‘Revolutionary shift’ in policing

The move was welcomed by Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner Olly Martins who said: “This is a huge leap forward for us and represents a revolutionary shift in joint public sector working.

“It will help us optimise all our resources so that we’re in a much better position financially and operationally to fight crime and protect our frontline services.”

Police and crime commissioners and chief constables have signed up to a Memorandum of Understanding and will collaborate on issues such as finance, human resurces, training and custody and crime recording. It was recognised that not all services were suitable for sharing.

Local policing, including incident response and neighbourhood policing, will continue to be the responsibilty of individual forces.

Chief constable Colette Paul said: “For me this is about protecting local frontline policing.

“We still have further savings to make and I want to make those savinsg by working together with our neighbouring forces to reduce the cost of organisational and operational support.

“We already know this works but I don’t underestimate the impact on my staff who will be going through even more change.

“This will give us the chance to transform our service.”