Calls grow for single police force in England and Wales following £299m budget cut

Savage police cuts will force bosses in England and Wales to follow Scotland’s lead and form a national constabulary, it has been claimed.

From April, police forces will be clobbered with a £299m budget cut in the latest round of savings demands.

But the colossal blow comes at a time the thin blue line is already stretched to the maximum. There are already nearly 37,000 fewer police officers and civilian staff than five years ago and more reductions will be made to meet targets.

Last week a shock poll of police officers revealed claims there were no longer enough officers to keep the public safe.

It included stark testimony from officers experiencing six-month delays investigating rapes and having as few as five officers on night shifts to cover as many as 250,000 people.

Now policing experts have claimed the ongoing severity of the cuts means the 43 forces in England and Wales will be forced to merge into a national force.

Mick Gradwell, who retired as a detective superintendent with Lancashire police in 2009, sees one national force or large regional forces, as the best solution.

“Because of the reduction in numbers, some of the forces are becoming very small and it would be more effective to have one control room for an area, one HR, one finance department, one police headquarters,” he said. “The bottom line is in this day and age 43 forces in England and Wales is inefficient in terms of finance, co-ordination, intelligence gathering and partnership working.

“You’d reduce down with centralised issues like communications rooms, fleet purchase, uniform purchase and you get away from these false boundaries that Lancashire stops at the border of Manchester and Manchester stops at the borders with Cheshire, because they’ve got their own different intelligence systems and ways of doing things.”

Last week nearly 500 officers responded to a survey, backed by the Police Federation, which asked for examples of how budget cuts affected their work.

The findings paint a damning picture of policing on the brink.

Mike Tonge, a former chief constable at Gwent Police who now lectures at the University of Cumbria, agrees it will not be long before a national police force will be under serious consideration. He said: “When I was a chief constable, we were bringing in local neighbourhood teams and that was a major investment but all of that is coming under pressure now.

“The Government is not going to talk about it now but after the election, if the health and education budgets are going to be maintained, they will have to look at what’s viable. The national police model and merging will come back on the agenda by necessity.”

While the formation of a national police force in Scotland has saved millions of pounds in back office operations and management, it has also been dogged by claims of a lack of local accountability since its formation in April 2013.

The bodies representing serving officers agree some level of merger is needed, but have stopped short of calling for a national force.

Steve White, chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: “The Police Federation has been saying for years that efficiency in the service may be improved with a smaller number of forces.

“The structure, borne of the 1960s and 1970s, is no longer fit for purpose. Mergers could aid procurement and provide forces with greater flexibility.Forces are doing their best to protect frontline services but we are now unable to provide the level of service the public wants with the level of resources we have.”

The Association of Chief Police Officers said the current model of policing, designed in 1962, is outdated. A spokesman for the body said: “The force boundaries we have are invisible to criminals and terrorists and meaningless to the victims and citizens we are charged with protecting.

“For many years we have supported a considered review of the current force structure so that the police are able to effectively tackle the threats we face today and in the future.

“While there has been increased collaboration between forces, this will never be as efficient or consistent as amalgamation.”

Policing minister Mike Penning said: “Police reform is working. Crime has fallen more than a fifth under this Govern-ment, according to the independent Crime Survey for England and Wales.

“The case for compulsory police force mergers fell apart in 2006 after public opposition and the estimated half a billion pounds transition costs.

“The Government is already conducting a fundamental review of the way funding is allocated between force areas. This work is ongoing but we will consult with police forces and others in due course.”

‘There just aren’t enough of us to cope’

Concerned officers across the country were asked to fill in an anonymous questionnaire which asked them to cite examples of when cuts had affected their work. Nearly 500 officers responded to the questionnaire and their testimony provides a worrying glimpse of the state of policing in England and Wales. The responses from the rank-and-file officers revealed last week make for stark reading.

“Our main priority is now servicing 999 calls. We spend no time on responses, on actually targeting criminals, we are just responding to calls.”

“Not enough police cars to go around. Most officers seen out on foot are doing this because they have lost the scramble for the car keys.”

“As back-office staff are reduced, the work they did has not diminished. It is now officers who are having to complete the bureaucracy.”

“As a detective, many of the rape cases take some time to investigate. I am dealing with some cases which are in excess of six months old. Due to lack of trained staff we have problems getting video interviews conducted.”

“Incidents such as attempted rapes would have previously been investigated by crime departments. These are now routinely being allocated to uniformed 24/7 officers who don’t have the time to ensure a quality investigation is carried out, unless they are taken off response duties.”

“Having to decide which rape will be investigated today and which one we will investigate tomorrow as there was not enough staff to do both.”

“Police officer assaults are more frequent as all officers are now single-crewed.”

“Due to lack of frontline officers, we are regularly being single-crewed and sent to violent incidents, putting our personal safety in jeopardy. Also, due to lack of officers, there have been lack of resources to assist when officers have called for emergency assistance.”

“Unarmed officers having to attend armed incidents because armed officers are too far away.”

“We have serious crimes waiting to be allocated but there aren’t enough people to allocate the work to, as officers are inundated.”

“On nights we have only six officers, five sometimes, to cover a population of a quarter of a million.”

“There just aren’t enough of us to cope.”

“Burglary victim has waited three days for a visit.”