Photograph: Stephen Barnes/Law and Order/Alamy
The home secretary’s ambitions for the biggest reforms to policing since the 1960s are being threatened by a lack of money, with plans being considered for the creation of Britain’s FBI and slashing the number of forces.
Shabana Mahmood believes a radical reshaping of policing in England and Wales is needed, with the number of forces covering local areas being reduced from 43 to as low as the “mid teens” over time.
She has also told police chiefs, multiple sources said, that a planned new national operations centre for policing needs to contain the ability to boost the fight against the most serious crimes.
Previous plans under her predecessor, Yvette Cooper, were heading towards streamlining back office functions such as buying IT systems, and equipment, in the hope of saving money, with more ambitious plans looking to be delayed because the hundreds of millions of pounds needed to launch them could not be found.
Sources say Mahmood has described her approach in private to police reform as: “We go large, or we go home.”
A white paper on police reform which the government said was due before Christmas will now not be ready before January at the earliest. What will be in it is changing all the time.
One version of the plans would see a national police operations centre launch and take over functions for the buying of equipment and technology for all 43 forces, most of whom currently make their own decisions, and take in the National Police Air Service, which provides forces with helicopters. The hope would be to save money by gaining efficiencies, but much less than Labour hoped at the time of their 2024 election manifesto.
Then in the next stage, counter-terrorism policing network would move to national centre, probably about the time of the next election, followed by the agency leading the fight against serious and organised crime, the National Crime Agency.
Merging counter-terrorism policing with the NCA would give Britain its own version of America’s FBI.
Plans are also up in the air about the number of local forces the white paper will say is needed in England and Wales.
Police leaders met last week for their regular council meeting, where multiple sources said the Home Office had no final figure of forces they wanted to see, other than setting a strategic intent that the number should be reduced.
Plans a fortnight ago saw an ambition for the number of forces over time to fall to the “mid teens”, but mergers tend to involve upfront costs with savings coming later – a difficult ask from cash-strapped Treasury that raised taxes in last month’s budget.
Last month Mahmood told the police chiefs’ conference: “The structure of our police forces is, if we are honest, irrational. We have loaded critical functions like the National Police Air Service and vetting on to local forces, drawing attention away from neighbourhood policing.
“We have 43 forces tackling criminal gangs who cross borders, and the disparities in performance in forces across the country have grown far too wide, giving truth to the old story that policing in this country is a postcode lottery.”
An aide said afterwards that government was unlikely to mandate mergers, which under the last Labour government failed, but would support them if there was demand.
For instance the Norfolk and Suffolk forces are seen as prime candidates, but they already collaborate and savings may be in the low millions.
Forces covering Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire are seen as possible early merger candidates, where collaboration is less and thus the eventual savings could be larger.
The Home Office since Labour returned to power in July 2024 has largely bought the prescription set out for reforming policing as outlined by Gavin Stephens, the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
The proposals are being drawn up by a working group called the joint reform team, which includes the NPCC, which represents police leaders across the UK, sitting alongside senior civil servants as well as His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, and the College of Policing.
In July the Guardian reported that police chiefs had told government forces should be cut to a few as 12.
Then Stephens told the Guardian: “A smaller number of police forces, supported by a national policing organisation, would enable us to make decisions far quicker and maximise funding to invest in technology and our workforce.
“Making improvements to our service once and for all, instead of in 43 different ways, would help to end the postcode lottery victims face when reporting crime.”
