Police reform and what it means for private security

By Russell Dean, Director of Operations, Bidvest Noonan

Over recent days I’ve been reflecting on the major policing reforms announced by the Home Office, and discussing them with colleagues across our business. Having spent over eight years as a police officer with British Transport Police before moving into the private security and facilities management sector more than a decade ago, I’ve watched policing from both perspectives. I’ve read through the White Paper the Home Office published, which runs to over 100 pages, and I believe these reforms represent one of the most significant structural changes to UK policing in my professional lifetime.

On 26 January 2026, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood unveiled a comprehensive White Paper setting out what she described as “the most significant modernisation” of UK policing “in nearly 200 years”. For those of us in the private security and facilities management sector, these reforms will have significant implications for how we work alongside policing. In particular, I believe they may create greater opportunities in areas like risk assessment and intelligence services, where specialist expertise will remain in demand.

The White Paper, From Local to National: A New Model for Policing, represents a fundamental restructuring of how policing is organised and delivered across England and Wales. At its heart are two complementary ambitions: strengthening neighbourhood policing while creating new national capabilities to tackle serious and organised crime, counter-terrorism, and fraud.

The government is establishing a National Police Service (NPS) which will, over time, assume responsibility for all national policing functions. This new force will handle counter-terrorism, serious and organised crime, fraud, and crucially, will deliver “police digital, data and technology infrastructure in a coherent and strategic manner at the national level for the first time”. Local forces will continue to operate alongside the NPS, remaining responsible for neighbourhood policing, response, local investigations and safeguarding.

I have seen how a national policing model can operate, the British Transport Police is a true national police force. While BTP’s remit is very specific to the rail network, it demonstrates that national coordination can be effective. The NPS will face different challenges given its broader remit covering counter-terrorism, serious organised crime and fraud.

Alongside this national capability, the government is significantly expanding neighbourhood policing, with a target of 13,000 additional neighbourhood officers by the end of the Parliament. The White Paper notes that “policing has become too distant from local communities,” with the percentage of people reporting they never see police on foot patrol rising from 25 per cent in 2010/11 to 54 per cent in 2024/25.

The third pillar of reform is technological transformation. The government is investing £115 million over three years in artificial intelligence and automation, creating a new National Centre for AI in Policing called Police.AI. This will focus on “using AI to catch more wanted criminals, speed up investigations, improve the experience of victims and witnesses and make the police more productive”.

What strikes me most is the scale of investment in biometric and AI capabilities. The government is committing over £37 million to facial recognition technology alone, including 40 new Live Facial Recognition (LFR) vans to be deployed in town centres and high crime areas across England and Wales. Currently, only 10 such vans exist across all 43 forces. That’s a significant expansion.

The White Paper emphasises that “criminals are increasingly using the power of AI to perpetrate harm,” noting that advances in AI enable offenders to create deepfakes, find victims, and scale up operations. The government’s response is to ensure policing can match and exceed criminal technological capability.

Police.AI will serve three core functions: building and testing AI models for policing use, enabling forces to adopt AI effectively, and providing public-facing communications including “a registry of the AI tools the police are using and the steps they’ve taken to test and evaluate them before deployment”.

This transparency and assurance framework is noteworthy. As the White Paper states: “We will create a bespoke legal framework for the use of technologies like facial recognition, to enable safer, more efficient and consistent use of transformative technologies.” A public consultation on this framework was launched last month.

One aspect that strikes me, is what these reforms may mean for corporate security intelligence and information sharing. With police forces focusing resources on crimes that “tear at the fabric of our communities” and the NPS concentrating on national threats, this could create greater opportunities for specialist risk and intelligence capabilities in the private sector.

Organisations will continue to need sophisticated risk analysis, intelligence on criminal trends affecting their operations, and expert guidance on security planning. This type of work sits naturally with facilities management and security firms, and it’s the kind of expertise that former police officers often bring to the private sector.

Effective information and intelligence sharing between police and private security providers is mission-critical. Private security teams are often the first to spot emerging threats, hostile reconnaissance, or early indicators of coordinated activity. Timely, two-way intelligence exchange enables earlier intervention and more proportionate, intelligence-led responses. For organisations such as Bidvest Noonan, which operate nationally, a more unified policing structure could enhance operational efficiency. Currently, navigating multiple forces, each with different systems, contacts and thresholds for information sharing, can slow engagement and create inconsistencies in risk mitigation. A streamlined or centralised national model would simplify access, provide clearer escalation pathways, and support more consistent intelligence exchange, strengthening collective resilience at both national and local levels.

At Bidvest Noonan, we’ve invested significantly in this area over recent years, both in technology and in recruiting personnel with specialist expertise. As police reform continues, I expect demand for these capabilities to grow.

The expansion of neighbourhood policing itself represents a positive development for community safety. The White Paper makes clear that these officers will focus on “crimes that tear at the fabric of our communities, like shoplifting, theft and anti-social behaviour”. With 13,000 additional neighbourhood officers being deployed, there may be opportunities for closer collaboration between public and private security services.

Policing has long benefited from partnership with private security companies in keeping public spaces safe. Private security plays important complementary roles in areas like site security, retail loss prevention, and providing visible presence in commercial environments. These services support broader community safety goals alongside police work, with both sectors contributing distinct capabilities to public protection.

The White Paper acknowledges that “effective prevention goes beyond policing. We need a multi-agency problem solving approach which looks at the drivers of crime and tackles them through the full range of tools and data at our disposal.” This explicitly recognises that private sector partners, including security providers, have an important role in crime prevention.

At Bidvest Noonan, our relationships with police services matter a great deal. These relationships are important for our clients and for community safety. We’ll continue to nurture them as policing evolves, whatever the structure.

Police are also introducing a national workforce strategy for the first time, including a “Licence to Practise” system for officers (to be phased in over time), mandated leadership development at every rank, and new specialist pathways for direct entry of professionals from other sectors. This focus on professional standards, continuous development, and specialist expertise reflects broader expectations around professional services across sectors.

The White Paper sets out an ambitious timeline. Police.AI will “begin delivering from Spring 2026″. The force restructuring review will report in summer 2026. The 40 new facial recognition vans will be deployed across town centres. The NPS will be established and will progressively assume national policing functions.

As Home Secretary Mahmood notes in her foreword: “The volume and nature of crime in this country demands we adopt a new model for policing, ensuring local forces protect their communities, and national policing protects us all.”

Keeping communities and businesses safe has always required partnership between public and private sectors, each contributing distinct expertise and capabilities. As policing modernises with this significant government investment and structural reform, private security will continue to play its complementary role professionally and effectively, supporting the shared goal of safer communities.