‘Super-force’ plans a real threat to local policing, English mayors say

Regional leaders criticise Met chief’s call for merging of 43 forces into eight or 10, saying it runs counter to devolution drive

Plans to slash the number of police forces in England and Wales represent a “real threat” to local policing and seriously undermine Andy Burnham’s devolution agenda, leading mayors have said.

Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner and Britain’s top officer, called on Friday for the 43 forces of England and Wales to be cut to “eight to 10” super forces.

The changes were backed by the chief constables of other forces, including Greater Manchester police, but there is disagreement within senior policing about how radical the reduction should be.

Several of England’s mayors and police and crime commissioners criticised Rowley’s proposals on Friday, with some expressing anger privately at what they saw as an attempt to bounce the prime minister into the biggest change in policing in a generation.

Steve Rotheram, the mayor of the Liverpool city region and a close friend of the prime minister, called the proposals “the wolf of centralisation dressed up in sheep’s clothing” that would undermine local accountability.

He added: “The idea that we’d somehow get better policing by swallowing local forces up into a handful of enormous regional super-forces runs counter to the devolution agenda.”

Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, announced plans in January to radically reduce the number of police forces in England and Wales and commissioned an official review by Bernard Hogan-Howe, the former Met police commissioner.

The review, which has not yet been published, is understood to contain a range of how many larger forces there should be under the new model, from nine to 18, down from the current 43.

Many of England’s mayors believe police forces should align with mayoral boundaries to allow them greater oversight, as opposed to “super-forces” that would span big cities alongside huge expanses of smaller towns, villages and rural areas.

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, is understood to be concerned that the radical changes may damage accountability and neighbourhood policing. The Met, for example, which covers almost all of London, could swallow up the small City of London force, which covers the square mile.

One mayor, who did not want to be named, said they believed the prime minister would settle on aligning police forces to mayoral regions, which would slash the number of forces by about half – but still be around twice as many as suggested by Rowley and other police chiefs.

They said: “There is going to be significant reform but the solution is going to be somewhere in the middle.

“That’s where I feel Andy is: take a path which gives mayors continuous boundaries and gives them oversight of chief constables because that’s a sensible thing that’s worked. Andy’s seen that in Manchester and I don’t think he’s minded to throw that out.”