News Analysis - Defeat for attempted regionalisation of Britain's police forces
WORKERS, JULY 2006 ISSUE
Government attempts to reduce 43 area police forces into 17 large regions have been put on hold. In the face of hostility from senior police officers, police authorities, councils, and local people in referendums, Home Secretary John Reid had to announce the climbdown after a "confidential" report leaked to the Daily Telegraph exposed the costs of mergers.
The report, written by Tim Brain, Chief Constable of Gloucestershire and chairman of the finance and resource committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), said that the mergers could cost as much as £600 million and 25,000 officers' jobs, and "destroy any realistic hope of developing neighbourhood policing".
United
The entire police establishment appears to have united against the home secretary. At the end of June, the Association of Police Authorities and ACPO protested to the Lords that Reid was trying to "take more and more powers" to impose central government control over policing. The Police and Justice Bill was an attack on the British tradition of the police having local accountability, they said.
Peers proceeded to approve an amendment to the 1996 Police Act to give police authorities the right to veto future amalgamations.
These events follow an extraordinary period of open revolt by some Chief Constables over the home secretary's plans to merge their area forces. His only argument is that there is a need to "meet the new challenges of the 21st century", and larger units would be more effective in fighting terrorism. The police cannot see how this could be, when locally police know their areas so well and larger forces would not.
The government's real reason is the drive to regionalise everything that moves. The EU wants a "Europe of Regions" (forget nations with their silly old traditional ways of organising) with all regions run along similar lines throughout in an EU-wide police force. Reorganisation of the fire service is already being pushed through on this model, against all logic and arguments by fire services that they will become less, not more, effective when local expertise is dissipated.
Extra cash
Police force leaders were originally offered extra money if they agreed to merge forces by 23rd December 2005. A major problem arose for Reid – they didn't.
Only Lancashire and Cumbria police forces have so far agreed to the changes. Sussex police strongly resisted the attempt to merge them with Surrey, saying "we have . . . declined the Home Secretary's invitation to volunteer for the merger". Gloucestershire pointed out that the proposal to create a South West Region was illogical: "parts of north Gloucestershire are nearer to Carlisle than they are to Cornwall". They are keen to cooperate with Wiltshire and Dorset, but oppose a merger. Dyfed-Powys Chief Constable Terry Grange said Reid's plan was "Alice Through the Looking Glass stuff".
Midlands
The attempt to create a gigantic police service by merging West Midlands, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and West Mercia was stymied when West Mercia Chief Constable Paul West appeared on TV to condemn the Home Office proposals.
Such open opposition by serving senior police officers is almost unprecedented. For now, it has achieved a breather, with Reid announcing the reorganisation will be put off until autumn at the earliest. No doubt it will be back in some form, but at present Reid has been seen off.