Police chief praise for inspirational volunteers two decades of improving policing

Award winning Montell Neufville, one of Britain’s best known police ethics advisors and scrutiny panel chairs, marks the year 2025 as being 20 years of dedicated service in improving policing practices and community relations having first began as a trainer in 2005. This year 2025 marks 20 years where his innovative approaches and unwavering commitment have earned him an unenviable reputation amongst many within policing, at the same time receiving numerous policing awards for positively influencing law enforcement.

Deputy Chief Constable Dan Vajzovic said “Montell has done so much to help policing improve in Bedfordshire and his influence is felt much wider than just our county. His connection with policing as a volunteer for two decades is both diverse and highly valued. During the time he has been supporting us he has been instrumental in providing advice and also more recently scrutinising our activity in terms of stop and search, use of force and our own internal investigations. He is an ambassador for policing and facilitates many opportunities for us to better engage with a wide range of members of our community especially through his innovative approach to youth engagement.”

Long term involvement

Mr Neufville has been involved in the recruitment of over 150 police officers including chief constables, delivered training sessions to more than 2,000 officers over the two decades as well as hundreds of workshop on stop and search, community policing and use of force to young people and community members, recruited many people into police governance and supported the professional standards department with advice and guidance.

As the former chair of Bedfordshire's community scrutiny panel and current chair of the JPS scrutiny panel which covers the armed police, roads police and dogs units across Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire police, Mr Neufville has spearheaded numerous initiatives that have become UK best practices.

Bringing about change within policing is challenging

Montell Neufville said; “Bringing about change in policing is a challenging, often slow task. One person cannot do this on their own. First you have to have knowledge of how policing works, then you have to have policy knowledge and third you have to have the right contacts at different rank levels. Change in policing requires determination, being stubborn, relentless, persistent and persuasive.

National Impact and recognition.

Mr Neufville's expertise has been recognised nationally, with his advice and guidance endorsed by the College of Policing and adopted by forces across the country. His commitment to fair and effective policing continues to shape policies and practices, ensuring a more just and equitable law enforcement system for all.

Achievements;

Over the twenty year period Montell has implemented several innovative best practices in his role as a police ethics advisor and scrutiny panel chair. This includes;

• Helping his local police force in achieving the highest percentage of reasonable grounds for police use of stop and search powers.
• Introduced a traffic light system for grading officer performance during stop and search encounters. This system uses red, amber, and green ratings to assess both the legal and policy requirements and the manner and tone of officers interacting with the public. This led to Bedfordshire being rated the best in the country at using reasonable grounds.
• Provided advice for the IOPC (independent Office of Police Conduct) learning reports for policing. His advice has featured heavily in their Stop and Search Learning report and their recently launched discrimination guidance issued in November 2024.
• Created a system where "red" gradings in officer assessments are escalated to the Professional Standards Department for investigation, ensuring swift action on serious concerns.
• Developed a Discrimination Assessment Framework used by police Professional Standards Departments to ensure equality and fairness in their decision making.
• Developed and Implemented the PLANTER framework for community scrutiny panels, which has been endorsed by the College of Policing.PLANTER stands for:
• Proportionate
• Length of time force is used
• Actions warranting force
• Necessary use of force
• Type of force used
• Ethical
• Reasonable

Assembled a diverse pool of panel members, representing various demographics and experiencesUnder Mr Neufville's leadership, The Bedfordshire's scrutiny panel achieved a significant milestone by becoming widely recognised as the most successful community scrutiny panel in the country.

Thanks to officers and people within policing

Montell acknowledges it hasn’t all been one way. He added “I have learned so much from so many people within policing at every rank level. What I teach people and the strategies I implement and advise is often from colleagues and friends who I have met along the way, some have now retired, some new but many are still in force doing every job from frontline to specialist and including senior officers. They have all contributed to my own learning and development so thank you to all of you”.

Innovation in practice.

These innovative practices have contributed to Bedfordshire's scrutiny panel being recognised as one of the most successful in the country. He added. Something which might seem simple such as assembling the most diverse panel in the country took years to achieve as it meant changing long-standing police practices. The problems were;

1) The age limit was 18, I had to challenge this and managed to get the age limit reduced to 16 years.

2) There was a lack of diverse people involved as many didn’t want to give their emails to the police or receive emails from the police due to negative associations, in addition the police wanted to put through vetting any panel member who got involved. The solution here was to have an independent panel working in partnership with the police responsible for its own recruitment and engagement.

3) The police did the training, which meant they were not always keen to show what happens when some officers crossed the line. The solution here was to train people myself from an impartial objective viewpoint.

There is more to be done

Montell added “I always say there is more to be done, and sometimes things take a long while to see the benefits. However with a range of skills including perseverance, passion and resilience achieving change within policing is possible.”

The work Montell has been doing within policing over the two decades highlights the positive impact made on both the communities he serves and the police forces and other policing bodies such as the IOPC he has worked with, emphasising his role in building trust, improving transparency, and enhancing police accountability.