Merging units will save police six-figure sum

Herts Constabulary launched the joint Professional Standards unit in conjunction with the neighbouring forces in Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire on Monday.

Hertfordshire chief constable Andy Bliss said: “The establishment of this three-force function gives us a really strong team to ensure standards are maintained, that integrity is upheld and that when complaints are made about the conduct of our officers and staff that these are dealt with properly and efficiently.

“This single unit serving the three forces is also helping us to address the significant financial challenges we currently face and enabling us better protect front line service delivery.”

The unit will be based at Biggleswade in Bedfordshire, but investigation teams will be based locally.

A series of mergers of specialist police units have been introduced in recent years, and it is likely that more aspects of policing will be shared in the future. The forces have announced that they plan to save around £20m a year by introducing more joint support services and operational units.

Some areas of policing are not being considered for joint services because they need to be tailored to local areas. These include incident response units and neighbourhood policing.