The Policing White Paper opens its case for reform with a trajectory, not a crisis point – and that is what makes it worth taking seriously.
- Trust in the police has fallen from 80% in 2015/16 to 71% in 2024/25
- Confidence in local police has fallen from 79% to 67% over the same period (HM Government, 2026: para. 34)
- Victim satisfaction has nearly halved, from 41% “very satisfied” in 2015/16 to 23% in 2024/25
- Dissatisfaction has risen from 28% to 49% (HM Government, 2026: para. 36).
The most striking figure, though, is about place rather than time. In 2024/25, the proportion of people who thought their local force was doing a good or excellent job ranged from 39% to 62% depending on where in England and Wales they lived (HM Government, 2026: para. 37). The White Paper calls this what it is: “an unacceptable level of variation in standards” — the public receiving a fundamentally different quality of service depending on their postcode (HM Government, 2026: para. 37).
It is tempting to treat that variation as a resourcing or leadership problem, force by force. But read alongside the rest of the White Paper, the more precise diagnosis is a Learning problem: 43 forces developing, testing and embedding improvement independently, with no consistent mechanism for one force’s Lessons to reach another, and no shared standard for what “good” Organisational Learning looks like in the first place. Inconsistent standards are, in large part, a downstream symptom of inconsistent Learning infrastructure.
This is the argument that ties the other five points in this series together, and it is the right one to lead or close on. National priorities, national data standards, responsible AI, cultural reform, individual licensing – every structural fix in the White Paper is, in the end, in service of closing that 39%-to-62% gap.
ISARR’s OLLM platform exists to make Organisational Learning structured, consistent and comparable across an organisation and across partner agencies, rather than dependent on the initiative of an individual station, watch or force.
Consistency of public experience cannot be legislated directly; it has to be built, force by force, from consistency in how each force learns. That is the case for starting now, rather than waiting for a national standard to arrive.
Find out more about ISARR’s ever-evolving Organisational Learning and Lessons Management platform at: https://isarr.com/organisational-learning/
Other articles in this series may be accessed below as they are published:
Ending Fragmented Priorities
43 to 1: Why Data Consolidation in Lessons Management Can’t Wait for a National Standard
Why Responsible AI Adoption Starts with Structured Lessons Data
Why National Standards Begin with Local Learning Discipline
Licence to Practise: Evidencing Individual Development Alongside Organisational Learning
References
HM Government (2026) From Local to National: A New Model for Policing, CP 1489. London: Home Office, paras. 34, 36–37.
