GMP is proposing to make public order training for officers mandatory. The move comes as the region regularly hosts major sporting events, political conferences and sees demonstrations, both peaceful and volatile, on its streets.
There is also the simmering potential for unrest as inflation remains high, the economy struggles, industrial action is taken and threatened and energy bills are set to increase massively, plunging more into poverty.
The force is already required to police home games at Manchester City and United, which can bring a large influx of away fans into the city centre, especially for European matches. In recent years there have also been major marches and demonstrations. These include Black Lives Matter protests following the death of unarmed black man George Floyd in the US., a cost of living protest in February; and consecutive weekends of people gathering in Piccadilly Gardens to show solidarity with Ukraine in the war with Russia.
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Hundreds of people have also taken to the city centre's streets in recent years to demonstrate against Covid restrictions and vaccinations, plus Greater Manchester Clean Air Zone plans. Manchester has hosted political party conferences, for both Labour and the Conservatives - a major policing operation.
Chief Superintendent Mark Dexter, Head of GMP’s Specialist Operations Unit, said: “Though the force already has a sufficient number of public order-trained officers, consideration is being given to training more front line officers in public order tactics to enhance our capability to keep people safe at the many events we police both locally and nationally. The Police Federation will be consulted and any changes made in line with legislation.”
The Manchester Evening News understands GMP is considering making public order training mandatory for all officers - something which some other forces already do.
The force will want to make sure they are ready to deal with any large scale disturbances too, like that of August 9, 2011. Between 5pm and 4am the following morning, police were called to more than 700 incidents in Manchester and Salford alone, most of them incidents of shops being looted.
A total of 900 officers were on the streets that night, with support having to be drafted in from ten other forces from as far afield as Scotland. Twenty officers were injured.
Fire crews were called to 351 incidents – including 155 fires – and had to withdraw from six due to violence directed at them. The disorder left Manchester and Salford badly scarred. Last August the Labour Party accused the Government of failing to tackle the conditions which led to the eruption of violence on streets across the country back in the summer of 2011.
They claimed the risk of a repeat is “higher than ever” as young people are left “invisible” to children’s services. A report released by Labour to coincide with the anniversary of the riots found that the number of “forgotten families” where many of the young people involved came from was likely to have doubled in the past decade.
'Social inequalities have grown wider since riots'
The unrest began on August 6, 2011 following the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan by police in Tottenham two days previously. What started as a protest against his killing turned into a full-scale riot that spread to 66 other areas across the country over five days.
Businesses and vehicles were set ablaze and mass looting took place during the rioting, which involved around 15,000 people. At the time, five people died and the damage left the country with an estimated bill of around half a billion pounds.
An interim report from an independent review panel in November 2011 said there were more than 5,000 crimes committed, 1,860 incidents of arson and criminal damage, 1,649 burglaries, 141 incidents of disorder and 366 incidents of violence against the person.
But last year Labour said the Government had since implemented only 11 of the 63 recommendations made by the panel in its final report in March 2012.
The Riots, Communities and Victims Panel, which reported on the causes of the riots in 2012, found at the time that there were 500,000 so-called “forgotten families” in need of support but who did not reach the threshold for help due to funding cuts to local authority budgets.
Launching Labour’s report last year looking at progress since the riots, the party’s shadow communities secretary Steve Reed is expected to said: “The deep social inequalities have grown wider after a decade of cuts to vital services that support struggling families and a rise in poverty.”
The report recognised that there had been improvements in bringing down the number of young people not in education, employment or training and that ministers had made progress in bringing services to work more closely together. But it said there had been a 70% cut in funding to youth services, in-work poverty and inability to access early years services had not been improved, and there had been no change to the youth re-offending rate between 2011 and 2021.
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