What does the pledge mean?

In April 2025 the government introduced its Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee (NPG), as promised in both its 2024 election manifesto and its subsequent Plan for Change, published in December 2024.

The NPG performance framework, published in April 2025, consists of five ‘pillars’ based on the aims set out in the Plan for Change, each of which we’re monitoring separately.

The first pillar, “police back on the beat”, pledged: “A Neighbourhood Policing Team in every local area, carrying out intelligence-led and visible patrols, including in town centres and on high streets. We will hold forces to account for ensuring neighbourhood policing teams are protected, so they remain focussed on serving communities.”

The framework set out two “headline” measures against which progress on this pillar will be publicly monitored:

• Perceived frequency of visible police foot patrols in local areas, as measured by the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW).
• Level of abstraction of police personnel away from neighbourhood policing roles.

The government has said a new national definition of “abstraction” will be agreed in order to measure progress against this latter measure. His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue services (the body that assesses the effectiveness and efficiency of police forces) currently defines it as when neighbourhood police officers are “taken away from their usual work to carry out other duties for their police force”, such as attending training or covering non-neighbourhood roles.

The framework also committed to producing a “dashboard” showing progress on these and other headline measures—we’ve asked the Home Office when this will be live.

What progress has been made?

We’re currently rating this pledge as “in progress” because while neighbourhood policing teams are now in place, it’s too early to measure progress using the metrics set out by the government.

In a press release published in April 2025, the government announced a number of commitments made as part of the NPG that would be in place by July 2025, including that “every neighbourhood in England and Wales will have dedicated teams spending their time on the beat, with guaranteed police patrols in town centres and other hotspot areas at peak times such as Friday and Saturday nights.”

In August 2025, the National Police Chiefs Council said that these commitments had now been achieved. It said: “Every community now has named, and contactable officers dedicated to addressing local issues, with neighbourhood policing teams (NPTs) spending the majority of their time in communities, providing visible patrols, engaging with residents and businesses, and offering regular opportunities for the public to raise concerns through beat meetings.”

The latest Crime Survey for England and Wales data covers the year to September 2025. We don’t expect to have data covering the first year since this pledge was made until the second half of 2026. In the year ending March 2025 approximately 11% of respondents reported high police visibility (seeing police officers or PCSOs on foot patrol in their local area at least once a week).

The government does not appear to have published the second metric (abstraction of personnel away from neighbourhood policing roles) despite aiming to do so before the end of 2025.