What does the pledge mean?

The British model of policing asserts that the power of the police to execute their duties depends on the common consent of the public, a concept known as “policing by consent”. For policing by consent to be effective, the police require the trust and confidence of the public.

However, the proportion of people who consider that the police are doing a good or excellent job has been on a downward trend in recent years, with the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) tracking a fall from 62% in 2017 to 51% in 2023.

High profile events, such as the murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens, an officer with the Metropolitan Police, are likely to have contributed to this trend. The force itself said that as a result of this case: “All officers must and will now expect to work harder to gain the confidence of the public.”

Confidence levels may vary depending on ethnicity, gender and other factors, such as whether the person in question has been a victim of crime. Confidence levels may also vary between the 43 police forces in England and Wales.

Various surveys provide information about public confidence in the police. For example the CSEW examines confidence levels in local forces, and the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) carries out an annual survey. There’s also a more frequent measure in the monthly YouGov survey, which gives a percentage of members of the public who believe the police are doing a good job.

However we don’t know what measure the government intends to use to monitor progress under this pledge, which means we also can’t say how much improvement is needed for confidence to reach its “highest levels” (which we assume means its highest-ever level). We asked the Home Office about this in October 2024, and followed up in November 2024 and March 2025.

We also don’t know what timescale applies to the pledge—ie, by when the government hopes to have increased confidence to the “highest levels”.

Although the government has not said so explicitly, it is likely that this pledge is intended to apply only to England and Wales. That’s because policing is devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland, so any initiatives introduced to boost levels of confidence in England and Wales may not be applied elsewhere.

What progress has been made?

On 19 November 2024, the then home secretary Yvette Cooper announced a series of reforms to policing, centred around the launch of a new government unit aimed at improving performance and keeping the streets safe.

According to the Home Office, the unit will use national data to monitor performance and direct improvements “to ensure communities can have confidence in their local police force”.

Ms Cooper said: “We have a huge opportunity ahead of us to reset the relationship between government and the police, to regain the trust and support of the people we all serve and to reinvigorate the best of British policing. Strong and consistent performance is critical to commanding public confidence.”

On 10 March 2025, Ms Cooper said that the Crime and Policing Bill, which is currently being considered by Parliament, would support efforts to “rebuild confidence in policing and the criminal justice system by tackling the local crimes that most undermine our communities”.

While the Crime and Policing Bill provided no additional detail about how confidence will be measured, the government’s Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee’s (NPG) performance framework, which was published in May 2025, suggests confidence in the police will be measured using the CSEW.

The document states “public trust and confidence in the police” is a “headline measure” that “tells us if the commitments and desired outcomes of the NPG are being achieved”, and that this measure will be tracked publicly.

The government’s framework also says a “dashboard” will be available “later in 2025” which will “include functionality to focus in on the NPG measures”.

Of the various available measures of confidence, neither the CSEW nor the IOPC survey yet provide data for the period since Labour was elected in July 2024.

The monthly YouGov survey (which covers England, Wales and Scotland) at about the time of the last election shows that the proportion of members of the public who believed the police were doing a good job was 47%. As of 24 August 2025, it stood at 48%. However, this figure remains substantially lower than the scores of above 70% seen in 2019 and 2020.

On 29 August 2025, responding to a Freedom of Information request, the Home Office told Full Fact that it would “publish a White Paper on policing reform later this year, setting out plans to deliver a number of key objectives that were set out in the Government's Safer Streets Mission, including raising confidence in policing, and to monitor progress against those objectives”.