Policing Reform at Scale: The Importance of Whole-Systems Change

The recently published 2026 Home Office White Paper From Local to National: A New Model for Policing sets out the most ambitious reform of policing in England and Wales for nearly 200 years. Its diagnosis is clear: policing is currently being asked to confront twenty-first-century crime with a system designed for the mid-twentieth century.  Yet, while the case for change is compelling, delivering sustained change and improvement in public services is complex. Experience shows that structural reform delivers the greatest impact when it is designed as a whole system.

Complexity is the real implementation challenge

Policing is a complex, adaptive system.  Outcomes emerge from the successful interaction of people, process, technology, governance, and standards. The White Paper[1] explicitly rejects “tinker[ing] around the edges” in favour of systemic reform (p. 9). However, many of its proposed levers (targets, standards, and central direction) risk focusing on measures rather than outcome.

The creation of the National Police Service (NPS) alongside a number of Large Regional Forces, and Local Policing Areas (LPAs) illustrates this potential tension.  Consolidating national capabilities, digital platforms and serious crime functions addresses real weaknesses in coordination and duplication (pp. 159-166).  Strategically, this is sound.  Systemically, however, there is a risk that the NPS becomes an organisation that is effective on paper but distant from frontline realities, working in isolation from the regional and local delivery of policing.  In such a complex environment, with such massive reform, it is imperative that every single aspect of the system is considered, designed and managed taking into account the golden thread from the NPS, through the Regional Forces, and into the LPAs.

[1] From Local to National: A New Model for Policing; Home Office; January 2026; https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69779267276692606c013862/260125_White_Paper.pdf

Barriers to smooth and successful implementation

While the proposed reform offers major opportunities, there are several significant risks to manage carefully to support the successful implementation, outlined below.

1. Technology mistaken for transformation

Significant investment in AI, digital forensics and data platforms is essential (pp. 21–23). However, technology does not equal capability. Without treating technology as just one element of a whole system that takes into account people, processes, security, culture, data, and constraints, digital tools risk becoming expensive, unhelpful applications rather than operational and business support enablers.  Solely focusing on technology is a well-trodden path that has frequently led to failed transformation, for example:

• NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT).
• Universal Credit Digital Transformation.
• HMCTS Reform Programme (Early Tranches).
• Home Office e-Borders Programme.

2. Cultural resistance and identity loss

Force mergers, the abolition of PCCs and the creation of a national force alongside updated regional and local policing challenge deeply embedded professional identities rooted in localised policing. Policing culture remains force-centric and ‘place-based’.  If reform is experienced as centralisation rather than enablement, with centralised functions being implemented and embedded without consideration of the broader impact and dependencies, adoption is likely to be resisted. This also includes the risk of overlooking the positive career pathways and professional development opportunities that a more coherent, national to local model could unlock. Failing to highlight and design for these benefits may mean the workforce sees reform as something being done to them rather than for and with them, reducing engagement and limiting the potential for genuine cultural and organisational improvement.

3. Governance overload and blurred accountability

The White Paper seeks to strengthen Home Office leadership while preserving operational independence (pp. 192–193). This balance is not impossible, but it is difficult to achieve.  Layering new boards, performance frameworks, intervention powers and standards risks creating ambiguity over who decides what, and when. Without clarity on decision-making and standard setting, governance may become too complex to be useful, and risk confusion across the system.

4. Change fatigue

Policing has experienced fairly constant, sustained reform, scrutiny and cultural challenge.  Introducing structural change, new performance regimes, cultural reform and new leadership expectations simultaneously risks overwhelming organisational capacity.  Without careful consideration of how to apply the ‘change-on-change’ in a way that takes into account the entire end-to-end system, there is a real risk that change fatigue becomes a blocker to realising real, tangible value from the reform.

Whole-systems thinking as an antidote: our approach

Whole-systems thinking offers a practical approach to mitigating these risks. It ensures reform acts not as a linear programme but as the managed evolution of an entire ecosystem.

Firstly, and most importantly, take into account the bigger picture. When designing the change, the most crucial element is ensuring that every element of the system is taken into account.  This means focusing on understanding the requirements of, and designing to meet the needs of, every aspect of the new Policing System, including the:

• people and culture involved
• processes followed
• activity undertaken
• outcomes required
• metrics used to measure output and outcomes
• technology used
• information and data being handled
• standards and constraints that must be worked within
• way in which national and local entities work together
• dependencies, both internal and external, that impact delivery
• funding mechanisms.

Performance frameworks and metrics must reinforce collaboration and the importance of outcomes, not recording statistics for statistic’s sake, or defensive compliance. Metrics must take into account not only the local context, but also the partnership dependencies (pp.225) that may be out of policing’s control, but that will affect their measures.

Secondly, it is crucial to design from outcomes backwards. Once the full end-to-end system has been identified, the goals outlined in The White Paper – better policing for local communities, safer communities, modernisation, consistency and legitimacy – must remain the anchor for all design and implementation activity.  It is imperative that change is designed to enable realisation of the defined outcomes, and allows measurement against this, rather than the focus shifting to outputs and associated technologies or governance, for example.  These are important elements but should not be the main focus when designing large-scale change.

Thirdly, co-design & implementation of national and local capability is critical. Structures such as the NPS should be designed in conjunction with the Local Policing Areas (LPAs) to ensure that the whole system works coherently, with outcomes, dependencies and strategy aligning, rather than conflicting.  The NPS should function as an enabling platform – setting national standards, providing shared services and specialist capabilities, accelerating innovation and modernising technology – while supporting LPAs to be responsive to local communities (pp. 137) and deliver on their local priorities in line with the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee (pp. 10).  The White Paper’s aspiration for a “one workforce” culture is critical (pp. 175–176).  It is imperative to ensure that the broad, whole-systems approach takes into account the downstream impact of all changes, assessing the full impact of reform and the activity required to achieve it with an end-to-end view across the entire Policing system, at a local and a national level.

Finally, treat cultural change as core infrastructure. Reforming vetting, misconduct and leadership is defined in The White Paper as necessary (pp. 232–233), but it is important to note that successful, organisation-wide large-scale reform is enabled when the culture of that organisation forms a core part of the target state and be treated with the same importance as technology, processes and governance.  Without a consistent, outcome-driven culture that is seen and felt throughout the entire system, across both local and national elements of this new way of policing, the rest of the change will undoubtedly be unable to achieve its intended outcomes.

Key takeaway

The greatest potential risks to this reform are not legislative or structural but rooted in design failures.  There are many examples of where large-scale public-sector reform in the UK has failed when it prioritises structural control over systemic capability.

Implemented mechanistically, the reform changes risk producing a centrally powerful NPS but operationally distant and siloed Regional Forces and LPAs.  Implemented through whole-systems thinking, grounded in outcomes, clarity and well-thought-out design, the potential barriers are mitigated, offering a genuine opportunity to transform policing and empower it to deliver proficiently in the modern climate.

The difference between true reform and failed transformation will lie not in what is created, but in how the entire system is designed to enable it to work in a truly effective way.