Debate about the wholesale reorganisation of policing in England and Wales has returned once again. Proposals to reduce the current 43 forces to a much smaller number are being represented as a response to persistent pressures: stretched resources, uneven performance, growing complexity, and a widespread sense that the system is struggling to cope. At the same time, the College of Policing has announced a review of police leadership, which has now begun to hear evidence. The coincidence of these developments is significant.

In this paper authors Adrian James and Carol Cox of the Liverpool Centre of Advanced Policing Studies, at Liverpool John Moores University, argue that these issues raise a more fundamental question than organisational structure alone: how is strain currently governed in policing, and what kind of leadership is required to manage it?