Could there ever be a merged Yorkshire and Humber force?

MERGING police forces across England and Wales will save the service money and reduce the number of chief officers across a larger force area, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.

February 2016 marks 10 years since the Labour Government tried to unsuccessfully introduce force mergers to the country.

Could there ever be a merged Yorkshire and Humber force featuring the four existing forces?

Back in 2005/6 the Government’s merger plans could have seen the number of forces cut from 43 to as few as 17 regional forces.

The high initial costs of mergers – even though money would have been saved in the long term – put forces and police authorities off.

“I’m all in favour of merging forces and I think it’s a national Police Federation point of view as well,” said Neil Bowles, Chairman of South Yorkshire Police Federation.

“You will save costs of vast amounts of bureaucracy, of management and senior officers if we merge forces. Why do we need four PCCs, four Chief Constables, four deputy Chiefs, ten ACCs, finance directors and HR directors? We could have just one of each of those.

“I am in favour as long as there’s something in place to maintain local policing and a local decision making process, because people in Doncaster want to be policed by people who know Doncaster, not necessarily the Police Commissioner of Yorkshire and The Humber.”

Does Mr Bowles think this will ever happen? “Obviously they’re thinking of it down in West Mercia and Warwickshire, they’re doing more and more together and they’re almost merged. Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire also. I’m sure it’s on the cards, it’s just the Government aren’t providing any incentive to do it.”

In 2006, The Government said it would invest £125m towards the merger costs but once that was spent, extra money would need to be found locally – with fears going ahead would raise the cost of council tax.

Speaking last year, HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary Tom Winsor said: “It is for Parliament to redraw the policing map”.

But HMIC did say: “The time is now right for a constructive debate in relation to how policing should be reformed” and, in its words, “the way the Police Service is organised and funded.”

At the Superintendents’ Association conference in September 2015, Home Secretary Theresa May said: “I have always said that if forces come to me with a coherent and comprehensive plan to merge forces at local level with local support, I would consider it. That invitation remains open.

But “that the success of collaboration locally shows that big, top-down restructure is simply not needed.”

She added: “Top-down restructures in policing do not generate the savings they promise. It can cause unnecessary complexity that distracts from the day to day business of fighting crime.

“And in the process, the most precious element of our system of policing by consent – local accountability – can be lost. Instead, we must go further to drive deeper collaboration, better sharing of back office services and a more intelligent approach to where police capabilities sit to generate savings without the loss of local accountability and identity.”