The Chief Constable of Greater Manchester has backed calls for merging police forces in England and Wales.

Ian Hopkins spoke after Martin Hewitt, the head of the National Police Chiefs' Council and Lord Blair, former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, both said the government should overhaul an outdated system of 43 separate police forces.

The move to reduce the number of forces comes as crime increasingly becomes borderless as police tackle organsied crime gangs, county lines drugs operations, modern slavery and human trafficking, cybercrime, and terrorism.

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A review into organised crime last year spotlighted the difficulties caused by having so many chief constables, regional organised crime units, and the National Crime Agency when preparing a national response.

Some forces are too small to deal with major incidents and are dependent on officers from other forces providing back up to incidents like terrorist attacks and protests.

GMP is the third largest English force and serves 2.7m people. It has just over 6,000 officers. But Warwickshire County Police Force, the smallest in the country, has just over 1000.

Now more than a decade after they were first touted, calls are growing for 'super-forces' to be created.

(Image: Daily Mirror)

Mr Hopkins told the Manchester Evening News: "I agree. Policing in the 21st century is very different and requires investment in new capabilities that you can't afford to deliver 43 times.

"For me it all starts at a local level and then what do you need at a regional level and national level.

"We currently have some forces with the same number of officers as the City of Manchester (division), but have a Chief and Police and Crime Commissioner and all of the back office support that comes with running an organisation.

"This can't be value for money or effective.

"However I have to be really clear local policing is the bedrock and very important to our legitimacy with the public we serve."

In a letter to The Times newspaper, Lord Blair said the structure of police forces, a consequence of the 1962 royal commission "is grossly inefficient and without strategic design".

He said this was recognised by HM Inspectorate of Constabularies in the 1990s.

He adds: "During my career as chief officer from 1994 to 2008 most (but not all) police chiefs recognised this, and during the early years of the Labour government the Association of Chief Police Officers began to agitate for a significant programme of amalgamation."

The changes in crime since then means the situation now "cries out for fewer, larger forces", he says.

He says change however has always been resisted by local and national politicians with the exception of Charles Clarke who would have gone ahead with the action if he had not left the Home Office.

Dame Sara Thornton, the Independent anti-slavery commissioner, said the response to human trafficking and modern slavery required national and international co-operation.

The National Crime Agency targets the most sophisticated gangs but most modern slavery and trafficking occurs on the patch of local police forces.

She said: "A smaller number of larger police forces would break down barriers to intelligence sharing and effective investigation."

The current structure of 43 forces dates back to 1974 and in 2005 when major reform of policing was on the agenda it was suggested that fifteen smaller forces could be scrapped.

HMIC warned 14 years ago that policing was unfit for the 21st century. A report said that those with more than 4,000 officers tended to perform more efficiently.

The then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, accepted the report, saying that a proposed merger of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire forces into an East Anglican constabulary was "perfectly rational".

Other forces which could go with less than 2,000 officers each, include, Wiltshire, and Dorset.

Three of the four Welsh forces, Dyfed-Powys, Gwent, and North Wales, also have fewer than 2,000 officers.

The HMIC report concludes: "Put simply, the 43-force structure is no longer fit for purpose. In the interest of the efficiency and effectiveness of policing, it should change.

"Our conclusion is that below a certain size there simply is not a sufficient critical mass to provide the necessary sustainable level of protective services that the 21st century increasingly demands."

Paul Kernaghan, former Chief Constable of Hampshire until 2008 has gone a step further, saying England and Wales should each have a national police force.

Martin Hewitt, head of the National Police Chiefs' Council believes the current government should use a forthcoming royal commission on criminal justice to restructure the policing system - culling smaller forces.

His plea comes after major cuts in police numbers between 2009 and 2018.

In the last year the number of police officers in England Wales rose to 123,171 in March 2019 compared to 122,405 in 2018 - up 0.6 per cent.

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