Police should be removed from non-policing roles in schools: Liberty

The report, published last month, examines a new Safer Schools Partnership model designed by police and local authority officials in Hackney, and provides recommendations to prioritise the wellbeing of all young people.

Since 2002, some schools have agreed to a ‘Safer Schools Partnership’ where a police officer begins working with that school – sometimes as closely as having their own office within the school.

The report notes: “There is no reliable evidence that having police in schools makes schools safer. However, there is evidence of disproportionality and harm to young people – especially those in over-policed communities.”

In May 2025, the Met Police moved all Safer Schools Officers in London into Neighbourhood Policing Teams where they no longer have a regular presence within schools.

Police and local authority officials in Hackney piloted a new way to operationalise the change to schools policing.

The Hackney model contains three key elements:

1. school-linked officers will no longer have a regular presence in schools and will instead act as ‘tactical advisors’;
2. school-linked officers will use intelligence data to identify and patrol certain routes (‘Safer Corridors’) outside of schools;
3. each primary and secondary school will be given 20 points per school year which they can ‘spend’ on police-led activities in their school.

Liberty analysed the pilot model and the London-wide change via Freedom of Information requests, speaking with professionals in safeguarding, education, policing, and violence reduction, and carrying out interviews with six youth practitioners in Hackney.

The report’s key findings were as follows:

• A lack of funding for mental health provision and youth work means that police step into roles that are unrelated to policing, and other professionals like teachers sometimes do ‘police’ work.
• Some activities that still bring police into schools are evidenced as harmful or ineffective, like when police deliver Personal, Social, Health, and Economics (PSHE) lessons which concern topics like drugs or sexting.
• Police activities in schools could be more effective if police take a supportive rather than leading role, such as if they feed into PSHE lesson design but don’t deliver it themselves.

Making a number of policy recommendations, the report warned that police should not come into contact with young people “unnecessarily”, and that police should be removed from non-policing roles in schools (such as teaching lessons).

It said: “Police forces and schools should take steps to fulfil the aims of Safter School Partnerships while minimising contact between officers and young people, to reduce the unnecessary recording of children’s behaviour as crimes where a criminal justice response is inappropriate.”

The report also recommended police forces to work in partnership with non-statutory youth organisations, and finally, that schools policing must take an “evidence-based approach” that “prioritises the wellbeing of all young people”.

The Department for Education has been approached for comment.

Lottie Winson