Home Secretary backs HMIC on strategic forces restructuring

Chief constables from across England and Wales were due to meet Home Secretary Charles Clarke this week to discuss plans for the restructuring of police forces in the wake of the HMIC’s Closing the Gap report, which describes the current 43-force structure as ‘no longer fit for purpose’.

The report, published last Friday, was written by former Surrey Chief Constable Denis O’Connor, and takes up many of the issues highlighted by his previous report, Mind the (Level 2) Gap.

It calls for a move from the existing structure to one of ‘strategic forces’, with the merging of smaller forces and regrouping of others to reach ‘critical mass’ in the provision of ‘protective services to tackle issues such as terrorism and extremism, serious organised and cross border crime, civil contingencies and emergency planning, and critical incident management.

While the report acknowledges that this is the most radical option and could be ‘perceived by some to be the most disruptive’, the Home Secretary confirmed on Monday that the strategic forces option would be the ‘second step change’ of police reforms, following on from the launch of neighbourhood policing, and called on police chiefs to contribute to the debate.

Mr Clarke said: “It is clear that policing needs to change if it is to meet the challenges of the modern world. We’ve already made the first step change with reforms which are putting neighbourhood policing at the heart of every community. By 2008 every citizen will have officers who are dedicated to policing their streets.

“On the basis of this structure we need to bring into effect the second step change – providing an effective police force above the local basic command unit level to provide support for every locality and to deal with serious and sophisticated crime.

The modern threats we face today from terrorism, international drug and people traffickers and financial crime gangs need police forces which have the resources and capabilities to match the criminals.

“As the HMIC report indicates, currently, some forces are simply too small to meet these challenges. We need strategic forces able to address them effectively and to provide the support which localities need. Doing things 43 different ways no longer works and the implication of the HMIC report, which I accept, is that inevitably we will have fewer forces in the future. But with local account-ability for tackling crime delivered by neighbourhood policing, bigger, more strategic constabularies will mean we will have forces ready and equipped for policing in the 21st century.

“I am now asking the leadership of every police force in the country to respond to the challenges set out by the HMIC report and make their proposals for the best way to create this new strategic framework. I am confident that the challenge will be met professionally and speedily.”

While Closing the Gap does not identify individual forces which should be merged, the findings in the report have triggered speculation in the media and among commentators over which forces could potentially find themselves swallowed up in a larger structure.

While the report describes the results of a national assessment of police organisational fitness as ‘stark’, with very few forces fully meeting the required standard, it also notes that larger forces are ‘likely to have much greater capability and resilience’ compared to smaller forces which, in many cases, ‘find it hard to provide the services to an acceptable standard’.

Although there were some exceptions, the report states: “Forces with over 4,000 officers, or 6,000 staff, tended to meet the standard across the seven protective services measured, in that they demonstrated good reactive capability with a clear measure of proactive capacity.

“Forces below that size tended to fall someway short of the standard, with, in general, the smallest forces faring the least well.”

Those findings have prompted suggestions in the media that those forces with fewer than 2,000 officers are most likely to be merged. Ongoing collaboration