'We need police forces capable of response to a range of threats'

Chief officers have called for a radical overhaul of the UK’s police structure

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POLICE chiefs in England and Wales want a radical overhaul of the structure of UK policing with fewer, larger forces, amid financial shortages and difficulties dealing with fraud and updating technology.

The current structure of 43 geographical forces was established in the 1960s, and there have long been concerns that the model is not fit for purpose.

As the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) published the police data strategy for 2025 to 2030 on Thursday, force bosses called for a redesign of the structure of policing in England and Wales.

NPCC chairman Gavin Stephens, below, said: “We need police forces that are strong and capable to be able to use technology... that are able to respond to a range of threats that might emerge in their local area and be resilient to those.

“At the moment the system is not resilient, so I would absolutely argue for bigger, capable forces led by a stronger national centre.”

He said that the way UK policing is currently set up is “too fragmented and sometimes uncoordinated”.

He said: “There are many things that, particularly in the digital world, where if we do it once well for everybody we can get the sort of scale that we need.