Labour will reform the "flawed" system of elected police and crime commissioners and press for voluntary mergers among the 43 forces in England and Wales, the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has pledged.

In her immediate response to the publication of the Stevens report into policing, Cooper has ruled out any Labour support for replacing the separate police forces with a single national one.

But she said at the launch of the 225-page report by the Stevens commission that she expected Labour to implement the vast majority of its 37 "radical recommendations" including measures to have officers found guilty of serious misconduct swiftly "struck off" and to set up a much stronger police standards body.

"The commission is independent. But we welcome the work they have done and we will now take forward and expect to implement the vast majority of these recommendations," Cooper said.

"We will consult widely on them first through regional events starting before Christmas … before we set out our details for our manifesto. And we will need to ensure that measures for our manifesto are fully funded."

The commission, led by the former Metropolitan police commissioner Lord Stevens, was set up two years ago by Labour and includes the former heads of MI6, Europol and Interpol among its 30-strong panel.

The Stevens report says the elected police and crime commissioner model is "systemically flawed as a method of democratic governance and should be discontinued in its present form at the end of the term of office of the 41 serving PCCs".

The commission does not recommend a single alternative but says there is no benefit in going back to unelected police authorities. Instead it outlines several options including giving local councillors a say in the appointment of borough police commanders and a policing board made up of local council leaders with powers to hire and fire the chief constable. It also puts on the table replacing PCCs with directly elected local policing boards or electing only the chair of the new policing boards.

Cooper said Labour PCCs had been working hard to make the best of the current system but the party recognised that the system was flawed. "The question now is not whether to reform but how to reform. So we will consult now on options for reform," she said.

The Stevens report says it could find nobody in favour of retaining the current structure of 43 separate police forces in England and Wales but equally there was no consensus about a better alternative.

However, it suggests that change is essential, and recommends three options be consulted on before "swift implementation". They are: encouraging forces to negotiate local voluntary mergers, a regional structure of 10 police forces or a single national police service for England and Wales.

Cooper ruled out a national police force, saying: "Our preference is for a voluntary and collaborative approach involving local communities and we also want more work done on savings that can be made to plough back into policing.

"We will not support a national force as we believe that would be too large, too centralised and the wrong approach."

The Stevens commission says financial constraints will continue to face the police for some time and suggests ways in which a further £60m a year could be found.