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New Police Leadership Review: The Usual Suspects?

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The College of Policing have set up a new formal “Commission” to comprehensively review police leadership at all levels. Having the support of the Home Office, it aims to “assess current leadership capabilities, and identify the gaps and challenges facing the service now and in the future”.

In this free blog and deep-dive podcast, I explore how this commission started, who the key players are, what recommendations may be forthcoming when the commission reports in May 2026, learning from the history of other relevant reviews, and other useful context on police leadership. I’ve embedded the podcast below for you (please consider subscribing to support such free content), read on for more information and highlights…

Summary of the Commission, TOR and Key Players

Let’s start with general information about the review itself. Firstly, why have the College set up this new leadership commission?

In summary, the review aims to implement “strong and effective leadership at all levels”. The Commission will conduct a comprehensive review of leadership, so policing can meet public expectations while effectively respond to ongoing challenges.

They want to improve police leadership and management to support the government’s Plan for Change, such as adding 13,000 neighbourhood officers, halving knife crime, and tackling violence against women and girls. They say better leadership is required to address declining public confidence, rising digital crime, systemic discrimination, poor retention and wellbeing, budget pressures, and cultural challenges.

Here’s the Chair, the Rt Hon Lord Blunkett PC articulately setting the scene for this review in a short video:

David Blunkett introduces College of Policing’s Leadership Commission

When will the Commission take place?

It has already started and the Commission already well established and support team in place, albeit we only heard about it last week. The ambitious timescale started in October 2025 and will report its findings and recommendations in May 2026.

What is the scope and terms of reference for the review?

This is not just for police officers, but civilian staff too. The aim is to improve leadership as Lord Blunkett says to “take on the challenges of tomorrow”.

Here’s the three key objectives for the Commission:

  1. Assess how leadership skills and capability are currently embedded across the whole policing sector and where gaps remain.
  2. Identify the barriers to delivering – and ensuring – ongoing, effective and consistent leadership standards, development, progression and performance across the service.
  3. Recommend and prioritise solutions that enable leadership reform and culture change. This includes ways to embed consistent leadership standards and ongoing training and development as the foundation of operational capability, frontline performance, wellbeing, improved productivity and a positive culture.

In short, over the next six months the Commission will assess current leadership across all levels. Identify gaps to progression and recommend improvements that support long term reform and culture change.

Who is on the Commission?

There’s an extensive appointed panel of familiar politicians, experts and senior stakeholders from within and outside policing. The current list of Commission members and a quick pen picture of each is as follows:

The College of Policing are clearly heavily represented. They’re not just as the ones initiating this review and with four current or former board members on the Commission. College staff are also functioning as the Commission’s ‘secretariat’, i.e. running all the research, engagement, events, etc. and writing everything up.

While clearly not an ‘independent’ review, some might observe these are the ‘usual suspects’. The Commission is mostly formed from and by the establishment figureheads heavily tied to the same political machinery that shaped the culture they are now trying to fix.

But there are also power houses of solid police leadership among the commission’s list too, who have a track record of strong leadership improvements. For example, regular readers will know I’m a fan of Bill Bratton, from who there’s much to learn. And the military leadership perspective is interesting too (as I discuss more in the podcast), no doubt adding great value.

Frontline police leaders are notably absent from the Commission itself. It does however promise to “engage with wider representation from across policing and beyond, at different levels, across different forces and between different disciplines.”

What are the anticipated outcomes?

A report will be produced in May 2026 detailing the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the Commission. This report will:

A Case of ‘The Usual Suspects’?

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

In terms of “addressing the role of the College”, they have been responsible for leadership training since 2012. In February 2022, a fundamental review (self-inspection) of the College found the organisation was perceived as too remote from frontline services and of insufficient utility to officers.

“There is concern about our usefulness to all in policing, whether those on the front line or in senior roles, police staff or policy makers, those overseeing the police or those in government” – College of Policing:

As a reminder, the key findings and areas for improvement included:

So the question here is, do the College have the fundamental credibility to pull off such a Commission now? Will the recommendations be taken seriously by all levels of leadership in policing?

Absence of the Front Line… Again?

The 2025 Oscar Kilo National Police Wellbeing Survey (and a myriad of other surveys and evidence) expose a massive disconnect between frontline officers and staff and senior police leaders. And if SIPP is anything to go by, many officers will only discover after the fact they were “consulted” on these changes.

By excluding frontline voices from the top table of this national commission about police leadership “at all levels”, does this once in a generation opportunity risk repeating the very disconnect that has contributed to declining morale, operational inconsistency and public mistrust?

The Federated ranks bear the brunt of public-facing work and operational leadership. Their exclusion here seems to stem from a top down, efficiency focused mindset, prioritising ‘strategic expertise’ over granular operational input and experience. The commission arguably reflects an ‘elite’ bias common in UK public sector reviews. This may undermine the future adoption of any recommendations made.

“When you do change, can you do it with us? Because we actually do know our jobs.” – (Lee Freeman KPM discussing change)

Whilst headlines shout “The Culture Must Change”, you build culture by talking to frontline staff, listening and caring.

Record levels of officers are now leaving policing, including those in leadership roles. Few if any have had an opportunity for meaningful exit interviews and if they had, no one knows what happens to their feedback. Does an opportunity exist to recover some of it from recent leavers to inform this commission?

Here’s some example replies and constructive comments I’ve collated from the College of Policing’s announcements on social media. Clearly, many more contributions are out there for the Commission to harvest.

It would be remiss to overlook wider perspectives from those working in policing or learning from past reviews. For example, will the Commission acknowledge what ‘went wrong’ since the last College review of leadership in 2015 (and it’s 2018 progress report)? That review’s aim and recommendations were also geared to “delivering the very best leadership at all levels”. Will it be brave enough to start rebuilding from there?

Of note for example is that much of the rationale for the commission overlaps with the 2015 Police Leadership Review (embedded below). VUCA challenges, development, diversity, culture, national standards and consistency between forces are all mentioned there.

2015 CoP Leadership ReviewDownload

Ultimately, will this Commission truly provide a case for meaningful reform, or will it be used as a tool for reputation management and endorsement of existing schemes?

Promotion Processes: Experience and Operational Credibility

“The role of leaders in policing has never been under closer scrutiny, but not all those in command roles can point to a wealth of experience in operational leadership.” – Martin Gallagher

One article I recently enjoyed reading and which is entirely relevant in light of the announcement of this police leadership commission is: ‘Commanding issues: Leaders need experience, achievement and ability, not just a desire for the top job’. This was published in 2023 by former police Scotland Superintendent Martin Gallagher.

It’s certainly worthy of incorporating into any meaningful review, especially given the lack of applicants and competition for the top police leadership jobs. These roles have recently attracted fewer applicants, with a high proportion of appointments being made from within the same force, often from the Deputy Chief Constable posts.

Here’s a flavour from Martin’s article:

“An unfortunately growing number of senior officers have very little tangible successful operational experience, particularly at street level, and use networks and politicking to get on.”

“Personally, I’ve encountered officers who didn’t command operational cops (uniform or detective) on the street from the day they were promoted to sergeant until they arrived in division as a superintendent ‘for experience’. How a service can think this is in any way appropriate is beyond me. The inevitable staff mismanagement then flowed.”

“So, how did we get here? Bureaucratisation that created back room empires within policing to service legislation that has been imposed on the service over the last two decades is one factor, where such individuals can thrive in a non-operational realm without doing any real policing. The next? Competency based promotion systems, where ‘me, me, me’ is the mantra and systems are gamed for individuals to self-promote beyond their abilities with little objective assessment from those in command positions. Finally, ‘schemes’, be they direct entry or accelerated promotion. Call them what you will, but they reward ‘driven’ individuals who (we were told) were not very good cops, but would shine as senior officers. Of course, most don’t, for if you can’t know how to conduct policing operations on the street, you sure aren’t going to be able to direct them when they are managing a city.”

Martin’s article delivers further left and right hooks along with uppercuts and knockout observations borne from his own career in policing, leadership roles, academic work and more lately as an author.

A dose of realism worthy of food for thought and consideration by those leading with compassion, and certainly within with the draft terms of reference for this leadership Commission. Interestingly, in supporting aspiring promotion candidates across all forces, I’ve noticed of late some forces (e.g. West Midlands Police) are beginning to recognise and focus on the requirement for operational experience in promotion processes. While still assessed against the CVF, this emphasises ‘operational credibility’ for supporting evidence or examples offered in promotion applications, presentations and interviews.

What Does the Future of Police Leadership Hold?

Whatever your views or involvement on this Leadership Commission, I hope you’ve found this blog helpful. If you’re aspiring to promotion, I recommend you take a look at the results come May 2026 (I’ll certainly be providing a summary, as I’ve done with other important reports!).

Whilst the title of this blog is tongue-in-cheek, I’m optimistic. No doubt some fresh faces of the Commission will bring fresh perspectives, there’s clearly an impetus to improve, and given this is a big change people are aware of, there will be plenty of “stakeholders” holding the College’s feet to the fire to improve.

Listen to my podcast for more thoughts on this topic, including predictions of what the Commission’s recommendations might be (both optimistic and pessimistic!), a discussion of the military perspective, learning from existing reviews/reports, the involvement of academia (including where it adds value), along with highlights of recent impactive research like “I’m Ruined Now” by Susannah Hickie or Fiona Meechan’s thesis on policing and compassion.

If you find this completely free police leadership and promotion content helpful, please consider becoming a podcast subscriber to help keep content flowing in 2026.

Below are the key related articles/resources mentioned and podcast notes for further reading, for the Commission to take note of too. See also my free PESTLE tool for a strategic summary of key challenges facing policing, plus my AI blogs on the future here.

Kind Regards, Steve

Don’t leave your promotion to chance. Get instant access to proven resources like my Digital Promotion Toolkit and Police Promotion Masterclass and start preparing like a pro today. For tailored guidance, get in touch or listen to my extensive Police Promotion Podcast for powerful leadership tips.

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