By Richard Johnstone | 22 September 2014
A former policing minister has said plans to further integrate emergency services could eventually lead to force mergers, but insisted these would be determined locally rather than imposed by Westminster.
Speaking to Public Finance, Damian Green, who was policing minster from September 2012 until July’s ministerial reshuffle, said more integration across blue light services ‘needs to happen’.
He was speaking after Home Secretary Theresa May indicated further integration would be needed after the next election to deal with the continuing spending squeeze. In a speech to the Reform think-tank on September 3, May said, ‘I believe we will need to work towards the integration of the three emergency services’.
Green said many areas were already keen to go further in areas such as co-location and joint working in response to road traffic accidents.
Existing integration initiatives such as the Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme (JESIP), which is intended to improve cooperation around major incidents, had only ‘scratched the surface’ of what can be achieved.
‘I think for the moment the role of government is to encourage particularly police and crime commissioners, but also fire chiefs, to say there are obvious synergies you can get from going together,’ he said.
There were creative ways to improve efficiency within the current boundaries of 46 fire services in England and 43 police services across England and Wales. Two police forces – Warwickshire and West Mercia – had already ‘all but merged’, such was the extent of their joint working.
Green acknowledged that such steps may lead to local merger plans.
‘As long as it’s agreed at ground level, as it were, in the locality, and provides better services, then that seems to me a perfectly good solution.
‘The position has always been that this government doesn’t want to impose a top-down central solution and say, here are now eight police forces in England and Wales. But it is
quite happy to encourage not just collaboration but something more than that.’
Another leading figure in the sector told PF that the merger of police and fire services in England could represent a ‘logical conclusion’.
Roy Wilsher, the chief fire officer for Hertfordshire who
is also chief executive to the county’s police and crime commissioner, said ongoing initiatives were ‘more at
the collaboration end of the spectrum than the merger end of the spectrum’.
Wilsher, who chairs the strategic board of JESIP, said: ‘I think there’s a question – and it’s come up more and more – about how many fire and rescue and police services we have in England.’
