Councillors raise funding concerns with plans to scrap Hertfordshire Constabulary

Restructuring police forces is one of the options in the government’s policing White Paper, ‘From local to national: a new model for policing’.

And it was the focus of a debate at the latest meeting of Hertfordshire County Council, on Tuesday. According to a motion proposed by Cllr Ralph Muncer (Conservative, Knebworth and Codicote), under Government plans, county police forces, like Hertfordshire, would be scrapped in favour of “distant regional forces”.

And these regional forces, it suggests, would be more likely to divert resources away from local neighbourhood policing, as well as making it more difficult to hold senior officers to account.

The motion also pointed to polling by Herts Police and Crime Commissioner Jonathan Ash-Edwards, which suggested that just 11% of the public thought that merging forces would make policing better. And it suggested that proposals for re-organisation would divert vital funding away from frontline policing in Hertfordshire.

At the end of the 45-minute debate, the council agreed to oppose any attempt to abolish Hertfordshire Constabulary, with 61 councillors voting for, three against and five abstentions. The four Labour councillors voted against.

The motion also agreed that the council would “invite” the leader of the county council, Cllr Steve Jarvis (Liberal Democrat, Royston West and Rural), to highlight the council’s opposition to the Secretary of State.

In the White Paper it is argued that widespread reform is needed to address an ‘outdated’ policing model used throughout England. It is argued that reform is needed to combat the “changing nature of modern crime”.