14 July 2006
Government plans to amalgamate police forces across England and Wales were left in tatters this week after the only voluntary merger broke down once ministers failed to sanction the requisite council tax increases.
After the collapse of the proposed merger between forces in Lancashire and Cumbria, Tony McNulty, police minister at the Home Office, said that 'the definitive answer' to whether the government would now enforce mergers 'is no'.
Prime Minister Tony Blair told the Commons that mergers were 'not off the agenda', and the Home Office later revealed it would retain the option of enforcing mergers through legislation.
Privately, however, ministers are reluctant to force amalgamations through, leaving the government's plan stymied.
However, discussions with forces 'would be ongoing over the summer [parliamentary] recess,' a Home Office spokeswoman told Public Finance.
Graham Allen, Labour MP for Nottingham North, who had accused the Home Office of failing to consult practitioners adequately, told PF: 'It certainly seems as though there will now be a strategic withdrawal from the initiative by the government. I look forward to a more consensual discussion about police reform.'
The Home Office's plan to merge England and Wales' 43 forces into as few as 17 regional organisations, devised by former Home Secretary Charles Clarke, met with stiff opposition from police chiefs and local police authorities. Ministers viewed the mergers as an effective way of tackling threats such as terrorism and modern forms of organised crime.
But opponents said the proposed regional structures would undermine effective local policing and fail to deal effectively with national priorities.
Some police authorities, including Cleveland and West Mercia, had sought judicial reviews of the plans.
On July 10, Lancashire and Cumbria, the only two forces to propose a merger, backed out when it became clear that equalising local police precepts, collected through council tax, would raise bills in Lancashire by at least £12 over three years. That would have required an increase of over 10% on the county's current police precept.
The government, which this year capped council tax rises across councils and local precepting authorities at 5%, refused to sanction such an increase. The Home Office spokeswoman acknowledged that 'council tax considerations had played a big part in all of the merger discussions'.
Brian Aldred, chief executive of the Lancashire Police Authority, said that they took the view that the increase 'was worth paying' because it would improve services in Lancashire. But he added that 'the government was not prepared to see that… happen'.
Michael Baxter, chief constable for Cumbria, however, said that while the amalgamation was 'unlikely in the near future,' the authorities' work on streamlining some services and focusing resources on key initiatives 'has not been wasted and will be used to improve policing in both areas'.
Speaking at a policing conference hosted by the Local Government Association on July 12, McNulty implied that reform plans would now simply be altered.
'There is now the time for local government, as well as for police authorities, police forces themselves and other interested parties to tell us… how, if not this way [through voluntary mergers] – then what way?' he asked.
PFjul2006
