Blair backs down on police mergers
Plans for mergers of police forces are “not off the agenda”, Tony Blair has insisted – but made clear the government is seriously looking at other options.
The prime minister was fending off suggestions by Conservative leader David Cameron that the abandonment of the first voluntary merger meant the whole project was off.
His comments came just hours after the minister in charge of the controversial reform programme said the forced merger of police authorities was “not on the agenda”.
Tony McNulty told the Local Government Association: “Are the mergers going to go through in one way or another eventually? I think the definitive answer to that is ‘No’.”
Questions about the future of the government’s controversial police restructuring plans, which intend to cut the number of police forces in England and Wales from 43 to 12, were raised after the first attempt to implement them failed earlier this week.
The voluntary merger of Lancashire and Cumbria authorities had to be halted after a failure to agree on how their council tax precepts could be merged. All other plans for mergers have been postponed until after the summer recess.
Former home secretary Charles Clarke attacked the government for giving up on the proposals, which he had strongly supported, saying it was “weak and damaging”.
And during prime minister’s question time this lunchtime, Mr Cameron questioned whether the government had given up on the whole reform programme, adding: “Hasn’t the prime minister been wasting police time?”
Mr Blair dismissed suggestions that the plans, introduced following recommendations from HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), had been scrapped altogether, but said: “We were asked to listen to representations made and we have listened.
“The reason the mergers were on the agenda – no, they’re not off the agenda – is. the point made by HMIC remains and there will be areas where it will be important for us to have greater cooperation across police lines, and mergers where there is the will to do so.”
In apparent confirmation of the government’s change of position, the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), which backed the plans previously, this morning admitted that a “new approach” was needed to the whole issue of police reform.
“Acpo believes that the original merger plan is no longer relevant,” said president Ken Jones.
“If voluntary mergers cannot, despite the best efforts of government and the leaders of the service, be facilitated, then we find it difficult to understand how more complex and costly mergers are still viable.”
He added: “In our view what is needed is a fresh approach which focuses on the development of absent strategic capability, and rapid exploitation of opportunities.”
