A new national police force is the right move, but the case for merging local forces is much weaker

On Monday, the government published its long-awaited police reform white paper. This policy document makes a welcome attempt to tackle difficult problems and sets out an ambitious, long-term vision of a modernised police service based on a clear theory of reform. Several proposals could substantially improve police performance, particularly the new National Police Service. But by shifting power away from local areas, the government risks undermining its own objectives.

The government deserves credit for presenting a clear and coherent vision of long-term reform

The white paper sets out an ambitious programme of radical reform to be delivered across this parliament and the next. It proposes a new three-tier structure for policing:

• a National Police Service, bringing together national responsibilities and functions across England and Wales
• regional ‘super-forces’ made by merging existing forces – possibly as few as 12
• ‘Local Policing Areas’ within these larger forces, covering “local towns, cities and boroughs”.

There is a clear theory of how policing should work across these different levels. The National Police Service will cover a range of national responsibilities, including serious and organised crime, counter-terrorism and trafficking, will provide central support functions to forces and provide strategic leadership for policing. Larger regional forces will handle serious crime and major incidents, while Local Policing Areas will provide day-to-day policing such as emergency response, local crime investigation and neighbourhood policing.

The government argues that this will streamline policing while preserving it as a local service. The national and regional forces will provide more consistency and generate efficiency savings by combining back-office work across forces, while smaller Local Policing Areas will embed policing in local communities. Abolishing police and crime commissioners will, it says, “reintegrate policing back into the system of local government” and so promote collaboration and partnership working across local services.

This is a big set of changes. And while Shabana Mahmood is not the first home secretary to make similar proposals, including merging forces, the government deserves credit for tackling root-and-branch reform, including funding. The timeframe suggests the goal is to genuinely create a better functioning system of policing for the long-term, not to win votes ahead of the next election. And there is a clear theory behind the proposals. 

In practice, however, some of the reforms put forward in the white paper risk harming police performance rather than improving it.

There are good arguments in favour of a National Police Service

The government is on strongest ground when it comes to the National Police Service. National police leadership is currently fragmented and relatively weak. Investigation and enforcement for major threats is split across multiple bodies, including the National Crime Agency, Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCUs) and the Metropolitan Police (which hosts counter-terrorism policing).

The National Police Service will bring together these responsibilities and also gain some new powers. The ability to set mandatory national standards on training, technology, workforce planning and professional practice would give it more teeth than the existing College of Policing. It would also have a stronger role setting overall direction for policing and driving work on national priority areas than the existing National Police Chiefs’ Council, which is limited to coordination and collaboration among chief constables. Delivering support services such as forensic analysis nationally should be more efficient and could unblock a major bottleneck in investigations.

The white paper also points to a major programme of digital transformation. The National Police Service will lead the development of new data standards and infrastructure to support better integration and use of data at both local and national levels, which should greatly improve police performance both operationally and strategically.

Shifting power away from local areas could harm local leadership, partnerships and accountability

The case for other major reforms is much less compelling. Collectively they shift power substantially out of local areas to large regional forces and the Home Office. The government may be right that this will generate back-office efficiencies, though many forces do already collaborate on back-office functions such as HR and IT. ⁴ HMIC, Increasing efficiency in the police service: The role of collaboration, 2012.  But there are strong arguments that local areas are best placed to make decisions about the needs of their own communities – arguments that the government itself advanced in the 2025 spending review, when it made devolving power to local areas one of its three guiding principles for public service reform. 

The government claims that the proposed reforms empower local areas. Mayors and new Policing and Crime Boards will “set each Local Policing Area… their own priorities based upon what their communities need”, which chief constables and local police commanders will be responsible for delivering. 

But this is not very convincing. Large regional forces will be less answerable to local leaders than smaller forces, if only because they will have to balance the views of multiple mayors and/or council leaders, potentially from a range of political parties. Stronger national performance management and targets set by the Home Office will reduce room for manoeuvre in response to locally set priorities. These effects will be amplified by moving the ultimate accountability mechanism – the power to sack chief constables – from mayors and police boards to the home secretary. 

To avoid working against its own stated public service reform principles, the government should make sure local areas continue to have primary responsibility for police priorities and accountability. For example, this could mean keeping a larger number of forces which are aligned to strategic authority boundaries, or drafting governance and accountability frameworks to give local areas meaningful influence over chief constables.

There is a lot to like in the police white paper and a long-term approach to public service reform is welcome. But the government must carefully work through its plan to merge local forces if lost accountability and local responsiveness are not to outweigh expected efficiency benefits.