolitan Police between 2000 and 2005./p#13; /div/divbrbrcentera href=http://www.wizardrss.comPowered By WizardRSS.com/a | a href=http://www.wizardrss.comFull Text RSS Feed/a | a href=http://www.amazon.com/RFID-Blocking-Cards-Identity-Protector/dp/B00CJHZLEWRFID/a | a href=http://www.wpzonbuilder.comAmazon Affiliate/a/center