Region's police forces move forward with merger plans

ELEMENTS of Yorkshire’s four police forces could be merged early next year if managers can demonstrate the move would make financial sense.

Detailed plans will be complete before Christmas to explain how arrangements would work for one vehicle fleet covering the whole region, a procurement or buying department for all four forces and a new deal for scientific support services, the back-up used by police in a wide range of investigations.

Officers responsible for drawing up the proposals have been set the target of reducing costs in those areas by 25 per cent over the next four years.

Their plans will be considered before the end of the year and would need agreement from the four chief constables and four police authorities before progressing.

But if that approval is met, work to introduce the changes could start early in the New Year.

Those areas were identified as potential “quick win” projects, where significant savings could be available and where changes could be made quickly.

There are also other areas which are being examined for the possibility of joint working and preliminary plans are also being prepared to test the viability of those proposals.

That could eventually mean specialist crime units, IT, human resources and finance departments being merged.

Because those departments are much larger and more complex, any moves to merge them would likely to be done over a much longer timescale, however.

The idea of merging some elements of police work in Yorkshire emerged after the last Government announced a plan to reduce the number of forces nationally. That would have meant one force for Yorkshire and although the idea was later dropped, early preparation work alerted senior officers that the move would have brought some advantages.

A direct result was the establishment of a roads policing team, which has been regarded as a huge success.

It has officers from all four forces and they operate across the region, targeting criminals who use the road network to travel between different force areas.

A temporary deputy chief constable, Mark Whyman, was appointed earlier this year to oversee regional policing arrangements for a year but that contract has now been extended until November next year.

That will give the four forces, and their political bosses on the police authorities, more time to decide how to advance the regional aspect of their work.