Back-door merger fears after police opt for cross-border detective squad

Police papers reveal the four forces – West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, North Yorkshire and Humberside – plan to spend more than 6.4m between them on regional policing next year, rising to 7.5m by 2012-13.

The forces have already pooled resources to provide a regional intelligence unit, an asset recovery team and a roads policing team, which in 16 months has seized more than 5m in cash, property, drugs and weapons from criminals.

But Yorkshire's four chief constables will today reveal plans for a new "regional crime unit", made up of 21 surveillance-trained detectives and assisted by a "confidential unit" with links to counter-terrorism officers, the Serious and Organised Crime Agency and HM Revenue and Customs.

A "people protection unit" to keep witnesses safe is also proposed in the reports, which reveal there are 200 organised crime groups operating in the region.

Councillors in Yorkshire will study the plans only two days after MPs on the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee concluded police forces may have to consider merging to save money and maintain front-line officer numbers.

Selby Labour MP John Grogan, who opposed plans to merge the Yorkshire forces in 2005, said he would be writing to North Yorkshire Police Authority to find out "precisely what is being proposed, and what they think is acceptable and what isn't".

He said some police members and some civil servants supported mergers "so it's not surprising that this policy is dusted down every five years or so".

Mr Grogan said it would be very difficult for one force to be responsive to incidents in all the different areas in Yorkshire.

The papers also show Yorkshire's new deputy chief constable Mark Whyman will get 165,000 next year even though he was the only person to apply for the job overseeing cross-border regional policing.

He said the new units were ordered by the Home Office and had nothing to do with a merger.