Plans to join some of Staffordshire Police’s uniformed services with West Midlands Police have today been abandoned following findings of a review instigated by Staffordshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Matthew Ellis.
In the last 16 weeks since being elected the PCC has been looking at ways to drive improvement in policing and criminal justice across Staffordshire whilst delivering excellent value for money. The review, undertaken by the Chief Constable, Mike Cunningham has looked in detail at the proposals to develop joint services with Staffordshire and West Midlands forces in armed response, dog support and training, tactical planning and roads policing.
Both the Commissioner and the Chief believe that a joint approach to delivering these services across both police forces is not the right thing to do for the people of Staffordshire.
There are some benefits but the review by the Chief Constable has found the operational case is not strong enough to support the original collaboration proposals. It finds few significant benefits either financial, resilience or service improvement wise for Staffordshire people that warrants collaboration with West Midlands Police force.
The Commissioner said: “It’s important that Staffordshire benefits from any collaboration with any other force or any other organisation. I want Staffordshire to have the best police service in the country by 2016 and if collaboration with others helps to do that it’s fine.
“But it must be the right fit and the benefits must be very strong for Staffordshire people. In this case I don’t believe those benefits are clear enough and the Chief Constable has confirmed that with his thorough review of the proposals”.
Chief Constable Mike Cunningham added: “A detailed operational review of current proposals has now taken place and whilst we found some capability, capacity and resilience benefits, it’s clear that the operational case for going ahead isn’t there. Nor do the proposals give Staffordshire taxpayers the value for money we expected”.
“I am absolutely committed to playing a full and active role in any collaboration which has clear operational benefits, improves public safety and provides taxpayers with value for money”.
