Police chiefs at odds over force's future

Police chiefs have found themselves at odds over how their force should run in the future.

Cleveland Police came under the spotlight earlier this year when two police officers and five young men died in a crash on the A66, triggering a huge organised crime investigation.

But while the force's Chief Constable Victoria Fuller believes the events showed a single North-East police force "may make sense", police and crime commissioner (PCC) Matt Storey, who appointed her to the role, said he did not believe "bigger was better", nor were mergers required.

The discussion comes amid a government review into policing, which is expected to recommend fewer, but larger sized forces in England and Wales.

Storey, whose own role will end in 2028, said larger police forces were "difficult to reconcile with the government's wider devolution agenda".

"If we believe in putting more power into the hands of local communities, it makes little sense to move policing governance further away from the people it serves," the Labour and Co-operative PCC said.

"Communities are not asking for police force mergers. They are asking for more neighbourhood officers, safer streets, visible policing, better support for victims and more offenders to be brought to justice."

Storey said any reform must be "evidence-led" and demonstrate how they would support communities in Cleveland, reports the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Fuller, however, said the response to the fatal A66 crash and subsequent investigations showed how Cleveland police could work when bolstered with resources from other forces and specialist help from the National Crime Agency.

She said that while a system that routinely relies on borrowing specialist expertise was not sustainable, the tragedy had shown "what we can do with more".

"Firearms recovered, drugs recovered.

"We've been tackling this before, but our communities have seen in Cleveland what enhanced resources and specialist capability can do for us."

In a piece for The Telegraph co-authored with the temporary chief constable of Gloucestershire Police Maggie Blyth, she wrote crime had evolved far faster than the structures designed to combat it.

The pair said: "Shared platforms and nationally delivered specialist services would strengthen resilience, improve information sharing and release more resources for frontline policing."

The findings of a policing review led by Lord Hogan-Howe was presented to the government in September, though details are yet to be made public.

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