Forces move to strategic alliance

Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire police forces have agreed to move ahead with plans to collaborate fully on operational and organisational support functions.

The Strategic Alliance, agreed this week, will enable the three forces to develop business cases to collaborate fully on functions including finance, fleet, estates and facilities, legal services, human resources, training, ICT, firearms licensing, public contact centres, control rooms, custody and crime recording.

The collaboration is expected to help address the financial and operational challenges faced by the forces, maximise the return to the taxpayer and protect the delivery of frontline policing, particularly local neighbourhood teams.

Meanwhile, local policing, including incident response and neighbourhood policing, will continue to be delivered by the individual forces, thereby enabling the priorities of each commissioner’s police and crime plans to be met.

Bedfordshire police and crime commissioner Olly Martins said: “The Strategic Alliance is looking at ways in which we can share services between the three forces to significantly improve the service we deliver to the public while freeing up valuable resources to help protect frontline policing in Bedfordshire for the future.

“The three forces already have a track record of successful collaboration in areas such as roads policing, armed response, major crime and forensics. I am confident this programme, which represents an important aspect of our work to meet the challenges of the austerity measures, will build on that success.”

Bedfordshire Police chief constable, Colette Paul, added: “We have already proved that collaboration between the three forces can be successfully achieved. This programme will help us to protect frontline policing while achieving better value for money services for the public.”