Labour’s plans for a sweeping reorganisation of policing in England and Wales have come under fire from the outgoing chief constable of one of Britain’s highest-performing forces, who has warned that creating enormous regional constabularies could undermine the very frontline policing the Government claims it wants to strengthen.
Mark Roberts, who retired as Chief Constable of Cheshire Constabulary on Thursday, has challenged the assumption that bigger police forces automatically deliver better results, raising concerns that local officers could lose access to vital resources under Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s proposed reforms.
His intervention comes as senior police leaders push for the existing 43 forces across England and Wales to be reduced to as few as eight to ten regional constabularies, representing one of the biggest changes to British policing in more than 60 years.
Cheshire Constabulary is among the country’s strongest-performing forces, with Mr Roberts highlighting its record on charging suspects across a range of offences, including violence, sexual offences and online child abuse.
Speaking at a policing event in Manchester on Friday, Mr Roberts questioned whether the proposed restructuring would improve performance or simply create additional layers of management between officers and the resources they need.
He argued that smaller forces could be highly effective and warned that merging them into much larger organisations risked diverting specialist officers and equipment towards major cities at the expense of surrounding communities.
Mr Roberts, whose force has approximately 2,400 officers, said Cheshire’s success was partly attributable to its ability to deploy specialist resources quickly in response to emerging threats.
Under the existing arrangements, he explained, senior officers could redirect surveillance teams almost immediately to deal with urgent investigations, including cases involving vulnerable children.
He warned that a larger regional structure could introduce additional decision-making processes, making it harder for local commanders to secure the resources required.
There were particular concerns that areas such as Cheshire could find themselves competing with larger urban centres, including Manchester and Liverpool, for specialist policing capabilities.
Mr Roberts said reform should focus on understanding what makes successful forces effective, rather than assuming that reducing the number of constabularies would automatically produce improvements.
His criticism presents a significant challenge to the Government’s proposals, particularly as Cheshire’s performance demonstrates that smaller forces can achieve strong results without being incorporated into much larger organisations.
However, Mr Roberts did not reject reform altogether. He supported greater national coordination on technology, reducing duplication and addressing inequalities in police funding.
His central concern was that changes designed to improve efficiency should not come at the expense of neighbourhood policing or officers’ ability to respond rapidly to crime.
The Government’s proposals were outlined in January, when Ms Mahmood announced plans to overhaul the structure of policing through a new three-tier system.
Under the blueprint, local policing commands would deal with everyday offences such as shoplifting, theft and antisocial behaviour, while larger regional forces would provide specialist investigative capabilities.
A new National Police Service would assume responsibility for major national threats, including counter-terrorism, fraud and serious organised crime.
The Home Office argues that the existing system creates unnecessary duplication, with 43 separate forces maintaining their own headquarters, administrative structures, technology systems and specialist functions.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has become one of the most prominent supporters of the changes.
Speaking in Manchester, Sir Mark warned that policing risked falling further behind increasingly sophisticated criminal networks unless the existing structure was fundamentally reformed.
He argued that reducing the number of forces would allow specialist capabilities to be shared more effectively, while savings from administration and duplicated functions could be redirected towards frontline policing.
Sir Stephen Watson, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, and Gavin Stephens, chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, have also supported the case for substantial reform.
But the proposals have exposed growing divisions among senior policing figures and elected representatives over whether centralisation would genuinely improve public safety.
Several police and crime commissioners and regional mayors have questioned whether merging forces would weaken local accountability and divert resources away from communities.
Their concerns extend beyond policing performance to the potential consequences for democratic oversight, with larger regional forces potentially covering multiple mayoral areas and local authority boundaries.
The disagreement also presents a political difficulty for Prime Minister Andy Burnham, whose Government is pursuing a wider devolution agenda intended to strengthen regional decision-making.
Plans to create a small number of enormous police forces could conflict with that objective by placing policing decisions across several regions under a single command structure.
Mr Burnham has reportedly expressed reservations about the scale of the proposed mergers, while ministers consider how any new policing boundaries would interact with existing and proposed mayoral authorities.
Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Hogan-Howe has been commissioned to examine the future structure of policing and recommend how the proposed regional arrangements could operate.
His review has not yet been published, and the Government has not announced a final decision on how many forces would remain.
The Home Office maintains that its reforms will protect strong local policing while creating larger and more resilient organisations capable of investigating serious and complex crime.
For critics, however, the question remains whether replacing successful local forces with much larger regional organisations will put more police officers on the streets or simply move decision-making further away from the communities they serve.
Mr Roberts’ intervention highlights a fundamental challenge facing Labour’s plans: if one of the country’s best-performing forces is already delivering strong results under the existing system, the Government must demonstrate that dismantling that structure would make policing better rather than worse.
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You’ll like this – SUN SAYS – Britain might be better off if PM & Miliband went back on holiday… PERMANENTLY