The service isn't good enough. The morale needs a reset.
Across England and Wales, an institution entrusted with public safety has arrived at a moment of reckoning. A landmark report co-authored by two former ministers from opposing parties concludes that police leadership has failed — not in isolated pockets, but systemically — with no force earning an outstanding rating, nearly a third falling short, and eight chief constables under disciplinary scrutiny. The diagnosis is not merely operational but moral: a service that has lost its ethical bearings must now find the will to rebuild them.
- Not one of England and Wales's 43 police forces earned an 'outstanding' leadership rating in the most recent inspection cycle — a collective failure that is difficult to dismiss as coincidence.
- Eight current or former chief constables are under disciplinary proceedings or awaiting outcomes, concentrating misconduct at the very top of an institution meant to model accountability.
- Officers describe a service paralysed by risk-aversion, buried in bureaucracy, and drained of the morale needed to meet evolving threats or government targets.
- The report calls for root-and-branch modernisation of recruitment, development, and oversight — a comprehensive reset aimed at restoring both internal culture and fractured public trust.
- A charged political backdrop complicates the path forward, with debates over 'two-tier policing' threatening to pull reform efforts into culture-war territory rather than substantive change.
A sweeping review of policing in England and Wales, co-authored by Lord Blunkett and Lord Herbert — former ministers from Labour and the Conservatives respectively — has delivered a damning verdict: the service is fundamentally broken. In the most recent inspection cycle, not one of the country's 43 forces earned an outstanding rating for leadership. Nearly a third were marked as needing improvement, and two were deemed inadequate entirely.
The rot runs deepest at the top. Eight chief constables are currently under disciplinary proceedings or awaiting their results — a concentration of misconduct that the report treats as systemic rather than incidental. Blunkett, speaking ahead of publication, was direct: the service is not good enough, and the morale of those within it requires a genuine ethical reset. The report recommends wholesale modernisation of how officers are recruited, developed, and held to account.
Beneath the leadership failures lies a culture of paralysis. Officers describe themselves as demotivated, working within structures so risk-averse and bureaucratically burdened that effective policing becomes difficult. Public trust, already fragile, has continued to erode — and the institution is aware of it.
The report also navigates contested political ground. Claims of 'two-tier policing' — the suggestion that ethnic minorities receive preferential treatment — have circulated among some politicians, most prominently Nigel Farage. Blunkett's response is measured: the pendulum has swung from the overt institutional racism identified by the 1999 Macpherson report to accusations of overcorrection, and neither extreme serves the public. The police, he insists, must not take sides in culture wars — their job is simply to deliver.
The recommendations are now on record. Whether a stretched and demoralised service can absorb and act on them is the question that follows.
A sweeping review of police leadership across England and Wales has concluded that the service is fundamentally broken. The report, set to be published Monday and co-authored by Lord Blunkett, the former Labour home secretary, and Lord Herbert, a former Conservative policing minister, finds that forces across the country are plagued by weak leadership, collapsing morale, and a crisis of ethical standards that demands wholesale change.
The findings are stark. In the most recent inspection cycle, not a single one of England and Wales's 43 police forces earned an "outstanding" rating for leadership. Nearly a third were marked as needing improvement. Two were deemed inadequate. The numbers alone suggest an institution in distress, but the report goes deeper, identifying what Blunkett calls a "very large number" of senior officers either under investigation or facing disciplinary action. Eight current or former chief constables—out of 43 forces—are either under disciplinary proceedings or awaiting their results. That concentration of misconduct at the highest levels points to something systemic, not incidental.
Blunkett, speaking to the BBC ahead of the report's release, did not mince words. "The service isn't good enough," he said. "The morale and motivation of many of those working in the service needs a reset." That reset, he argued, must be ethical in nature. The report will recommend a "root and branch modernisation" of how officers are recruited, developed, and held accountable—a comprehensive overhaul designed to restore both the institution's integrity and public confidence in it.
The challenges the report identifies are layered. Resources are scarce. Bureaucracy is suffocating. Officers describe themselves as demotivated, working under leadership cultures that are risk-averse to the point of paralysis. The College of Policing, which commissioned the review, framed it as necessary to help forces respond to evolving threats and meet government targets. But the real driver is simpler: public trust in policing has eroded, and the institution knows it.
The report also wades into a more contentious terrain. In recent months, some politicians, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, have invoked the phrase "two-tier policing" to suggest that officers treat people of different ethnicities unequally—specifically, that ethnic minorities receive preferential treatment. Farage connected this claim to the police's handling of the death of Henry Nowak, a teenager who was arrested as he lay dying, after his killer falsely accused him of racism. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer rejected the framing outright, accusing Farage of exploiting tragedy to sow division.
Blunkett's position is more nuanced. He acknowledges a perception problem. The pendulum, he suggests, has swung from one extreme to another—from the 1999 Macpherson report's findings of outright racism in the Metropolitan Police to contemporary accusations that policing has become "woke." The report makes clear there is no room for either extreme, nor for culture wars of any kind. "It isn't the job of the police in our country to take sides of any sort," Blunkett said. "It's the job of the police to deliver."
What comes next is implementation. The report will land Monday with recommendations for systemic change. Whether police forces, already stretched thin, can absorb and act on those recommendations remains an open question. But the diagnosis is now on the record: the institution that is supposed to enforce the law has lost its way, and restoring it will require more than incremental adjustment.
Notable Quotes
At the moment, the service isn't good enough. The morale and motivation of many of those working in the service needs a reset.— Lord Blunkett
It isn't the job of the police in our country to take sides of any sort. It's the job of the police to deliver.— Lord Blunkett
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
When you say the leadership needs an "ethical reset," what does that actually mean in practice?
It means the culture at the top has to change. Right now, you have eight chief constables out of 43 facing disciplinary action or investigation. That's not a few bad apples—that's a pattern. Officers below them are watching that and losing faith in the system itself.
But the report also addresses this "two-tier policing" debate. How does that fit into the ethical problem?
It's about perception and overcorrection. After Macpherson in 1999, there was a necessary reckoning with racism in policing. But now some people are swinging the other way, saying any attention to fairness is "woke." The report says neither extreme is acceptable. Police can't take sides. They have to serve everyone equally.
So the ethical reset isn't about ideology—it's about neutrality?
Exactly. It's about restoring the basic principle that police exist to enforce the law fairly, not to win culture wars or prove a point. When leadership is compromised or under investigation, that principle collapses.
The report mentions resource scarcity and excessive paperwork. Are those symptoms or causes?
Both. Poor leadership exacerbates those problems. When officers are demotivated and working under risk-averse cultures, bureaucracy becomes a way to avoid accountability rather than a tool for it. Better leadership could streamline that.
What does "root and branch modernisation" actually require?
Changes to how officers are recruited, how they're developed, how they're monitored. It's not a quick fix. It's saying the entire pipeline—from who gets hired to how they're promoted to how they're held accountable—needs to be rebuilt.